Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
True Crime in 1778! The Bathsheba Spooner Murder Conspiracy
Few men were as highly esteemed and just a decade later despised beyond measure as Timothy Ruggles. Ruggles was a hero of the French & Indian War, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress from Massachusetts, a land owner, legislator and community leader who had a large and prosperous family. His daughter Bathsheba married a Boston man, Joshua Spooner, and their marriage was once described as "inharmonious." Imagine then the country gossip when Joshua was found in March 1778 beaten and murdered and stuffed into his own well, and that two British prisoners of war and a young man from Topsfield were found in possession of his personal property. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Andrew Noone, author of ‘Bathsheba Spooner, A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy.'
WEBVTT
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hello everyone welcome to
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the revolution two fifty
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podcast I'm bob allison I
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chair the rep two fifty
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advisory group we are a
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consortium of about seventy
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five organizations in
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massachusetts planning
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commemorations of the
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beginnings of american
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independence and our guest
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today is andrew noon andrew
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noon is a scholar in
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central part of
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massachusetts and he is his
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new book is bathsheba
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spooner a revolutionary murder mystery
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about one of the great
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murder stories in Massachusetts.
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It happened in in and
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involved a lot of characters.
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So Andrew,
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thank you so much for joining us.
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Thanks for inviting me.
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And thank you for writing this book.
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It's really, it's an extraordinary tale,
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but you got to it in kind
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of an interesting way.
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Yeah, so many years ago,
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a friend came for dinner
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and reminded me of the
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Bathsheba Spooner story.
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She was buried in a park across the street,
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and that piqued my interest.
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I checked and discovered no
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book had been written.
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Deborah Navis' book came out
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in ninety-nine.
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My book was about one-third written.
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I think it's a little different approach,
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more of a prosy approach than hers.
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Both are academically based,
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but more in a novelistic style,
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I would say.
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Okay, good, good.
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So tell us, who was Bathsheba Spooner?
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So she was the favorite
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daughter of Brigadier
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General Timothy Ruggles,
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one of the most prominent
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Tories in the state.
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She married Bostonian Joshua Spooner.
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And though she was born in Sandwich,
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her family moved to the
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town of Timothy's ancestors,
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Hardwick in Central Mass.
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And she and Joshua were
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married there and resided
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nearby Brookfield.
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Okay.
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And about how old were they
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when they got married?
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uh good question so she was
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thirty two at her death and
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he was thirty five uh she
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was early twenties yeah it
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was mid twenties okay and
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so so they're living on a farm
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No.
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We're not entirely sure
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where the first property
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was in Brookfield.
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They bought a large home,
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which suggests they may
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have been innkeepers,
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as she had been in Sandwich.
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But no, he was actually a businessman.
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Okay.
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Well,
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that makes sense because they do seem
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to have guests in the house quite a bit.
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Right.
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And so,
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so it's seventeen seventy eight and
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they have three children at this time.
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So they have four children.
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One child died in childbirth.
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OK.
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And so what happens to precipitate the.
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Well,
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why don't we just tell us what
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happens to Joshua?
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Sure.
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Leading up to the murder.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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Well, in February of that year,
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Bathsheba welcomed into her
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home two British POWs who
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had escaped from Boston.
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had originally been at Saratoga.
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She also, previous to that,
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had become friendly with an
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American soldier who
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stopped by her property en
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route from Peekskill, New York,
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not in very good condition,
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and she nursed him back to health.
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Joshua, his suspicions were raised,
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certainly, all that February.
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Doesn't seem to have been a
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very proactive person.
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He tolerated there living in
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the barn for several nights.
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having dinner in the house.
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He tolerated a teenager, Ezra Ross,
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frequently at your house.
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It's hard to decipher what
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his feelings were,
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but he had scheduled dinner
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in March first,
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with Dr. King and his friend,
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Dr. King and his wife, rather,
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at Brookfield.
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And upon returning home,
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the three soldiers assaulted him,
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killed him, and threw him into his well.
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As bad as she was in the kitchen watching.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Now, was she involved in arranging this?
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Yeah.
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It's kind of like Keystone
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Cops in reverse.
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We assume that she had a hand in it.
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She was certainly aware of their plans.
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It's unclear if it was fully
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arranged for that night,
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although at the last hour,
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they did discuss the murder.
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So it sounds like it was
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kind of tentatively planned
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for that evening.
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And all along certainly she
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had suggested plans of ways
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to kill him all along.
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So circumstantially she was
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certainly very guilty.
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Okay.
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And so Andrew,
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how do we know what they
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were planning or what they were thinking?
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What sources have you been
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using to get the story?
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Book is based largely on the
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court transcripts,
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which are available at the
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Massachusetts archives.
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I use also diaries, letters,
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newspaper accounts,
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The soldier's confession was used also.
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Okay.
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So these are two British soldiers.
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And so they were captured at Saratoga?
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Right.
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So they were marched to Boston.
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Buchanan stayed in Cambridge
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having been an officer.
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Brooks, being a listed man,
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was in Charlestown.
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Okay.
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And how do they wind up out in Brookfield?
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So apparently they had
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planned to work in Springfield,
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stopped en route in
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Worcester where they were working,
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and then to go back to
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Springfield en route,
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they were stopped in
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Brookfield by Bathsheba.
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okay so how did she stop
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them not entirely clear it
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was during a snowstorm okay
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and as I suggested in the
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book where they still have
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been wearing their british
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uniforms unclear uh they
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must have stood out somehow
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in a snowstorm interesting
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uh it's also possible that
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she also had another
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soldier um who was her
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servant alexander cummings
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she may have sent him out
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looking for soldiers
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well interesting that's
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interesting so she you know
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so they kill joshua put his
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body in the well and then
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how are they found out so
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the next day bathsheba
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wakes up and says to her
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maid oh where's joshua of course
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She knows well where he is.
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But she sent Alexander Cummings,
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that same soldier,
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to check Cooley's tavern
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where Joshua had been
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having dinner to ask where
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Joshua might be.
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Cooley arranged the posse,
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which went to the Spooner home,
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and they found blood on the
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curb of the well as well as
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Joshua's head at the base of the well.
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Oh my goodness.
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and then they find his body
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in the well and he finally
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pulled it out uh and
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although this detail is not
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mentioned anywhere I
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imagine they would have
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brought it into the living
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room and laid it on the
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sofa yeah those inquests
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there the next day wow wow
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interesting and so then how
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then that says there's how
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then does the evidence get
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to the soldiers and to Beth Sheba
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I'm sorry, how did the evidence of what?
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Yeah,
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so we found Joshua's body in the well.
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Bathsheba says, where's Joshua?
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They trace him back to the
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house and the well.
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Then how does the evidence
00:07:15.543 --> 00:07:17.845
point to this conspiracy origin?
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So yeah, a lot of it is circumstantial.
00:07:21.886 --> 00:07:23.987
Of course, this is the blood evidence.
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They do eventually have a
00:07:27.711 --> 00:07:28.552
confession published.
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They admit their guilt.
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Bathsheba on and off for the
00:07:31.935 --> 00:07:32.735
next several weeks says,
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I'm guilty and I'm not guilty.
00:07:34.536 --> 00:07:35.757
It's their fault or it's my fault.
00:07:36.276 --> 00:07:37.658
She's very inconsistent with that.
00:07:39.059 --> 00:07:40.959
But the next day in Worcester,
00:07:42.201 --> 00:07:43.482
both men pretty well
00:07:43.502 --> 00:07:44.742
inebriated at a tavern.
00:07:46.202 --> 00:07:47.983
Brooks, the less bright of the two,
00:07:48.345 --> 00:07:49.425
stretches out his legs and
00:07:49.444 --> 00:07:53.148
he's wearing boots with JS
00:07:53.788 --> 00:07:54.889
silver monograms on them.
00:07:55.709 --> 00:07:57.610
A clear sign to the horror of the crowd.
00:07:57.870 --> 00:07:59.052
So they were arrested at that point.
00:08:00.692 --> 00:08:01.593
A couple hours later,
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Ezra Ross was discovered,
00:08:02.954 --> 00:08:03.656
kind of poignantly,
00:08:03.696 --> 00:08:04.656
as a teenager might do,
00:08:05.036 --> 00:08:05.877
in the loft of another
00:08:05.896 --> 00:08:07.519
tavern and pulled down from the loft.
00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:08.560
Now,
00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:10.540
Ezra Ross was a soldier on the
00:08:10.581 --> 00:08:11.382
American side,
00:08:11.422 --> 00:08:12.543
and he was in Buchanan or
00:08:12.603 --> 00:08:13.584
on the British side.
00:08:16.505 --> 00:08:17.127
So there are different
00:08:17.146 --> 00:08:18.247
taverns than in Worcester.
00:08:18.447 --> 00:08:18.848
Right, right.
00:08:19.509 --> 00:08:19.629
Yeah.
00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:23.502
And so then the three of
00:08:23.521 --> 00:08:24.182
them are indicted.
00:08:24.262 --> 00:08:25.742
How does Bathsheba tie into it?
00:08:25.762 --> 00:08:27.043
Because she keeps confessing
00:08:27.084 --> 00:08:27.884
and then retracting?
00:08:28.444 --> 00:08:30.404
Yeah, they kind of implicate her that day.
00:08:30.745 --> 00:08:31.245
And the next day,
00:08:31.266 --> 00:08:32.546
she's brought by sleight to Worcester.
00:08:32.866 --> 00:08:33.366
She's arrested.
00:08:33.386 --> 00:08:35.607
I see.
