Dorothy Talby is chained to a post at the corner of Prison Lane, with the hot sun blazing on her matronly face, and all for no other offence than lifting her hand against her husband....
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, in Main Street
....see poor Dorothy Talby, mad as Ophelia....
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Medical Essays
We simply don't know what to do with the Medeas of the world, mothers who are as "mad as Ophelia," who suffer from psychosis and murder their own children. Execution? Life imprisonment? Commitment to a psychiatric hospital?
It's a question that Americans have wrestled with for nearly 400 years. Before Andrea Yates drowned her children, before Darlie Routier stabbed her children, before Susan Smith drowned her children, before Deanna Laney stoned her children, before Maggie Young drowned her five children in a bathtub in 1965, there was Dorothy Talby, the first woman in North America known to have murdered a child while in the throes of delusion. And the date of the event is very early indeed.
Dorothy Talby and her husband John came from England to settle in Plymouth in colonial Massachusetts. The painstaking records kept by the colonists offer a full picture of their life together. After obtaining an allotment of land, Dorothy and John had several children; the last was a daughter named Difficulty, who was baptized on Christmas, 1636.
The Talby marriage was a tortured one. After the birth of her last child, Mrs. Talby "became melancholy and possessed of delusions." Dorothy quite evidently suffered from a severe mental illness and often threatened her family. Dorothy's husband complained of her bizarre behavior to authorities in Salem, who sentenced her in 1637 to be chained to a post for "frequently laying hands on her husband, to the danger of his life."
The treatment was ineffective, and she was excommunicated. This was also ineffective. When she became increasingly violent, she was publicly whipped. Then in 1638 "her mind again became more clouded." The rest of the story comes from the original records:
She believed that God revealed to her the necessity of taking the life of her baby, in order to save the child from future misery.... she was led to take the child's life, by breaking its neck. She made no secret of the murder, and when apprehended confessed the deed.
In the [Salem] court, on this day, upon her arraignment, she, however, stood mute a good while, -- until the governor told her that if she did not plead she would be pressed to death. She then confessed... she was duly sentenced....
Mrs. Talby asked to be beheaded, but the sentence imposed by borrowed English law was hanging in Boston two days after her conviction in December, 1638. At the time of her hanging, she had to be forcibly detained. When her face was covered with a cloth, she ripped it off and stuffed it in the rope that had been placed around her neck. She was then "cast off, and, after a swing or two, she caught at the ladder."
Dorothy Talby was one of the first women executed in the colonies; two females had been executed earlier -- Jane Champion and Margaret Hatch -- but their crimes are lost to history. And thus the history of the death penalty in the United States can be said to begin with a Medea, a woman "mad as Ophelia," and four centuries later we still face the dilemma of what to do with them.
....see poor Dorothy Talby, mad as Ophelia, first admonished, then whipped; at last, taking her own little daughter's life; put on trial, and standing mute, threatened to be pressed to death, confessing, sentenced, praying to be beheaded; and none the less pitilessly swung from the fatal ladder.... The cooper's crazy wife -- crazy in the belief that she has committed the unpardonable sin -- tries to drown her child, to save it from misery; and the poor lunatic, who would be tenderly cared for to-day in a quiet asylum, is judged to be acting under the instigation of Satan himself. Yet, after all, what can we say, who put Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," full of nightmare dreams of horror, into all our children's hands....
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
Great post!
The unnatural act of a Mother killing her young is a psychological problem that I have never seen an answer for. Maternal instincts should come against an act such as this and with such force that I just can't grasp why this happens. There must be so many under-laying problems and psychosis for a Mother to act this way. Unless they are truly a psychopath, this topic baffles me.
Wonderful site. Very well written.
Posted by: thpunishrr | February 03, 2006 at 11:56 AM
There are 73 recorded cases historically where jurisdictions have executed women in the U.S. for infanticide since 1632 and 1633 when Jane Champion killed her children and Margaret Hatch murdered her infant daughter. Dorothy Talby is the third female execution for infanticide. The historical record is mostly silent on why women have killed their children. We do know, however, that in the early colonial period mostly poor white servant women killed their illegitimate children because of the social stigma of having a child out-of-wedlock. It was a capital offense in most colonial jurisdictions for concealing the birth or death of a child and officials executed most women in the early period for that crime since determining death was usually impossible give the science of the day. Slave women often killed their illegitimate children in reprisal to the sexual brutality waged upon them by their masters. Scholars have also shown an association between infanticide and the witchcraft craze of the 1690s. Clearly, social historians have much work to do in explaining these societal atrocities. Historically, however, most women have killed their abusive husbands and slave masters.
