On this date in 1768, Isaac Frasier hanged at Fairfield, Connecticut for his career of (as the pamphlet told it) “Abominable Thefts”.

Frasier took to his larcenous ways from a very young age, and committed a host of thefts from the time of his minority apprenticed to a tightfisted shoemaker. For the volume and audacity of his thefts, Frasier was a sort of Charlie Peace of colonial New England with the significant difference that he was also extraordinarily bad about conducting his career in serial burglary without (repeated) detection.

And so Frasier was caught, over and over and over again: really, he might have thought about a different vocation. Eventually he ran afoul of an 18th-century three strikes law allowing the execution of repeat offenders. (And drawing in its case some lively public debate over the justice of hanging a man for a mere property crime under any circumstances whatsoever.

Anyway, thanks to his want of both restraint and wile, Frasier was clapped in irons, whipped, branded, sold to a privateer, had an ear cropped, whipped some more. He lost his wife after one arrest (that wasn’t juridical penalty, just a modicum of shame.)

He had a gift for escape which jibed well with his gift for arrest, but every time he busted out of stir he returned instantly to burglary with a positively alcoholic compulsion.

Even when he effected his last jailbreak while already under sentence of death for recidivism, he exercised not an iota of discretion but invited his swift recapture by frantically plundering every shopkeep he laid eyes on in a whirlwind tour of Connecticut and environs. Just one last fix for the road.

Last Wednesday evening the notorious FRASIER, who was under sentence of death for burglary, as has been mentioned, was brought from Worcester, (where he was taken up for theft, and whipt) and re-committed to the goal [sic] in this town, from whence he escaped about a month since, — in which time he has committed five or six burglaries and thefts, and traveled near 500 miles. The next night but one after his escape, he broke open no less than three shops in Middletown, from one of which he stole 70l. value in goods and cash. The Superior Court now sitting in Fairfield, have given strict orders, that he should be loaded with chains, and the goal guarded every night till the time of his execution …

–Connecticut Gazette (aka New-London Gazette), Sep. 2, 1768

“Excessive Wickedness, the Way to an untimely Death.” That was the title of the gallows sermon they gave for him. At least they couldn’t knock him for idleness.

Frasier’s career is narrated in considerable detail at the excellent site Early American Crime, and this also affords enough excuse to note that this prolific blogger has published a book on his topic, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America. It’s a captivating read we recommend enthusiastically.

(Said blogger-author, Anthony Vaver, has also guest-posted on this site: see here and here.)

Part of the Themed Set: Americana.

On this day..

• 1833: Nils Narumseie, terror of Kanten
• 1619: Melchior Grodziecki, Istvan Pongracz and Marko Krizin, Jesuits
• 1952: Mustafa Khamis and Muhammad al-Baqri, Egyptian labor activists
• 1960: George Scott
• 1736: Captain John Porteous, riotously lynched
• 1732: Pompey, poisoner of James Madison's grandfather
• 1914: Seven retreating Frenchmen, with surprising results
• 1849: Elisha Reese, suitor
• 1929: Constantine Beaver, Alaskan native
• 2000: Lu Cheng, possible wrongful Taiwanese execution
• 1984: Ernest Dobbert, child abuser
• 1943: 186 prisoners at Plotzensee Prison