Hanging Ruth Blay


Book Description

The true story of a woman hanged in colonial Portsmouth for burying her stillborn out-of-wedlock baby. On a cold December morning in 1768, thirty-one-year-old Ruth Blay approached the gallows for her execution. Standing on the high ground in the northwest corner of what is now Portsmouth’s old South Cemetery, she would have had a clear view across the pasture to the harbor and open sea. The eighteenth-century hanging of a schoolteacher for concealing the birth of a child out of wedlock has appeared in local legend over the last few centuries, but the full account of Ruth’s story has never been told. Drawing on over two years of investigative research, author Carolyn Marvin brings to light the dramatic details of Ruth’s life and the cruel injustice of colonial Portsmouth’s moral code. As Marvin uncovers the real flesh-and-blood woman who suffered the ultimate punishment, her readers come to understand Ruth as an individual and a woman of her time.







Red Book


Book Description

" ... provides updated county and town listings within the same overall state-by-state organization ... information on records and holdings for every county in the United States, as well as excellent maps from renowned mapmaker William Dollarhide ... The availability of census records such as federal, state, and territorial census reports is covered in detail ... Vital records are also discussed, including when and where they were kept and how"--Publisher decription.










Hopkinton, New Hampshire Vital Records


Book Description

Birth records typically give the child's name, date of birth, place of birth (or where recorded), parents' names, parents' places of birth, and reference source volume, page and line number. Marriage records typically give the bride's and groom's places of origin, date and place of marriage, bride's and groom's ages and places of birth, whether this is the first marriage, and bride's and groom's parents' names, followed by reference source volume, page and line number. Death records typically give the decedent's date and place of death, place of birth, parents' names, and reference source volume, page and line number. Contains the following records: births for the years 1737 through 1863; deaths for the years 1737 through 1857; marriages for the years 1737 through 1857; and baptisms for the years 1800 through 1816. Nearly all of the information falls between 1737 and 1857, but a few vital records go back as far as 1654. This volume has a new fullname index (containing roughly 6,000 to 10,000 names) to ease research.