DREADFUL ATTACK OF MRS. BOGGS
(The following are excerpts from The Compiler, a newspaper in Yorkville in 1840 that was edited by John E. Grist.)
June 27, 1840: “In the neighborhood of this village a negro boy of 13 or 14 years of age, attacked and dreadfully beat his mistress, a Mrs. Boggs, and would no doubt have succeeded in his full design, had not a neighbor been accidentally passing, who came to her assistance, when the impudent rascal went quietly to his work as if nothing had happened. He is lodged in our jail to await his trial which is to take place today. His punishment should be as severe as the nature of the law will admit. If he has commenced thus early to commit crime, his future life would not be unmarked with others of a deeper dye.”
July 4, 1840: “The negro who attempted some week or two ago, to murder Mrs. Boggs, was tried on Saturday last, by a court of magistrates and freeholders, and sentenced to be hung on the 14th of August; but in consideration of the boy’s youthfulness—and his first attempt at crime, the court unanimously have thot proper to recommend him to the mercy of the executive.”
July 25, 1840: “We learn from undoubted authority that the negro boy Bosin, belonging to Thomas Boggs, who was condemned to be executed on the 14th of August, has his punishment commuted. The sentence of the governor is, that he shall be taken from the jail on the last Friday of every month (for four months), and receive 25 lashes upon his naked back (well laid on), and then be banished from this state—and in case of a failure to remove him when his term of punishment shall expire—he may be forthwith taken by the proper authorities and executed according to the sentence of the court.”
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