From the Book The Ancesry of Betsey Emerson Wright By: Jeffrey Rehm © 1996
Elizabeth Emerson, b. 26 Jan 1664/5, in Haverhill, MA. Died, 8 Jun 1693, in Boston Common, MA (Hanged). In Charles Pope's book, "The Haverhill Emerson's," all he states is "Let the mantle of charity cover her history." In Jane Emerson James book, "The Havrhill Emersons" a revised and updated version of Pope's book, Dr. James contributes the following: "On April 10, 1686, Elizabeth Emerson, unmarried, gave birth to Dorothy of whom no further record had been located. The father was Samuel Ladd, then 37, who was married to Martha (Corlis) Ladd, mother of six children. Elizabeth was 23 at the birth of Dorothy and at 28 she again gave birth, this time to two boys who did not survive. Again the father was Samuel Ladd, then 42. Whatever else may be thought of Elizabeth, she was not promiscuous." "The following record is from "Records of the Court of Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay," Vol. I: "26th September. Elizabeth Emmerson single woman Daughter of Michael Emmerson of Haverhill in the County of Essex being indicted by the Jurors for our Soveraigne Lord and Lady King William and Queen Mary upon their Oathes. For that the sd Elizabeth Emmerson being with child with two living children or infants on thursday night the 7th of May 1691 before day of Fryday morning at Haverhill aforesd in the house of Michael Emmerson aforesd by the providence of God two Bastard Children alive did bring forth and the being instigated by ye Devil of her malice forethought, the sd two Infants did feloniously kill & Murther, and them in a small Bagg or cloath swewed up and concealed or hid them in sd Emersons house untill afterwards, that is to say on sabbath day May the tenth 1691, the sd two Infants in the yeard of sd Emmerson in Haverhill aforesd did secretly bury contrary to the peace of Our Soveraign Lord & Lady the King & Queen, their Crown & Dignity, the Law of God, and the Lawes & Statutes in that case made & provided." "Upon which Indictment the sd Elizabeth Emmerson was arraigned and to the Indictment pleaded not quilty & put herselfe upon Tryal by God & the Country, a Jury was impannelled being the first Jury, whereof mr. Richard Crisp was foreman, and were accordingly sworne (the prisoner making no challeng) the Indictment Examination & evidences were read, & the prisoner made her defence, the Jury return their Verdict, the Jury say, that the sd Elizabeth Emmerson is guilty acording to Indictment. The Court order, That sentance of Death be pronounced against her." Another source tells us that Elizabeth was accused of murdering one or both of the twins. As we have seen she pled not guilty. She spent two years in prison and was hanged on Boston Common June 8, 1693. Although the entire village knew that Samuel Ladd was the father, he seems never to have been officially censured. He and his wife had five more children but then he was killed by Indians on February 22, 1697/8. It is not known when the Reverend Cotton Mather entered the picture but it is time to introduce him. He was the son of Increase Mather and the grandson of Richard Mather, also Puritan ministers. Cotton Mather (1663-1728) did much to arouse the people against the evil work of witches. In 1692, as a result of Mather's efforts, the colonists executed 19 persons as witches and sent 150 more to prison (The Salem Witches). These were the last persecutions for witchcraft in the American Colonies. Although Samuel Sewell, the chief judge at the witchcraft trials, five years afterward made a public confession that he had been wrong to participate in them, and, although Increase Mather (the grandfather) protested the extreme methods of prosecution in 1693 in his "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits," Cotton Mather never expressed any regret for his part in the dunking and pressing of those accused of being witches in order to obtain confessions or kill them as painfully as possible. In his "Magnalia Christi Americana," published in 1702, Cotton Mather tells of another woman who had had her third illegitimate child which he says she smothered and hid in a closet. He says she shed "Hypocritical tears" but they knew she murdered it because "when she toch'd the face of it before the jury, the blood came fresh into it." And so, he tells us, "she confessed the whole truth concerning it." The following two accounts of July 1693 from the "Dairy of Cotton Mather" suggest a personal motive why he may have been especially zealous to obtain a confession from Elizabeth Emerson and his self grandizing and opportunistic tendencies: "...On the Monday, the Child was buried, with a very numerous and honourable Attendence of my Neighbors; and on one of the Gravestones I wrote only that Epitaph, "Reserved for a Glorious Reserrection." "When the body of the Child was opened, wee found that the lower End of the Rectum Intestinum, instead of being Musculous, as it should have been, was membranous, and altogether closed up. I had great Reason to suspect a Witchcraft, in this praeternatural Accident; because my Wife, a few weeks before her Deliverance, was affrighted with a horrible Spectre, in our Porch, which both before and after, tormented a young Woman in our Neighborhood, brag'd of their giving my Wife that Fright, in hopes, they said, of doing Mischief unto her Infant at least, if not unto the Mother; and besides all this, the Child was no sooner born, but a suspected Woman sent unto my father, a letter full of railing againsst myself, wherein shee told him. "Hee little knew, what might quickly befall some of his Posterity," However I made little use of, and laid little Stress on this Conjecture; desiring to submitt unto the Will of my Heavenly Father without which, "Not a Sparrow falls unto the Ground." "In the Summer of this year, 1693, My Good God helped mee, to do smome other little Service, for his dearest name." "I had often wished for an Opportunity, to bear my Testimonies, against the Sons of uncleanness, wherein so many of my Generacon do pollute themselves. A young Woman of Haverhil, and a Negro Woman also of this Town (Boston) were under sentence of Death, for the Murdering of their Bastard children. Many and many a weary Hour, did I spend in the Prison, to serve the souls of those miserable Creatures; and I had Opportunities in my own Congregation, to speak to themn and for them, to vast Multitudes of others. Their Execution, was ordered to have been, upon the Lecture of another; but by a very strange Providence, without seeking of mine, or any Respect to mee, (that I know of) the order for their execution was altered and it fell on my Lecture Day. I did then with