Synopses & Reviews
Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-226) and index.
Review
"This excellent book by a Fordham University history professor presents a true 1673 murder mystery. It tells the tale of Rebecca Cornell—an ancestor of Ezra Cornell, who founded Cornell University, and a relative of Lizzie Borden— how she lived, how she died strangely burnt in her bedroom, and how her son came to be tried for her murder. This book immediately draws you into Rebecca's world, and it is hard to pull away. Ms. Crane's careful and interesting illumination of life in the late 17th century stands in sharp outline to the romanticized vision of that 'more simple' time when everyone worked together for survival. This is a tale of power and economic struggles between generations and between sexes. The book also describes the struggle in the young colonies to balance competing religious beliefs and to develop legal systems. This well-written, integrated, historical perspective on this mystery fascinated me. Think of it this way—when was the last time you heard about the testimony of a crime victim's ghost being admissible in a court of law?" Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
"It was Rebecca's son, Thomas, who first realized the victim's identity. His eyes were drawn to the victim's head, and aided by the flickering light of a candle, he 'clapt his hands and cryed out, Oh Lord, it is my mother.' James Moills, a servant of Cornell... described Rebecca 'lying on the floore, with fire about Her, from her Lower parts neare to the Armepits.' He recognized her only 'by her shoes.'"--from Killed Strangely
On a winter's evening in 1673, tragedy descended on the respectable Rhode Island household of Thomas Cornell. His 73-year-old mother, Rebecca, was found close to her bedroom's large fireplace, dead and badly burned. The legal owner of the Cornells' hundred acres along Narragansett Bay, Rebecca shared her home with Thomas and his family, a servant, and a lodger. A coroner's panel initially declared her death "an Unhappie Accident," but before summer arrived, a dark web of events--rumors of domestic abuse, allusions to witchcraft, even the testimony of Rebecca's ghost through her brother--resulted in Thomas's trial for matricide.
Such were the ambiguities of the case that others would be tried for the murder as well. Rebecca is a direct ancestor of Cornell University's founder, Ezra Cornell. Elaine Forman Crane tells the compelling story of Rebecca's death and its aftermath, vividly depicting the world in which she lived. That world included a legal system where jurors were expected to be familiar with the defendant and case before the trial even began. Rebecca's strange death was an event of cataclysmic proportions, affecting not only her own community, but neighboring towns as well.
The documents from Thomas's trial provide a rare glimpse into seventeenth-century life. Crane writes, "Instead of the harmony and respect that sermon literature, laws, and a hierarchical/patriarchal society attempted to impose, evidence illustrates filial insolence, generational conflict, disrespect toward the elderly, power plays between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and] adult dependence on (and resentment of) aging parents who clung to purse strings." Yet even at a distance of more than three hundred years, Rebecca Cornell's story is poignantly familiar. Her complaints of domestic abuse, Crane says, went largely unheeded by friends and neighbors until, at last, their complacency was shattered by her terrible death.