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.
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