COVER STORY
This 1833 print depicts the guilt of the Rev. Ephraim Avery, despite his acquittal.
Murder mystery By Deborah Allard Dion
Fall River is an old city, and with that comes historic neighborhoods, grand architecture, and lots and lots of stories.
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ome of those stories are of scandal and murder. And, with Halloween approaching, what better time is there to revisit one of those unnerving tales that takes us back to puritanical New England and the Spindle City’s beginnings? Kennedy Park on South Main Street, part of a bustling neighborhood that was originally part of Tiverton, was farmland long before it was home to a church, hospital, and the many conveniences of today. It was also the site of a gruesome murder. Sarah Maria Cornell was just 30 when she was found hanged on the property, her death first believed to be suicide, and later murder by her minister while she carried his child.
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Despite some evidence to that effect written by Cornell, the minister was acquitted and the case remains unsolved nearly 200 years later. When alive, Sarah was described as a “little black eyed sparrow of a girl” at just five feet tall, in “The Minister and the Mill Girl” by George Howe in American Heritage magazine in 1961. In death, the details are more gruesome. Cornell’s shoes and a red bandanna were found just feet from her body hanging so close to the frozen ground that her toes touched the dead grass. Her cheeks were frostbitten and one arm was bent up to her breast, perhaps to grab at the rope that had cut into her neck. Grass clung to her bruised knees, according to “The Phillips History of Fall River.” Her black hair “cascaded from the pleats” of her bonnet. Her tongue was stuck between
October 2020 | The South Coast Insider
her teeth, as was written in Howe’s account. “The Phillips History” said she was dragged for some distance and apparently hung with a rope taken from a wagon on the property. It was December 21, 1831 around 9 a.m. when Farmer John Durfee made his way through his Tiverton stack yard and saw something sway on a five-foot stake inside an enclosure. He must have been shocked at the discovery. Durfee tried to cut her down, but was unable and called for help. He and his father and farm hands got Cornell’s body down and lay her on the ground. The coroner was called from the village and a doctor from Fall River. She was identified and it seemed that she’d taken her own life. She was buried by a wall on the property. But the young
