The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler

by Brown, Irene Quenzler; Brown, Richard D.

• ISBN13: 9780674010208
• ISBN10: 0674010205
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-30
• Publisher: Belknap Pr

Summary

In 1806 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not all witnesses believed justice had triumphed. The death penalty had become controversial; no one had been executed for rape in Massachusetts in more than a quarter century. Wheeler maintained his innocence. Over one hundred local citizens petitioned for his pardon--including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother. Impoverished, illiterate, a failed farmer who married into a mixed-race family and clashed routinely with his wife, Wheeler existed on the margins of society. Using the trial report to reconstruct the tragic crime and drawing on Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history, Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown illuminate a rarely seen slice of early America. They imaginatively and sensitively explore issues of family violence, poverty, gender, race and class, religion, and capital punishment, revealing similarities between death penalty politics in America today and two hundred years ago. Beautifully crafted, engagingly written, this unforgettable story probes deeply held beliefs about morality and about the nature of justice.

Author Biography

Richard D. Brown is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History, University of Connecticut, and Director, University of Connecticut Humanities Institute.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Map: The Wheelers' and Odels' Massachusetts, ca. 1800	p. xii
Introduction: The Ride to the Gallows	p. 1
The Setting	p. 12
The Trial	p. 45
The Daughter	p. 102
The Wife and Mother	p. 129
The Condemned Man	p. 155
The Final Judgment	p. 189
The Execution	p. 230
Aftermath: People and Memory	p. 257
Notes	p. 293
Acknowledgments	p. 367
Index	p. 371
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