The writer was informed many years ago by an aged lady, who was born and had always lived her almost centenary of years within a few rods of the Ames home⚫stead, and personally knew many of the people who took a prominent part in the events that followed, that the funeral occurred soon after Ruth's death, that none of the neighbors were invited to it and that a clergyman from a neighboring town performed the burial service instead of Rev. John Cushing, pastor of the church, who was their nearest neighbor. The burial occurred in the old village cemetery, which is shown as it now appears in the middle section of the frontispiece. Mrs. Kimball was suspicious that Ruth had been poisoned to death. She repeatedly told of what she had experienced at the Ames house and in the sick room. The peculiar attitude which Mrs. Ames assumed toward the deceased seemed to 'confirm the suspicion of poisoning, and that Mrs. Ames was at least cognizant of the crime. The matter of an accusation was not at first conceived, but about a month afterward the feeling against Mrs. Ames became so strong that a complaint signed by twenty-nine men, and consented to by the relatives of the deceased, was preferred to Henry Ingalls, Moses Dole and Abraham Choate, three coroners, for an inquisition upon the body, which had lain in the ground all that length of time. The coroners thereupon summoned a jury of twenty-five (whose names are affixed to their report hereinafter given, Joseph Osgood being foreman), thirteen of whom were physicians; and four other physicians were engaged to perform the autopsy. The inquest was opened on Monday, July 10th," when there assembled a promiscuous multitude of people." The court was held in the meeting-house, which stood on the easterly side of the "Sandy road" in the pasture in the rear of the old cemetery, a road, which can still be traced running from the meeting-house up the present wooded declivity to the cemetery, and from thence as it now exists to the parsonage on the ancient Andover road. The site of the meetinghouse, as it now appears, is shown in the frontispiece, at the bottom. Rarely, if ever, has such a mass of people been seen in the parish, the meetinghouse being, as the current newspaper* said, "much thronged." The court was opened with prayer. The coroners then gave the jury "their solemn charge." During these exercises the same newspaper account says, "there appeared not the least irregularity or disorder, but a solemn, silent sadness seemed to be fixed on the face of the gayest youth." After the charge, the coroners, the jury and the spectators proceeded "with decency and good order," over the winding roadway up the hill to the old buryingground, where for five weeks had lain the body of the murdered girl. The exhumation of the body was begun; and as it progressed the human mass surged around the grave so eagerly to see the whole of the operation that they were only kept from causing harm by being told that all should have an opportunity of seeing the remains. The body was taken to the meetinghouse, the procession taking up its route down the hill, at the middle of that midsummer day. An autopsy was made by the physicians; the jury heard their report and other testimony, and two days later the coroners and the jury made report of their inquisition as follows: "Essex Ss. "An Inquisition. Indented & taken at Boxford within the sd. County of Essex, the Twelfth Day of July, in the Ninth year of our Sovereign Lord George, the third, by ye Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, defender of yo Faith, &c., before Henry Ingalls, Mofes Dole, & Abraham Choate, Gentlemen, Coroners for our S. Lord the King, with *Essex Gazette, July 11-18, 1769. in the County of Efsex afores upon the View of the Body of Ruth Eams Wife of Jon. Ames Jur. then and there being Dead by the Oaths of Joseph Osgood, || Foreman,|| Nehemiah Abbot, Amos Putnam, Enoch Sawyer Jun. Micajah Sawyer, James Brickett, Wm. Hale, Silas Miriam, Thomas Kitredge, Wallace Rust, Ephraim Davis, Simons Baker, Benj". Muzzy, Ephraim Wales, Peter Osgood, Dan'. Spafford, Afa Perly, Benj". Berry, Nathan Wood, John Hale, Ephraim Fuller, Moody Bridges, Nathaniel Pearly, Oliver Peabody, Rich". Peabody, Good and Lawful Men of the County of Essex afores, who being Charged and Sworn to enquire for our Lord the King, when, by what means, and how, the sa. Ruth Eames came to her Death, upon their Oaths do say, the sa. Ruth Eames on the fifth Day of