THE AMES MURDER PT4

In the list of witnesses called during the trial of Jonathan
Eames and his mother Elizabeth there is listed “Elizabeth,
wife of Richard Kimball.” There is a marriage between an
Elizabeth Secton or Seeton of Lunenberg and Richard Kimbal,
at Lunenberg, recorded in the Boxford Vital Records that took
place on 23 Jan 1750(1751). She would have been slightly older
than Ruth Perley Eames but closer in age to her than the senior
Mrs. Eames. It’s my guess she is the “Mrs. Kimball” who raised
the suspicions of the townsfolk over Ruth’s mysterious death.


As I’ve said previously, after their acquittal the Eames family
eventually sold their farm and left town. It must have been a
difficult time for Jonathan Eames Sr. who doesn’t seem to have
figured at all in the trial. I’ve been hunting around on the net the
past few nights but have yet to come up with where the family
eventually relocated.

So far I’ve been searching for any Essex County traces but they
might have gone further away than that. A few generations
before the children of the executed Mary Townes Estey had
moved either out of Essex County or left Massachusetts entirely.
Elizabeth Eames had a brother living in Farmington, Me. Perhaps
that was far enough away to escape the scandal’s shame?


The “not guilty” verdict would seem to be puzzling given the
apparent belief by their neighbors that Jonathan and Elizabeth
had murdered poor Ruth. But there was no solid physical evidence
to prove their guilt and perhaps memories of the innocents who’d
been sent to their deaths at Salem the century before might have
played a part. The Eames had been held up to public scrutiny and
afterwards were so shunned that they removed themselves from
the town.

In the end that would have to satisfy their accusers.

Finally, I do have to say that finding out that a relative, even a
distant one, was defended by John Adams …wow…how cool is that?

THE AMES MURDER PT2

((Originally published in March 2007))


Jonathan Ames Jr. married Ruth Perley on Dec 19th, 1768 and
took his new bride home to live in his parents house which might
very well have been the same one built by Robert (E)Ames. The
story goes that, as often happens with newlyweds, the bride and
mother in law didn't seem to get along very well. The couple’s
first child was born in May in 1769 and there was no sign of
anything out of the ordinary until the morning of June 5th when
a neighbor, Mrs. Kimball, came to call on the young wife and was
informed by the elder Mrs. Ames that Ruth was ill.



Despite Mrs. Ames’ objections Mrs. Kimball insisted on seeing
Ruth and found the younger woman in agony and frothing at the
mouth. The illness has begun at 7 am in the morning and within
four or five hours Ruth Perley Ames was dead. The funeral and
burial was swift and the townsfolk of Boxford became highly
suspicious of the cause of the young bride’s death. They petitioned
for a coroner’s inquest and on July 10th the proceedings began
looking into whether Ruth had been poisoned.


It’s not my intention to recount the whole story. It can be read
here in the article from the Essex Antiquarian. But I did want to
point out some interesting aspects of the case. It’s probably the
last recorded instance of the medieval custom of “ordeal by
touch” in New England if not in America as a whole. Briefly, the
accused was made to touch the corpse’s neck with the index finger
of his left hand. If the touch caused the body to bleed at the point
of contact then the accused was guilty. There had been insufficient
evidence presented so far and apparently the townsfolk or one of
the jury proposed that Jonathan Ames and his mother be put to
the test with the exhumed body of Ruth Perley Ames.


Both Jonathan and his mother refused to take part in the ordeal
and so were taken off to jail in nearby Salem where a grand jury
indicted Mrs. Ames for murder and Jonathan as her accessory.
On November 9th Jonathan’s sister Elizabeth was also arrested
as an accessory and the trial began in Superior Court on November
14th.


The account of the trial reads almost like an episode of Law &
Order. The Crown was represented by Jonathan Sewall. The
accused was represented by Sewall’s old friend and fellow law
student, John Adams. By this time Jonathan had turned King's
Evidence against his mother and accused her of killing Ruth by
poisoning her with “rats bane”. There were four judges who
heard the case, three of whom seemed to feel the evidence was
sufficient for a guilty verdict. The fourth judge was unconvinced
due to the uncertainty of physicians as to whether it had indeed
been “rat’s bane“ (or arsenic as we now call it ) that had killed
the victim and also because it was not certain who administered
the poison in the first place.


The trial lasted late into the night and the jury got the case at 2am
on November 15th. At 9am, they came back with a verdict: Not
guilty. The Ames family was freed but would soon after leave town.