00:08:35.727 --> 00:08:35.788
OK.
00:08:35.868 --> 00:08:37.349
So then the four of them,
00:08:37.408 --> 00:08:38.589
are they tried together or
00:08:38.629 --> 00:08:39.470
are they separate trials?
00:08:40.409 --> 00:08:40.910
All together.
00:08:40.931 --> 00:08:42.530
OK, good.
00:08:42.591 --> 00:08:44.711
Ratio trial lasted a total of probably,
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probably,
00:08:47.484 --> 00:08:47.764
Wow, wow.
00:08:47.804 --> 00:08:49.105
And the tragic other thing- To me,
00:08:49.145 --> 00:08:49.767
imagine today,
00:08:49.787 --> 00:08:50.548
it would take three months
00:08:50.567 --> 00:08:51.248
to find the jury.
00:08:51.808 --> 00:08:52.009
Yeah.
00:08:52.308 --> 00:08:52.809
Oh, yeah.
00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:54.331
It's amazing, this big case,
00:08:54.392 --> 00:08:59.397
because it's a pretty high-powered court,
00:08:59.576 --> 00:08:59.956
too.
00:08:59.996 --> 00:09:00.477
You have-
00:09:02.578 --> 00:09:03.379
Can you tell us a bit about
00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:04.019
who's presiding?
00:09:04.059 --> 00:09:05.340
John Hancock organized.
00:09:05.580 --> 00:09:06.320
He was acting governor.
00:09:06.379 --> 00:09:07.240
He organized the trial.
00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:08.400
Robert Treed Payne,
00:09:08.461 --> 00:09:09.760
former signer of the Declaration,
00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:11.402
was attorney general.
00:09:11.782 --> 00:09:12.861
He was the prosecutor.
00:09:13.542 --> 00:09:14.182
And Levi Lincoln,
00:09:14.222 --> 00:09:15.462
the president's distant cousin,
00:09:15.802 --> 00:09:18.163
served as defense counsel.
00:09:18.264 --> 00:09:18.823
Right.
00:09:18.903 --> 00:09:20.524
And so how does Lincoln get
00:09:20.563 --> 00:09:21.264
reffed in to be?
00:09:21.323 --> 00:09:23.144
He defends all four of them?
00:09:23.245 --> 00:09:23.485
Yes.
00:09:24.465 --> 00:09:26.046
So Lincoln, originally from Bingham,
00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:29.543
apparently was at Lexington
00:09:29.582 --> 00:09:30.144
April the nineteenth.
00:09:30.163 --> 00:09:31.284
I'm not sure if he actually fought,
00:09:31.684 --> 00:09:32.866
made his way to Northampton,
00:09:33.047 --> 00:09:34.227
was trained as an attorney,
00:09:34.989 --> 00:09:36.811
and then went to Worcester
00:09:37.491 --> 00:09:40.174
to fill a real gap in legal
00:09:41.135 --> 00:09:42.057
opportunities in Worcester.
00:09:42.197 --> 00:09:42.597
Most of the
00:09:43.599 --> 00:09:44.519
Lawyers in Worcester at that
00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:45.600
point had been Tories and
00:09:45.639 --> 00:09:48.962
had been dismissed or exiled, really.
00:09:48.982 --> 00:09:50.003
So he really took over most
00:09:50.043 --> 00:09:51.004
of the legal business in
00:09:51.043 --> 00:09:51.764
Worcester at that point.
00:09:52.384 --> 00:09:53.926
I suspect also he may have
00:09:53.946 --> 00:09:55.486
had a contact with John Green,
00:09:55.547 --> 00:09:57.187
Worcester's popular doctor,
00:09:57.868 --> 00:09:58.589
who was on the Committee of
00:09:58.629 --> 00:09:59.229
Correspondence.
00:09:59.249 --> 00:10:03.251
Okay.
00:10:03.272 --> 00:10:03.711
And then one of the
00:10:03.831 --> 00:10:04.633
arguments they make is that
00:10:04.653 --> 00:10:06.874
Bathsheba might have been insane.
00:10:08.563 --> 00:10:11.224
right uh who knows there's
00:10:11.244 --> 00:10:13.085
been a tradition by authors
00:10:13.105 --> 00:10:14.605
of trying to place her
00:10:14.625 --> 00:10:16.465
within an insane tradition
00:10:16.524 --> 00:10:18.385
family yeah her uncle was
00:10:18.426 --> 00:10:19.946
insane supposedly an aunt
00:10:19.966 --> 00:10:20.946
was insane although that
00:10:20.966 --> 00:10:23.246
one that one's unclear uh
00:10:23.287 --> 00:10:24.466
her sister went temporarily
00:10:24.506 --> 00:10:25.427
insane following her
00:10:25.486 --> 00:10:26.886
execution but who whose
00:10:26.907 --> 00:10:27.687
favorite sister would not
00:10:27.726 --> 00:10:29.048
go temporarily insane
00:10:29.347 --> 00:10:31.567
execution they've tried to
00:10:31.587 --> 00:10:32.368
develop that over the
00:10:32.388 --> 00:10:33.988
decades it's entirely
00:10:34.028 --> 00:10:35.369
possible of course the
00:10:35.408 --> 00:10:36.609
notorious most notorious
00:10:37.769 --> 00:10:38.590
I should say part of the
00:10:38.730 --> 00:10:39.850
wildest story in the book
00:10:39.889 --> 00:10:43.751
is when once at dinner in Hardwick,
00:10:43.932 --> 00:10:45.332
Bathsheba's parents are having dinner,
00:10:45.452 --> 00:10:47.354
and the husband compliments
00:10:47.374 --> 00:10:49.235
her on the dinner, and she claims,
00:10:49.294 --> 00:10:50.134
I hope you enjoyed that.
00:10:50.715 --> 00:10:51.576
That was her favorite dog.
00:10:51.615 --> 00:10:52.716
Oh, goodness.
00:10:55.357 --> 00:10:55.477
Wow.
00:10:55.498 --> 00:10:56.258
Interesting family.
00:10:57.018 --> 00:10:58.219
And then by this time, you know,
00:10:58.418 --> 00:10:59.798
her father, General Ruggles,
00:10:59.839 --> 00:11:00.938
by this time is in Canada.
00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:02.619
Right.
00:11:03.058 --> 00:11:03.419
He's been exiled.
00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:03.620
Yeah.
00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:03.919
Yeah.
00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:07.139
And then her brother's going to exile,
00:11:07.179 --> 00:11:08.240
but her sister seemed to
00:11:08.299 --> 00:11:09.860
stay in Massachusetts.
00:11:10.780 --> 00:11:11.081
Yes.
00:11:11.181 --> 00:11:13.681
Do you have any idea why that is?
00:11:14.721 --> 00:11:15.902
I haven't researched that at all.
00:11:15.942 --> 00:11:16.701
No, no idea.
00:11:16.741 --> 00:11:18.182
Okay.
00:11:18.201 --> 00:11:20.282
So she's on trial then as an
00:11:20.423 --> 00:11:21.903
accessory to the murder of
00:11:21.923 --> 00:11:22.623
her husband and
00:11:23.481 --> 00:11:25.984
then um the trial lasts
00:11:26.004 --> 00:11:27.304
about fourteen hours and
00:11:27.325 --> 00:11:29.046
then fairly quickly after
00:11:29.086 --> 00:11:31.707
that they're executed right
00:11:32.668 --> 00:11:33.428
so it's originally planned
00:11:33.448 --> 00:11:35.129
for june uh they find
00:11:35.169 --> 00:11:36.471
religion in the process and
00:11:36.530 --> 00:11:37.490
as a result of that they
00:11:37.511 --> 00:11:38.511
get to stay until july
00:11:38.572 --> 00:11:40.173
second in the meantime
00:11:40.373 --> 00:11:42.575
bastia claims pregnancy and
00:11:42.595 --> 00:11:44.056
she goes through two formal
00:11:44.096 --> 00:11:45.076
exams one informal
00:11:47.888 --> 00:11:49.610
You wouldn't hang her if she's pregnant?
00:11:51.374 --> 00:11:51.934
Sorry, say that again?
00:11:52.456 --> 00:11:54.619
You wouldn't hang her if she's pregnant?
00:11:54.698 --> 00:11:56.422
You would think not, but they did.
00:11:56.522 --> 00:11:56.842
Okay.
00:11:57.727 --> 00:11:57.847
Well,
00:11:57.868 --> 00:12:00.791
they determined that they thought she
00:12:00.811 --> 00:12:01.311
wasn't, or the examination.
00:12:01.331 --> 00:12:02.471
So the official first exam
00:12:02.511 --> 00:12:04.193
was okayed by Boston.
00:12:04.254 --> 00:12:05.955
The results of that exam
00:12:05.975 --> 00:12:06.936
showed she was not pregnant.
00:12:07.437 --> 00:12:08.116
She insisted.
00:12:08.837 --> 00:12:11.640
They refused to grant the second exam,
00:12:11.801 --> 00:12:12.600
but Worcester went ahead,
00:12:12.942 --> 00:12:13.741
did a second exam,
00:12:14.003 --> 00:12:14.863
which proved her pregnant.
00:12:15.464 --> 00:12:17.265
And then the day before her execution,
00:12:17.985 --> 00:12:19.888
a jail matron examines her again,
00:12:20.048 --> 00:12:20.769
says she's pregnant.
00:12:21.188 --> 00:12:21.690
Ironically,
00:12:21.769 --> 00:12:22.951
Boston accepted the results of
00:12:22.971 --> 00:12:23.551
the first exam.
