The Hill's Grove Mystery.

Two days after her disappearance, search parties formed to look for any trace of Emma between Hill’s Grove and Pontiac. They focused on the river and ponds in the area, fearing that she may have fallen in and drowned. On November 14, when the search was all but abandoned, a group of searchers discovered Emma’s body in the bushes on a knoll, near the road.

A New Year's Murder.

RHODE ISLAND INEQUITY

Amasa Sprague

The body of Amasa Sprague was found shot and beaten on the road between his factory and his mansion on New Year’s Day, 1844, and suspicion immediately fell on three members of Sragueville’s Irish community. Nicholas Gordon was known to hold a grudge against Amasa Sprague; John and William Gordon would do whatever their older brother asked, but it was a conspiracy theory based more on bigotry and class warfare than hard evidence. The arrest of three immigrants would strain the already tense relations between Rhode Island’s English and Irish communities and begin an official injustice that was not rectified until 2011.

Date:	December 31, 1843
Location:	Spragueville, Rhode Island
Victim:	Amasa Sprague
Cause of Death:	Beating, Gunshot
Accused:	John,William, and Nicholas Gordon

Read the complete story, "Rhode Island Inequity,"  in the new book The Bloody Century

The Exoneration of John Gordon

Update 6/29/2011
On June 29, 2011, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed an official proclamation granting a full pardon to John Gordon, who was executed in 1845 for the murder of Amasa Sprague. Details here:


Justice delayed no longer justice denied after pardon



Update 6/23/2011
The motion to pardon John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague has passed the Rhode Island Senate 33-3. It's now up to the governor. Read about it here:

Measure pardoning Irish immigrant John Gordon in 19th-century murder goes to R.I. governor



2/28/2011
A motion has been submitted to the Judiciary Committee of the Rhode Island House requesting the pardon/exoneration of John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague—a crime he, almost certainly, did not commit. The progress of this motion can be followed here: The Exoneration of John Gordon. The site also includes detailed information on the original trial and the people involved in the case. We wish them the best of luck with the motion.

The Minister and the Mill Girl

In December 1832, the body of a young pregnant woman was found hanging at a Tiverton, Rhode Island farm. She was identified as Sarah Cornell a worker in a textile factory in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts. Evidence implicated Methodist minister Ephraim Avery and the community was outraged that a man of the cloth had seduced and murdered an innocent mill girl. But Sarah Cornell was far from innocent and she had reasons hate Reverend Avery that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Could Sarah Cornell have planted evidence against Avery before taking her own life? The story of the minister and the mill girl would put the town of Fall River at the center of a national controversy 60 years before Lizzie Borden would do the same. And the outcome would be just as inconclusive.