Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner (February 15, 1746 – July 2, 1778)[1] was the first woman in American history to be executed following the Declaration of Independence.
Gen. Timothy Ruggles, a lawyer who had served as chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1762 to 1764.
"[3] In the spring of 1777, sixteen-year-old Ezra Ross, a soldier in the Continental Army, fell ill en route to his home in Linebrook, a village in Ipswich.
[citation needed] On the latter occasion he stayed into the new year, traveled with Spooner on business trips and had an affair with Bathsheba.
[citation needed] While Ross and Spooner were in Princeton, Bathsheba invited two runaway British soldiers—escaped prisoners of war Pvt.
Bathsheba distributed paper money from her husband's lockbox and articles of his clothing to the three men, who then took one of the Spooner horses to Worcester, fourteen miles away.
He argued that Bathsheba had a "disordered mind," that her actions were irrational as evidenced by the lack of a getaway plan.
[citation needed] All four defendants were found guilty the next day and sentenced to death, with the executions set for June 4, 1778.
[citation needed] Bathsheba petitioned for a postponement, citing her pregnancy, based on common law principle that protected the life of a fetus if it had quickened.
[citation needed] The court did not accept those findings and Bathsheba was hanged alongside Ross, Brooks and Buchanan on July 2 in Worcester's Washington Square before a crowd of 5,000 spectators.
[3] A post-mortem examination, performed at Bathsheba's request, showed that she was pregnant with "a perfect male fetus of the growth of five months.
[4] John Avery Jr., the deputy secretary and leader of the Massachusetts Executive Council, who signed Bathsheba's death warrant, belonged to a group of Patriots called the Loyal Nine, who formed the innermost circle of the Sons of Liberty and was a step-brother of the murder victim.