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Connecticut Mystery: The Unsolved Murder of Jerusha Brewster

Amos and Jerusha Brewster of Norwich, Conn., married in 1761, and would both die famously: he in a battle that helped turn the American Revolution toward victory and she in a murder that remains unsolved to this day.

For Amos, life ended in 1777 on the battlefield at Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia.

The British army sought to finish off the Americans. British general William Howe was ensconced in Philadelphia while George Washington and his army retreated toward Valley Forge.

A Hero’s Death

British naval ships proceeded up the Delaware River with needed supplies. A force of 200 to 400 Americans stationed at Fort Mifflin, including Amos Brewster, had orders to prevent them from reaching Philadelphia.

For nearly six weeks, this small contingent of men succeeded in stopping the British Navy from completing its mission. Bombarded daily, the American soldiers rebuilt their fort each night. Then on November 15, a force of six British ships armed with more than 200 cannon approached the fort, which had only 10 guns.

Jerusha Brewster lived in Canterbury, Connecticut with her daughter and son-in-law.poison

At one point, more than 1,000 cannon shots an hour poured down upon the fort. That night the Americans, with no remaining ammunition, had to torch the fort and evacuate. Their contribution to history: delaying the British advance while Washington dug in at Valley Forge.

Amos, however, died in the action.

The Brewster genealogy proudly notes: Amos Brewster served in the Revolutionary War and died of wounds received at Fort Mifflin, he being one of the heroic three hundred who defended the fort so valiantly when besieged by the British. The old New England valor was in Amos and he fell with his face toward the foe.

Jerusha Brewster

Jerusha Brewster, now a widow and living at the couple’s Canterbury, Conn., home, raised the couple’s four children alone. And by 1800 she was living with her daughter and son-in-law, Lovisa and James Morse.

Jerusha Brewster had a difficult relationship with her son-in-law. Early in 1802, Jerusha left home for several weeks, and upon returning in April her fortunes took a turn for the worse.

Newspaper accounts say that the morning after she returned home, Jerusha made pancakes for her daughter and three grandchildren:

“She had been absent from the family for more than a fortnight; she left a bowl of flour in her cupboard; and the morning after her return she made some pancakes of the flour,” reported the newspaper. “While she was preparing her breakfast, two of her grandchildren came into her room, to whom she gave cake. Soon after, her daughter, Mrs. Morse, who always treated her mother well, came in with her child of nine months old; she ate two, giving the child a piece, and went out.”

According to the newspaper, Jerusha Brewster then began her breakfast. She had nearly finished when the children and the mother were taken with puking.

“The daughter, Mrs. Morse, sent word to her mother not to eat any more of the cakes; she came into her daughter’s room, and in about five minutes was taken with the most violent and racking vomiting.

“The physician was called and by proper antidotes arrested the fatal progress of the poison in Mrs. Morse and her children, but had no efficacy upon the old lady.”

Poison

A jury at the inquest subsequently gave a verdict of ‘poison, and by design.’

“The body was opened and a considerable quantity of arsenic taken out,” reported the newspaper. “The cakes that remained were examined, and pieces of poison were found in them. “

Suspicion immediately fell on her son-in-law James, for it was well known that James and Jerusha Brewster had lived together ‘quite unhappily.’ James had also served in the Revolutionary War; and some sources say he served as a teen under General Washington.

With no proof against James in the murder, the authorities could do nothing more than question him and let him go. He and Lovisa would move to Centerville in western New York, where they passed away, she in 1841 and he in 1845.

At the funeral of Jerusha Brewster, the minister, Rev. Waterman, chose to deliver a sermon aimed at her killer. He spoke on the Biblical passage from Corinthians: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil.”

This story about Jerusha Brewster was updated in 2022.

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Jennie Cramer – New Haven’s “Beautiful Victim” of 1881

Jennie Cramer and her mother Christina had an awful fight on Thursday, August 4, 1881. Jennie and her friend Blanche Douglass had been dating two of the Malleys – members of one of New Haven’s wealthiest families – and they hadn’t come home the night before.

Cover of the book about the murder of Jennie Cramer, The Beautiful Victim of Elm City

If she didn’t stop her scandalous behavior, Christina threatened, Jennie, 21, would have to find her own place to live. Jennie insisted she did nothing wrong, that she only spent the night at the hotel where Blanche was staying because Blanche was ill and she could find no one to accompany her home.