June last in the morning Died of Felony (that is to say by Poison) given to her by a Person or Persons to us unknown which murder is against the Peace of our sd. Lord the King, his Crown and Dignity. In Witness whereof We the sd. Coroners, as well as the sd. Jurors to this Inquisition, have interchangeably put our Hands and Seals the Day and year abovesaid. "Joseph Osgood [seal] The body being laid upon a table with a sheet over it, Jonathan and his mother were invited to prove their innocence by this gruesome test. The ancient practice was similar. The body was laid at length, covered only with a sheet of the purest white, in the dim and weird church, and the suspected party was invited to touch the neck of the deceased with the index-finger of the left hand, the superstition being that when the guilty hand touched the remains blood would issue, the whiteness of the sheet making it plainly visible, "pleading trumpet-tongued against the deep-damnation of her taking off." These scenes were always awful, being rendered more so by the environment and the nervous tension of every one of the multitude that gazed with strained eyes and breathless upon the accused as he dared to either advance toward or retreat from the remains, either direction tending to confirm his guilt in the minds of the spectators until he finally passed the ordeal, which but few persons ever did. In this instance, from fear, probably, not that they believed in the superstition, but were afraid that by some chance blood might flow, both refused. The "examination gave great occasion to conclude that they were concerned in the poisoning," and on Tuesday, July 18, they were arrested and taken to Salem, where they were confined in the ancient jail where the persons accused of witchcraft were imprisoned many years before. When the grand jury sat, Mrs. Ames was duly indicted as the principal, and Jonathan as accessory in the crime. Mrs. Ames' indictment was as follows: "The Jurors for the said Lord the King upon their Oath presented that Elizabeth Eams the wife of Jonathan Eams of Boxford in the said county of Efsex yeoman, on the fourth day of June last past, at Boxford aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, not having the fear of God in her heart, but feloniously, wickedly and of her malice aforethought intending and contriving with Poison to kill and murder one Ruth Eams, then and there being in the peace of God, and of the said Lord the King, did then & there with force and arms feloniously willfully and of her malice aforethought, mix and mingle a great quantity of white arfenic, being a deadly poison, in a certain quantity of Spermaceti fhe the said Elizabeth Eams, then and there well knowing the said white arsenic to be a deadly poison; And that she the said Elizabeth Eams, there afterwards, to wit, on the same day, the poison aforesaid so mixed and mingled as aforesaid; with force and arms feloniously willfully and of her malice aforethought, did offer and give to her the said Ruth Eams, to take, eat and Swallow down; and that the sa. Ruth Eams, not knowing the poison aforesaid, to have been mixed and mingled as aforesaid, in the Spermaceti aforesaid, there afterward on the same day, by the procurement and persuasion of the said Elizabeth Eams, did take, eat and swallow down the said Poison, so mixed and mingled as aforesaid; and thereupon the said Ruth Eams by the said poison, so, as aforesaid taken eaten & Swallowed down, then and there became sick and distempered in her body; and the said Ruth Eams of the poison aforesaid, and of the sickness and Distemper thereby occasioned, did languifh and languishing did live from the said fourth day of June last, untill the fifth day of the same June, at Boxford aforesaid in the county aforesaid; on which same fifth day of June, at . Boxford aforesaid in the county aforesaid, the said Ruth Eams died of the poison aforesaid and of the Sickness and distemper thereby occasioned as aforesaid; and so the Jurors aforesaid upon their ||said || Oath do say that the said Elizabeth Eams, in manner and form and by the means aforesaid, feloniously, willfully and of her malice aforethought, did poison kill and murder the said Ruth Eams against the peace of the sa. Lord the King his crown and dignity. "Jon: Sewall, Att. pro. Dom°. Reg. "This is a true bill "David Britton, Foreman." While lodged in jail, Mrs. Ames was heard to mutter in her sleep, "Don't tell on me, Jonathan; if you do, I shall be