A few years later, in 1795, the "great buck" of his time took to a bankrupt's grave in New York, forgetting, so the story goes, the eternal canon fixed against self-slaughter.
But for all we tell as a legend this story of Martha Hilton, and for all her "capture" of the governor has come down to us almost as a myth, it is less than fifty years ago that the daughter of the man who fiddled at Stoodley's and of the girl who went barefooted and ragged through the streets of Portsmouth, passed in her turn to the Great Beyond. Verily, we in America have, after all, only a short historical perspective.
AN HISTORIC TRAGEDY
One hundred years ago there was committed in Dedham, Massachusetts, one of the most famous murders of this country, a crime, some description of which falls naturally enough into these chapters, inasmuch as the person punished as the criminal belonged to the illustrious Fairbanks family, whose picturesque homestead is widely known as one of the oldest houses in New England.
In the Massachusetts Federalist of Saturday, September 12, 1801, we find an editorial paragraph which, apart from its intrinsic interest, is valuable as an example of the great difference between ancient and modern journalistic treatment of murder matter. This paragraph reads, in the quaint old type of the time: "On Thursday last Jason Fairbanks was executed at Dedham for the murder of Miss Elizabeth Fales. He was taken from the gaol in this town at eight o'clock, by the sheriff of this county, and delivered to the sheriff of Norfolk County at the boundary line between the two counties.
"He was in an open coach, and was attended therein by the Reverend Doctor Thatcher and two peace officers. From the county line in Norfolk he was conducted to the Dedham gaol by Sheriff Cutler, his deputies, and a score of cavalry under Captain Davis; and from the gaol in Dedham to the place of execution was guarded by two companies of cavalry and a detachment of volunteer infantry.
"He mounted the scaffold about a quarter before three with his usual steadiness, and soon after making a signal with his handkerchief, was swung off. After hanging about twenty-five minutes, his body was cut down and buried near the gallows. His deportment during his journey to and at the place of execution was marked with the same apathy and indifference which he discovered before and since his trial. We do not learn he has made any confession of his guilt."
As a matter of fact, far from making a confession of his guilt, Jason Fairbanks denied even to the moment of his execution that he killed Elizabeth Fales, and his family and many other worthy citizens of Dedham believed, and kept believing to the end of their lives, that the girl committed suicide, and that an innocent man was punished for a crime he could never have perpetrated.
In the trial it was shown that this beautiful girl of eighteen had been for many years extremely fond of the young man, Fairbanks, and that her love was ardently reciprocated. Jason Fairbanks had not been allowed, however, to visit the girl at the home of her father, though the Fales place was only a little more than a mile from his own dwelling, the venerable Fairbanks house. None the less, they had been in the habit of meeting frequently, in company with others, en route to the weekly singing school, the husking bees and the choir practice. Both the young people were extremely fond of music, and this mutual interest seems to have been one of the several ties which bound them together.