So, what relation is Jonathan Ames to me? What of the identity of
his mother, known only in the Antiquarian account as “Elizabeth
Ames”? Where did they all go to when they left Boxford in
shame? And what of Mrs. Kimball?

THE AMES MURDER PT1

((I originally posted this series back in March 2007. Since
there was an echo of  the witchcraft hysteria in it, I thought
I'd revisit it for Halloween)) 

I was surfing through the US GenWeb’s Essex County site
the other night and came across a reference to a murder
in Boxford Ma. It happened in 1769 and involved a Jonathan
Ames who was accused of murdering his wife Ruth(Perley)
and involved testimony by a neighbor, a Mrs. Kimball.



This got my attention quickly. My 3x great grandmother was
Arvilla Ames and she was a descendant of Priscilla Kimball.
The Ames or Eames line is one of my favorites because the
family has been part of interesting events in New England
Colonial history. Robert (E)Ames, whose ancestry is unknown,
married Rebecca Blake who was one of those convicted of
witchcraft in the Salem witch hysteria. She later was given a
reprieve and the couple lived out their lives in the town of
Boxford.


Their son John married Priscilla Kimball, the daughter of
Thomas Kimball and Mary Smith The Kimball family was
living in Rowley Ma. when they were attacked by Indians on
May 2nd ,1676. Thomas was killed and Mary and their five
children, including Priscilla, were taken captive for forty-one
days before the chief of the Pennacook tribe persuaded the
raiding Indians to release their captives.


Priscilla grew to adulthood and married John Ames. They
hada farm in Boxford but they sold it in March of 1715 or 1716
and moved to Groton, Ma. John was standing one day at the
front door of what is referred to as “his garrison” (Was this
simply a fortified farmhouse or a trading post sort of building?)
when he was shot by an Indian on July 9th, 1724. He is said to
have been the last man slain by an Indian in Groton although
there appears to be some debate over that.


The Indian who was presumed to be the murderer was killed
in turn by Jacob Ames, John and Priscilla’s second oldest son.

So as you see, the Ames and Kimballs had gone through some
trying times already. When I ran across the reference of an
article in the Essex Antiquarian on a murder involving Jonathan
Ames and someone named Kimball, I had to look into it to see
how it related to my family genealogy.


Which I’ll go into next time!

BLOGGING BRUNCH9

Sitting here on my day off basking in the afterglow of last night’s
Red Sox victory as I drink a cup of coffee and surf my fellow
genealogy blogger’s sites.


I’m glad that Randy Seaver and his family have been spared
from the fires in the San Diego area. His post on Genea-Musings
about blog post statistics made me check mine. I regularly check
the Visitor Activity stats at StatCounter to see what the daily
activity has been but I haven’t really checked the Keyword
Analysis or Keyword Activity since “flutaphones” seems usually
to be at the top of the list.


Today, though, I found that “Amos Hastings” had been the
most used term at 6, (albeit it was only by two visitors) followed
by “ruth perley ames murder” with 4.


However, if I add the 2 for “flutaphones” with the 2 for “pictures
of flutaphones”, that puts it right up there for a tie at second place.
It is nice though to think that maybe something I’ve posted here
about my ancestors might help others of their descendants.


Dick Eastman’s post about “jump drives” prompted me to check
the K-Mart across the plaza from my store and I now own a 1gb
flash drive that is small enough to carry around in my shirt
pocket if I so choose. It just amazes me that it was so inexpensive
($19.99) and that it has so much space on so small a device. It’s
more memory than I had on the hard drives of my first two desk
top computers--combined! I’ve already backed up my genealogy
files on it as well as the family photos I’ve scanned.


Finally, last night I downloaded the Revolutionary War Pension
File of my 4th great grandfather Moses Coburn at Footnote.com
and looked through them this morning. Among the documents
there’s a “schedule” of his belongings:
1 Cow $20
1 Hog 8
1 Sheep & lamb 2
Table 0.50
Crockery ware 1.50
glass ware 0.50
Pot & kettle 1.50
Chair 1.00
4 dung hill Fowls .80
______
$35.80

As an aside, the dollar amounts on the document were further
over to the right from the items listed. For some reason, I can
never get these sort of lists to publish here the way I enter them.

I immediately had to google “dung hill fowls” and found that they
were chickens. Then looking at the list again, the thought struck
me: where’s the bed? Given that Moses’ family at the time
included his wife Esther Spaulding and three of their children, (the
oldest 14 and the youngest 5) they’d have needed beds, right?

So, where did they sleep?