the special Assistance of Heaven, make and preach, a Sermon upon Job 36.24. Whereat one of the greatest Assemblies, ever known in these parts of the World, was come together. I had obtained from the young Woman, a pathetical Instrument, in Writing, wherein shee own'd her own miscarriages, and warn'd the rising Generacon of theirs. Towards the close of my Sermon, I read that Instrument to the Congregation; and made what Use, was proper of it. I accompany'd the wretches, to their Execution; but extremely fear all our Labours were lost upon them, however sanctifyed unto many others. The sermon was immediately printed; with another which I had formerly uttered on the like Occasion (entitled, Warnings from the Dead) and it was greedily bought up; I hope to the Attainment of the ends, which I had so long desired. t'was afterwards reprinted at London." This sermon which says remarkably little at very great length can be found on microflich #655 of "Early American Works." Cotton Mather immodesstly stated it was one of the greatest sermons ever preached in America. I suffered through reading a large part of it and it does not mention murder at all, but dwells at length on different aspects of unchasity. In fact it begins with a quotation from the Bible which warns against naming or speaking of different forms of "Uncleanness: and then he proceeds to name every form of sexual aberration. It is no wonder it was greedily bought up. It was the closest thing to pornography of its day. The women were not accused of any of the things preached about. He did read Elizabeth's confession which follows. It may be found in his Magnalia Christi Americana." From Elizabeth Emerson:
"Before the birth of my twin-infants, I too much parlied with the temptation of the devil to smother my wickedness by muthering of them. At length, when they were born, I was not insensible that at least one of them was alive; but such a wretch was I, as to use a murderous carriage towards them, in the place where I lay, on purpose to dispatch them out of the world. I acknowledge that I have been more hard hearted than the sea-monsters; and yet for the pardon of these my sins, I would fly to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the only "fountain set open for sin and uncleanness." I know not how better to glorifie God, for giving me such an opportunity as I have had to make sure of his mercy, than by advertising and entreating the rising generation here to take warning by my example, and I will therefore tell the sins that have brought me to my shameful end. I do warn all people and expecially young people, against these of uncleanness in particular. "Tis that sin that hath been my rune. Well had it been for me, if I had answered all temptations to that sin as Joseph did, "How shall I do this wicknedness, and sin against God?" But, I see, bad company is that which leads to that and other sins; and I therefore beg all that love their souls to be familiar with none but such as fear God. I believe the chief thing that hath brought me into my present condition, is my disobedience to my parents. I dispised all their godly counsel and reproofs; and I was always of a haughy, stubborn spirit. So that now I am become a dreadful instance of the curse of God belonging to disobient children. I must bewail this also, and although I was baptized, yet when I grew up, I forgot the bonds that were laid upon me to be the Lord's. Had I given myself to God, as soon as I was capable to consider that I had been in baptism set apart for him, How happy had I been! It was my delay to repent of my former sins, that provoked God to leave me unto the crimes for which I am now to die. Had I seriously repented of my uncleanness the first time I fell into it, I do suppose I had not been left unto what followed. Let all take it from me: They little think what they do when they put off turning from sin to God, and resist the strivings of the Holy Spirit. I fear 'tis for this that I have been given up to such "hardness of heart", not only since my long imprisonment but also since my just condemation. I now know not what will become of my distressed, pershing soul. But I would humbly commit it unto the mercy of God in Jesus Chist. Amen." We have seen that Elizabeth Emerson pled not guilty of murder but later confessed in the hands of that expert confession getter, Cotton Mather. She does not seem to have had the benefit of counsel and perhaps was not told that she could challenge during jury selection. All of the evidence was circumstantial since she seems to have given birth without any help from anyone. Did anyone know that she was pregnant? If they did, why wasn't someone available to help her. If they did not, the babies must have been premature. Since they were male their chances of survival were less than had they been girls. Since they were twins their chances of survival were greatly reduced. A birth without assistance even today is risky for full-term infants. Could Elizabeth have caused the death of at least one of them by her posture where she lay? It seems extremely unlikely even if she thought about it that during the ordeal of birth she would be able to deliver them in such a way as to cause death, and if she didn't hasten to cut the fetal cord and care for them perhaps she wasn't able to hasten. I do not think that there was any murder. I think that under the powerful persuasion of the Rev. Cotton Mather that she was brain washed through guilt to come to believe that she may have committed murder. There is some doubt that she was really tried for muder anyway. It is likely that the real, if unspoken, charge was adultery. Cotton Mather states in his "Magnalia Christi Americana" without giving a date, "By the law of this country, adultery was then a capital transgression as it hath been in many other countries..." It is safe to guess that not long before Elizabeth Emerson's trial that adultery had been a capital offense so that it would not have seemed strange to the jury or to Cotton Mather to try her for a trumped up charge because it was clear that she had committed adultery. One can imagine that prisons of that day were very bad. Think of the "many weary Hours" Elizabeth Emerson had to endure the visits of inquisition of Cotton Mather. Then, before she was hanged she had to listen to a sermon that must have lasted several hours which seemed to accuse her of all sorts of sins she did not commit and during which her confessions was read. I believe that God has forgiven Elizabeth Emerson of her sins because she repented even if Cotton Mather didn't believe that God would do that. © 1996, Jeffrey Rehm - E-Mail:
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