A MATTER OF CONTEXT: ELIZABETH WILSON REVISITED
ELIZABETH WILSON’S STORY is one of the melodramas of the early American republic. Executed in Chester, Pennsylvania, for the murder of her illegitimate eight-week-old twins, Wilson went to her death protesting her innocence and naming the lover who deserted her as the killer of her children. For almost an entire year of imprisonment while she awaited trial, Wilson offered no explanation for her children’s death, claiming that she had abandoned them along a public road where they might be found. After she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, Wilson changed her story. On December 6, 1785, the day before she was to be hanged, Wilson accused her lover of the crime and described her children’s murder in detail. With this information, her brother William raced to Philadelphia to obtain a stay of execution. The Supreme Executive Council postponed Elizabeth Wilson’s hanging until January 3, 1786, giving William a chance to corroborate her story. While he was allegedly successful, William fell ill in the course of his quest and recovered with the execution imminent. He arrived back in Chester bearing a second stay, but twenty minutes too late to save his sister from the hangman. Wilson’s story had widespread and enduring appeal. It was tragic and romantic; it was an unsolved murder mystery; and it was pertinent to a variety of cultural currents of the time. The case was not only sensational, but controversial because it involved the execution of an arguably inno-