hanged." The superior court, in which the case would be tried, being about to sit in Salem, Jonathan's sister Elizabeth was arrested as an accessory to the murder, by Amos Mulliken, deputy sheriff, on November 9th, and lodged in the jail at Salem on the same day. The court convened on the morning of Tuesday, the 14th, in the old court house that then stood in the middle of Washington street, opposite the Tabernacle church. The judges upon the bench were Benjamin Lynde, John Cushing, Peter Oliver and Edmund Trowbridge, and during the session they boarded with William Goodhue. The jury impanelled to try the case consisted of Jonathan Orne of Salem, foreman, and John Gardner of Salem, William Bowden of Marblehead, Daniel Jacobs of Danvers, Thorndike Procter, jr., of Salem, William Becket of Salem, Richard Manning of Salem, Stephen Phillips of Marblehead, Thomas Grant of Marblehead, Theophilus Breed of Lynn, Mascol Williams of Salem, and Samuel Holton of Danvers. The counsel for the king was Jonathan Sewall of Boston. The counsel of the accused was John Adams, afterward president of the United States. He was, at this time, thirty-four years of age. In the trial of this case we can imagine the dignity and deliberation of his procedure, and the beaming of his intelligent face, which attracted so much attention when a few years later he became the man second in America to none but Washington. The witnesses were summoned to present themselves at eight o'clock in the morning, and there was a host of them. There were Dr. Nathaniel Perkins and Dr. James Lloyd, both of Boston, Dr. Isaac Rand of Charlestown, David George and Josiah George, both of Newburyport,* Rev. Samuel Pearley of Seabrook,† John Fowler of Ipswich, yeoman, Enoch Kimball, yeoman, John Chadwick, gentleman, and his wife Susannah, Prudence Tyler, singlewoman, Mehitable Tyler, wife of Gideon Tyler, Benjamin Porter, jr., yeoman, John Tyler and Jonathan Tyler (sons of Gideon Tyler), William Eiles, yeoman, Oliver Foster, yeoman, Jonathan Foster, gentleman, George Farnam, laborer, all of Boxford, Miriam Dole of Rowley, Joseph Manning, John Calfe, Ephraim Chadwick, Dr. Thomas Kittredge, Dr. Francis Hodgskins, Dr. John Manning, jr., Abraham How, yeoman, all of Ipswich, Elizabeth, wife of Richard Kimball, Dr. Moses Barker, Solomon Cole, yeoman, Daniel Long, yeoman, all of Andover, Sarah Estey of Middleton, spinster, Nathan Browne, gentleman, and Jonathan Cook, fisherman, both of Salem, Aaron Wood, esq., and Amos Kimball, yeoman, both of Boxford, Dr. William Hale of Boxford, Dr. Macajah Sawyer and Dr. Enoch Sawyer, jr., both of Newburyport, Dr. Nehemiah Abbot of Andover, Lucy, wife of Abraham How, Ezekiel Potter, yeoman, and Martha Pearley, spinster, both of Ipswich, Dr. Ward Noyce of Andover, Moses Dole, yeoman, Daniel Spafford, gentleman, and Robert Cregg, yeoman, all of Rowley, Moses George of Newburyport, shipwright, Mary, wife of Isaac Blunt of Andover, *These young men were under age, and were summoned in behalf of the prisoner. +Brother of the murdered woman. Sarah Porter, widow, and Dea. Thomas Chadwick, both of Boxford, John Barker of Andover, Dr. Henry Dow Banks of Haverhill, and Richard Dole and his wife Miriam of Boxford. Mrs. Ames "was thereupon brought and set to the bar and arraigned and upon her arraignment pleaded not guilty and for trial put herself upon God and the country," so runs the official record. The jury were then sworn to try the issue. The trial began at nine o'clock; and the substance of the evidence, according to the report of the case in the then current Essex Gazette, was as follows: "That on a violent Sufpicion that the faid Ruth Eames, who died the Beginning of laft May, was poisoned, her Body, five Weeks after the Burial, was taken up; and a Number of Physicians, fummoned on the Jury of Inqueft, on opening the fame, and finding a Substance, which they believed to be Arfenick or Ratsbane, adhering to the Coats of the Stomach, were unanimoufly of Opinion, that she loft her Life by Poifon : That, to corroborate this Opinion, it appeared that one Mrs. Kimball went to fee the Deceased the Morning before her Death, and on fignifying her Desire of going up Chamber, the Prifoner (who was Mother in Law to the faid Deceafed, and refided in the fame House with her) made an Objection to it, intimating that her Daughter was very ill, and had vomited and purged fo much as to render it very dif agreeable to enter the Chamber; notwithftanding which, Mrs. Kimball