00:12:25.123 --> 00:12:25.884
Not the later ones.
00:12:26.865 --> 00:12:29.506
She's still hanged.
00:12:29.527 --> 00:12:30.147
So even though this is
00:12:30.167 --> 00:12:31.107
happening in Worcester,
00:12:31.148 --> 00:12:31.928
things have to go through
00:12:31.969 --> 00:12:34.390
Boston to finalize this?
00:12:34.750 --> 00:12:36.673
Right.
00:12:38.433 --> 00:12:42.277
And typically with an execution like this,
00:12:42.317 --> 00:12:44.799
it's public.
00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:46.321
She and the others are hanging together.
00:12:48.221 --> 00:12:50.443
Is it a big event then in Worcester?
00:12:51.245 --> 00:12:52.245
Yeah, it's quite a...
00:12:53.464 --> 00:12:55.544
a singular event as there
00:12:55.764 --> 00:12:57.326
was not a population of eighteen hundred.
00:12:57.546 --> 00:12:58.346
There were at least five
00:12:58.365 --> 00:12:59.606
thousand people in town.
00:13:01.726 --> 00:13:03.028
And as I mentioned, look,
00:13:03.067 --> 00:13:04.048
we probably get the word
00:13:04.128 --> 00:13:05.168
gallows from Gala.
00:13:05.249 --> 00:13:06.288
This was a celebration day.
00:13:06.308 --> 00:13:09.090
Yeah.
00:13:09.149 --> 00:13:09.250
Yeah.
00:13:09.309 --> 00:13:10.510
Or as that might be.
00:13:10.551 --> 00:13:12.951
And as the four approached the scaffold,
00:13:12.971 --> 00:13:14.732
excuse me,
00:13:14.893 --> 00:13:16.332
terrific thunderstorm breaks out.
00:13:16.793 --> 00:13:17.573
Nooses are flying.
00:13:17.614 --> 00:13:18.994
Horses are name when they're
00:13:19.033 --> 00:13:19.955
fainting at the scaffold.
00:13:20.927 --> 00:13:23.009
As they approach the climate
00:13:23.029 --> 00:13:23.931
scaffold and have nooses
00:13:23.951 --> 00:13:25.913
put around their necks, the storm clears.
00:13:25.932 --> 00:13:27.073
It's still a very hot day.
00:13:28.215 --> 00:13:29.797
And they're all executed, I believe,
00:13:29.876 --> 00:13:30.397
one by one.
00:13:31.378 --> 00:13:32.820
Interesting.
00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:34.221
And now often there's a
00:13:34.301 --> 00:13:35.842
sermon proceeding and execution.
00:13:35.863 --> 00:13:38.205
Do you have a testimony often?
00:13:40.006 --> 00:13:41.087
So is there anything like
00:13:41.107 --> 00:13:43.289
that as part of this event?
00:13:45.275 --> 00:13:47.856
sermon or speeches given
00:13:47.956 --> 00:13:49.758
before by minister thaddeus
00:13:49.798 --> 00:13:51.519
mccarty gives the sermon uh
00:13:51.859 --> 00:13:52.899
the execution day sermon at
00:13:52.938 --> 00:13:56.520
noontime it's a very much a
00:13:56.581 --> 00:13:58.481
fire and brimstone sermon
00:13:59.101 --> 00:13:59.942
you know either follow
00:14:00.241 --> 00:14:01.202
god's way or this is your
00:14:01.403 --> 00:14:03.964
destiny yeah now you said
00:14:03.984 --> 00:14:05.284
that brooks and buchanan
00:14:05.325 --> 00:14:06.945
had confessed did they say
00:14:06.985 --> 00:14:09.866
anything at the um execute
00:14:09.907 --> 00:14:10.767
at their executions
00:14:13.823 --> 00:14:15.765
uh no only got shiva spoke
00:14:15.806 --> 00:14:19.509
no one else yeah now now
00:14:19.548 --> 00:14:20.870
we're losing sight though
00:14:20.929 --> 00:14:23.251
of joshua who had already
00:14:23.312 --> 00:14:24.393
been buried and there was
00:14:24.413 --> 00:14:25.994
also a sermon pre his
00:14:26.014 --> 00:14:27.195
burial did mccarty also
00:14:27.254 --> 00:14:28.115
preach that or was it a
00:14:28.135 --> 00:14:29.157
different minister who
00:14:29.256 --> 00:14:30.837
preached the general uh
00:14:30.878 --> 00:14:32.479
that was his name was a
00:14:32.538 --> 00:14:34.260
brookfield minister okay
00:14:34.321 --> 00:14:35.861
I'm forgetting his name now
00:14:35.902 --> 00:14:36.763
it was a separate minister
00:14:38.715 --> 00:14:39.815
And at the time of that,
00:14:39.875 --> 00:14:41.416
was there evidence that
00:14:41.456 --> 00:14:42.576
Bathsheba was involved in
00:14:42.615 --> 00:14:45.115
her husband's death?
00:14:45.355 --> 00:14:46.177
There's no mention of it at
00:14:46.197 --> 00:14:48.136
all during the sermon.
00:14:48.677 --> 00:14:50.298
It's suggested, kind of,
00:14:50.378 --> 00:14:51.937
but nothing explicit.
00:14:51.957 --> 00:14:52.038
Okay.
00:14:52.057 --> 00:14:55.339
Now, again,
00:14:55.379 --> 00:14:56.178
we've been talking about this
00:14:56.219 --> 00:14:58.619
big crowd that gathers, the sermons,
00:14:58.639 --> 00:14:59.720
and all of this suggests
00:14:59.740 --> 00:15:01.240
that there's public
00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:02.580
attention to all of this.
00:15:02.659 --> 00:15:03.100
And of course,
00:15:03.159 --> 00:15:05.000
Worcester being the home of Isaiah Thomas,
00:15:05.041 --> 00:15:06.441
I wonder if he has a role in
00:15:06.991 --> 00:15:09.153
any of the publicity or any
00:15:09.352 --> 00:15:09.974
of the other things
00:15:09.994 --> 00:15:10.673
happening with uh oh sure
00:15:10.693 --> 00:15:11.433
he was the source of
00:15:11.474 --> 00:15:13.054
publicity really so his
00:15:13.174 --> 00:15:14.076
course his newspapers were
00:15:14.115 --> 00:15:14.635
sold throughout the
00:15:14.655 --> 00:15:16.356
colonies uh and he
00:15:16.376 --> 00:15:17.278
certainly played the story
00:15:17.337 --> 00:15:18.577
up and sold it throughout
00:15:18.597 --> 00:15:19.639
new england sold his papers
00:15:20.119 --> 00:15:20.918
at several locations in
00:15:20.938 --> 00:15:23.321
england interesting he was
00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:24.480
present at the execution also wow
00:15:26.177 --> 00:15:27.099
Seems like five thousand
00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:27.859
people were there.
00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:30.421
And Jonathan's telling us
00:15:30.461 --> 00:15:32.163
that Nathan Fisk was the
00:15:32.202 --> 00:15:34.445
minister of Joshua's burial.
00:15:34.725 --> 00:15:36.807
And that funeral sermon also
00:15:36.846 --> 00:15:37.846
was printed by Isaiah
00:15:37.886 --> 00:15:39.408
Thomas and distributed by Isaiah Thomas.
00:15:39.428 --> 00:15:40.590
Yes, it was.
00:15:40.649 --> 00:15:41.691
Right.
00:15:41.971 --> 00:15:42.811
So as part of the reason
00:15:42.831 --> 00:15:43.831
this is a big case is
00:15:43.892 --> 00:15:47.895
because Isaiah Thomas is printing these.
00:15:48.475 --> 00:15:49.336
I suppose if you have a
00:15:49.356 --> 00:15:50.557
woman murdering her husband
00:15:50.597 --> 00:15:51.839
and two British soldiers,
00:15:51.859 --> 00:15:53.000
an American soldier involved,
00:15:53.019 --> 00:15:54.681
there's going to be attention paid to it.
00:15:56.467 --> 00:15:57.989
Thomas's publicity is helping, certainly,
00:15:58.328 --> 00:15:59.029
but I think the fact that
00:15:59.049 --> 00:16:00.010
she was the daughter of
00:16:01.051 --> 00:16:02.491
someone so notorious in the state,
00:16:03.653 --> 00:16:05.214
that made the story even bigger, I think.
00:16:05.234 --> 00:16:08.476
Yeah, we're talking with Andrew Noon,
00:16:08.517 --> 00:16:10.298
who is the author of Bathsheba Spooner,
00:16:10.317 --> 00:16:12.158
A Revolutionary Murder Mystery,
00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:14.480
and you've really untangled
00:16:14.520 --> 00:16:16.663
a lot of the pieces of this story,
00:16:16.802 --> 00:16:17.822
and there's a lot.
00:16:18.844 --> 00:16:19.124
I mean,
00:16:19.144 --> 00:16:22.626
it remains a case that people who
00:16:22.667 --> 00:16:24.087
study this period know about,
00:16:24.347 --> 00:16:25.528
and it was a
00:16:26.364 --> 00:16:27.445
Tremendous murder mystery.
00:16:27.485 --> 00:16:29.046
Something that could happen today.
00:16:29.066 --> 00:16:30.527
You know,
00:16:30.567 --> 00:16:32.028
this kind of intrigue and this
00:16:32.087 --> 00:16:33.849
kind of scandal.
00:16:35.690 --> 00:16:37.350
Anything about what the rest
00:16:37.370 --> 00:16:38.030
of the family does?