Posted by: David V. Baker, Ph.D., J.D. | February 12, 2008 at 11:55 AM
I need to correct for an earlier oversight on the first female execution for infanticide that has come to light in researching women executions recently. The earliest recorded white female execution in the United States for infanticide took place sometime in 1632 when James City County (Virginia) officials hanged June Champion; most sources refer to June Champion as “Jane” Champion. June was the wife of Percival Champion, but it appears from the historical record that June’s child was the product of an adulterous affair with William Gallopin. In June 1630, authorities indicted, convicted, and sentenced both for murdering and concealing the death of June’s infant although there is no evidence that William hanged for the child’s death
Posted by: David V. Baker, Ph.D., J.D. | September 12, 2008 at 06:44 PM
Thanks, David, for sharing your research. I'm impressed. I had thought that the resources were limited and exhausted, and yet you've found more information to set the official record straight.
-Laura
Posted by: Laura James | September 17, 2008 at 06:49 AM
Sorry but my Englis is so bad. I think is not normal the mother's image like take caring and loving her children, on Nature isn't is Why on our tradition, jew cristian, the mother's play is too important? Really is a burden a big burden to be mothe with these ideas pressing it. On Africa sayign like similar Is necesary to take care a child all a village, really is a big true. On the other hand a lot of women didn't use anticonceptive methods by this way a bad idea. An finally the society sells an idillic mother's tale, not is true, a woman don't need to be mom to realize herself.
Is true the hormons working, the biologic clock rings, but if Everyone follow the hormnos We living in a Rude Jungle, no law, no norms.
Is as normal a mother loves children as the opposite situation.
Congratulations for your fabolous blog
and Please sorry for my English.
Hugs to Everybody
Posted by: | September 19, 2008 at 10:08 PM
Surely a case of postpartum depression?
Posted by: Kim | November 01, 2008 at 10:05 PM
As Dorothy Talby is my ancestor, I have a few words to say: first, she was married to John Talby in Lincolnshire and had several children before coming to Salem circa 1630 and more there. I believe this had to be post-partum depression, aggravated by a husband who was later banished from the Colony for his own shiftlessness. At that time Gov. Winthrop and the local minister, who had pressed for her sentence, expressed repentance for their condemnation of her and lack of understanding. There has been, thankfully, no other incidence of "madness" in the family over the past nearly 400 years. Their son seems to have left for Rhode Island and became a sea captain. Later the family moved to Virginia, probably to escape the connection.
Posted by: Maggie Taulbee | August 01, 2009 at 09:49 PM
Indeed, the historical record reveals that Dorothy Talbye was an unfortunate woman most likely struck by severe mental illness. Her’s was the earliest recorded female hanging for child murder in the Massachusetts colony in 1638. She was a poor woman who found daily survival difficult since her husband John failed to provide adequately for the family. Dorothy became deeply depressed, despondent, and increasingly disillusioned with life over the years. She began acting irrationally; she broke with the Sabbath, quarreled with neighbors and clergy, and refused to perform her household tasks “claiming that God had commanded her to eschew all domestic duties.” When church elders excommunicated Talbye, she began physically abusing John and in late 1637, the Essex County court ordered her “chained to a post for frequent laying hands on her husband to the danger of his life, and condemning the authority of the court.” Authorities publicly whipped Dorothy in July 1638 for again abusing John. Dorothy’s posture toward her husband may not have been entirely her own doing, however; John most likely contributed to Dorothy’s violent inclinations since a year later the church censured John for “much pride and unnaturalness to his wife.” Dorothy snapped in November 1638 when she claimed divine revelation commanded her to kill her husband and children. Consequently, Dorothy attacked and killed her three-year-old daughter. John was most likely Dorothy’s intended victim and would have killed him rather than her daughter had she been strong enough instead to break his neck. Charged with “the unnatural and untimely death of her daughter,” Dorothy hanged in Salem in December. Dorothy did not admit to her daughter’s murder until threatened by church elders with peine forte et dure, and even then, she never repented. To the church, her obstinacy proved Satan possessed her; Governor Winthrop believed that Satan made Dorothy delusional causing her to kill her child.
Posted by: David V. Baker | August 22, 2009 at 06:16 PM
I think every illness is caused by a person itself, even if it sounds untruethful it is true
Posted by: Лечение наркомании | September 21, 2009 at 05:45 AM
The Talby marriage was a tortured one. After the birth of her last child, Mrs. Talby "became melancholy and possessed of delusions.
Posted by: Клининг | February 17, 2010 at 12:50 PM
Some how I have managed to trace my family back to John and Dorothy, Very insightful information you all have shared.
Posted by: Phillip Taulbee | November 09, 2010 at 04:27 PM