This is a two cup of coffee problem.

NO BUNK!

I haven’t had a chance yet to read the article in the Smithsonian
Magazine yet that’s been the cause of some excellent blog posts
from fellow genealogy bloggers. So I won’t comment directly
on it until I do. But I will voice my thoughts on the theory that
“Genealogy is Bunk”. It seems to me that implies that it's a waste
of valuable time and effort.

To me, it’s been the exact opposite.

I have a degree in history and I'm an avid reader, but I’ve learned
things I never knew about while tracing my family history:



- I learned about the families from Massachusetts that
settled in Nova Scotia after the British took control of Acadia
from the French while researching my Colburn/Colborn
ancestors.


- I learned that French-Canadians exiled from their homes
lived for a time in the home of an ancestor in Andover, Ma.
while researching my Abbott ancestors.


-I learned about the early Mormon church in Massachusetts
while researching an unknown cousin named Varanes Libby
on a website run by Connell O’Donovan about Elder Walker
Lewis, a black man ordained as a Mormon elder around 1843.
I also learned more about the early textile mill industry that
Varanes worked in at other websites.


-I learned about Canadian privateers and a distant relative
named Benjamin Ellenwood while researching my Ellingwood
line.


- I learned about early Colonial American justice researching
the death of Ruth Perley Ames and the trial of Elizabeth and
Jonathan Ames for murder.


There are things I learned for those posts that I didn’t include
when I wrote them because of space and time. But I learned
something new in each of those instances and I’ve learned from
reading the blogs of my fellow genea-bloggers.


By tracing my genealogy, I’m learning about people and history.


Isn’t that what the Smithsonian Institute is all about?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 8

It seems that Jonathan (E)Ames and his wife Elizabeth
Blount didn’t leave New England entirely.


Another edition of the Essex Antiquarian with an Ames
genealogy mentions the murder and that Jonathan Sr.
sold his farm in “the spring of 1770 and removed to
Londonderry N.H.”


There are records of marriages for the two daughters:
Sarah married a William Foster in 1763, and Elizabeth
married a Benjamin Barker in 1774.


So far, no further trace of Jonathan Jr. nor to the child of
Ruth Perley (E)Ames



I also forgot to mention that the person who wrote the piece
about the death of Ruth Perley (E)ames for the Antiquarian
was named Sydney Perley who was the editor and main
contributor to the publication.


No doubt he first heard the whle story through an older
relative.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 7: THE AMES MURDER 4

In the list of witnesses called during the trial of Jonathan
Eames and his mother Elizabeth there is listed “Elizabeth,
wife of Richard Kimball.” There is a marriage between an
Elizabeth Secton or Seeton of Lunenberg and Richard Kimbal,
at Lunenberg, recorded in the Boxford Vital Records that took
place on 23 Jan 1750(1751). She would have been slightly older
than Ruth Perley Eames but closer in age to her than the senior
Mrs. Eames. It’s my guess she is the “Mrs. Kimball” who raised
the suspicions of the townsfolk over Ruth’s mysterious death.


As I’ve said previously, after their acquittal the Eames family
eventually sold their farm and left town. It must have been a
difficult time for Jonathan Eames Sr. who doesn’t seem to have
figured at all in the trial. I’ve been hunting around on the net the
past few nights but have yet to come up with where the family
eventually relocated.

So far I’ve been searching for any Essex County traces but they
might have gone further away than that. A few generations
before the children of the executed Mary Townes Estey had
moved either out of Essex County or left Massachusetts entirely.
Elizabeth Eames had a brother living in Farmington, Me. Perhaps
that was far enough away to escape the scandal’s shame?


The “not guilty” verdict would seem to be puzzling given the
apparent belief by their neighbors that Jonathan and Elizabeth
had murdered poor Ruth. But there was no solid physical evidence
to prove their guilt and perhaps memories of the innocents who’d
been sent to their deaths at Salem the century before might have
played a part. The Eames had been held up to public scrutiny and
afterwards were so shunned that they removed themselves from
the town.

In the end that would have to satisfy their accusers.

Finally, I do have to say that finding out that a relative, even a
distant one, was defended by John Adams …wow…how cool is that?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 5: THE AMES MURDER2

Jonathan Ames Jr.married Ruth Perley on Dec 19th, 1768 and
took his new bride home to live in his parents house which might
very well have been the same one built by Robert (E)Ames. The
story goes that as often happens with newlyweds the bride and
mother in law didn't seem to get along very well. But the couple’s
first child was born in May in 1769 and there was no sign of
anything out of the ordinary until the morning of June 5th when
a neighbor, Mrs. Kimball, came to call on the young wife and was
informed by the elder Mrs. Ames that Ruth was ill.