00:16:38.051 --> 00:16:38.631
I mean,
00:16:38.672 --> 00:16:41.232
her father's off in Nova Scotia in exile.
00:16:41.253 --> 00:16:42.333
She has sisters here.
00:16:42.793 --> 00:16:43.835
So what happens to the
00:16:43.894 --> 00:16:45.816
family as a result of all of this trauma?
00:16:45.855 --> 00:16:47.677
And the Spooner family as well?
00:16:47.716 --> 00:16:48.197
Their children?
00:16:49.097 --> 00:16:50.678
Yeah, what happens to the children?
00:16:52.351 --> 00:16:54.673
Yeah, one son remains, excuse me,
00:16:55.413 --> 00:16:56.875
a businessman in Brookfield.
00:16:57.275 --> 00:16:58.716
He dies when he's at age thirty-one.
00:16:58.736 --> 00:17:00.197
Of course,
00:17:00.238 --> 00:17:02.500
earlier a son had died of childbirth.
00:17:04.260 --> 00:17:05.782
One daughter also stays local.
00:17:06.482 --> 00:17:09.285
She lives into her, I believe her fifties.
00:17:09.945 --> 00:17:11.686
Another daughter marries a
00:17:11.707 --> 00:17:13.368
Boston businessman also,
00:17:14.169 --> 00:17:15.769
and she dies in her eighties.
00:17:17.111 --> 00:17:18.492
Again, apparently insane.
00:17:19.990 --> 00:17:21.632
But she lived almost until the Civil War.
00:17:21.692 --> 00:17:23.692
That is the right.
00:17:23.751 --> 00:17:28.732
Eighteen fifty eight, I want to say.
00:17:28.752 --> 00:17:29.133
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:29.173 --> 00:17:30.973
So so, by the way, Jonathan,
00:17:31.034 --> 00:17:32.294
who has an eye for scandal,
00:17:32.354 --> 00:17:34.355
reminds us that Isaiah Thomas, his wife,
00:17:34.394 --> 00:17:35.174
had had an affair with
00:17:35.214 --> 00:17:36.515
Benjamin Thompson in
00:17:36.595 --> 00:17:37.816
seventeen seventy five.
00:17:37.915 --> 00:17:38.935
So I agree with that.
00:17:38.955 --> 00:17:39.115
Sure.
00:17:39.215 --> 00:17:39.316
Yeah.
00:17:41.156 --> 00:17:42.356
OK, now.
00:17:44.286 --> 00:17:45.426
Any results of the case?
00:17:45.467 --> 00:17:47.048
I mean, any changes in the law,
00:17:47.107 --> 00:17:48.189
anything like that that
00:17:48.229 --> 00:17:49.470
happens as a result of this
00:17:49.890 --> 00:17:51.471
high-profile case and the
00:17:51.551 --> 00:17:52.772
execution of Beth Sheba
00:17:52.813 --> 00:17:54.094
Spooner and her accomplices?
00:17:56.635 --> 00:17:57.916
It kind of falls off the screen.
00:17:57.936 --> 00:17:59.178
I think the state was
00:17:59.218 --> 00:18:01.338
ashamed by the results.
00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:04.582
There's no real discussion
00:18:04.622 --> 00:18:06.143
of it until a Boston
00:18:06.202 --> 00:18:08.164
attorney posts a pamphlet,
00:18:08.204 --> 00:18:10.046
an extended essay, I should say, in the
00:18:12.807 --> 00:18:14.448
I don't think any legal ramifications,
00:18:14.508 --> 00:18:14.828
really.
00:18:14.888 --> 00:18:16.210
It's been suggested that it
00:18:16.230 --> 00:18:17.550
was rumored about during
00:18:17.570 --> 00:18:18.571
the Lizzie Borden trial,
00:18:19.231 --> 00:18:20.452
not during the trial itself,
00:18:20.472 --> 00:18:22.074
but newspaper accounts and
00:18:22.115 --> 00:18:23.134
gossip around the trial.
00:18:24.115 --> 00:18:25.037
A reminder that Bathsheba
00:18:25.057 --> 00:18:26.038
was treated so shamefully
00:18:26.077 --> 00:18:27.057
that they could not
00:18:27.118 --> 00:18:29.480
possibly convict another woman,
00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:31.102
fearing that she too could be pregnant.
00:18:31.701 --> 00:18:32.682
So it's been suggested they
00:18:32.702 --> 00:18:34.084
had some impact on her acquittal.
00:18:34.104 --> 00:18:34.384
Who knows?
00:18:34.403 --> 00:18:34.684
Interesting.
00:18:34.765 --> 00:18:37.386
That's interesting.
00:18:40.070 --> 00:18:41.332
So what are some of the
00:18:41.352 --> 00:18:42.152
things that surprised you
00:18:42.192 --> 00:18:43.553
about looking into this case?
00:18:44.114 --> 00:18:45.413
You're unpacking this
00:18:45.453 --> 00:18:47.855
different world and in some
00:18:47.875 --> 00:18:48.536
ways it's familiar,
00:18:48.675 --> 00:18:53.398
in some ways it's not.
00:18:53.419 --> 00:18:54.519
Just the complications of
00:18:54.599 --> 00:18:55.980
relationships between Tory,
00:18:56.221 --> 00:19:00.884
Patriot officials, locals, gossip.
00:19:04.246 --> 00:19:05.487
I mean, there was a lot of evidence.
00:19:05.507 --> 00:19:07.107
There's certainly a lack of evidence also.
00:19:08.875 --> 00:19:09.076
And again,
00:19:09.096 --> 00:19:09.796
it's amazing to me that they
00:19:09.816 --> 00:19:10.316
could have wrapped
00:19:10.336 --> 00:19:11.497
everything up in fourteen hours.
00:19:12.136 --> 00:19:13.238
You have two foreigners,
00:19:14.198 --> 00:19:15.818
both of whom are enemy soldiers.
00:19:16.679 --> 00:19:17.619
You have a woman who may or
00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:19.161
may not have been directly involved.
00:19:19.540 --> 00:19:20.401
You have a teenager.
00:19:20.421 --> 00:19:22.643
It's very complicated.
00:19:22.962 --> 00:19:24.462
And to have been taken care
00:19:24.483 --> 00:19:26.505
of in twelve hours or so, it amazes me.
00:19:26.525 --> 00:19:26.984
Yeah, you're right.
00:19:27.005 --> 00:19:30.046
And today,
00:19:30.066 --> 00:19:32.126
as your friend the attorney said,
00:19:32.146 --> 00:19:32.988
it would take three months
00:19:33.028 --> 00:19:33.988
just to find a jury.
00:19:34.048 --> 00:19:34.848
Who were the jurors?
00:19:34.868 --> 00:19:36.670
Do you know anything about the jurors?
00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:40.741
They were all, of course,
00:19:40.882 --> 00:19:42.083
white men from Worcester,
00:19:42.403 --> 00:19:43.723
and likely all of them were patriots.
00:19:44.625 --> 00:19:45.305
But I would like to think
00:19:45.325 --> 00:19:46.326
they would have been as
00:19:46.425 --> 00:19:48.827
impartial as possible, having that makeup,
00:19:48.847 --> 00:19:49.347
but who knows.
00:19:51.390 --> 00:19:53.090
So you think part of the-
00:19:53.451 --> 00:19:54.632
Arturus Ward was one of the jurors,
00:19:54.692 --> 00:19:55.051
of course.
00:19:55.071 --> 00:19:57.433
Really?
00:19:57.473 --> 00:19:58.414
So he had been the commander
00:19:58.454 --> 00:20:00.256
of the- So Ward was, of course,
00:20:00.276 --> 00:20:01.457
the commander before Washington.
00:20:02.136 --> 00:20:02.417
Right, yeah.
00:20:04.192 --> 00:20:04.692
That's interesting.
00:20:04.874 --> 00:20:05.736
So you think there was this
00:20:05.796 --> 00:20:07.920
political animus against
00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:09.503
Bathsheba as the daughter
00:20:09.624 --> 00:20:11.067
of General Ruggles?
00:20:13.700 --> 00:20:14.599
It certainly suggested,
00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:15.840
Debra Navis in her book
00:20:16.201 --> 00:20:17.621
suggested that on the
00:20:17.641 --> 00:20:20.741
committee in Boston was Jonathan's,
00:20:20.781 --> 00:20:23.323
so Jonathan was Joshua's stepbrother,
00:20:23.823 --> 00:20:24.702
which may have swayed the
00:20:24.722 --> 00:20:26.284
committee to vote against
00:20:26.324 --> 00:20:27.064
the second exam.
00:20:27.584 --> 00:20:28.544
I don't think one person
00:20:28.564 --> 00:20:29.684
would have had that power
00:20:30.384 --> 00:20:32.205
to sway the committee,
00:20:32.705 --> 00:20:33.905
considering that in Boston
00:20:33.925 --> 00:20:35.266
at eighteen thousand people at the time.
00:20:35.286 --> 00:20:36.666
I mean, everybody knew everybody.
00:20:37.847 --> 00:20:38.488
So I think some may have
00:20:38.528 --> 00:20:39.808
fondly remembered Bathsheba
00:20:39.848 --> 00:20:40.769
and her father.
00:20:41.451 --> 00:20:42.310
So I don't think one person
00:20:42.330 --> 00:20:45.493
would have swayed them, who knows?
00:20:45.513 --> 00:20:46.094
I'm not entirely sure.
00:20:46.114 --> 00:20:49.037
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:20:49.057 --> 00:20:49.696
Can we talk a little bit
00:20:49.717 --> 00:20:51.038
about Timothy Revels?