In truth, the two girls had stayed at the Malley mansion. Jennie thought it would sound better to say they had stayed in Blanche’s rooms. But Jennie probably did believe the rest of it – that Blanche was sick. The best evidence suggests that Jennie never knew exactly what was going on with the Malleys and Blanche.

Walter Malley

Walter Malley’s father, Edward, owned Malley & Co., a very successful dry goods store. The department stores it spawned would remain in business through 1982. Walter was a shy boy, musical and artistic but unambitious. He attended college but never graduated, and lived at his family’s mansion.

His cousin Jimmy was more outgoing and a harder worker than Walter. The two had met Blanche (one of several names she used) at a brothel in New York, and she was “dating” Walter.

Jimmy, meanwhile, was attracted to Jennie Cramer. Jennie’s father, a cigar maker, was far less wealthy than the Malleys. Jennie herself is generally described as beautiful, but not extraordinarily smart.

Illustration of the discovery of Jennie Cramer from The Beautiful Victim of Elm City

Nevertheless, Jennie was very protective of her reputation. She hoped her beauty would allow her to marry well. While she was open to Jimmy’s attention, she did not intend to sleep with him.

With this in mind, Blanche, Walter and Jimmy cooked up a scheme. The three would try to find a way to have Jimmy and Jennie spend the night together. Jennie never knew of the scheme, and in all likelihood never knew that Blanche was a prostitute.

Savin Rock

On Wednesday night, they put their plan into action. Walter’s father Edward was away at Saratoga. The mansion was vacant. The four spent some time drinking and eating and singing, and then Blanche began to protest that she was feeling ill. Blanche would later say she heard Jimmy and Jennie fighting in the next room that Wednesday night, as Jennie fought off his advances – apparently successfully.

After telling Jennie’s mother the altered version of the story, Blanche said she went to her dressmaker. She saw Jennie on a horse-pulled trolley headed to Savin Rock in West Haven, home of an amusement park. It was the last she ever saw of Jennie – or so she said.

Postcard of The Colonnade at Savin Rock.

Witnesses would later come forward and say they saw Jennie Cramer with two men and a woman who looked like Blanche and the Malleys at Savin Rock on Friday. With Jennie missing, her father began making the rounds looking for her.

He questioned Jimmy Malley, who said Jennie had spoken of going to New York, perhaps with Blanche. Walter made a show of taking a train toward the city, but turning back when he received a telegram at Stamford informing him Blanche was in New Haven.

No one knew where Jennie was. Until Saturday morning, when a fisherman at Savin Rock found a body – Jennie Cramer – in the surf. He pulled her to shore and ran for the police.

The first assumption was that she had drowned. But a cursory exam showed she had no water in her lungs. The next assumption was that she had killed herself because of the fight with her mother, but that, too, would soon seem far-fetched.

Arsenic and Lies

Over the next several weeks, some of the truth about Jennie Cramer began emerging. An autopsy revealed she had been raped. Further analysis found arsenic in her system. Some theorized that perhaps she had taken it herself, which some girls did to improve their complexion.

No, there was too much arsenic in her body to have been the residual effect of small doses of arsenic. Rather, she had taken a large dose and it killed her. Suicide made little sense, unless it was in despair over being attacked.

The more stones the police turned over, the worse things looked. When they discovered Blanche had told a slew of lies about herself in the initial inquiries, they arrested her and the Malleys. A grand jury declared Jimmy was the killer and that Walter and Blanche were his accomplices. They would have to stand trial.

The Edw. Malley Co. logo

While the case was proceeding, however, the Malleys did not stand idly by. Edward hired a team of lawyers and detectives. Rumors spread that he was paying off witnesses to change their stories – to become less sure they had witnessed the Malley boys with Jennie on the Thursday and Friday in question.

Blanche’s performance, even with legal coaching, was shaky. One of the Malley family, she would later say, asked how much money she would require to run away and get on the next steamer to Europe. Either confident of victory, or fearing she was being set up, Blanche refused.

The Trial

In the spring 1882, the trial kicked off. The press covered the salacious story extensively. New Haven at the time was a mini-melting pot of immigrants, with an entrepreneurial and clannish nature.

