Wheeler: The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and Justice in Early America
- Author: Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown
- SKU: 7298
- ISBN:
- Our Price:
$24.26
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Description:
In 1806, a crowd descended upon the town of Lenox, Mass, for the hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, the first man to be hanged in a quarter of a century for rape. Wheeler was an impoverished, illiterate, failed farmer married into a tumultuous mixed race family. Condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy, Wheeler maintained his innocence and convinced over one hundred local citizens to petition for his pardon - including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother.
The authors used the trial report and Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history and reconstruct this tragic tale. This is an unforgettable story of morality and justice in early Massachusetts.
Hardcover, 400 pp. 2003
