Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
Hampshire Ss At the Supreme Judicial Court begun and holden at Northampton within and for the County of Hampshire on the last Tuesday of April in the year of our Lord Seventeen hundred and Eighty Two
The Jurors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts upon their Oath present that Priscilla Woodworth of Blanford in the County of Hampshire Widow late Wife of Nathaniel Woodworth late of the same Blanford husbandman deceased, not having the fear of GOD before her Eyes, but of her malice aforethought contriving and intending him the said Nathaniel Woodworth her late husband aforsaid to deprive of his life, and him feloniously and traiterously to kill and murther, on the thirtieth day of September in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and Eighty one at Blanford aforsaid in the said County of Hampshire with force and Arms, feloniously, traiterously wilfully and of her malice aforethought did mix and mingle a great quantity of white Arsenick being a deadly poison in a certain quantity of Brimstone the said Priscilla Woodworth then and there well knowing the said white Arsenick to be a deadly poison and that the said Priscilla there afterwards vizt. on the same day the poison aforsaid so mixed and mingled as aforsaid with force and arms feloniously traiterously wilfully and of her malice aforethought did offer and give to the said Nathaniel Woodworth her said then Husband to take eat and swallow down and that the said Nathaniel Woodworth not knowing the poison aforsaid to have been mixed & mingled with the Brimstone as aforsaid, by the procurement and instigation of the said Priscilla Woodworth did take eat and swallow down the Poison so mixed and mingled as aforsaid with the Brimstone aforsaid and thereupon the said Nathaniel Woodworth by the Poison aforsaid so as aforsaid taken eaten & swallowed down then & there became sick and distempered in his body, and that the said Nathaniel Woodworth of the poison aforsaid and of the sickness and distemper thereby occasioned, did languish & languishing did live from the said thirtieth day of September to the first day of October then next ensuing on which same first day of October at Blanford aforsaid the said Nathaniel Woodworth died of the poison aforsaid and of the sickness & distemper occasioned thereby as aforsaid. And so the Jurors aforsaid upon 201 their oath aforsaid do say, that the said Priscilla Woodworth the aforsaid Nathaniel Woodworth her said late husband in manner and form aforsaid feloniously, traiterously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought did poison kill and murder against the peace of the Commonwealth aforsaid and Dignity of the same.
Hampshire Ss. April 1782 Priscilla Woodworth is set to the Bar & arraigned upon this Indictment and being demanded how she will acquit herself thereof, she says that therof she is not guilty and therof for trial puts herself upon God and the Country.