BATHSHEBA SPOONER

A debut historical biography of a Colonial Massachusetts woman who plotted her husband’s murder.

Bathsheba Spooner lived in Brookfield during the Revolutionary War as the 20-something wife of Joshua Spooner, the mother of two young children, and the daughter of the highly vocal loyalist Timothy Ruggles. But she was dissatisfied with her lot in life, and when she met Ezra Ross, a 16-year-old member of a local militia, the two began a troubling sexual relationship. Soon, British Pvt. William Brooks and Sgt. James Buchanan, two former prisoners of war who stayed in the Spooner household, also become her lovers, and along with Ross, they would eventually execute a plan to murder her spouse. All four parties were later indicted, a trial ensued, and they faced execution, which forever cemented Bathsheba’s infamy. In his nonfiction work, Noone’s prose is erudite and accessible as he offers an in-depth look into Bathsheba’s background as well as those of the other players in this true-crime tale. He deftly offers extensive historical context as well, as when he writes of how the political conflict between loyalists and patriots raged in small towns (“In few towns, however, were the lines of demarcation so sharply drawn as in Worcester”) and presents painstaking detail about the home lives of women. Although the story is engaging on its own, it’s particularly intriguing when Noone examines Bathsheba’s mental health and how it might be perceived in the present day, noting that the question of her “mental competence has more recently become an issue” among historians. Although Noone focuses mainly on Worcester and the Spooners’ story, his thorough description of the events leading up to the American Revolution, as well as the war itself, provides a fine chronicle of New England’s cultural and political climate.

An informative read that will likely appeal to American history buffs.