00:20:51.097 --> 00:20:53.180
Because he's a prominent guy,
00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:54.882
a hero of the French and Indian War.
00:20:55.662 --> 00:20:57.723
And then he has this really
00:20:57.763 --> 00:20:59.885
precipitous fall from grace
00:21:00.266 --> 00:21:02.528
in the decade before the Revolution.
00:21:05.026 --> 00:21:05.145
Right.
00:21:06.406 --> 00:21:10.088
So he went with the Tory side.
00:21:11.449 --> 00:21:12.710
I really think had he not been a Tory,
00:21:12.730 --> 00:21:13.410
had he been a patriot,
00:21:13.430 --> 00:21:15.691
he'd be one of the founding fathers.
00:21:16.372 --> 00:21:17.692
But he chose back the wrong horse.
00:21:19.853 --> 00:21:20.653
Why do you suppose he did that?
00:21:20.673 --> 00:21:21.794
He became pretty vilified.
00:21:22.253 --> 00:21:23.795
He's been David's counselor also,
00:21:23.934 --> 00:21:24.615
one of the most hated
00:21:24.635 --> 00:21:26.155
people in Massachusetts in the
00:21:29.182 --> 00:21:30.501
So do we know much about why
00:21:30.521 --> 00:21:31.303
he chose to remain loyal?
00:21:31.363 --> 00:21:31.462
No.
00:21:32.843 --> 00:21:35.464
Do you know why he chose to remain loyal?
00:21:35.625 --> 00:21:36.345
Why he chose that sign?
00:21:36.365 --> 00:21:36.444
Yeah.
00:21:36.464 --> 00:21:41.728
He had always been a favor of the king.
00:21:41.748 --> 00:21:44.528
I don't know.
00:21:44.888 --> 00:21:46.769
He also had a very feisty personality.
00:21:47.549 --> 00:21:48.750
It's almost as though he
00:21:48.770 --> 00:21:49.330
would have enjoyed the
00:21:49.371 --> 00:21:51.132
fight to maintain himself as a Tory.
00:21:52.292 --> 00:21:54.433
Not just go along with the flow.
00:21:56.193 --> 00:21:56.954
I don't know that, but...
00:21:58.112 --> 00:22:00.233
He liked the challenge, certainly.
00:22:00.253 --> 00:22:02.096
Okay.
00:22:02.115 --> 00:22:02.236
Now,
00:22:02.276 --> 00:22:03.517
do you have any sense of what
00:22:03.576 --> 00:22:04.538
Bathsheba's political
00:22:04.577 --> 00:22:07.941
leanings might have been?
00:22:07.961 --> 00:22:09.362
The rumor was that she had
00:22:09.382 --> 00:22:11.103
been a Tory also.
00:22:11.763 --> 00:22:13.204
And she had said to several
00:22:13.244 --> 00:22:14.886
people that she always had
00:22:14.906 --> 00:22:16.167
a fondness for the King's soldiers.
00:22:16.407 --> 00:22:20.330
So she was likely a Tory.
00:22:20.351 --> 00:22:20.431
Now,
00:22:20.490 --> 00:22:22.292
do you think she did have an affair
00:22:22.313 --> 00:22:22.993
with Ezra Ross?
00:22:23.013 --> 00:22:23.673
I mean,
00:22:23.854 --> 00:22:25.095
do we know who was the father of
00:22:25.115 --> 00:22:25.536
her child?
00:22:27.130 --> 00:22:28.269
Yeah, so a week before,
00:22:28.869 --> 00:22:30.171
actually a few days before the execution,
00:22:30.230 --> 00:22:33.510
Ezra Ross confesses to a
00:22:33.570 --> 00:22:36.531
minister from Westboro that, in fact,
00:22:36.551 --> 00:22:37.711
he was the father of the child,
00:22:38.011 --> 00:22:39.632
and that the previous November,
00:22:39.692 --> 00:22:41.811
Bathsheba had asked if he'd
00:22:41.832 --> 00:22:43.353
be willing to defile her marriage bid.
00:22:43.373 --> 00:22:43.633
Interesting.
00:22:43.772 --> 00:22:46.393
Interesting.
00:22:46.413 --> 00:22:51.233
And apparently he did.
00:22:51.253 --> 00:22:52.574
We're talking with Andrew Noonan,
00:22:52.634 --> 00:22:53.733
author of Bathsheba's Spoon.
00:22:53.775 --> 00:22:54.275
At the meantime,
00:22:54.295 --> 00:22:55.055
he's sitting there with his
00:22:55.134 --> 00:22:56.454
pregnant girlfriend from Topsfield.
00:22:58.844 --> 00:22:59.625
Really?
00:22:59.684 --> 00:23:02.086
Interesting.
00:23:02.186 --> 00:23:02.267
Yeah.
00:23:02.287 --> 00:23:03.708
So the woman who was with him,
00:23:04.769 --> 00:23:05.429
Lucy McDonald,
00:23:06.369 --> 00:23:07.550
she was apparently staying
00:23:07.570 --> 00:23:13.335
at the Beeman Tavern in Boylston.
00:23:14.076 --> 00:23:17.278
And she, apparently, West Boylston,
00:23:17.659 --> 00:23:19.220
she left chalk drawings on
00:23:19.259 --> 00:23:21.582
the attic walls of the execution.
00:23:21.602 --> 00:23:21.721
Wow.
00:23:21.842 --> 00:23:24.223
Are they still there?
00:23:26.673 --> 00:23:26.932
They are.
00:23:27.333 --> 00:23:28.453
You see them by special permission.
00:23:29.594 --> 00:23:30.615
Really interesting.
00:23:30.714 --> 00:23:31.095
Interesting.
00:23:32.414 --> 00:23:33.215
They only discovered maybe
00:23:33.256 --> 00:23:33.796
thirty years ago.
00:23:34.236 --> 00:23:35.016
Forty, forty years ago.
00:23:36.017 --> 00:23:36.517
Interesting.
00:23:36.737 --> 00:23:38.657
So this was a big, such a big event.
00:23:38.678 --> 00:23:39.617
Someone's actually drawing
00:23:39.657 --> 00:23:41.318
pictures of it on the walls of a tavern.
00:23:41.338 --> 00:23:41.419
Sure.
00:23:41.598 --> 00:23:41.739
Yeah.
00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:46.020
That's astonishing.
00:23:46.401 --> 00:23:46.540
Now.
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:48.040
Because her boyfriend's being hanged.
00:23:50.402 --> 00:23:50.682
Wow.
00:23:50.722 --> 00:23:51.702
Does she have her child?
00:23:54.855 --> 00:23:56.915
I have not heard about that.
00:23:56.976 --> 00:23:57.395
I don't know.
00:23:58.296 --> 00:23:58.777
Interesting.
00:23:59.737 --> 00:24:01.917
Fascinating stories about this world.
00:24:01.978 --> 00:24:02.938
It makes us think of it in a
00:24:02.978 --> 00:24:03.778
much different way,
00:24:03.858 --> 00:24:05.878
knowing of all of this going on.
00:24:07.019 --> 00:24:08.519
All the drama.
00:24:09.401 --> 00:24:10.800
Yeah, it's tremendous drama.
00:24:12.201 --> 00:24:13.862
Now, is there a sense, I mean,
00:24:13.882 --> 00:24:15.363
just going through the
00:24:15.403 --> 00:24:16.723
literature that's come out, I mean,
00:24:16.824 --> 00:24:19.904
your book, the other books on this,
00:24:20.204 --> 00:24:22.006
do you sense that...
00:24:23.685 --> 00:24:24.726
Beth Sheba is a more
00:24:24.786 --> 00:24:26.186
sympathetic character to us
00:24:26.247 --> 00:24:26.987
now than she would have
00:24:27.007 --> 00:24:31.647
been in the seventeen seventies.
00:24:31.708 --> 00:24:33.848
I think with current psychiatry,
00:24:33.868 --> 00:24:35.088
she would have been declared insane.
00:24:35.128 --> 00:24:37.990
I think that may have caused
00:24:38.009 --> 00:24:39.250
us to look at her more sympathetically.
00:24:41.490 --> 00:24:42.672
I think she had her father's personality.
00:24:42.692 --> 00:24:43.392
She was very willful.
00:24:45.741 --> 00:24:46.742
She had to deal with that
00:24:46.762 --> 00:24:47.742
willful personality in the
00:24:47.762 --> 00:24:48.884
context of being a woman in
00:24:48.903 --> 00:24:49.785
seventeen seventy eight.
00:24:50.484 --> 00:24:51.365
What were outlets?
00:24:51.806 --> 00:24:54.067
And I think if she were clinically insane,
00:24:55.648 --> 00:24:58.069
she opted for the worst outlets, maybe.
00:24:58.089 --> 00:25:00.291
Yeah.
00:25:00.332 --> 00:25:01.313
She might have been a
00:25:01.333 --> 00:25:02.913
reality TV star at some
00:25:03.013 --> 00:25:06.016
other outlet for this personality.
00:25:06.916 --> 00:25:07.896
Do you know what she looked like?
00:25:07.916 --> 00:25:09.498
Apparently she was also a willful person.
00:25:09.518 --> 00:25:09.698
Really?
00:25:09.718 --> 00:25:09.778
OK.
00:25:10.138 --> 00:25:10.278
Yeah.
00:25:10.378 --> 00:25:10.459
Yeah.
00:25:12.888 --> 00:25:14.189
I've just been reading some
00:25:14.229 --> 00:25:15.650
of the other things written about this.
