The Mary Murderers

I am interested in transportation of felons from Britain to the U.S. in the eighteenth century, so I thought this weeks' topic would really give me room to research alternatives to execution (as transportation was usually seen to be).  However, my search terms did not bring up any information on transported thieves or murderers, and I began to notice that the criminals I was finding in the periodicals were often foreign-- French, British, Indian, German-- everything but what I wanted to find.

I have also been reading Dan's book, Pillars of Salt, to get some insight into female execution tales in the U.S., so I began to search for "murderess" and "infanticide" or "child" executions to pair up with some of the women presented in Dan's book.  I found a couple of interesting, child killing Marys to discuss, and in both cases, the nature of women in discussed in scientific terms which carry interesting cultural implications. 

The first story I came across is "Infanticide-- Mary Mulcahy: [From our Clonmel Correspondent]" in

United States Catholic Miscellany

My second Mary appears in  "Pages From the Diary of a Philadelphia Lawyer: The Murderess" printed in

The Gentleman's Magazine,

He then tells us of the trial, how she was found "not guilty" and how he came to know her true story through a letter she left for him to read in the event of her death.  It appears she and her husband killed his old relative for an inheritance, she then killed her husband and had an affair with his Italian friend, and killed her child.  A year later, the Italian lover killed her, and the lawyer was able to read and publish her letter.  While this tale seems too sensational to be true, the lawyer's assertion that women cannot be converted from crime and the depiction of a faulty law system in the U.S. are most interesting-- especially coming from the lawyer who defended her and won the case.  He does not discuss his own involvement in the system which freed her, but instead uses this tale as a caution: once women start down the road of villainy, they cannot recover but will be brought to greater crimes.  A very strange crime.  My next mission is to discover if any other periodicals mention Mary Stewart in attempts to discover if there is any truth to this tale.

Feb 1838 on page 107.  In this account, Mary Stewart is accused of killing her child and confesses to a neighbor that she accidentally threw it against the wall while playing with it (you can't make this stuff up...).  The author-lawyer introduces the subject by discussing the "principles in the physiology of woman which peculiarly capacitate her for endurance and perseverance under protracted affliction."  However, the author argues that women, once tainted or criminal, will not repent or regret their actions and gives the example of Mary Stewart to support his cause.May 30, 1829; 8, 47 pg. 373.  In this tale, Mary, a "young and extremely interesting looking female" was tried and convicted of the infanticide of her newborn.  Under the threat of execution, it appears Mary was pardoned for several reasons: the help of a gentleman, her appearance and demeanor which proved she could not murder, and the expert opinion of a doctor who claims that after delivery, some women are "seized with a temporary insanity" which allows them to commit actions they would not otherwise do and of which they are conscious.  This is an interesting early mention of post-partum depression, and coupled with this explanation and Mary's "extremely interesting" appearance, sorrow, and previous good character, Mary is given respite and expected to be released altogether.  Interestingly, the author of this article mentions a lack of evidence, "but her own confession."  This seems to be pointing out that her own confession is not enough to convict her-- possibly because of her youth and appearance?  There is also some confusion about the father of the child who Mary never names.  In fact, the article almost hints that the father is a gentleman with sway over the courts.  I am not sure why this tale appears in the Catholic Miscellany, unless it is presenting mercy for non-deliberate murderers.