A website from the Massachusetts Historical Society; founded 1791.

Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4

beta

To Nathaniel Freeman

29 March 1782

Grand Jury notes

At the April 1782 meeting of the Supreme Judicial Court in Hampshire County, Priscilla Woodworth of Blandford was charged with “petit treason” for allegedly poisoning her husband, Nathaniel Woodworth, with white arsenic and ultimately causing his death. Woodworth put in a not guilty plea, and the court appointed Caleb Strong and Theodore Sedgwick as her counsel. The jury found her not guilty.