July 2, 1778 - “Three Revolutionary Soldiers”
The day after the vote to approve the Declaration of Independence, John Adams of Massachusetts wrote home to his wife Abagail: "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the history of America. - I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival." On July 2, 1778, a crowd of some 5,000 people had gathered in Worcester, Massachusetts, two years to the day after the Continental Congress resolved "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States..." They had not gathered to celebrate American independence, as Adams had predicted. It was a much darker event that brought them together - a public execution, not one hanging but four, one of the four a woman. All had been convicted of the murder of Joshua Spooner in Brookfield, Massachusetts, on March 1, 1778.
The well marker also reveals that Spooner was murdered "at the urging of his wife Bathsheba", the fourth of those hung on July 2nd. Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner, age thirty-two, was the daughter of General Timothy Ruggles. Ruggles had served in the Massachusetts militia, in the 1745 Siege of Louisburg and during the French and Indian War, but was in British held New York at the time of the murder. Both he and his daughter remained loyal to Great Britain. Joshua Spooner, age thirty-seven, was a Patriot, a prosperous farmer, said to have had a fondness for drink and to have treated his wife poorly. Over time, Bathsheba found "... her match with her husband was not agreeble to her ... till she conceived an utter aversion to him..." [2]
Bathsheba decision to kill her husband appears to have come about as a result of her relationship with an American soldier, Ezra Ross. The two met after Ross completed a year in the Continental Army in 1776. Sick on his trip home to Ipswich, at age sixteen he was taken in by Bathsheba and nursed back to health. In the summer of 1777 Ross passed through Brookfield again, bound for the Northern Army under Gates. His service completed in December, he returned to Brookfield, where he worked for Spooner, and in his own words Bathsheba "... gave me an invitation to Defile her Marriage Bed; which I Excepted [sic]…". [3]
Pregnant and desperate, Bathsheba asked Ross to poison Joshua. Unsuccessful with that, she recruited Buchanan to arrange the killing of her husband. After spending weeks enjoying the comforts of Spooner's home, the three soldiers attacked, beat and robbed him on the night of March 1st, and dumped his body down his well. The following day they were detained in Worcester. Ross confessed, all were convicted in a two day trial held on April 24th and 25th in Worcester, and sentenced to be hung on June 4th.
Bathsheba sought and obtained a delay of the execution to allow for an examination to determine if she was pregnant. Her examiners concluded she was not, and the execution was rescheduled for July 2nd. That day a sermon was preached at noon in Worcester's meetinghouse, the same building that housed troops of the Convention Army during their stop in Worcester, then all four were taken to the gallows and hung together. An autopsy performed on Bathsheba's body confirmed her pregnancy, too late to have saved the life of her unborn son. The site of their burial is unknown.
Another of Burgoyne's soldiers claimed to have been among the crowd "... present at the hour of their being executed". Sergeant Roger Lamb of the 9th Regiment of Foot wrote in his Memoirs that he had been sent to Worcester to minister to Buchanan and Brooks, who had become penitent and sought solace as their execution loomed. Buchanan, Lamb claimed, had squandered the money he had been given to purchase shoes for the men in his company. To redeem himself, he had left Prospect Hill seeking work, but on his way back learned he had been replaced as a sergeant, and decided to return to Canada. Brooks, Lamb recalled, was impulsive and had jumped overboard on the trip to Canada "... through fear of being punished for stealing an article of wearing apparel", and was enlisted by Buchanan to assist in the murder. Brooks, profane and illiterate before being convicted, learned to read while imprisoned, to the point he picked out chapters of Scripture most appropriate to their situation. [3]
Some authors question Lamb's veracity, as in his opening remarks he claims: "During the time of our remaining prisoners a Rutland, a melancholy incident happened..." As later he writes that he left Prospect Hill for Rutland in the summer, and British Ensign Thomas Anburey notes that it was not until April of 1778 that the first British troops were moved forty miles west to the Worcester County town of Rutland, it may be that Lamb was referring to the hanging, rather than the murder itself. More suspect is the lack of any mention of Lamb's involvement by others. The Reverend Thaddeus Maccarty of Worcester met repeatedly with the four and gave their execution sermon. Anburey likely would have been aware if a soldier from the Convention Army had been sent to Worcester, as he notes that later several officers were held in the jail, in "... a very confined dungeon, out of which a woman [Bathsheba Spooner] had, a very short time before, been taken to execution, for the murder of her husband." Neither mentions Lamb. [4]
How would Lamb know the details if he wasn't there? Like so many others, he may have simply read about it. Accounts of the murder and the condemned confessions were published in broadsides sold the day of the hanging, Maccarty's execution day sermon "The Guilt of Innocent Blood Put Away" was printed in 1778, and their trial and execution was reported in newspapers, including in the Massachusetts Spy printed in Worcester, ten miles from the prison barracks of Rutland.
Joshua Spooner's murder and the execution of his wife, Buchanan, Brooks and Ross has remained a popular topic since it happened. The story continues to be told in scholarly books and articles, novels, an opera, and on the internet. The hangings also inspired a mysterious chalk drawing found in the attic of what was a tavern in 1778, and is now the home and museum of the West Boylston Historical Society At the time I read the well researched and written Murdered By His Wife, by Deborah Navas, six out of twenty-seven copies of the book in the central Massachusetts library system were checked out by readers.
Comments
Post a Comment