Despite Mrs. Ames’ objections Mrs. Kimball insisted on seeing
Ruth and found the young woman in agony and frothing at the
mouth. The illness has begun at 7 am in the morning and within
four or five hours Ruth Perley Ames was dead. The funeral and
burial was swift and the townsfolk of Boxford became highly
suspicious of the cause of the young bride’s death. They petitioned
for a coroner’s inquest and on July 10th the proceedings began
looking into whether Ruth had been poisoned.


It’s not my intention to recount the whole story. It can be read
here in the article from the Essex Antiquarian. But I did want to
point out some interesting aspects of the case. It’s probably the
last recorded instance of the medieval custom of “ordeal by
touch” in New England if not in America as a whole. Briefly, the
accused was made to touch the corpse’s neck with the index finger
of his left hand. If the touch caused the body to bleed at the point
of contact then the accused was guilty. There had been insufficient
evidence presented so far and apparently the townsfolk or one of
the jury proposed that Jonathan Ames and his mother be put to
the test with the exhumed body of Ruth Perley Ames.


Both Jonathan and his mother refused to take part in the ordeal
and so were taken off to jail in nearby Salem where a grand jury
indicted Mrs. Ames for murder and Jonathan as her accessory.
On November 9th Jonathan’s sister Elizabeth was also arrested
as an accessory and the trial began in Superior Court on November
14th.


The account of the trial reads almost like an episode of Law &
Order. The Crown was represented by Jonathan Sewall. The
accused was represented by Sewall’s old friend and fellow law
student, John Adams. By this time Jonathan had turned King's
Evidence against his mother and accused her of killing Ruth by
poisoning her with “rats bane”. There were four judges who
heard the case, three of whom seemed to feel the evidence was
sufficient for a guilty verdict. The fourth judge was unconvinced
due to the uncertainty of physicians as to whether it had indeed
been “rat’s bane“ (or arsenic as we now call it ) that had killed
the victim and also because it was not certain who administered
the poison in the first place.


The trial lasted late into the night and the jury got the case at 2am
on November 15th. At 9am, they came back with a verdict: Not
guilty. The Ames family was freed but would soon after leave town.


So, what relation is Jonathan Ames to me? What of the identity of
his mother, known only in the Antiquarian account as “Elizabeth
Ames”? Where did they all go to when they left Boxford in
shame? And what of Mrs. Kimball?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 4: THE AMES MURDER

I was surfing through the US GenWeb’s Essex County site
the other night and came across a reference to a murder
in Boxford Ma. It happened in 1769 and involved a Jonathan
Ames who was accused of murdering his wife Ruth(Perley)
and involved testimony by a neighbor, a Mrs. Kimball.



This got my attention quickly. My 3x great grandmother was
Arvilla Ames and she was a descendant of Priscilla Kimball.
The Ames or Eames line is one of my favorites because the
family has been part of interesting events in New England
Colonial history. Robert (E)Ames, whose ancestry is unknown,
married Rebecca Blake who was one of those convicted of
witchcraft in the Salem witch hysteria. She later was given a
reprieve and the couple lived out their lives in the town of
Boxford.


Their son John married Priscilla Kimball, the daughter of
Thomas Kimball and Mary Smith The Kimball family was
living in Rowley Ma. when they were attacked by Indians on
May 2nd ,1676. Thomas was killed and Mary and their five
children, including Priscilla, were taken captive for forty-one
days before the chief of the Pennacook tribe persuaded the
raiding Indians to release their captives.


Priscilla grew to adulthood and married John Ames. They
hada farm in Boxford but they sold it in March of 1715 or 1716
and moved to Groton, Ma. John was standing one day at the
front door of what is referred to as “his garrison” (Was this
simply a fortified farmhouse or a trading post sort of building?)
when he was shot by an Indian on July 9th, 1724. He is said to
have been the last man slain by an Indian in Groton although
there appears to be some debate over that.


The Indian who was presumed to be the murderer was killed
in turn by Jacob Ames, John and Priscilla’s second oldest son.

So as you see, the Ames and Kimballs had gone through some
trying times already. When I ran across the reference of an
article in the Essex Antiquarian on a murder involving Jonathan
Ames and someone named Kimball, I had to look into it to see
how it related to my family genealogy.


Which I’ll go into next time!