Susan Hanson

Read the full story here: The Northwood Murderer.

Read the full story here: The New Hampshire Horror.

 

In 1874, Joseph LaPage, a French-Canadian woodcutter, raped and murdered Marietta Ball, a young schoolteacher in St. Albans, Vermont. He was released for lack of evidence. A year later he struck again, raping and brutally murdering 17-year-old Josie Langmaid in Pembroke, New Hampshire. After two contentious trials, he was convicted of Josie Langmaid’s murder.

Read the full story here: Josie Langmaid-"The Murdered Maiden Student."

22-year-old Edwin Major came from Goffstown, New Hampshire; he was five foot ten, thickset and muscular with a heavy black mustache. When Lovejoy hired him, he already had a reputation as a bully, feared by people in town. Major was soon intimate with both of the Lovejoy girls; at the time, Ellen was 19, Ida was 13.

In July 1869, Ellen returned from picking blueberries, then suddenly collapsed and died. Her death could not be explained and was vaguely attributed to a spasm. Those who laid out her body for burial believed that she was pregnant when she died. The following November, Ida discovered that she was pregnant. Edwin Major was the father; he married Ida, and they lived together in her father’s house.

At first, it appeared that marriage would reform Major. He joined the Baptist Church in the Centre village and, for a time, was a zealous convert who became sexton of the church. But when money disappeared from the church’s charity fund, suspicion fell on Major, and he was expelled from the church. When relations became strained between Major and his father-in-law, he and Ida left the farmhouse and moved to French Village.

Major took a job at a furniture factory but was soon discharged for undisclosed reasons. A short time later, one of the workshops at the factory burned down. Suspicion rested on Major, but no movement was made toward his arrest. People lived in terror, fearing that if they brought charges against him, Major would retaliate and burn down their buildings.

In the five years since the wedding, Ida gave birth to four children, two of which had died suddenly, but no investigation was made. In 1874, Ida was pregnant again. Major started telling people that his wife was ill, suffering from spasms. He said that Ida was a “camphor subject,” meaning she habitually took camphor oil, a cough suppressant that could be addictive or even fatal when taken internally.

On Saturday, December 19, 1874, Major took a train to Nashua, New Hampshire, where he met with several physicians. He asked about procuring abortion, an illegal operation at the time; for his cousin, he said. When Major returned on Sunday, Ida appeared to be in good health. At 6:00, she prepared supper; at 7:00, she was dead. Ida had begun having spasms, and when neighbors were called to help, she was too sick to recognize them. They summoned a doctor, but she was dead before he arrived. This time the doctor was suspicious and sent for Coroner B.B. Whitmore. He did not arrive until after Ida’s funeral the following Tuesday.

Coroner Whitmore ordered Ida’s body disinterred and held Major in custody pending an inquest into her death. He sent Ida’s stomach to Boston for analysis by Dr. Edward S. Wood of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Wood analyzed the stomach contents using Drogendorff’s process, including three tests; 1. Taste, 2. Reaction with sulfuric acid and bichromate of potash, 3.the physiological test—the substance was fed to a frog. The frog died instantly, and Dr. Wood determined that Ida’s stomach contained strychnine. He presented his findings to the coroner’s jury, who concluded that Ida was poisoned by Edwin Major.

As Major awaited trial, Ellen Lovejoy’s body was exhumed. Though she had died five years earlier, her stomach was still intact; it was sent to Dr. Wood for analysis. He performed the same tests, this time administering the substance to a dog, producing death. Ellen had also been poisoned with strychnine. In addition, the exhumation proved conclusively that Ellen was pregnant at the time of her death. 

Edwin Major’s trial for murder began on September 13, 1875. Though public sentiment was strongly against Major, the evidence against him was circumstantial. The trial lasted about twelve days, and after deliberating for eighteen hours, the jury was hopelessly split and could not agree on a verdict. The second trial held the following December lasted four days, and after two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. He was sentenced to hang on January 5, 1877.

In the year between sentencing and Major’s scheduled execution, his supporters circulated a petition to commute his sentence to life in prison. Major was confident that he would not be executed and was devastated when the governor refused the petition.

Major was hanged in Concord, New Hampshire, on January 5, 1877. At the scaffold, he was pressed to make a confession, but he reiterated his innocence. Major appeared calm on the gallows, but before the trap was sprung, his nerve deserted him, and he fell upon his knees, utterly broken down. He died without a struggle. 

