One of the oddest trials after the witch trials involved ghostly evidence. Thomas Cornell II, on trial for the murder of his mother, Rebecca.

Thomas was one child born in England to Rebecca Briggs Cornell and Thomas Cornell. Thomas Cornell III came to America with his parents at about age 11.

One of the oddest things about Thomas Cornell is his daughter, who married into Lizzy Borden’s family. Lizzy, known from the old children’s saying she gave her father forty whacks and her mother forty-one.

The story starts with Thomas’ father, husband to Rebecca Cornell. He moved the family. He left in his ‘Will’ the property of 100 acres and home in Portsmouth, Rhode Island for Rebecca to distribute to the children as she saw fit.

Thomas Sr., born in 1594 in Fairstead, Essex, England, married Rebecca Briggs, born October 25, 1600, in London. Middlesex, England. Thomas Sr. died in 1656. They married on June 9, 1620, at Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Saffon, Waldon, England.

Rebecca began doling out the acreage to the other siblings leaving her son Thomas III out. He lived with his first wife and second wife in the family home. While the house became crowded with the birth of Thomas’ children from his marriage with his first wife Elizabeth and his second wife Sarah Earle. Rebecca has a large room keeping the primary bedroom in the Narragansett Bay home.

These are important facts in the story of Thomas Cornell III that will became used against him at his trial.

The record of Thomas Cornells’ second wife, Sarha Earle, shows up about 1668. They had three daughters and children from Thomas’s first marriage. Records show them in the house Rebeca lives along with a few hired hands.

Events Before the Trial

The night of the incident that would put Thomas III on a deadly path. Rebecca was age 73 the winter night of February 8th,1673. Thomas sat with his mother for a long time talking. When he left the room, Rebecca was sitting near the fireplace in her room. She decided she would not go down to supper since mackerel was being served. She complained it made her sick to her stomach. Rebecca stayed in her room. Sarah, Thomas’s wife, sent one of Thomas’s sons from his first marriage to ask what Sarah might send to Rebecca since she did not eat with them.

Upon entering the room, Rebecca’s grandson Edward found her calling his father Thomas, rushed into the room followed by one of the hired hands, a Narragansett Indian named Wickopash, to find Rebecca dead and badly burned near the fireplace.

The fire had not spread further than Rebecca’s body. No one heard her scream, and not Thomas, Edward, the servant, officers or coroner suspected foul play.

Some reports claim that when Rebecca got found burned, they believed she may have dropped her pipe, and that sparked a fire on just her that did not catch the room or home on fire. That did not cause smoke to be smelled in other parts of the home to alert them.

The coroner’s panel declared the death as “an Unhappie Accident.” After the autopsy, corner William Baulston. Most would assume this would end the case of Rebecca’s terrible death. That is where they would be wrong. It was the beginning of what would send Thomas Cornell III to his death.

Local Newspapers

Newspapers filled with articles about the case, the rumors, those testifying and the hanging of Thomas Cornell III. One account is in old English that would make little sense to those reading a newspaper article today. It provided its readers with the death of Rebecca Cornell and the spectral visitation her brother claimed and testified to at Thomas’s trial. Without this evidence, the case against Thomas, Rebecca’s son, would not have faced trial for her death or convicted to hang.

The Evidence

Thomas’s trial, unlike most that have normal evidence to prosecute the accused. This was not a normal time in the northern state. Instead, people would never believe or use the evidence in a trial today.

Before the trial, there were rumors circulating involving domestic abuse, which might be normal in a case like this since Rebecca gave land to other siblings but not to Thomas, who lived there and worked the land. Other rumors that spread included witchcraft.

At trial, the rumors testified to by five neighbors supposedly spoke of Rebecca. One was George Soule, age 34, who said Rebecca wanted to live with her son Samuel. Soule said Rebecca told him Thomas III threatened his mother about moving with Samuel. He said Rebecca told him that she and Thomas had disagreements about rent. Sule said Rebecca told him Thomas III wanted money to build a house on the land.

The next testimony came from Jane Coggeshall, age 38, who stated she was told Thomas III carried himself unkindly to his mother. By detaining Rebecca’s rent and at age 46 was under his mother’s thumb.

