This is a book, about two other books, and about a murder. Well, maybe it was a murder. It was certainly a tragedy. The subtitle is “Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne”. The story revolves around Sarah Maria Cornell, who was found dead in a Rhode Island field in December of 1832. Was it suicide, or was she murdered? The case, and the subsequent trial, inspired two books, one purporting to be non-fiction about the case itself, and one fictionalized version. The novel, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and called “The Scarlet Letter”, is still well-known today, while “Fall River” by Catherine Read Arnold Williams, is mostly remembered by true-crime aficionados and historians.
Dawson utilizes Williams’ book as a resource, but also looks at other information, including contemporary newspaper accounts. Dawson does not take William’s word for everything, even though Williams claims her book is a truthful narrative. Dawson catches her out on some misstatements. And of course, the level of medical and forensic knowledge was much different in 1832 than it is now. DNA analysis was not even dreamed of back then, but they also did not have fingerprinting or handwriting analysis to help with this case. The prosecution relied on sometimes conflicting eye-witness statements, and the attorney for the accused basically created the “blame the victim” defense. And of course, the jury was all male.
Another thing that Dawson dives into is the social mores of the era, which we should always remember to take into account when we are researching. Williams of course was steeped in them, as was her initial readership. Sarah Cornell was a “factory girl”, a young unmarried woman who worked in the fabric mills that sprang up in New England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. While the mill owners of course wanted employees, the broader society was uncomfortable with young single women living away from their families. The other societal division had to do with the fact that most mill owners were Congregationalist, and the person accused of the murder was a Methodist minister.
If this was your family, how would you research them? What is interesting is that both Catherine Williams and Kate Winkler Dawson interviewed the relatives of both Rev. Avery and Sarah Cornell. Of course, in Dawson’s case, it was the descendants or distant cousins. Dawson also had recourse to professional investigators, who have knowledge of modern medicine and investigative procedures. While most of us don’t have murder victims or murderers in our trees, our ancestors would have been reading about this case in the newspapers of the day. And we might have had great-aunts who worked in the factories. It’s also interesting to try to trace what religion, if any, our ancestors practiced, and how that might have changed from generation to generation.