The Life and Death of Mrs. Maria Bickford: A beautiful female, who was inhumanly murdered, in the moral and religious city of Boston, on the night of the 27th of October, 1845, by Albert J. Tirrell, her paramour, arrested on board the Ship Sultana, off New Orleans, December 6thClergyman of Brunswick, Me.
History
The Life and Death of Mrs. Maria Bickford: A beautiful female, who was inhumanly murdered, in the moral and religious city of Boston, on the night of the 27th of October, 1845, by Albert J. Tirrell, her paramour, arrested on board the Ship Sultana, off New Orleans, December 6th
Clergyman of Brunswick, Me.
Bickford, Mary Ann, 1824-1845; Murder -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Tirrell, Albert John, 1824-1880
The husband and wife lived happily together for about three years.
She had one child, which died young. At this time, several female
friends of the family, who were about visiting Boston, extended an
invitation to Mrs. B. to accompany them; she accepted it, and the
party accordingly came here. While in this city she appeared
delighted with every thing she saw--completely captivated--and, on
her return home, expressed a desire to reside permanently in
Boston. Henceforth, Mr. B. states, she apparently became
dissatisfied with her humble condition. She was passionately fond
of dressing extravagantly; but the limited means of the husband
prevented her from making that gay appearance she so much desired
to do. She now became less affectionate than formerly towards him,
and often courted the attentions of a young man who visited their
boarding-house.
Business often called Mr. B. from home for several days together,
when, it was subsequently ascertained, the individual would make
himself agreeable to the wife. His prepossessing appearance and
winning address soon had the desired effect upon a mind already ill
at ease. He won her confidence, and, of course, had her completely
in his power. He offered to take her to Boston, and promised that
she should do as she pleased. Her beauty was her ruin. From this
date, (October 1842) commences her downward career.
They now planned an elopement. The young man, ascertaining that the
schooner Florence, Capt. Fowler, was lying in the stream, just
ready for sea, accordingly secured passage in her for himself and
victim. Mrs. B.’s husband arriving home at this juncture, it was
necessary that herself and seducer should manage with a great
degree of shrewdness, in order to lull suspicion. She therefore
expressed a desire to Mr. B. to go and reside with her mother at
Guilford, during the coming winter. He acquiesed] in the
proposition; she commenced packing up her wardrobe, &c., and the
unsuspecting husband engaged a carriage to convey her to Guilford
on the following day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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