Patience Coggeshall testified about Rebecca Cornell wept greatly to her and her sister Joane that she was sick and felt like a maid for her son Thomas, his wife Sarah. She told the Coggeshall women that she did not like Sarah because she once saw her chasing after one of her stepchildren with an axe. But Rebecca stopped Sarah from causing harm to her grandchildren.

Mary Almy, age 33, stated she witnessed many instances of Thomas being undutiful to his mother. She said Rebecca told her she got neglected and in winter months she would go to bed in an unmade bed, cold with no copper bed warmer. She would have to wrap herself in woolen cloth to stay warm. Almy said Rebecca told her she could not eat with the family because she was fasting. The older woman told her nothing, got brought to her when she was not fasting.

Nicolas Wild, age 73, said he agreed with the testimony about Thomas refusing to pay certain monies to his mother. He said Rebecca told him she got treated like a maid. She said she had been forced to go out in the snow for wood. He said she cried often because of her grief and troubles. His wife, Sarah Wild, also said Thomas III was cruel to his mother in a statement.

Rebecca told a neighbor that her son Thomas was a terror to her. If she had known Thomas’s first wife, Elizabeth, would die before her, she would never have made her estate and ‘Will’ over to Thomas.

Family Testimony

Mary Russell Cornell, wife of John Cornell, one of Rebecca’s sons. Said Rebecca confided in her. Chasing after pigs and doing hard work around the house made her weak and tired. Rebecca told Mary she had considered stabbing herself in the heart with her penknife, but she resisted because she would not satisfy the devil.

Rebecca Woolsey, the daughter of Rebecca and Thomas Sr., described a day that confided to her mother that after surviving smallpox she had suicidal thoughts about drowning herself or stabbing herself. She said her mother had told her to pray to God and trust. He would help her. That he helped her mother when she too wanted to make away with herself. When daughter Rebecca said she would tell her brother Thomas III about the struggles of her mother. Her mother pleaded with her not to tell her brother.

This testimony was bad enough, but there was more to come. Thomas III’s uncle and Rebecca’s brother brought the evidence that caused him to be found guilty.

The Dream

Rebecca’s brother, John Briggs, age 64, reported he had a dream with his sister Rebecca coming to him. It took him a week to report this spectral evidence or vague allegations about his nephew Thomas murdering his sister Rebecca.

This triggered a second inquest and the exhumation of Rebeccas’s body. Two physicians conducted a second autopsy. Henry Greenland and Simon Cooper exhumed and re-examined Rebecca’s body. They discovered a hole described as a heart hole and said it could have been made with a narrow, long iron spindle. Found a “suspicious wound in the body of the said Rebeca Cornell in the uppermost part of her Stomake.”

John Briggs testified on February 12, 1673. His sister Rebecca’s ghost appeared to him to say that her death was not an accident. He claimed she said to him, “I am your sister Rebecca Cornell,” and twice said, “See how I was burned with fire?” John Briggs said the apparition answered said “I am your sister Cornell” and then continued on to said twice “l was burned with fire.” Though he said the ghost never outright blamed Thomas.

Then on February 20, 1673, during Thomas III’s trial, John Brigs said he lay abed when a ghostly apparition appeared and said, “He was much affrightened and cried out in the name of God, what are you?” The apparition.

This evidence, along with the second autopsy and other evidence by George Soule saying Rebecca wanted to live with her son Samuel, was enough to put Thomas III on trial.

Jurors hearing this, combined with the testimony from the five and being superstitious along with the fact Thomas had been the last one to sit with his mother before supper the evening she died caused Thomas to be indicted for the murder of his mother.

Coroner William Baulston Testimony

The coroner, William Baulston who did the first autopsy. After Rebecca’s death, said Rebecca was deeply burned from the legs to the armpits.

He continued on to say that he and Joshua Coggeshall studied portions of the unburnt clothing and the burned clothing on her body. They declared that Rebecca had come to her death because of an unhappy accident of fire as she sat in her room. They assumed that since Rebecca was not fully engulfed by fire, her grandson, Thomas, and family members would recognize her clothing left even by candlelight since she would have a certain wardrobe.

