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Author Crane, Elaine Forman.

Title Killed strangely : the death of Rebecca Cornell / Elaine Forman Crane.

Imprint Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2002.

Copies

Location Call No. OPAC Message Status
 Axe Kansas Collection J Schick  364.1523097 C85k 2002    ---  Lib Use Only
Description xiii, 236 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
text txt rdacontent
unmediated n rdamedia
volume nc rdacarrier
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-226) and index.
Contents Machine generated contents note: Acknowledgments, -- Introduction, -- 1 A Death in the Family, -- 2 The Background of a Tragedy -- 3 The Contentious World of Thomas Cornell -- 4 Doubting Thomas: Or, Considering the Alternatives -- 5 A Community Renders a Verdict -- 6 Life after Death -- Notes -- Index.
Summary "On a winter's evening in 1673, tragedy descended on the respectable Rhode Island household of Thomas Cornell. His 73-year-old mother, Rebecca, was found close to her her bedroom's large fireplace, dead and badly burned. The legal owner of the Cornells' hundred acres along Narragansett Bay, Rebecca shared her home with Thomas and his family, a servant, and a lodger. A coroner's panel initially declared her death "an Unhappie Accident," but before summer arrived, a dark web of events - rumors of domestic abuse; allusions to witchcraft; even the testimony of Rebecca's ghost, who visited her brother - resulted in Thomas's trial for matricide. Such were the ambiguities of the case that others would be tried for the murder as well." "Rebecca is a direct ancestor of Cornell University's founder, Ezra Cornell. Elaine Forman Crane tells the story of Rebecca's death and its aftermath, vividly depicting the world in which she lived. That world included a legal system where jurors were expected to be familiar with the defendant and case before the trial even began. Rebecca's death was an event of cataclysmic proportions, affecting not only her own community, but neighboring towns as well."--Jacket.
Subject Cornell, Rebecca, 1600-1673.
Cornell, Thomas, 1627?-1673.
Homicide -- Rhode Island -- Portsmouth -- History -- 17th century -- Case studies.
Trials (Murder) -- Rhode Island -- Portsmouth -- History -- 17th century -- Case studies.
Portsmouth (R.I.) -- History -- 17th century.
Cornell, Rebecca, 1600-1673. (OCoLC)fst01813914
Cornell, Thomas, 1627?-1673. (OCoLC)fst00476066
Homicide. (OCoLC)fst00959660
Trials (Murder) (OCoLC)fst01156368
Rhode Island -- Portsmouth. (OCoLC)fst01226665
Chronological Term 1600-1699
Genre/Form Case studies. (OCoLC)fst01423765
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
ISBN 0801440025 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780801440021 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780801475276 (pbk.)
0801475279 (pbk.)

 
    
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