Elizabeth Reed

The Rural Republican occasionally published items that had occurred in the past probably to fill a blank space in the newspaper, or maybe the old-timers would be more likely to subscribe to the newspaper.  In the February 7, 1879, issue was an article about the Elizabeth Reed trial of 1845 that had occurred just 34 years before.  For those readers among you who don’t know, Elizabeth Reed was hanged for poisoning her husband.  She was the first woman hanged in Illinois.

“The execution was on the slope of the hill east of town and a very large crowd gathered from adjoining counties, estimated at 4,000-5,000. There being no jail, she was confined in one of the courthouse rooms and a day or two before the execution, she attempted to destroy herself by eating a quantity of plastering from the wall. A guard of sixty were detailed to keep the crowd at bay with their guns and were under the command of Capt. David D Marney.”

The editor of the newspaper, Mary Buntin, stated that “we reproduce these events with more regret than otherwise even if the law demanded a victim, but although the crime may have been ever so revolting, yet being a woman, it should have entered into the heart of the Judge and jury to have imprisoned her for life, rather than enforce the extreme penalty of the law.  It would be difficult in this age to obtain a jury who would sentence a woman to such a death.” 

The paper continued that “For years after this event, the children in that part of town stayed at home after night, and rumor had it that some grown folks too were inclined to see ghosts and hobgoblins in the wee hours of the night.”

Find a Grave manages a page for Elizabeth Reed, and we suspect the writer used information from a popular historical fiction book to create the biography. The Lawrence County Historical Society published a book of FACTS at the time the Lawrence County Arts Council presented an excellent production of this historic event. Our research was based on actual court records as primary sources and newspaper articles as secondary sources.

This is what local historical societies do and why they are so important.  Historical fiction authors rely on the research of historical societies and then embellish it to “sell” the story.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as readers understand this.  Not everything is “fact” in a historical fiction book. Read carefully and separate out the real facts of the “story.”

Please support us in our Lawrence County research of local history by becoming a member of the Historical Society.  https://www.lawrencelore.org/about_us

if you want to purchase the book with all the facts about Elizabeth Reed click here https://www.lawrencelore.org/product-page/a-documentary-record-of-the-first-woman-hanged-in-illinois