Tuesday, October 27, 2009
At the annual town meeting of 1668 Nathaniel Saltonstall was chosen Town Recorder and Clerk of the Writs an office he held for thirty-two years. In addition to his magistrative duties as he was also authorized to join persons in marriage. In the Puritan separation from the Church of England marriage was considered a civil contract and not a religious rite.
No man of his time was more admired than Nathaniel Saltonstall. He was born in Ipswich about 1639 and graduated from Harvard College in 1659. He was a descendant of the highly regarded Saltonstall family in Yorkshire England. His grandfather Sir Richard Saltonstall came to the new world aboard the ship Arbella with Governor John Winthrop in 1630 but returned to England a year later.
Saltonstall’s father, also named Richard was born in 1610 and journeyed to the New World with his father. He returned to England at the same time where he married Meriall Gurdon. Four years later they sailed back to America and settled in Ipswich. Richard made several more crossings before returning to England for good in 1683.
Nathaniel, however, was American by birth and he remained here resolutely seeking out opportunities of the new world. He married Elizabeth Ward the daughter of Reverend John Ward of Haverhill on December 28, 1663 and they lived on a fine Haverhill estate that was conveyed to him by his father-in-law. In 1664 his father also deeded him eight hundred acres of land ”on the occasion of his marriage and the estate overlooking the river was thereafter known as the Saltonstall Seat.
Saltonstall was a man of superior talent and enterprise. He was chosen Captain of the military company in Haverhill in 1665 and later appointed Colonel. He was elevated to the rank of Major, which was a superior post. He commanded great respect for his principles and in 1692 was appointed one of the judges in the proceedings surrounding the persons accused of witchcraft in Salem. With a liberal stand and a mind apart from the superstitions of the day he refused to serve on the commission. His position was a bold statement for truth and opened the eyes of many to the fanaticism of the trials.
Nathaniel Saltonstall died May 21, 1707. He left three sons Gurdon who became the Governor of Connecticut, Richard and Nathaniel. His only daughter Elizabeth married the Reverend John Dennison of Ipswich and then the reverend Rolland Cotton of Sandwich. The Saltonstall family remains prominent in New England, all of whom descend from their distinguished Haverhill ancestors.
No man of his time was more admired than Nathaniel Saltonstall. He was born in Ipswich about 1639 and graduated from Harvard College in 1659. He was a descendant of the highly regarded Saltonstall family in Yorkshire England. His grandfather Sir Richard Saltonstall came to the new world aboard the ship Arbella with Governor John Winthrop in 1630 but returned to England a year later.
Saltonstall’s father, also named Richard was born in 1610 and journeyed to the New World with his father. He returned to England at the same time where he married Meriall Gurdon. Four years later they sailed back to America and settled in Ipswich. Richard made several more crossings before returning to England for good in 1683.
Nathaniel, however, was American by birth and he remained here resolutely seeking out opportunities of the new world. He married Elizabeth Ward the daughter of Reverend John Ward of Haverhill on December 28, 1663 and they lived on a fine Haverhill estate that was conveyed to him by his father-in-law. In 1664 his father also deeded him eight hundred acres of land ”on the occasion of his marriage and the estate overlooking the river was thereafter known as the Saltonstall Seat.
Saltonstall was a man of superior talent and enterprise. He was chosen Captain of the military company in Haverhill in 1665 and later appointed Colonel. He was elevated to the rank of Major, which was a superior post. He commanded great respect for his principles and in 1692 was appointed one of the judges in the proceedings surrounding the persons accused of witchcraft in Salem. With a liberal stand and a mind apart from the superstitions of the day he refused to serve on the commission. His position was a bold statement for truth and opened the eyes of many to the fanaticism of the trials.
Nathaniel Saltonstall died May 21, 1707. He left three sons Gurdon who became the Governor of Connecticut, Richard and Nathaniel. His only daughter Elizabeth married the Reverend John Dennison of Ipswich and then the reverend Rolland Cotton of Sandwich. The Saltonstall family remains prominent in New England, all of whom descend from their distinguished Haverhill ancestors.
The Sawyer, the Blacksmith and the Swans
Haverhill was prospering but among its trades it did not have a sawmill. A sawyer was desirable for the local production of boards and planks to meet the needs of the growing community. A sawmill meant progress and finer building materials like clapboards and shingles for houses. Up until then materials were brought in by horse and wagon from Newbury, an inconvenient and costly trek. As a result the town was anxious to build its own mill and identified a fine location on Little River. Isaac Cousins was granted the rights to operate the mill and to retain a one-sixth interest with other investors owning the rest. In exchange the mill would pay to the town, every twelfth hundred shillings earned. However mill ownership and operation was a vexing problem and disputes over remuneration, adequate production and upkeep persisted for years.