00:25:15.690 --> 00:25:17.289
And sometimes Joshua is portrayed.
00:25:17.390 --> 00:25:18.790
I saw one that said he's elderly,
00:25:18.851 --> 00:25:19.651
but he's only three years
00:25:19.711 --> 00:25:21.811
older than she is.
00:25:21.912 --> 00:25:22.432
Exactly right.
00:25:22.451 --> 00:25:23.192
That was the old legend.
00:25:23.231 --> 00:25:24.152
He's a cranky old man.
00:25:24.672 --> 00:25:24.892
Not true.
00:25:24.912 --> 00:25:24.951
No,
00:25:24.971 --> 00:25:27.553
but you said the only time he's
00:25:27.593 --> 00:25:28.192
portrayed.
00:25:31.513 --> 00:25:33.414
People, he's described as cranky.
00:25:33.795 --> 00:25:34.055
But again,
00:25:34.075 --> 00:25:35.275
the only time we hear from
00:25:35.335 --> 00:25:36.415
Joshua is when he's about
00:25:36.455 --> 00:25:37.796
to be stolen from or
00:25:37.855 --> 00:25:38.655
someone stealing something
00:25:39.056 --> 00:25:40.517
or someone's about to kill him.
00:25:40.537 --> 00:25:41.356
How would you and I look?
00:25:42.300 --> 00:25:43.320
Well, that's very true.
00:25:43.401 --> 00:25:44.842
It's not your best moment.
00:25:44.882 --> 00:25:46.823
And do we have any sense of
00:25:46.863 --> 00:25:49.063
his political where things
00:25:49.103 --> 00:25:50.243
fall out for him?
00:25:50.864 --> 00:25:51.544
He was on the local
00:25:51.564 --> 00:25:52.944
committee of correspondence in Bookfield.
00:25:53.285 --> 00:25:54.144
So he's likely a patriot.
00:25:54.164 --> 00:25:56.806
OK, yeah, I think so.
00:25:57.346 --> 00:26:00.207
And so it's a fascinating story.
00:26:00.567 --> 00:26:03.048
And now you're actually working.
00:26:03.667 --> 00:26:06.169
You had a long career as a music teacher,
00:26:06.189 --> 00:26:07.789
a music and
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:09.882
teacher and now you've
00:26:09.922 --> 00:26:11.083
turned to writing history
00:26:11.103 --> 00:26:11.624
and you have another
00:26:11.663 --> 00:26:12.464
project you were just
00:26:12.505 --> 00:26:13.626
telling me about about
00:26:13.686 --> 00:26:16.010
another high-profile case
00:26:16.030 --> 00:26:17.251
in massachusetts which also
00:26:17.291 --> 00:26:19.496
invites levi lincoln and
00:26:19.655 --> 00:26:21.137
others the pop walker can
00:26:21.178 --> 00:26:22.420
tell us a bit about that project
00:26:24.173 --> 00:26:24.673
Right.
00:26:24.692 --> 00:26:29.056
So in seventeen eighty, Kwok Walker,
00:26:29.175 --> 00:26:29.756
eighty one actually,
00:26:30.057 --> 00:26:32.478
Kwok Walker was an enslaved man in Barry,
00:26:32.498 --> 00:26:33.178
Massachusetts,
00:26:33.638 --> 00:26:34.979
escaped from his brutal master.
00:26:36.660 --> 00:26:39.902
Walker, apparently from an attorney friend,
00:26:40.323 --> 00:26:41.782
was aware of the fact that
00:26:41.823 --> 00:26:42.983
Massachusetts had passed,
00:26:43.364 --> 00:26:45.184
had declared all men are
00:26:45.204 --> 00:26:45.846
free and equal in the
00:26:45.885 --> 00:26:47.227
Constitution from the year earlier.
00:26:48.419 --> 00:26:50.942
He escaped from his brutal master,
00:26:51.221 --> 00:26:52.384
went to work as a free man
00:26:52.663 --> 00:26:53.464
at a nearby farm.
00:26:54.326 --> 00:26:55.508
His old master caught up with him,
00:26:56.188 --> 00:26:56.848
beat him severely,
00:26:56.989 --> 00:26:58.391
dragged him back to his old farm,
00:26:58.711 --> 00:26:59.893
locked him in a sawmill.
00:27:00.634 --> 00:27:02.214
Somehow his escape was negotiated,
00:27:02.236 --> 00:27:04.778
or his release, I should say.
00:27:06.138 --> 00:27:08.661
He made it back to his free
00:27:08.681 --> 00:27:10.182
employer who decided to
00:27:10.241 --> 00:27:12.182
hire Levi Lincoln as his attorney.
00:27:13.002 --> 00:27:14.163
Eventually it became a test
00:27:14.203 --> 00:27:15.805
case against slavery in Massachusetts.
00:27:16.244 --> 00:27:17.185
And after several court
00:27:17.465 --> 00:27:19.686
decisions in seventeen eighty three,
00:27:20.008 --> 00:27:20.807
slavery was declared
00:27:20.827 --> 00:27:22.229
illegal based on his case.
00:27:22.729 --> 00:27:24.150
It didn't disappear magically.
00:27:24.390 --> 00:27:25.810
It peed out in the state.
00:27:26.290 --> 00:27:27.471
But this was really the last
00:27:27.531 --> 00:27:28.732
judicial nail in the coffin
00:27:29.292 --> 00:27:30.213
in the Worcester courthouse.
00:27:30.794 --> 00:27:32.174
Interesting.
00:27:32.194 --> 00:27:32.555
It's fascinating.
00:27:32.575 --> 00:27:33.855
I'm also tying in the story of Mumbet.
00:27:33.875 --> 00:27:35.076
Mumbet was an enslaved woman
00:27:35.096 --> 00:27:36.355
from Sheffield, Massachusetts.
00:27:37.276 --> 00:27:38.517
She was freed the same year
00:27:38.557 --> 00:27:39.237
that Quack Walker was.
00:27:39.257 --> 00:27:39.537
Interesting.
00:27:39.576 --> 00:27:39.936
Fascinating.
00:27:39.957 --> 00:27:40.116
I mean,
00:27:40.137 --> 00:27:45.799
these different events happening in
00:27:45.819 --> 00:27:46.720
the courts in Worcester.
00:27:46.900 --> 00:27:49.221
Now, you must be enjoying writing history.
00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:52.561
Yeah, I enjoy Worcester history.
00:27:53.162 --> 00:27:54.962
And I like to publicize it.
00:27:54.982 --> 00:27:56.163
It hasn't gotten enough publicity.
00:27:56.223 --> 00:27:56.644
And of course,
00:27:56.683 --> 00:27:57.544
I especially love the period
00:27:57.564 --> 00:27:58.223
of the Revolution.
00:27:58.304 --> 00:27:59.765
So these two stories were natural.
00:28:00.810 --> 00:28:01.471
Yeah, I mean,
00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:02.711
it really is a lot of great
00:28:02.731 --> 00:28:03.632
things happening there.
00:28:04.251 --> 00:28:05.092
And this,
00:28:05.272 --> 00:28:07.833
if we can get back to the Bathsheba case,
00:28:07.873 --> 00:28:11.273
I'm wondering if this
00:28:11.314 --> 00:28:13.275
doesn't catch a lot of attention.
00:28:13.714 --> 00:28:16.096
And I'm wondering if people
00:28:16.115 --> 00:28:17.797
like Abigail Adams comment
00:28:17.856 --> 00:28:18.817
on this or others,
00:28:18.836 --> 00:28:20.116
do you get any sense of it
00:28:20.156 --> 00:28:22.557
being played out in other areas,
00:28:22.617 --> 00:28:26.199
aside from just from Worcester?
00:28:26.259 --> 00:28:27.000
And I mentioned the book.
00:28:28.248 --> 00:28:29.769
As I was writing the book, of course,
00:28:29.788 --> 00:28:30.930
a few people were as astute
00:28:30.970 --> 00:28:31.869
politically as Abigail
00:28:31.910 --> 00:28:32.590
Adams in the state.
00:28:33.010 --> 00:28:33.771
And I thought of all her
00:28:33.791 --> 00:28:34.592
diaries and letters,
00:28:34.612 --> 00:28:35.633
she had to have written something.
00:28:36.192 --> 00:28:37.634
And I dug out a quote that
00:28:37.953 --> 00:28:40.175
refers to crimes of the
00:28:40.215 --> 00:28:41.395
past and the crimes of
00:28:41.435 --> 00:28:42.737
today being just as vicious.
00:28:43.478 --> 00:28:44.337
After I finished the book,
00:28:44.417 --> 00:28:46.619
I discovered that Bathsheba was, in fact,
00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:48.240
John Adams' second cousin.
00:28:48.300 --> 00:28:49.622
They had the same great-grandparents.
00:28:50.402 --> 00:28:51.383
So there's no question in my
00:28:51.423 --> 00:28:52.824
mind that Adams was
00:28:52.844 --> 00:28:55.045
referring to the case in that letter.
00:28:55.065 --> 00:28:56.705
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:57.247 --> 00:28:57.626
Yeah,
00:28:57.646 --> 00:28:58.667
it is interesting with all the
00:28:58.788 --> 00:29:01.069
connections among these different people,
00:29:01.349 --> 00:29:02.151
because it is a really
00:29:02.811 --> 00:29:04.032
pretty much an enclosed
00:29:04.073 --> 00:29:07.295
society or an insular society.
00:29:07.335 --> 00:29:09.136
John Adams had been a
00:29:09.156 --> 00:29:09.896
teacher in Worcester.
