Painting of Old Gaol, Alfred, 1888
Built in 1719, Old York Gaol (Jail) served as Patience Boston’s final residence as she awaited her trial and sentence. Old York Historical Society
Suspect: Patience Boston
Accusation: Murder
Location: York, Maine
Date: July 9, 1734
Victim: Benjamin Trott
Patience Boston’s (1711-1735) short life included a series of complicated circumstances, ending with her execution for an eight-year-old child’s murder. Born in 1711 at Nantucket into the Nauset Tribe, she was indentured as a young child by her father to Peter Crowell (or Crowe) after the death of her mother.
Particularly after Mrs. Crowell’s death, Patience exhibited signs of trauma including attempted arson. At the end of her indenture, she started drinking heavily before marrying an enslaved whaler named Caesar Boston. Although not required by Massachusetts law, Patience recounted, “I bound myself a servant with him during his lifetime.”
Patience and Caesar Boston’s two children died in infancy. Perhaps removal from her Indigenous family support, a mental health crisis, or postpartum depression, Patience admitted to “tho’ts of murdering” both children prior to their births and blamed herself for their subsequent deaths. She confessed to her husband and the authorities, who twice declined to hear the confession for a lack of evidence. Upon her insistence, she was charged with the death of the second child. In jail, she feared dying with a “lie in my mouth,” changed her plea to not guilty, and was acquitted.
Upon release, she left her husband and requested to be bound to Joseph Bailey of Casco Bay. While in Maine, Patience confessed to murdering a third child. Upon examination by midwives and a search for a potential grave, authorities determined the child did not exist.
After a series of indentures and bound servitude, Patience came to the household of Benjamin Skillins in York, Maine. She “bound” herself “by a wicked oath” to kill Skillin’s grandson Benjamin Trott for “some groundless prejudice which I had taken against my master.” She confessed to luring Trott to a well and drowning the young boy. Boston turned herself over to the authorities.
Arrested, tried, and convicted, Patience Boston spent her final days in prison, where she gave birth to another child. During her incarceration, she read scripture and repented, found sobriety, and attended church. She shared her story with visiting ministers Samuel and Joseph Moody, who widely circulated her narrative as a lesson in salvation and redemption.
Convicted of murder, Patience Boston was hanged at York on July 24,1735.