The Saint Paul globe., 1904-01-24

Unless the legislature grants Glenn
ency Mrs. Mary H. Rogers may hang
for the murder of her husband in Yer
mont in 1905. Under the law the exc
cution cannot take place until session
of the legislature has interviewed be-
tween the time of sentence of death and
its execution.
This vital question of whether OF
not a woman shall hang is one that has
been much discussed in times past
The last time a woman was hanged in
Vermont was twenty years ago. 1t has
been 125 years since a woman was
hanged in Massachusetts.
Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner's guilty
life went out on the scaffold in Worces-
ter on the End day of July, 1878, and
with it the life of the innocent, when
God in his wrath protested in vivid
lightnings and awe-inspiring thun-
der"
On the hillside on the Worcester
estate of the late Andrew H. Green,
father of Greater New York." who
was recently murdered, is her lonely
grave
A plain slab of stone marks the spot,
but neither name date nor inscription
tells the wanderer from the beaten
paths of travel who lies there entombed
or what her fate.
Yet this grave on the hillside known
to but few of the present generation,
has had an enduring influence in Mas
sachusetts and has shaped it's policy
in one important particular for 125
years.
Fought in the Revolution.
When the war for American inde-
pendence broke out there were few men
in Massachusetts more prominent than
Timothy Ruggles, of Hardwick, little
town in Worcester county, about
twenty-five miles from the county seat.
AS Brigadier Ruggles he was generally
known, title won by valiant service
in the French and Indian wars.
Ruggles was in the expedition to
Crown Point as colonel and was second
in command under Sir William Johnson
in the battle in which Baron Dieskau
was defeated. Under Lord Amherst
he commanded a regiment in the cam
paign of 1856 and 1857. In the expedi-
ton against Canada, under Lord Am
herst, he obtained the commission of
brigadier general.
Such was the father of beautiful
Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner The proud
spirit, the energy, the courage of the
father was in the daughter.
Gen. Ruggles was in the good graces
of George IL, who granted him the
office of surveyor general, which car
ried with it a salary of $4,000. The
RuggleS mansion in Hardwick was fire.
quently the scene of great festivity
House parties from Boston were enter
tanned and Massachusetts saw no more
brilliant scenes than were presented al
the RuggleS hunts, for the general
maintained a deer park in his broad es-
tates, a pack of hounds and a stable OF
thirty thoroughbreds.
Marriage Forced by Father.
In such environments Bathsheba, the
fathers pride, was reared. A young
woman of striking appearance, remark
able intelligence and buoyant spirits
she was born to be a social leader, ant
why she welded Joshua Spooner, who
wooed here ere she was twenty, no one
can surmise.
1t is probable that the marriage was
dictated by the father for political OF
financial reasons rather than prompt
ed by the daughters heart.
Spooner was a respectable country
merchant of Brookfield, a town some
ten miles from Hardwick. He had &
handsome property, but was much
older than his young wife. Their
tastes did not accord and they were ar
ill-mated pair. But whatever the rea
son for the marriage, she left the grear
mansion in Hardwick, with its gayety
in which she had shone brilliantly, anc
began a life of unhappiness in the
Spooner home at Brookfield.
1t is a Ruggles tradition that the alb.
Sence of gayety and her husbands
years were not all that caused her dis
content and led up to fearful tragedy
The traditions say that she believed
her husband unfaithful and the argu.
ments of counsel in the murder tria
limited that he maintained an unprin.
cipled woman in his home
In this unhappy household appeared
In 1776 Ezra Ross, a soldier of the
American army, returning from his
first campaign. He was but sixteer
years of age but handsome and gal.
liant, boy in years, but man in spirit
Treated the Wounded Soldier.
Broken in health by hardships tc
which the American soldiery was ac.
customed, he rested at the Spooner res.
idence for some time, Mrs. Spoonel
treating the invalid with a mothers
tenderness.
Having recovered sufficiently he de.
parted for his home in Ipswich, and i
would not be strange if more thar
gratitude toward the fascinating WON
an in the full flower of womanhood
who had so tenderly watched over him
hlIed his impressionable heart.
After the evacuation of Ticonderoga
on his march to join the Northern
army, young Ross again called at the