00:29:10.097 --> 00:29:11.499
He trains as an attorney in Worcester.
00:29:12.078 --> 00:29:13.800
He certainly would have, um, uh,
00:29:13.820 --> 00:29:16.623
fought cases in the Worcester courthouse.
00:29:17.242 --> 00:29:18.044
So he's familiar with the area.
00:29:18.064 --> 00:29:18.163
Yeah.
00:29:20.586 --> 00:29:21.007
And then again,
00:29:21.047 --> 00:29:21.826
he would also have known
00:29:21.886 --> 00:29:23.608
Robert treat pain and John
00:29:23.648 --> 00:29:26.351
Hancock and others, um, Levi Lincoln.
00:29:27.288 --> 00:29:28.429
as well as William Cushing
00:29:28.628 --> 00:29:30.151
and Jedediah Foster.
00:29:32.073 --> 00:29:33.114
And Sam Adams was in town
00:29:33.134 --> 00:29:34.315
just a week after the
00:29:35.115 --> 00:29:35.756
Battles of Lexington and
00:29:35.816 --> 00:29:37.057
Concord with John Hancock.
00:29:37.076 --> 00:29:38.417
So you may have known him as well.
00:29:38.598 --> 00:29:39.538
Well, of course, it's his cousin.
00:29:39.558 --> 00:29:40.160
I'm sure you know him.
00:29:40.440 --> 00:29:42.701
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:42.721 --> 00:29:43.823
Lister had a very important
00:29:43.883 --> 00:29:45.944
role in the revolution.
00:29:45.964 --> 00:29:47.086
You have Isaiah Thomas there,
00:29:47.145 --> 00:29:48.807
plus it's such a crossroads.
00:29:50.030 --> 00:29:51.672
And I mentioned in seventeen seventy four,
00:29:51.712 --> 00:29:52.272
the takeover of the
00:29:52.313 --> 00:29:53.114
Worcester courthouse for
00:29:53.153 --> 00:29:54.994
forty six hundred farmers
00:29:55.215 --> 00:29:56.195
around the courthouse
00:29:56.616 --> 00:29:57.597
forced the British judges
00:29:57.718 --> 00:29:59.819
out and they took over.
00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:01.161
In many ways, it's been suggested,
00:30:01.240 --> 00:30:02.241
as Ray Raphael had
00:30:02.281 --> 00:30:04.763
suggested a generation ago in California,
00:30:05.144 --> 00:30:06.685
that the takeover of the
00:30:06.705 --> 00:30:07.546
Worcester courthouse is in
00:30:07.586 --> 00:30:09.067
some ways the beginning of the revolution,
00:30:09.508 --> 00:30:09.948
not the war.
00:30:10.669 --> 00:30:11.689
But if you take over a
00:30:11.749 --> 00:30:13.490
government permanently,
00:30:14.009 --> 00:30:15.050
and considering that Boston
00:30:16.531 --> 00:30:17.571
did not permanently exile
00:30:17.592 --> 00:30:19.353
the British until March the seventeenth,
00:30:19.393 --> 00:30:20.232
seventeen seventy six,
00:30:20.772 --> 00:30:22.153
but Worcester a year and a
00:30:22.173 --> 00:30:23.835
half before then had done the same.
00:30:25.015 --> 00:30:25.855
So, yeah,
00:30:25.955 --> 00:30:27.375
they were viewed as radicals by
00:30:27.435 --> 00:30:28.616
General Gage in Boston.
00:30:29.817 --> 00:30:31.778
He sent spies, of course, months before.
00:30:32.518 --> 00:30:33.278
Battles of Lexington and
00:30:33.298 --> 00:30:35.038
Concord to Worcester to map out the town.
00:30:35.419 --> 00:30:36.519
A week before the battle,
00:30:36.939 --> 00:30:38.538
he sent another spy to
00:30:38.578 --> 00:30:39.759
check out routes in and out.
00:30:40.819 --> 00:30:41.180
So, yeah,
00:30:41.259 --> 00:30:42.859
it was definitely a hotbed of activity.
00:30:43.221 --> 00:30:45.421
And I think also being inland, you know,
00:30:45.461 --> 00:30:47.162
towns like Quincy, Salem, Boston,
00:30:47.182 --> 00:30:48.382
there were British soldiers everywhere.
00:30:49.801 --> 00:30:51.363
Worcester was a safe forty miles distant,
00:30:51.742 --> 00:30:52.542
so a lot of the radicals
00:30:52.583 --> 00:30:53.383
made their way inland.
00:30:53.403 --> 00:30:54.624
And Gage apparently had some
00:30:57.574 --> 00:30:59.154
plan to send troops out to Worcester,
00:30:59.194 --> 00:31:00.595
but chooses Concord instead
00:31:00.615 --> 00:31:03.135
being closer and easier to get to.
00:31:03.175 --> 00:31:04.395
So following that meeting,
00:31:05.195 --> 00:31:06.496
following the last visit by
00:31:06.836 --> 00:31:07.977
the spy a week before,
00:31:08.037 --> 00:31:08.876
Lexington and Concord
00:31:09.696 --> 00:31:11.037
gauged the two previous
00:31:11.057 --> 00:31:12.198
spies in the new spy
00:31:12.617 --> 00:31:13.597
gathered in Boston and
00:31:13.637 --> 00:31:15.298
discussed who should we choose,
00:31:15.337 --> 00:31:16.199
Concord or Worcester.
00:31:16.638 --> 00:31:19.538
Concord being twenty miles away, excuse me,
00:31:19.618 --> 00:31:21.279
topographically being more accessible.
00:31:22.788 --> 00:31:24.849
And Worcester, being forty miles,
00:31:25.770 --> 00:31:26.912
being a hilly approach from
00:31:26.971 --> 00:31:27.813
Westboro forward,
00:31:28.493 --> 00:31:29.575
and also the fact that Gage
00:31:29.595 --> 00:31:30.335
considered Worcester's
00:31:31.616 --> 00:31:32.376
Patriots to be the most
00:31:32.436 --> 00:31:33.198
radical in the state.
00:31:33.638 --> 00:31:35.299
He couldn't imagine marching forty miles,
00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:36.020
seizing Cannon,
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:37.541
and marching back to Boston.
00:31:38.784 --> 00:31:39.503
Yeah.
00:31:39.523 --> 00:31:40.045
Conqueror was chosen.
00:31:41.630 --> 00:31:43.070
It would have been a much different story.
00:31:44.392 --> 00:31:45.613
Anything else we should talk about,
00:31:45.873 --> 00:31:46.032
Andrew?
00:31:46.053 --> 00:31:47.233
It's a fascinating story,
00:31:47.273 --> 00:31:48.034
and you've told it very
00:31:48.054 --> 00:31:49.095
well in your book.
00:31:49.375 --> 00:31:51.896
Andrew Noon's book is Bathsheba Spooner,
00:31:51.916 --> 00:31:53.597
A Revolutionary Murder Mystery,
00:31:54.898 --> 00:31:56.500
about this murder in February of,
00:31:56.660 --> 00:31:58.501
and the subsequent
00:31:58.662 --> 00:32:00.883
execution of the four people involved,
00:32:00.942 --> 00:32:03.964
and the political and
00:32:04.164 --> 00:32:05.846
social implications of all of this.
00:32:05.886 --> 00:32:06.866
Anything else we should talk
00:32:06.886 --> 00:32:09.409
about before we... I would
00:32:09.429 --> 00:32:10.289
like to learn more about
00:32:11.345 --> 00:32:12.286
her siblings and their
00:32:12.326 --> 00:32:13.826
reaction to it all the only
00:32:13.866 --> 00:32:15.028
real scenes we hear from
00:32:15.288 --> 00:32:16.509
are Chris her favorite
00:32:16.529 --> 00:32:19.291
sister who took her body uh
00:32:19.311 --> 00:32:20.953
and um Martha Tufts was
00:32:21.034 --> 00:32:22.434
also a sister in Brookfield
00:32:22.494 --> 00:32:23.536
who took the children for a
00:32:23.556 --> 00:32:25.136
short time after execution
00:32:25.597 --> 00:32:26.377
we don't hear about anybody
00:32:26.438 --> 00:32:28.039
else were they present or
00:32:28.059 --> 00:32:29.080
their reactions were they
00:32:29.101 --> 00:32:30.501
moving politically to
00:32:30.541 --> 00:32:32.483
change anything I don't know interesting
00:32:34.517 --> 00:32:36.698
And so it's a park she's buried in,
00:32:36.778 --> 00:32:38.179
it's not a burying ground, or is it?
00:32:38.239 --> 00:32:38.439
Right.
00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:41.961
So the Green family moved to
00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:43.342
the park in the seventeen fifties.
00:32:43.942 --> 00:32:45.202
In nineteen oh five,
00:32:45.242 --> 00:32:46.263
the park was essentially
00:32:46.284 --> 00:32:48.265
given to the city.
00:32:48.444 --> 00:32:49.766
She was buried somewhere in the park.
00:32:49.986 --> 00:32:50.586
No one knows where.
00:32:50.945 --> 00:32:51.106
Again,
00:32:51.126 --> 00:32:53.228
they would not have marked the grave,
00:32:53.268 --> 00:32:53.688
I don't think,
00:32:53.728 --> 00:32:55.028
to keep curiosity seekers away.
