I absolutely abhor violence. We see it every day in our country, in some form or another. But. There is nothing new about crime in America.
In the early years of the United States, one shocking crime occurred. It is widely regarded as the very first mass murder in American history. (Other than war, I should say.)
It happened on February 3, 1780. A young man named Barnett Davenport brutally murdered five members of the Mallory family at their farmhouse near Easton, Connecticut.
The adult victims were actually Caleb and his wife Jane, and three of their grandchildren: Charlotte (9), John (6), and Sherman (4). Davenport also set fire to the home in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence of the crime.
The murders stunned everyone. People talked about this for years.
Davenport was only about 19 years old. Before the killings, he had served as a teenage soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. What a thing that must have been for a teenage boy.
Historical records show that he spent time at both Valley Forge and Fort Ticonderoga before eventually becoming a boarder in the Mallory household.
No one knows with certainty what drove him to commit the murders. Some modern historians have wondered whether the trauma of war may have affected his mental state. But there is no real way of proving that today. Although it seems like a likely reason to me.
At the time, people viewed the crime as nothing but horrific. The idea that an apparently ordinary young man could commit such hideous acts was almost impossible for people to comprehend.
Davenport was quickly captured after attempting to flee. He confessed to the murders and was convicted. And then, of course, he was hanged. He was put to death later that same year at the age of 19. Thousands reportedly gathered to witness his execution.
These days, we see a mass shooting in the United States about every other day, it seems. But back then, this case became one of the first true crime sensations in American history.
Ministers preached sermons about it. People wrote pamphlets about it, describing the details. Newspapers covered the murders extensively.
Many Americans began to question whether some criminals were simply sinners who had made bad choices, or whether there were people capable of extraordinary violence for reasons that society did not yet understand. Or that they might have been pure evil.
Whatever the case, then or now, it is a sad reminder of unimaginable violence. I wish the whole world could just be good.
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“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” — Isaac Asimov
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“Every act of violence leaves a wound that reaches far beyond its victims.” — Ryan Sullivan
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“Civilizations are judged not only by what they build, but by how they value human life.” — Kevin Brooks
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“The greatest tragedy is not that evil exists, but that innocence is so often its victim.” — Emily Turner
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