went up, found (the Reverse of what had been told her by the Prisoner) the Chamber clean and agreeable, and no Signs of vomiting or purging, but found the Deceafed almoft or quite in the Agonies of Death, with Froth or Phlegm issuing out of her Mouth, and expired foon after, viz. between 1 and 12 o'Clock in the Forenoon, having been ill from about feven in the Morning : That before her Death, the Prisoner faid, she would certainly die, for her Disorder was the fame that one Mrs. Chandler died of fome Years before, and was as mortal as the Plague; and that there would be another Death in the Family foon (meaning an Infant which the Deceafed, its Mother, had lately fuckled): That on laying out the Body, livid Spots, an Indication of Poison, appeared on one of her Arms: That the Prifoner, when she was affured the Body would be dug up, expreffed much Concern, and said she should not live a Month: That fince her Imprisonment, she has faid, fhe believed her Daughter was poisoned, and that her Son Jonathan (Hufband to the Deceafed) did it; and afked whether she could not turn King's Evidence." The court thought proper to admit the evidence of Jonathan, who had turned King's evidence against his mother. "By his Teftimony, it appeared, that, five or fix Days before his Wife died, his Mother told him, that she would deprive him of his Housekeeper (as fhe called his Wife) if she did it by a Portion of Ratfbane; and the Night before her Death, he saw his Mother give his Wife a Piece of Bread and Butter, with Ratfbane on it, as near as he could tell; and faid that fince he has heard the Doctors tell what Ratfbane is, he is certain that it was that; and that he cautioned his Wife against taking it." The trial continued through the short November day, and the dusk of evening found the court in session. Candles were lighted, and dimly dispelled the darkness of the ancient court room. Gloom must have settled on the prisoners, who knew not what the result of the trial might be, and the jury, too, could not have escaped from the feeling of awe that their duty that night must give or take a human life. The trial wore on. The midnight hour approached and passed before the lawyers began their arguments to the jury. John Adams spoke first. With all the solemnity of the hour and the occasion, he urged the jury to give release to the prisoner. As the substance of his argument, he said that by the evidence it did not appear that Mrs. Ames had been guilty of any ill behavior toward the deceased during their residence together in the same house; that it was the opinion of physicians that it was very improbable, if not impossible, that arsenic should lie so long in the body, as it was said it did in that of the deceased, that is, from some time in the evening till seven o'clock in the morning, before it operated; that the body, when taken up, was not putrefied in such a manner as it must have been had the deceased been poisoned; and that the evidence of the prisoner's son, Jonathan Ames, was not to be relied on, as he had sworn before the coroner, at the time the body was taken up, that he had no knowledge of any one's poisoning his wife; and now, in order to get clear himself, was so base as to give testimony which not only rendered him. guilty of perjury, but had a direct tendency to take away the life of his own mother. In reply Jonathan Sewall said, in substance, that the deceased on the same day that she ate the bread and butter dined on a fish called shad, and in the evening following ate a hearty supper of the same kind of fish; which, together with the quantity of butter on the bread, with which, it was said the arsenic was mixed, and some Spermaceti which she took soon after, might very probably tend to delay the operation of the arsenic; or, that which the prisoner gave the deceased, on the bread and butter, might have been salt, and that Jonathan was made to believe that it was ratsbane, as an artifice to render a discovery more difficult and perplexing, and that she in fact administered the arsenic the next morning; that as to the body's not being putrefied as much as might be expected it was the opinion of physicians that so large a quantity of arsenic might be received into the stomach as to cause violent convulsions and contractions of the large and small orifices, which might bring on death before the poison had mixed with the blood, and therefore a speedy putrefaction, as in cases wherein the body swells, might not |