Radio Script #1298

Little Talks on Common Things
January 24, 1982

Today let us dip deeply into Maine history to consider some early murder trials in Maine courts before we became a separate state in 1820.

The first recorded case came as early as 1644 in the area governed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges under his charter from King Charles I. The old account says: “John Cornish, living for some time in Weymouth, Mass., moved to the east side of the Piscataqui River into the Gorges lands. Last month he was found in the river, his head buried and a pole stuck in his side. His canoe laden with clay was found sunk. His wife coming to her husband, he bled abundantly. She was arraigned before Roger Garde at Agamenticus, who summoned a jury. Strong evidence was presented against her. She was convicted ,and executed, but maintained her innocence until the end.”

The predominating reason for this woman’s conviction seems to have rested on the ancient superstition that, if at any time after death, the body of a murdered victim was visited by the murderer, it would gush forth blood. Because when the woman went to the dead body of her husband, it had bled profusely, the jury decided she must have killed him.

In June 1647, there was held in New York the trial of Warren Head, accused of killing Charles Frost at Sturgeon’s Creek. This time the verdict was Not Guilty. Evidence showed that the two men had had
a violent quarrel. and the jury decided that Frost’s death had been accidental, not premeditated by Head.

The third trial was held further east in Maine, at Scarborough in 1666. James Roberts was accused of killing Christopher Collins, a wealthy landholder and town officer. The jury refused to convict Roberts of murder but did hold him guilty of manslaughter. A year later Roberts sued for pardon was granted it and was released from prison.

Before 1678 most Maine trials, including those for capital offense, were held under Gorges or other jurisdiction than the government of Massachusetts Bay. After 1678, until Maine became a separate state in 1820, all trials were under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and most cases were tried in Boston. Between 1678 and 1740 the only cases tried in Maine, so far as the record shows, were of Indians. Then in 1740, at a trial in Scarborough, William Deering was convicted of killing his wife with an axe, and he was hung at a public execution at which the town minister preached a long sermon.

A year later in Yarmouth, Patience Sampson, an Indian woman was convicted of killing an eight year old child by drowning in a well. She too was publicly hanged in Falmouth, now Portland. In 1749 Wiscasset saw a gang fight between a group of young whites and several Indians that left one Indian dead and two critically wounded. Three of the whites were arrested and taken to jail some distance away in York. When the case came to trial feelings in Maine were so strong that a change of venue placed the trial in the Middlesex Court, far from the Maine border. Relatives of the dead Indian, the wounded Indians themselves and the chief of the tribe testified. So intense was the feeling against Indians that no person in Wiscasset could be induced to testify against the accused whites. Indeed so strong was the prejudice that it became impossible to empanel a jury either in York or Middlesex counties. and the case was dropped. Even as late as the mid-18th century Indians stood little chance of justice in Maine.

Cumberland County saw an interesting murder trial in 1772, only three years before the outbreak of the Revolution. This crime took place not on Cumberland County land, but on the water. Solomon Goodwin was convicted of throwing a man overboard from a boat. This gave Portland’s most famous clergyman a chance to place in his diary an account of Goodwin’s hanging in what is now the city’s Monument Square. Parson Smith wrote that Goodwin’s hanging brought out the largest crowd ever assembled in Portland· It gave the parson opportunity to preach an hour-long sermon to the largest congregation he had faced since he had been in Portland.

In 1773 William Tate of Falmouth was charged with killing his wife, not by premeditated murder, but by negligent manslaughter. Over his door he had rigged a shotgun to fire at thieves trying to enter. When his wife opened the door, the shot killed her. Tate was found guilty, but when brought up for sentence was granted the King’s pardon.

During the Revolution, two Maine trials resulted in death sentences. James McCormick of North Yarmouth, who had been on Arnold’s march to Quebec in 1775, had a fatal quarrel with Reuben Bishop of Fort Western in Augusta. He was reprieved by the fort’s commanding officer, and excused from trial, on condition that he join Washington ‘s Army at Cambridge.

