O my dear Friends — Take Warning by me. Here I come to Dy, and if God be not Merciful to my Soul, I shall be undone to all Eternity — If I do not turn by Repentance. I Bless God, I have found more Comfort in Prison, than ever before. O Turn to God now. O how hard it is to Repent; If you go on in Sin, God may give you up to a hard Heart. Oh! Turn whilst the Day of Grace lasts.
These, shouted to a crowd of thousands, were the last uttered by repentant sex worker and infanticide Esther Rodgers at her hanging in Ipswich, Mass., on this date in 1701. Esther Rodgers’s life story and jailhouse conversion in New England are richly explored by author and sometime Executed Today guest blogger Anthony Vaver on his site, Early American Crime. Take a look here.
On this day..
- 1909: Sheikh Fazlollah Noori, anti-constitutionalist martyr
- 1849: Maximilian Dortu, republican martyr
- 1940: Udham Singh, Jallianwala Bagh massacre avenger
- 1934: Otto Planetta and Franz Holzweber, for the Juliputsch
- 1767: Obadiah Greenage, colonial gangster
- 1868: Stefan Karadzha, Bulgarian national hero
- 1812: Hölzerlips, Blood Court prey
- 1722: Cartouche's brother, hanged by the armpits
- 1602: Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron
- 1903: Hilario Hidalgo and Francisco Renteria
- 1959: Cho Pong-am, Presidential runner-up
- 1963: 21 Iraqi Communists