A small book was published about the case, and the Malleys tried to buy up every copy to shore up their image. There was little doubt among the public that the wealthy Jimmy Malley was guilty, but the jury found otherwise.

There was ample evidence that the Malleys and Blanche had lied repeatedly, but the judge instructing the jury told them there was only one question before them. Had the threesome poisoned Jennie Cramer with arsenic? On that point the jury found inadequate evidence to convict.

The shocking death of Jennie Cramer wreaked havoc on her family. Her father killed himself before the trial. Her mother, who became mentally unstable after the trial, followed suit and committed suicide in 1891.

Blanche Douglass would make headlines in the years after the trial a couple of times. Once she was accused of trying to blackmail the Malleys with incriminating letters Walter had written to her. She would later create a scandal by announcing that she and Walter had married, a story he immediately denied.

This story about Jennie Cramer was updated in 2023.

Image of Malley logo: By Self-made scan of vintage box., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24225778. Savin Rock PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10134715.

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How Maine’s Samuel Mayall Brought America its First Woolen Mill

Samuel Mayall didn’t just bring the first woolen mill to America. He gave Maine two of its first businesswomen, and a statesman who took a principled stand on slavery.

Mayall built his woolen mill in Gray, Maine, in the late 18^th century with ingenuity, hard work and a little industrial espionage.

Mayall Mill Postcard

Born in 1761, he came to New England from old England, in Yorkshire. Technology was beginning to emerge that could mechanize the centuries-old craft of processing wool into cloth. The woolen guilds were wary of the technology, fearing it would cause them to lose control of the woolen trade. They did their best to keep it to themselves.

English craft guilds dated back centuries, and dyers, fullers and weavers all had roles to play in the production of cloth. They were tightly regulated. Substandard products could get you fined, and apprentices and journeymen were not free to move from one master craftsman to another. The oppressive nature of the guilds prompted many to look for ways out.

The First Woolen Mill

Mayall, seeing the opportunity in unregulated America, smuggled some English trade secrets out of the country, bundled in cloth destined for sale to the Native Americans. Once in New England he set up shop, first in Boston with a horse-powered carding operation in 1788 or 1789. But he soon moved to Gray, where he built his mill on the Collyer Brook, which powered his wool carding and cloth dressing operation in 1791.

Mayall took in wool from farmers and brought it to his mill where he made it into cloth. The news of Mayall’s success was not well received by the English craft guilds, and they twice threatened him. Once they shipped him a hat threaded through with needles dipped in poison. The second time they mailed him a box containing pistols intended to detonate when opened. (They didn’t.)

Mayall Mills. Original mill is background, right. State of Maine photo.

Mayall Mills. Original mill in background, right. State of Maine photo.

Mayall prospered, however, serving for a time as town selectman and running his mill until 1831. After his death, two of his three daughters, Mary and Phanela, took over and ran the mill. At the same time, one of Mayall’s five sons, also named Samuel, entered politics. He served in the Maine Legislature and then represented Maine in Congress as a Democrat from 1853 to 1855.

‘Shaken off the lethargy’

Mayall broke with the Democrats over slavery, however. He switched to the Republican Party after Democratic President Franklin Pierce opened the door to expanded slavery in the Midwest. Mayall left the party in no uncertain terms delivering a fiery speech on the floor of the House:

The people of the free states are aroused. They have shaken off the lethargy which has so long rested upon them. They are prepared to grapple with this question of slavery and to wipe away the stain from the Federal Government. No magic wand will again pass over them, lulling them into quiet repose, while southern oppression shall wind its meshes about the limbs of the northern giant. Our Sampson will not be seduced to sleep on the lap of effeminate servility, while she shaves from him the locks in which his great strength lies. No sir, this federal government must be divorced from all support of the “peculiar institution.”

In 1855, the younger Samuel Mayall moved to Minnesota and later served in the Civil War. The Mayall Mills, meanwhile, under the leadership of his sisters, did a booming business supplying woolens for the Union troops, among other customers. They expanded and built a new mill to add to the output from the first. At its peak, Mayall Mills employed 20 people and produced 30,000 yards of woolen cloth in a year.

Samuel Mayall lived out his life after the war in St. Paul, Minn., where he died in 1892. His sisters sold the mill in 1879, and it closed for good around the turn of the century.

This story last updated in 2022.

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