00:32:55.969 --> 00:32:57.250
Several sites have been suggested,
00:32:57.309 --> 00:32:57.910
but of course,
00:32:57.930 --> 00:32:58.930
two and a half centuries later,
00:32:59.529 --> 00:33:02.191
as the Greens added parkland, you know,
00:33:02.671 --> 00:33:04.152
fields and forests over the years,
00:33:04.571 --> 00:33:05.771
one field becomes forest,
00:33:05.811 --> 00:33:07.413
forest becomes fields over the centuries.
00:33:07.893 --> 00:33:08.913
So trying to find the spot
00:33:09.252 --> 00:33:10.334
would be the next impossible.
00:33:10.354 --> 00:33:11.993
Now,
00:33:12.013 --> 00:33:13.694
there is a marker on the site of the
00:33:13.755 --> 00:33:16.134
well.
00:33:16.255 --> 00:33:17.016
Yes, in Brookfield.
00:33:17.476 --> 00:33:18.655
So the Bicentennial
00:33:18.675 --> 00:33:19.855
Commission in Brookfield put that up,
00:33:19.875 --> 00:33:20.135
of course, in
00:33:22.707 --> 00:33:23.467
That's fascinating.
00:33:23.487 --> 00:33:24.887
So this is marked at the
00:33:24.907 --> 00:33:26.008
time of the bicentennial,
00:33:26.028 --> 00:33:27.949
the well that Joshua
00:33:27.969 --> 00:33:30.269
Spooner's body was found in.
00:33:30.289 --> 00:33:30.509
Right.
00:33:30.809 --> 00:33:32.450
So the home came down
00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:33.891
probably in the eighteen fifties or so.
00:33:34.250 --> 00:33:34.750
The barn,
00:33:35.250 --> 00:33:36.811
I'm guessing around the nineteen
00:33:36.852 --> 00:33:37.311
thirties.
00:33:37.692 --> 00:33:38.951
So all that remains is the well kept.
00:33:39.731 --> 00:33:40.712
Who was living in the house
00:33:40.772 --> 00:33:42.673
after the death, the death of?
00:33:42.952 --> 00:33:43.854
That's a really good question.
00:33:45.574 --> 00:33:46.714
I'm not sure anybody was.
00:33:48.455 --> 00:33:49.998
I'm not sure about that.
00:33:50.198 --> 00:33:51.559
So one of Bathsheba's
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:52.922
sisters took the children.
00:33:53.221 --> 00:33:57.406
And they were adopted temporarily by her.
00:33:58.608 --> 00:33:59.849
After she had them, I don't know.
00:34:00.351 --> 00:34:01.231
I'm not sure how long she had them.
00:34:02.682 --> 00:34:04.001
Is there anything remaining?
00:34:04.082 --> 00:34:06.242
No, go on, Andrew.
00:34:06.343 --> 00:34:07.042
I'm sorry.
00:34:07.063 --> 00:34:07.624
There was a rumor.
00:34:07.703 --> 00:34:08.643
I read one book suggested
00:34:08.664 --> 00:34:09.704
that an uncle in Virginia
00:34:09.764 --> 00:34:10.505
adopted the children.
00:34:10.945 --> 00:34:11.945
I've seen no evidence about that.
00:34:12.284 --> 00:34:12.764
It's possible.
00:34:13.806 --> 00:34:13.925
Yeah,
00:34:13.945 --> 00:34:15.666
because by all the evidence shows
00:34:15.686 --> 00:34:17.106
they stayed in New England.
00:34:17.126 --> 00:34:17.586
In Massachusetts.
00:34:17.766 --> 00:34:18.746
In Massachusetts, yeah.
00:34:19.608 --> 00:34:20.708
What about the Ruggles estate?
00:34:20.748 --> 00:34:21.768
Is there anything remaining
00:34:21.807 --> 00:34:23.248
of Timothy Ruggles' estate?
00:34:25.909 --> 00:34:26.869
His Hardwick estate,
00:34:27.550 --> 00:34:29.391
which was a couple hundred acres, that...
00:34:30.271 --> 00:34:31.331
no buildings will ever
00:34:31.351 --> 00:34:32.853
survive there are a few um
00:34:33.092 --> 00:34:34.273
field stones I think
00:34:34.414 --> 00:34:35.673
ironically his well also
00:34:35.713 --> 00:34:36.655
survives I think in
00:34:36.715 --> 00:34:39.297
hartwick uh I don't know
00:34:39.317 --> 00:34:40.978
about his home in wilmot I
00:34:41.038 --> 00:34:42.117
doubt if that still stands
00:34:42.518 --> 00:34:43.838
there's a memorial marker
00:34:44.460 --> 00:34:45.260
uh near where his home
00:34:45.280 --> 00:34:47.842
stood in scotia um
00:34:48.342 --> 00:34:49.282
bathsheba's birthplace
00:34:49.322 --> 00:34:51.143
still stands in sandwich
00:34:51.864 --> 00:34:52.143
Really?
00:34:52.284 --> 00:34:52.804
Okay.
00:34:52.824 --> 00:34:53.125
Yeah.
00:34:53.144 --> 00:34:53.425
And of course,
00:34:53.445 --> 00:34:54.186
the courthouse in Worcester
00:34:54.206 --> 00:34:54.746
is still standing.
00:34:55.666 --> 00:34:55.967
Right.
00:34:55.987 --> 00:34:58.327
So there are some sites.
00:34:58.387 --> 00:34:59.429
Was the Ruggles property
00:34:59.469 --> 00:35:01.630
seized by Massachusetts?
00:35:01.690 --> 00:35:02.170
Yes, it was.
00:35:02.190 --> 00:35:05.692
Everything was sold off at auction.
00:35:05.731 --> 00:35:07.012
His widow was allowed a
00:35:07.052 --> 00:35:08.253
small piece of land to stand.
00:35:09.286 --> 00:35:11.507
So she stayed here?
00:35:11.547 --> 00:35:12.469
She stayed in Hardwick.
00:35:12.929 --> 00:35:14.472
Her tombstone's in Hardwick Cemetery.
00:35:15.271 --> 00:35:15.773
Interesting.
00:35:15.833 --> 00:35:16.414
That's interesting.
00:35:17.594 --> 00:35:19.177
We've been talking with Andrew Noon,
00:35:19.356 --> 00:35:20.777
author of Beth Sheba Spooner,
00:35:20.797 --> 00:35:22.460
A Revolutionary Murder Mystery,
00:35:23.501 --> 00:35:24.581
now available,
00:35:24.862 --> 00:35:26.603
and forthcoming book on
00:35:26.664 --> 00:35:28.847
Falk Walker and Mumbet.
00:35:29.688 --> 00:35:30.887
and other projects.
00:35:31.007 --> 00:35:32.929
It's really great to see you
00:35:32.989 --> 00:35:34.588
turning to writing history
00:35:34.708 --> 00:35:35.650
after a distinguished
00:35:35.670 --> 00:35:37.090
career doing something else.
00:35:37.269 --> 00:35:37.949
And you're also involved
00:35:37.969 --> 00:35:38.510
with the American
00:35:38.550 --> 00:35:39.650
Antiquarian Society and
00:35:39.670 --> 00:35:40.710
various history
00:35:40.751 --> 00:35:42.110
organizations in Worcester.
00:35:42.871 --> 00:35:43.010
Right.
00:35:43.030 --> 00:35:45.331
Yeah.
00:35:45.391 --> 00:35:46.431
There's so much unknown
00:35:46.472 --> 00:35:47.692
history to dig out.
00:35:47.711 --> 00:35:48.793
It's fascinating.
00:35:49.132 --> 00:35:49.512
There is.
00:35:49.532 --> 00:35:50.072
There really is.
00:35:50.512 --> 00:35:52.514
It can keep us all busy for a long time.
00:35:52.534 --> 00:35:55.853
So thank you so much for joining us,
00:35:55.934 --> 00:35:56.195
Andrew.
00:35:56.215 --> 00:35:57.014
It's been fun talking to you.
00:35:57.034 --> 00:35:57.394
Thank you, Bob.
00:35:57.434 --> 00:35:57.974
I enjoyed it.
00:35:58.702 --> 00:36:00.023
And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
00:36:00.043 --> 00:36:00.724
our producer.
00:36:00.804 --> 00:36:03.485
And if you want to send Jonathan an email,
00:36:03.965 --> 00:36:05.447
it's jlane at revolution
00:36:05.487 --> 00:36:06.387
two fifty dot org.
00:36:06.706 --> 00:36:07.447
They'll send you some
00:36:07.487 --> 00:36:08.887
Revolution two fifty swag.
00:36:08.927 --> 00:36:09.889
If you have ideas for things
00:36:09.909 --> 00:36:11.028
you'd like to hear on the podcast,
00:36:11.048 --> 00:36:12.530
we really appreciate those
00:36:12.550 --> 00:36:13.831
of you who have been writing in.
00:36:14.523 --> 00:36:16.244
And I want to thank our
00:36:16.304 --> 00:36:17.764
listeners around the world.
00:36:17.824 --> 00:36:19.144
Every week we thank some in
00:36:19.204 --> 00:36:20.105
different places.
00:36:20.144 --> 00:36:21.365
So this week,
00:36:21.445 --> 00:36:23.086
let's give a shout out to our
00:36:23.126 --> 00:36:24.646
friends in Detroit and our
00:36:24.686 --> 00:36:26.367
friends in Thailand and our
00:36:26.407 --> 00:36:29.128
friends in Goose Creek, South Carolina,
00:36:29.568 --> 00:36:31.289
all places between and beyond.
00:36:31.309 --> 00:36:32.411
And now we'll be piped out
00:36:32.471 --> 00:36:33.231
on the road to Boston.