Sarah Cornell Testimony

Sarah testified hoping to save her husband. She testified, basically accusing her mother-in-law of witchcraft. She, as well as her husband, made statements about God taking Rebecca’s life. Sarah included in her testimony something Thomas did not mention. She said when her stepson entered Rebecca’s door opening it, a great dog jumped over her stepson to alert them something was wrong. This black dog is an English superstition that she might have believed in it as an English immigrant. Sarah further testified that something evil was at work in the death of Rebecca, but Thomas had nothing to do with it.

Thomas III Cornell’s Testimony

Thomas testified he sat with Rebecca for about an hour and a half before going to supper. He said she refused to come and eat salted mackerel. Sarah asked her stepson, Edward, to go ask his grandmother if she wanted boiled milk for supper, thinking it might be easier to digest. Sarah was concerned about Rebecca keeping her strength up during the cold February Rhode Island winter.

Edward, upon entering Rebecca’s bedroom, screamed out for help. They found her body charred on the floor.

The border Henry Straite upon seeing Rebecca assumed it was a drunken Indian that had an accident or was attempting to break-in when the accident happened. Thomas recognized his mother.

He testified that his mother regularly smoked a pipe. He assumed it fell in her chair or was an ash or ember. While she slept, or was too slow getting up to save herself. Thomas said if she had been awake and caught fire from an ember or ash from the pipe or her fireplace, she would have screamed out. Thomas told the jury his mother wore cotton and wool, both flammable fabrics.

Thomas Teenage Children

Then Thomas’ teenage children testified with similar accounts as their border Straite.

The Prosecutor

The prosecutor focused on the room where Rebecca was found burned and dead. He questioned that the room had not burned, but there was a part of the bed curtain and bedstead, meaning part of the frame had slight burns. But the sheets and nothing else in the room showed signs of fire burns.

He further went on that Thomas killed his mother, causing as little damage as possible since he would inherit the home and furnishings. So he did not want them damaged.

The Sentencing

The trial began on February 21, 1673, and the last of the testimony happened on May 16, 1673. Then the jury found Thomas Cornell III guilty of the murder of his mother, Rebecca Cornell. Thomas was sentenced to hang for his crime at the gallows in Newport, Rhode Island.

Neighbors requested Thomas to be buried by his mother and father. That request got denied. Thomas’s execution is believed to have occurred on May 23, 1673.

Innocent Cornell

Shortly after Thomas was executed, his wife Sarah gave birth to a daughter. She named the child Innocent. Some assumed she named the baby Innocent as a form of protesting her husband’s guilty verdict in the death of his mother.

Innocent Cornell married Richard Borden. It would be their fourth great-granddaughter, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Borden, who would be put on trial for murdering her father and mother.

References

Rhode Island Historical Society (A Smithoian Affiliate)

Portsmouth Historical Notes

Elaine Foreman Crane Killed Strangely : The Death of Rebecca Cornell

[Providence, R.I.: Printed by William Goddard, 1764]

Find A Grave Innocent Cornell Cornell Borden

Find A Grave Rebecca and Thomas Sr. Cornell

Strange Company, “The Strange Death of Rebecca Cornell,”

Genealogical Publishing Co.; Baltimore, MD, USA; Volume Title: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, pg. 183.

Place: Boston, Massachusetts; Year: 1636; Page Number: 23; Rev. John Cornell, Genealogy of the Cornell family: being an account of the descendants of Thomas Cornell, Portsmouth, R.I., (New York: Press of T.A. Wright, 1902), pg. 17.

Genealogical Publishing Co.; Baltimore, MD, USA; Volume Title: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, pg. 183; John Osborne Austin, The genealogical dictionary of Rhode Island: comprising three generations of settlers who came before 1690: with many families carried to the fourth generation, (Albany: J. Munsellʼs sons, 1887), pg. 54.

Daniel Berkeley Updike, Richard Smith, rst English settler of the Narragansett country, Rhode Island, (Boston: Merrymount Press, 1937), pg. 93.

New England HIstorical Society online