Several other trades were critical to the prosperity of the early settlement not the least of which was that of blacksmith. In 1657 John Johnson of Charlestown was contracted to move to Haverhill and given a house and land “provided he live here seven years, following the trade of blacksmith in doing the town’s work.” Blacksmiths worked with iron to make and repair tools people needed for farming, household tasks, and other trades. When roads were established in the settlement, Johnson also fixed carts and wagons and shod stage horses. His descendents carried on the trade through several generations and kept several sturdy shops at the same Water Street location.
More improvement was apparent when Mill Street was laid out. For more than a century this would be known as The Great Road leading to and from the village. It later received its more common name for the millstream that flowed from Plug Pond to the river providing the power necessary to run a small gristmill.
The population increased rapidly as word spread of its desirable location, prosperous inhabitants and welcoming disposition toward new comers. Efforts to expand its boundaries, however, were met with resistance by the General Court when the town claimed a tract of land just six miles from Andover near the Spicket River. The claim was eventually denied though western boundary disputes persisted for years. None-the-less the laying out of more highways encouraged the division of more meadowlands and the establishment of new common lands. Common lands were owned collectively but gave individuals traditional rights, such as the opportunity to graze their livestock on common pasture and access to woodlands in order to harvest cordwood for household fuel.
Town meetings were important gatherings for conducting town business and the debate and discussion of other affairs of the settlement. It was a strongly held ideal that every citizen had an obligation to attend to town management and to neglect such an important duty was a punishable offense, which they did not hesitate to administer. Stocks and a whipping post were later erected for such occasions at the east end of the meetinghouse on the common. Likewise they considered religious worship a fervent duty. These were stern Puritans who believed in the Sabbath as a day set apart from everyday responsibilities and they were uncompromising in their beliefs.
Some inhabitants however, were more of a threat to the tranquility of the colony. In April 1654 Robert Swan of Haverhill, was accused of stealing the heifer belonging to John Williams and then intimidating those who would appear against him in a Court of Law. Later in Salisbury Court, he was presented for being drunk and for cursing. Menacing behavior continued throughout the Swan family as his son Samuel was accused of wantonly stabbing one of Simon Wainwright’s horses with a half pike.
The Swan men were ruffians, constantly brawling and often involved in disputes with the town over property rights and taxes. They burned down fences they didn’t like and moved stone boundaries they didn’t agree with. Their neighbors regarded them as agitators and malcontents. As the clan became more and more intolerable they eventually migrated west toward the Spickett River and the remote area that eventually became Methuen.
Indian Troubles
King Phillip’s War was an interruption to the growth and prosperity of Haverhill as the town braced itself for the defense against Indian uprisings. King Phillip was no king but the grandson of Massasoit with whom the Plymouth colonist had a treaty. As the chief of the Wampanogs in Rhode Island he hated the whites because of their encroachment on tribal lands and hunting grounds. He was a charismatic leader and united the tribes of the region to wage a war to eradicate the white settlements.
Haverhill was fortunate. While other settlements recorded savage raids that burned homes, killed landowners and made captives of women and children, Haverhill suffered no major attacks to that point in time. The threat of these uprisings, however, was real and a constant source of fear and alarm to the settlers to the point where they were afraid to leave the safety of the village for the more remote and exposed fields and planting grounds.
When trouble did occur it began with the misdeeds of two Christian Indians named Symon and Samuel. Christian Indians were indigenous Native Americans who had been converted and lived among the members of the settlement. Symon and Andrew were Haverhill converts known to be troublesome and devious. They stole an Englishman’s horse and were fined five shillings according to court records, and in apparent acts of revenge, engaged in several brutal assaults. On May 2, 1676 Indians stalked and killed Ephraim Kingsbury. Although his assailants were not confirmed, the next day the house of Thomas Kimball of Bradford was raided by the well known Symon and Andrew along with a third converted accomplice named Peter. Mr. Kimball was murdered and his wife and five children were taken captive for six weeks. Mrs. Kimball was later released through the intervention of Wonalancet and identified Symon who thought he had negotiated a deal with the English. Instead, authorities confined them to a Dover jail. They eventually escaped and continued their rampage with their eastern brethren in the Indian Wars throughout the Piscataqua region.
