Fitch Bits: The Sad Story of Ruth Blay

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post.

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DID YOU KNOW that Ruth Blay was the last woman hanged in New Hampshire?

 

Say hello to Ruth Blay. She was the last woman to be hanged in New Hampshire and all she did was give birth to a stillborn child out of wedlock. There’s a lot going on here, so I’d like to talk in more detail later, but here’s a quick rundown:

 

Ruth Blay was a teacher and seamstress in 18th-century New Hampshire. She was born on June 10, 1737, and remained unmarried into her 30s. That would turn out to be a very bad thing for her.

 

She came down with a severe case of being pregnant in late 1767, which was a taboo thing for an unwed woman to do back in olde timey days. She continued to teach and carry on with her life until her 31st birthday in 1768.

 

That night, according to her own testimony, she took a fall down a flight of stairs and her body was pushed into labor, well ahead of the usual nine months that humans need. You can probably guess what happened next.

 

Giving birth to a stillborn child on the floor of a barn is too much for most people to deal with and she was all alone. It was the middle of the night and her only option was to hide the body under the barn’s floorboards until she had the strength and mental clarity to give it a proper burial. You also have to understand that being an unwed mother at that time was pretty much the end of your life. Not only did she have to deal with it all on her own, she also had to hide it from the entire colony.

 

Fast forward a little bit and her students find the body a few days later. Ruth Blay gets tried and convicted of “private burial and concealment of her bastard child”. That conviction comes with a good ol’ fashion hangin’.

 

There are some weird things going on with the case and Governor Benning Worth gave her a total of four reprieves, which delayed her execution until December and Blay fought for her conviction to be overturned.

 

She also claimed that witnesses had misrepresented facts and lied. Keep in mind that no one knows who the father was and Blay wrote: “And tho’ I die with a forgiving Spirit as to all my Enemies, but charge the two Women in particular to examine their own Hearts, as they will answer in another Day, whether they do not come under the character of False Witnesses—And whether prejudice, jealousy or something else has not drove them, thus to bear false witness against me.”

 

Lots of people think this points toward a conspiracy involving the father and his wife, but there’s no solid evidence to prove it. Then there’s the really crappy way she was hanged.

 

Sherrif Packer got her all nice and ready to be executed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 30th, 1786. A crowd gathered and begged him to wait for the governor’s next reprieve. Packer, unfortunately, had dinner waiting for him at home, so he had his men pull the cart out from Ruth’s feet and hang her right then and there.

That reprieve showed up just a few hours later, too late to save her life. Damn.

 

Later that night, a mob formed outside Packer’s house and burned an effigy of him. They also chanted: “Am I to lose my dinner/This woman for to hang?/Come draw away the cart, my boys/Don’t stop to say amen/Draw away, draw away the cart!”

 

The quilt she used to wrap her stillborn child in is still with the Portsmouth Historical Society. Needless to say, it’s haunted. Wouldn’t you be upset?

Packer, for his part in rushing her execution, suffered... well, nothing. He died a wealthy and comfortable man many years later. Double damn. Life is just awful.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

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