In 1848, a murder case nearly brought an end to the death penalty in Massachusetts. When a young black man named Washington Goode was convicted of first degree murder that year, there hadn’t been an execution in Boston for 13 years. White men who had been convicted of the same crime had their sentences commuted to a life in prison, and tens of thousands of petitions poured in asking the governor to do the same thing for Goode. Yet even so, he was sent to the gallows. Why?
The Execution of Washington Goode
- Governor Edward Everett’s 1836 address, in which he seems to allude to the possibility of abolishing the death penalty.
- An issue of The Prisoner’s Friend, a journal dedicated to penal reform and abolishing the death penalty, dedicated largely to the Goode case.
- An 1849 edition of the Boston Pilot that criticizes the death penalty and Goode’s execution.
- Coverage in William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator of Goode’s suicide attempt and execution.
- A collection of petitions against the execution of Washington Goode.
- An article about the Concord petition in the journal Concord Saunterer.
- Data on capital punishment in the US that we used to calculate the decrease in executions from 1801 to 1845, then the rise again after 1845.
Featured Historic Site
This week, our featured historic site is Tremont Temple. Though it was built as a theater, Tremont Temple soon became a Baptist church. Over the years, it became famous as one of the first multiracial congregations in the nation, and a hub for the Boston abolitionist movement. The current building was constructed in 1896, after a devastating 1893 fire destroyed the original structure.
You can learn more about the history of the congregation through 1896 and the architecture of the new building, in this book published in that year to commemorate the new building:
Upcoming Event
On February 25, the Framingham History Center will feature a living history program called From Slavery to Freedom: A Slave Narrative of Aunt Sally Williams Recorded by Edna Dean Proctor. From the Center’s website:
Storyteller Libby Franck will portray Edna Dean Proctor as an abolitionist and journalist who published Aunt Sally Williams’ story just 5 years after Uncle Tom’s Cabin was released. Born in New Hampshire and buried in Framingham, Edna Dean Proctor spent many years in Brooklyn, NY at the home of Henry Bowen, publisher of The Independent. When Aunt Sally showed up at the offices of the paper in January 1857, Edna was asked to record her story.
After being enslaved on a North Carolina rice plantation, Sally was sold to a more lenient master and was able to work as an independent entrepreneur with her children living with her. But the jealousy of her neighbors, both black and white, forced her back into the cruelties of slavery in Alabama. How Sally’s son bought her freedom through a network of literate slaves, and her delivery to Brooklyn is a tale as compelling today as it was in antebellum days.
Songs of the period will be sung by Adrienne Williams.
The program begins at 2pm at the Edgell Memorial Library. Tickets are $5 for Framingham History Center members, and $10 for everyone else.