The bloody raids lasted for three years until the colonists responded in armed pursuit. The annihilation of large numbers of hostile warriors including King Phillip and the severity of the winter season caused a general attrition that ultimately brought the war to a close. The fate of Symon and Samuel is not known but they were most likely killed when Indian fighters were dispatched to Maine to capture or kill the last of the hostile Indians.
Uprisings continued sporadically whenever the French were at war with England, since they liked to stir up trouble from Canada. The French armed the Indians and encouraged them in their brutality, planning many of the assaults on the New England settlements. Whatever good fortune Haverhill had found in avoiding the earlier hostilities was now waning as news of sudden and brutal attacks on frontier settlements reached the alarmed townspeople. War parties most often set upon their victims before daybreak slaughtering some and taking away others to Canada where they were sold to the French until and unless their freedom could be paid for by anxious relatives. In the village and beyond, people were in a constant state of fear and plans were devised for the defense of the isolated frontier settlement. Colonel Saltonstall appealed to the General Court for soldiers to help fortify the garrisons. Six such fortified homes including the Peaslee Garrison were strategically located throughout the settlement, constructed of bricks with ports or loopholes through which defenders could direct gunfire.
Several other trades were critical to the prosperity of the early settlement not the least of which was that of blacksmith. In 1657 John Johnson of Charlestown was contracted to move to Haverhill and given a house and land “provided he live here seven years, following the trade of blacksmith in doing the town’s work.” Blacksmiths worked with iron to make and repair tools people needed for farming, household tasks, and other trades. When roads were established in the settlement, Johnson also fixed carts and wagons and shod stage horses. His descendents carried on the trade through several generations and kept several sturdy shops at the same Water Street location.
More improvement was apparent when Mill Street was laid out. For more than a century this would be known as The Great Road leading to and from the village. It later received its more common name for the millstream that flowed from Plug Pond to the river providing the power necessary to run a small gristmill.
The population increased rapidly as word spread of its desirable location, prosperous inhabitants and welcoming disposition toward new comers. Efforts to expand its boundaries, however, were met with resistance by the General Court when the town claimed a tract of land just six miles from Andover near the Spicket River. The claim was eventually denied though western boundary disputes persisted for years. None-the-less the laying out of more highways encouraged the division of more meadowlands and the establishment of new common lands. Common lands were owned collectively but gave individuals traditional rights, such as the opportunity to graze their livestock on common pasture and access to woodlands in order to harvest cordwood for household fuel.
Town meetings were important gatherings for conducting town business and the debate and discussion of other affairs of the settlement. It was a strongly held ideal that every citizen had an obligation to attend to town management and to neglect such an important duty was a punishable offense, which they did not hesitate to administer. Stocks and a whipping post were later erected for such occasions at the east end of the meetinghouse on the common. Likewise they considered religious worship a fervent duty. These were stern Puritans who believed in the Sabbath as a day set apart from everyday responsibilities and they were uncompromising in their beliefs.
Some inhabitants however, were more of a threat to the tranquility of the colony. In April 1654 Robert Swan of Haverhill, was accused of stealing the heifer belonging to John Williams and then intimidating those who would appear against him in a Court of Law. Later in Salisbury Court, he was presented for being drunk and for cursing. Menacing behavior continued throughout the Swan family as his son Samuel was accused of wantonly stabbing one of Simon Wainwright’s horses with a half pike.
The Swan men were ruffians, constantly brawling and often involved in disputes with the town over property rights and taxes. They burned down fences they didn’t like and moved stone boundaries they didn’t agree with. Their neighbors regarded them as agitators and malcontents. As the clan became more and more intolerable they eventually migrated west toward the Spickett River and the remote area that eventually became Methuen.
Indian Troubles
King Phillip’s War was an interruption to the growth and prosperity of Haverhill as the town braced itself for the defense against Indian uprisings. King Phillip was no king but the grandson of Massasoit with whom the Plymouth colonist had a treaty. As the chief of the Wampanogs in Rhode Island he hated the whites because of their encroachment on tribal lands and hunting grounds. He was a charismatic leader and united the tribes of the region to wage a war to eradicate the white settlements.
Haverhill was fortunate. While other settlements recorded savage raids that burned homes, killed landowners and made captives of women and children, Haverhill suffered no major attacks to that point in time. The threat of these uprisings, however, was real and a constant source of fear and alarm to the settlers to the point where they were afraid to leave the safety of the village for the more remote and exposed fields and planting grounds.
