Yes, it's October and yes 'tis the Halloween season. But did you know it is also National Family History Month? In 2001, Congress acknowledged the month of October as Family History Month and it has been observed annually for almost twenty years.
So what do Halloween and National Family History Month have in common? Maybe a few "skeletons in the closet?"
Let me relate a "spooktacular" story I uncovered in the family tree of one of my clients. The discovery and its timing makes the perfect Halloween tale.
Thomas Cornell and his wife Rebecca Briggs Cornell were married in 1620 and left for the Americas in the late 1630's where he became an innkeeper in Boston for a short period of time. In 1643, they left the Massachusetts Bay Colony for Rhode Island, where Thomas became acquainted with Roger Williams where he eventually settled in Portsmouth and obtained a 100 acre land grant known as the Cornell Homestead. Thomas and his wife Rebecca lived there until his death in 1655. His son Thomas Jr. and family lived with the widow Rebecca as he had not received an inheritance upon his father's death.
On a wintry day in February in 1673, the son Thomas and his family were dining in one room, Rebecca's charred body was lying in her bedroom. No one heard her cry out or said anything. It appeared his mother had been sitting by the fire smoking a pipe, a coal had fallen from the fire or her pipe, and she was burned to death. However, it was inferred that she was set fire to and that her son was the last one to see her alive. The townspeople knew they did not get along well. He resented her for holding onto his inheritance. Thomas was found guilty of murdering his mother and was hanged for it on the strength of a vision which her brother John Briggs had, in which she appeared to him after her death and said: ‘See how I was burned with fire.' It was inferred that she was set fire to, and that her son who was last with her did it. On this evidence Thomas Cornell was tried, convicted and hung for her murder. A local record of the account stated, "Rebecca Cornell, widow, was killed strangely at Portsmouth in her own dwelling house, and twice viewed by the Coroner's Inquest, digged up and buried again by her husband's grave in their own land." On May 23 her son Thomas was charged with murder.
You can read the whole story in the book "Killed Strangely: The Story of Rebecca Cornell," by Elaine Forham Crane. Excerpts from the story follow.
Killed Strangely: The Death of Rebecca Cornell
It was Rebecca's son, Thomas, who first realized the victim's identity. His eyes were drawn to the victim's head, and aided by the flickering light of a candle, he 'clapt his hands and cryed out, Oh Lord, it is my mother.' James Moills, a servant of Cornell... described Rebecca 'lying on the floore, with fire about Her, from her Lower parts neare to the Armepits.' He recognized her only 'by her shoes.'"
On a winter's evening in 1673, tragedy descended on the respectable Rhode Island household of Thomas Cornell. His 73-year-old mother, Rebecca, was found close to her bedroom's large fireplace, dead and badly burned. The legal owner of the Cornells' hundred acres along Narragansett Bay, Rebecca shared her home with Thomas and his family, a servant, and a lodger. A coroner's panel initially declared her death "an Unhappie Accident," but before summer arrived, a dark web of events—rumors of domestic abuse, allusions to witchcraft, even the testimony of Rebecca's ghost through her brother—resulted in Thomas's trial for matricide.
Adding even more suspense to this mystery murder is the fact that a descendant of this Cornell line was none other than the infamous Lizzie Borden, accused axe murderer, and sixth great grandchild of Thomas Cornell, Sr.!
So what kind of skeletons in the closet might you find? Maybe, just maybe, you might have a "bat in the belfry" or even worse!