The other capital case in Maine during the Revolution was a trial for treason. Jeremiah Barron of Damariscotta was accused of guiding a foraging band of British through the back country settlements. Since martial law then prevailed allover Maine, General Peleg Wadsworth, grandfather of the poet Longfellow, demanded the death penalty for Barron’s giving aid and comfort to the enemy. In the trial, held at Gen. Wadsworth’s headquarters in Thomaston, Barron was found guilty and sentenced to be hung. The poor man was of feeble intellect, and many who knew him well felt that he had committed no deliberate treason, but had been lured into guiding the British without any knowledge that it was wrong. Many prominent and patriotic citizens interceded for his pardon. But Gen. Wadsworth insisted that the crisis of wartime demanded an example that would deter others. So poor Barron was hanged on Thomaston’s Limestone Hill, where the state prison now stands.

In 1788, after the Revolution was over, two Irishmen got into a good old fashioned Emerald Isle fist fight at Permaquid. John O’Neil claimed that Michael Cleary owed him money. When Cleary was found dead of head wounds, and a bag of coins was identified as Cleary’s but found in O’Neii’s possession, O’Neil was charged with murder. At the trial he contended that the money had been given him by Cleary in payment of debt. He admitted that the two had exchanged fisticuffs, but that Cleary’s wounds were caused by a fall on a large rock. The prosecution presented evidence that, at the coroner’s inquest O’Neil had made conflicting statements. This was the first capital trial to be held in Lincoln County, and not only the Pownalborough courthouse, but also the yard outside, was filled with curious spectators. William Lithgow of Hallowell, a general of militia and a prominent attorney, was O’Neil’s lawyer. The case had attracted so much attention that the presiding judge was Chief Justice Cushing, and two associate justices sat with him. At first the jury was deadlocked, one juror holding out for acquittal because the evidence was entirely circumstantial. No one had seen the fight nor actually witnessed Cleary’s death. But Justice Cushing sent the jury back to try again. Two hours later they brought in a verdict of guilty. O’Neil was executed at Pownalborough the next day.

Execution immediately after conviction ·and sentencing was indeed common in Maine until the middle of the 19th century. Then, when it was made clear that several innocent persons had been executed between 1825 and 1850, a law was enacted forbidding execution until a year had elapsed after sentencing.

In 1790 Portland saw the trial of two sailors accused of murder on the high seas. Thomas Bird and Henry Hanson were charged with killing the captain of a small vessel off the coast of Africa, and then bringing the ship into Casco Bay where they traded with the people at Cape Elizabeth. There the two sailors were arrested. Under terms of international law and what were called cases of admiralty, trials in such instances could be held within the jurisdiction of any port where the ship put in after the homicide. Before 1790, such cases in North America had been held under jurisdiction of the separate colonies, then after the Revolution, the separate states. Under the U. S. Constitution in 1787 such cases were transferred from the states to the Federal Government. Thus this case was tried in the new U.S. District Court in Portland. So large was the crowd eager to attend that it was transferred from the courthouse to the more commodious First Parish Church. The jury convicted Bird, but acquitted Hanson, who was only 19 years old. The next day Bird was hanged in the presence of an immense crowd on Bramhall Hill. It was the first Federal execution held in the District of Maine.

In 1793 Augusta saw a trial for arson and murder: James Holden was an ignorant laborer of Pittston, whose fantasies of religious conviction led to crime. He was considered insane but harmless until he announced that the Lord had commanded him to make a burnt offering and sacrifice. The offering was to be burning the Gardiner Episcopal Church, and the sacrifice was to be a woman who lived nearby. So in August 1793 the man set fire to the church and stabbed a woman to death. He was convicted, but not executed because the court declared him insane. Because there was no insane asylum he spent 35 years in the Kenllebec Cuunty jail until he died there.

And with that account of how murder cases were handled in colonial Maine, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1982