When trouble did occur it began with the misdeeds of two Christian Indians named Symon and Samuel. Christian Indians were indigenous Native Americans who had been converted and lived among the members of the settlement. Symon and Andrew were Haverhill converts known to be troublesome and devious. They stole an Englishman’s horse and were fined five shillings according to court records, and in apparent acts of revenge, engaged in several brutal assaults. On May 2, 1676 Indians stalked and killed Ephraim Kingsbury. Although his assailants were not confirmed, the next day the house of Thomas Kimball of Bradford was raided by the well known Symon and Andrew along with a third converted accomplice named Peter. Mr. Kimball was murdered and his wife and five children were taken captive for six weeks. Mrs. Kimball was later released through the intervention of Wonalancet and identified Symon who thought he had negotiated a deal with the English. Instead, authorities confined them to a Dover jail. They eventually escaped and continued their rampage with their eastern brethren in the Indian Wars throughout the Piscataqua region.
The bloody raids lasted for three years until the colonists responded in armed pursuit. The annihilation of large numbers of hostile warriors including King Phillip and the severity of the winter season caused a general attrition that ultimately brought the war to a close. The fate of Symon and Samuel is not known but they were most likely killed when Indian fighters were dispatched to Maine to capture or kill the last of the hostile Indians.
Uprisings continued sporadically whenever the French were at war with England, since they liked to stir up trouble from Canada. The French armed the Indians and encouraged them in their brutality, planning many of the assaults on the New England settlements. Whatever good fortune Haverhill had found in avoiding the earlier hostilities was now waning as news of sudden and brutal attacks on frontier settlements reached the alarmed townspeople. War parties most often set upon their victims before daybreak slaughtering some and taking away others to Canada where they were sold to the French until and unless their freedom could be paid for by anxious relatives. In the village and beyond, people were in a constant state of fear and plans were devised for the defense of the isolated frontier settlement. Colonel Saltonstall appealed to the General Court for soldiers to help fortify the garrisons. Six such fortified homes including the Peaslee Garrison were strategically located throughout the settlement, constructed of bricks with ports or loopholes through which defenders could direct gunfire.
Dr. Joseph Peaslee, Jr. was born in 1646 and raised in Haverhill near Rocks Village. He married Ruth Barnard in 1671 with whom he shared a close relationship. Too close it seems, for the sensibilities of their fellow townsmen, as they had a baby six months after their wedding day and were soon thereafter, presented to the Salisbury Court for fornication, a charge to which they readily admitted. They were sentenced to a whipping or to pay a fine of six pounds. The records do not show which punishment was carried out.
In 1673 in the midst of the Indian incursions Joseph built a fortified house in East Haverhill where he prospered as a millwright and a farmer and was known locally as a physician. The Peaslee-Garrison is the oldest house in Haverhill and endures today at 790 East Broadway. Garrisons were safe houses constructed with bricks and they often had no staircase to the second floor to thwart Indian raiders. Many of the bricks used by Peaslee were imported from England. A chimney is located at each end of the house and it originally had three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. The woodwork was said to be elaborate for its day and the richness of the house suggested social prominence.
Dr. Peaslee, however, had a split personality. Although he was generally a respected member of the settlement at other times townsmen considered him a nuisance or worse. He was in and out of court on numerous occasions both as a plaintiff and defendant for various misdeeds several of which reveal a darker side to his character.
In November of 1676 Peaslee was charged with assaulting one Peter Bruer with a chain. He was ordered to pay restitution to Mr. Bruer in corn and money. He was also bound to good behavior. Later in April 1677 he was convicted of abusing Timothy Swan and ordered to pay 20 shillings in corn to Timothy's father, the contentious Robert Swan.
Then in 1681 he faced major assault charges for a brutal beating of one Peter Green following a barn-raising, ordinarily a neighborly affair. The cause of the altercation is unknown but along with several other witnesses, Ephraim Roberts testified that Peasley had chucked Green under the chin, and then took an apple from a tree and stomped it to pieces boasting: "I could do with you as to this apple, and deal with you and throw you into the river." Peaslee challenged him to a fight but Green refused and began walking home. After following him for a short distance Peaslee struck his victim from behind and beat him until he lost consciousness. He told Ephraim Roberts that Green was drunk and to haul him under a log and leave him there. Peaslee was found guilty, fined and forbidden thereafter to bear any weapons.
