1813: Ezra Hutchinson, teen rapist

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On this date in 1813, 19-year-old Ezra Hutchinson was hanged in the western Massachusetts village of Lenox for raping a 14-year-old named Lucy Bates.

Hutchinson passed the girl by (mis)chance on the road on his way home, and arriving there reflected what an inviting target she made — so he turned and followed her path into the wilderness until he overtook her.

Reproduced here is the pamphlet issued over his signature on the day of his execution with the informative title, “The solemn address and dying advice of Ezra Hutchinson: who was executed at Lenox, Mass. November 18, 1813, for a rape on the body of Miss Lucy Bates.” In it, we find a mostly penitent Hutchinson, who owns and laments his adolescent lewdness, still bold enough to “forgive” his victim her testimony against him. A footnote by the pamphlet’s editor explains:

for several weeks previous to his execution, he was uniform in declaring, that he supposed the girl had really consented to what was done. The girl in her testimony had said that having resisted to the utmost of her power, until her strength failed, she finally, through weariness and fright, sank almost lifeless to the ground. Here is an apparent contradiction; but it is easily reconciled in the eye of charity, by supposing, that when she fainted, and ceased any longer to resist, he honestly thought that she yielded her consent, though in truth she did not.

On this day..

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