Customer Reviews

Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Justice in Early Industrial New England

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Sixty years before Lizzie Borden and her legendary axe splashed blood over the name of Fall River, Massachusetts, the growing community was the site of a murder that put the industrial revolution and the Methodist faith on trial.

In December 1832, unmarried and pregnant mill worker Sarah Maria Cornell was found hanging from a haystack support pole outside Fall River. A prominent Methodist minister named Ephraim Kingsbury Avery was accused of seducing and then murdering her. When Avery went to trial, two large and opposing institutions faced off.

The Fall River industrialists portrayed Sarah Cornell as an innocent victim of a "wicked married man". Kasserman wrote, "In trying to clear her name, they protected their own." Their concerns were valid: in 1832 more women were leaving their parents' homes to take jobs in mills and factories, and if these workplaces became known as hotbeds of immorality, parental intervention could deprive them of badly needed workers.

The Methodist Episcopal Church supported the opposite impression of the victim: the more lascivious she appeared to have been, the less likely it was that Avery alone had a reason to kill her. Methodism, with its emphasis on emotionality and easy salvation, was regarded with suspicion in a society dominated by the austere Calvinist Congregational Church. The Methodist leaders could ill afford to have a scandal topple the precarious position the church occupied in Jacksonian America. Apparently Avery's lawyers, in condemning Sarah Cornell as a harlot, were the first to use the character of the female victim as a defense strategy.

Although I enjoyed this book, it might not be suitable reading for those who prefer a lighter, creative nonfiction approach to crime writing. Kasserman adheres faithfully to the record, and does not condense much for the sake of clarity or smooth flow. Personally, I'm glad that he was so thorough. Such solid research contributes greatly to our understanding of early American society.

This is an extremely well written book. A young girl,
a factory worker in Lowell, MA in the 1830's was found
hanged in a most gruesome way. She had left a note that
if anything happened to her to go to this certain
Methodist minister who was very well known. Authorities
discovered she was pregnant when hanged. On the day
she asked for time off in the afternoon to meet someone.
Later it was discovered it was the minister who denied
he had murdered her. Thus began a trial and what a trial.
In some ways I was surprised authorities were as far
advanced as they were in finding information. Although
it was biased right from the first. The girl had had a
checkered past and they tore her past into bits trying
to make her look as bad as they could. Of course to their
way of thinking the minister could not be guilty of doing
the least wrong thing so you can well imagine how it was
going to turn out. But in the end-you have heard how
some get their just desserts so to speak. To put it
mildly I do not think I would have liked to have lived
in that time. It's strange when you think about it;
moderately modern times really did not even begin in
earnest until 1900 and then we had a few years to go
at that.

Few would realize the intrigue of a local court case in 1832. The first reading left me a bit confused but interested so a second attempt armed with a map CT, RI and MA helped as did a pad and pen for character notes and references as the presentation is a bit hard to follow. It would make a great movie.

The book over all was interesting yet it talked too much of the characters I felt no suspense or thrill throughout the book, I feel it didn't get to the main points in the book

The book over all was interesting yet it talked too much of the characters I felt no suspense or thrill throughout the book, I feel it didn't get to the main points in the book