This ornery disposition apparently took a turn for the better when he found his religious compass with the “Society of Friends.” The Peaslees were an independent clan and were among the first to declare themselves Quakers. When the community petitioned for a new meetinghouse in the East Parish, Dr. Peaslee made a formal request that the Friends be allowed to use the meetinghouse “for and in their way of worship” but his request was turned down. Instead he opened his home to the first Quaker meeting in New England. Joseph and Ruth were founders of the fledgling Friends movement in Haverhill and were ancestors to the renowned poet and Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier through their daughter, Mary’s marriage to Joseph Whittier.
In 1673 in the midst of the Indian incursions Joseph built a fortified house in East Haverhill where he prospered as a millwright and a farmer and was known locally as a physician. The Peaslee-Garrison is the oldest house in Haverhill and endures today at 790 East Broadway. Garrisons were safe houses constructed with bricks and they often had no staircase to the second floor to thwart Indian raiders. Many of the bricks used by Peaslee were imported from England. A chimney is located at each end of the house and it originally had three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. The woodwork was said to be elaborate for its day and the richness of the house suggested social prominence.
Dr. Peaslee, however, had a split personality. Although he was generally a respected member of the settlement at other times townsmen considered him a nuisance or worse. He was in and out of court on numerous occasions both as a plaintiff and defendant for various misdeeds several of which reveal a darker side to his character.
In November of 1676 Peaslee was charged with assaulting one Peter Bruer with a chain. He was ordered to pay restitution to Mr. Bruer in corn and money. He was also bound to good behavior. Later in April 1677 he was convicted of abusing Timothy Swan and ordered to pay 20 shillings in corn to Timothy's father, the contentious Robert Swan.
Then in 1681 he faced major assault charges for a brutal beating of one Peter Green following a barn-raising, ordinarily a neighborly affair. The cause of the altercation is unknown but along with several other witnesses, Ephraim Roberts testified that Peasley had chucked Green under the chin, and then took an apple from a tree and stomped it to pieces boasting: "I could do with you as to this apple, and deal with you and throw you into the river." Peaslee challenged him to a fight but Green refused and began walking home. After following him for a short distance Peaslee struck his victim from behind and beat him until he lost consciousness. He told Ephraim Roberts that Green was drunk and to haul him under a log and leave him there. Peaslee was found guilty, fined and forbidden thereafter to bear any weapons.
This ornery disposition apparently took a turn for the better when he found his religious compass with the “Society of Friends.” The Peaslees were an independent clan and were among the first to declare themselves Quakers. When the community petitioned for a new meetinghouse in the East Parish, Dr. Peaslee made a formal request that the Friends be allowed to use the meetinghouse “for and in their way of worship” but his request was turned down. Instead he opened his home to the first Quaker meeting in New England. Joseph and Ruth were founders of the fledgling Friends movement in Haverhill and were ancestors to the renowned poet and Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier through their daughter, Mary’s marriage to Joseph Whittier.
Michael Emerson built a home near the village on the great road close to the house of William White. White was a stalwart of the settlement and one of its most prominent townsmen. While the Emersons were also early settlers of the town they were not considered founders, and certainly not in the same social standing. Emerson must have committed some grave indiscretion because it is evident that White disliked him and his family. As a result of this neighborly feud it was decided by the town that the Emersons should leave the village and “go back in the woods.” Michael was granted a tract of excellent land two miles west with generous acreage to entice their immediate and distant removal.
Elizabeth was the sixth of fifteen Emerson children and one of only nine to survive infancy. Mortality was very high among infants and many parents avoided early bonding as a result. Often times a baby was referred to as “it” rather than he or she until the toddler’s survival was assured. This psychology resulted in child rearing that was sometimes stern and often accompanied by corporal punishment. At age eleven Elizabeth was the victim of abuse from her short-tempered father who struck her with a farm instrument called a flail swingle and kicked her so severely that he was ultimately brought before the court for cruel and excessive beating of his daughter.
Young women were considered naturally weaker than men and a source of temptation in the frontier community. In April 1686 at age 23 Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter Dorothy. Illegitimate childbearing was not considered disreputable if the couple subsequently had a successful marriage. Michael Emerson insisted his neighbor’s son Timothy Swan was the father, perhaps hoping for matrimony. The contentious Robert Swan was so indignant by the claim that he threatened to “carry the case to Boston.” Nothing more was charged and Dorothy came into the world fatherless though rumor had it that one Samuel Ladd, a prominent family man from the village, was the real father.
