#thomas cornell

[nobrashfestivity]

Thomas Cornell

The comet, published 1789

[pigs-in-art]

Pig 1 by Thomas Cornell

[soundgrammar]

Thomas Cornell, Frederick Douglass, n.d., etching, plate: 19 3⁄4 x 14 1⁄2 in. (50.2 x 36.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1972.18

[fuckingfreud]

The comet, by Thomas Cornell (floruit 1792), published 1789

[rhodeislandfacts]

Portsmouth was the site of one of the earliest and most bizarre murder trials in American history. In 1673 settler Rebecca Cornell, wife of Thomas, died in a house fire. Her son Thomas Jr. was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime, despite the lack of any real evidence. The damning testimony against him came in the form of a family member who claimed that Rebecca’s ghost visited them and accused Thomas Jr.

‘Spectral evidence’ was also widely used during the Salem Witch Trials. It was abandoned as a practice eventually, but too late to save Thomas Cornell. The above images are from the play ‘The Ghostly Witness’, first performed in 2013 by the Portsmouth Community Theater, which chronicles the strange history of the trial. It has also been recorded in a book titled ‘Killed Strangely’ by Elaine Forman Crane.