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Sources: 

	The Northwood Murderer. -1852 When a drifter came to town and committed murder, he was likely to get away without capture and was prone to kill again. But every now and then a wandering killer was caught and his whole bloody itinerary made public. Such was the case of the Northwood Murderer.
	The Smuttynose Murders -1873 Life on Smuttynose Island, in the Isles of Shoales,off the coast of New Hampshire, was hard in the 1870's. The winter months were bitter cold and the winter storms were devastating. Maren Hontvet, her sister Karen Christensen, and their sister-in-law Anethe Christensen dreaded the loneliness and isolation of the island when the men of the house were away fishing. The night of March 6, 1873, with the men away, the women were prepared to be alone in the cold house, but nothing could have prepared them for the arrival, by rowboat, of a deranged axe murderer.
	Josie Langmaid-"The Murdered Maiden Student" -1875 On October 4, 1875, 17-year-old Josie Langmaid was absent from school – The Pembroke Academy in Pembroke, New Hampshire. When her parents learned that Josie never arrived at school, they organized a search party. At 9:00 that night they found the mutilated body of Josie Langmaid in the woods near the academy. The following morning they found her head, half a mile from where the body had been. The gruesome discovery tore the community of Pembroke apart.
	The New Hampshire Horror. -1883 After his wife left him in November, 1883, Thomas Samon began a weekend of drunken debauchery in Laconia, New Hampshire, with Jane Ford, the wife of his landlord. But when the beer ran out Saturday morning, events turned unexpectedly violent, ending in a horrible triple murder.
	Cain and Abel. -1890 Like the Biblical brothers Cain and Able, the Sawtell brothers of Boston took divergent paths through life. While Hiram settled down and raised a family, supported by his successful fruit business, Isaac was doing time in Charlestown prison. And as with the Bible’s first murderer, Isaac’s jealousy of his brother became unbearable. Upon his release from prison, he lured Hiram from his family and killed him in cold blood.
	Murder in the Vale of Tempe -1891 George Abbott was a young child when he began his career as a thief and by his thirtieth birthday he had spent a third of his life in jail. When he left prison he changed his name and tried to change his evil ways, traveling and taking honest employment. While working as a farmhand in Hanover, New Hampshire he fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Christie Warden. When Christie did not return his love Abbot went back to his old ways and took it at gunpoint in the shady hollow known as the Vale of Tempe.
	A Contract With the Devil -1897 On April 16, 1897, cashier Joseph A. Stickney was murdered during a daring daylight robbery of the Great Falls National Bank in Somersworth, New Hampshire. The frenzied investigation that followed, crossed state and national borders resulting in the arrests of Joseph Kelley, a resident of Somersworth with peculiar habits. Joseph E. Kelley confessed to the murder, leaving the court to decide whether his actions were driven by a mental disorder, whether he was feigning mental disability, or whether Kelley had in fact made a contract with the devil.

Haley Dock and Homestead. The murder occurred in the third house from the left.

An article in the October 1874 issue of Harper’s Magazine describes a trip to the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. Though it discusses the current inhabitants and the long history of the islands, the article and its illustrations center on the memory of the brutal murders of Anethe and Karen Christensen, just a year and a half earlier.

Jonas L. Parker, a resident and tax-collector of Manchester, N. H., was enticed from his home one dark night in March, 1845, and murdered. His body was found the next day near some woods on the outskirts of town, the throat cut and a deep gash in the hip. A shoe knife and razor lay by his side, left by the murderer, who hoped to leave the impression of suicide. A watch and about $2000 were found in the victim’s pockets. The case attracted wide attention and for four years no evidence was found to implicate anybody. Finally in 1849 it leaked out that Parker had visited Saco, Me., a few days before his murder with the object of buying a hotel. There he met Henry T. Wentworth, to whom he explained his visit and showed a large sum of money he had about him. So Henry T. Wentworth, his brother Asa and his wife were arrested on suspicion and tried at Saco in February 1849. For lack of evidence the judge dismissed the case. Suspicious and slight circumstantial evidence, however continued to accumulate, and in May, 1850, the Wentworths were again arrested and taken to Manchester for trial. Gen. Butler and Franklin Pierce, afterwards president of the United States, appeared for the defendants. The trial lasted 12 days. The accused were again acquitted and since then the matter has rested, the Wentworth family being suspected all the same of having done the deed.

From Defenders and Offenders:


Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.