Five years after the birth of Dorothy, Elizabeth was again the object of scandalous misfortune when she was arrested and charged with the murder of two illegitimate infants. On May 7, 1691 she gave birth to twins boys during the night, in a trundle at the foot of her parents bed. Distraught by her predicament she somehow managed to conceal the infants for three days, before sewing them up in a bag, and then burying them in the backyard of the Emerson homestead.
The following Sunday, while her parents were at church, a group of citizens responding to rumors that Elizabeth was pregnant went to the Emerson house. When they arrived Elizabeth was pale and very weak and submitted to an examination by the women without protest. In the meantime, the men went into the backyard and found the bodies of the two infants buried in a shallow grave.
The shocking revelations lead to an examination of facts by Nathaniel Saltonstall. Testimony implicated Samuel the son of the prominent Daniel Ladd of seduction and fornication for allegedly coercing Elizabeth from her home to a nearby tavern for more than one romantic liaison. The affair was probably carried on for all five years between the births of Dorothy and the twins, which should dispel any allegations of promiscuity. There is also a possibility that the twin boys were born prematurely and did not survive for natural reasons rather than at the hands of a murderous mother.
But Ladd denied all accusations of involvement and nothing more was made the claims. Saltonstall remanded Emerson to the custody of Boston authorities and in spite of her declarations of innocence Elizabeth spent two years in prison before she was hanged at Boston Common for infanticide following her coerced confession to Cotton Mather.
Ironically, four years later Mather would bestow fame and adulation on Elizabeth’s older sister Hannah Emerson Duston for an act that many in society would come to regard as more heinous than any of the sins committed by Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was the sixth of fifteen Emerson children and one of only nine to survive infancy. Mortality was very high among infants and many parents avoided early bonding as a result. Often times a baby was referred to as “it” rather than he or she until the toddler’s survival was assured. This psychology resulted in child rearing that was sometimes stern and often accompanied by corporal punishment. At age eleven Elizabeth was the victim of abuse from her short-tempered father who struck her with a farm instrument called a flail swingle and kicked her so severely that he was ultimately brought before the court for cruel and excessive beating of his daughter.
Young women were considered naturally weaker than men and a source of temptation in the frontier community. In April 1686 at age 23 Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter Dorothy. Illegitimate childbearing was not considered disreputable if the couple subsequently had a successful marriage. Michael Emerson insisted his neighbor’s son Timothy Swan was the father, perhaps hoping for matrimony. The contentious Robert Swan was so indignant by the claim that he threatened to “carry the case to Boston.” Nothing more was charged and Dorothy came into the world fatherless though rumor had it that one Samuel Ladd, a prominent family man from the village, was the real father.
Five years after the birth of Dorothy, Elizabeth was again the object of scandalous misfortune when she was arrested and charged with the murder of two illegitimate infants. On May 7, 1691 she gave birth to twins boys during the night, in a trundle at the foot of her parents bed. Distraught by her predicament she somehow managed to conceal the infants for three days, before sewing them up in a bag, and then burying them in the backyard of the Emerson homestead.
The following Sunday, while her parents were at church, a group of citizens responding to rumors that Elizabeth was pregnant went to the Emerson house. When they arrived Elizabeth was pale and very weak and submitted to an examination by the women without protest. In the meantime, the men went into the backyard and found the bodies of the two infants buried in a shallow grave.
The shocking revelations lead to an examination of facts by Nathaniel Saltonstall. Testimony implicated Samuel the son of the prominent Daniel Ladd of seduction and fornication for allegedly coercing Elizabeth from her home to a nearby tavern for more than one romantic liaison. The affair was probably carried on for all five years between the births of Dorothy and the twins, which should dispel any allegations of promiscuity. There is also a possibility that the twin boys were born prematurely and did not survive for natural reasons rather than at the hands of a murderous mother.
But Ladd denied all accusations of involvement and nothing more was made the claims. Saltonstall remanded Emerson to the custody of Boston authorities and in spite of her declarations of innocence Elizabeth spent two years in prison before she was hanged at Boston Common for infanticide following her coerced confession to Cotton Mather.
Ironically, four years later Mather would bestow fame and adulation on Elizabeth’s older sister Hannah Emerson Duston for an act that many in society would come to regard as more heinous than any of the sins committed by Elizabeth.
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