Episode 182: James Purrington
James Purrington was a captain and well-respected veteran of the Revolutionary War. He and his wife Elizabeth, or Betsy, had both grown up in coastal Maine towns near Brunswick, and the couple eventually had twelve children. Four of the children sadly died in infancy. By 1805, the family had moved up the Kennebec River to Augusta where James had bought a farm just a mile and a half from Augusta itself on Old Belgrade Road. The farm was purchased with inheritance from James’ father, who had recently passed. James worked tirelessly to prepare the land he bought for a small farm despite his current farm being quite successful. Prior to moving, James had started to develop views that were different from his town’s church and were viewed as more extreme, which is a reason some suspect as to why James suddenly moved his family to a new town.
Less than a year later in the spring of 1806, Betsy began confiding in her friend and neighbor, a midwife named Martha Ballard. The two often had tea together and gossiped or confided in one another over various things going on in their lives. Lately, Betsy had been telling Martha that she was worried about James. He had begun to act not like himself, and Betsy told Martha that she had found him sharpening knives, acting bizarrely and Betsy expressed to Martha that she thought James was going to kill himself.
In July of 1806, James wrote a letter that was later described as “rambling” to his brother. In this letter he said “I am going on a long journey” and asked his brother to take care of his children. At the end of the letter he wrote “Divide what is left, for I am no more.” This terrified Betsy, who found the letter before James was able to send it, and she confronted him about this. James swore that he wasn’t going to kill himself and simply wrote the letter because he had a “presentiment of his approaching death.”
In reality, the farm was failing due to drought and lack of rain that summer. James, never one to express that he was wrong or a failure, had been telling neighbors that he was not going to be able to feed his livestock and in turn feed his family for much longer.
Just several days after Betsy discovered the letter James wrote to his brother, on July 8th, 1806, James spent the evening sharpening his axe while his wife and eight children got ready for bed. As they went to sleep, James stayed up a while longer reading the Bible by the light of a candle. At around 2:00 a.m., 17-year-old James Purrington Jr. awoke to the sound of screaming. He ran out of bed and into the main room of the house, only to find his father covered in blood. It was a clear summer night with an almost full moon, and by the light of the moon James Jr. could see that his father was holding an axe that was also covered in blood.
James swung at James Jr., hitting him in the back before turning to see that another one of his sons, 12-year-old Benjamin, had come into the room. James began hitting Benjamin with the axe violently while James Jr. was able to stumble out of the house and frantically run to get help. He was able to get to the home of Dean Wyman, who was horrified to see the scared boy, bleeding and wounded, telling him about what was happening at the Purrington house. Dean ran to get help from nearby Mr. Ballard and the two men ran to the home.
Martha, the midwife and good friend of Betsy, went to the house later that morning as the sun was coming up and found “the most shocking scene that was ever seen in this part of the world.”
45-year-old Betsy was found dead in her bedroom with multiple axe wounds to her torso and to her neck and head, which was almost severed from her body. One of the girls, 10-year-old Anna, was dead on the floor by her mother’s feet. 19-year-old Polly, the oldest daughter, was found with multiple axe wounds in another room of the house, and near her was her 15-year-old sister Martha, who was still breathing but severely wounded. She had been found laying her head on her baby sister, 18-month-old Louisa, who was dead. Martha ended up passing from her injuries three weeks later on July 30th. 8-year-old Nathaniel and 6-year-old Nathan both had their throats slit. 12-year-old Benjamin’s body was found in front of the hearth. He was described as “most dreadfully mangled,” and it was clear he was trying to escape before he was killed. There was a bloody handprint on the fireplace from Benjamin trying to get up off the floor.
As for James, he had slaughtered his family and then put down the axe, reached for a razor and slit his throat.
Neighbors, despite their shock and horror, worked together to move the bodies of the family into the barn. They then painstakingly washed them, taking extra care with the bodies of the children.
The news of the brutal murders of the family spread like wildfire throughout Augusta and to surrounding towns, and within days headlines such as “Horrid Massacre!” with a row of coffins, smaller in size as the row went on, hit the newspapers. A funeral procession was held, bringing the bodies of Betsy and the children through the streets of the main road of Augusta to the cemetery. James’ body was last, being brought through on a cart to close the procession. Betsy and her children were buried in the cemetery, and then the townspeople walked with James’ casket across the street to a plot outside of the cemetery. James was buried with the razor he used to take his own life and the axe he used to take the lives of his wife and children.
Struggling to understand how such a brutal crime occurred, the coroner put together a jury to establish a reason as to why James murdered his family. The verdict was that James Purrington “was seized with an attack of hereditary insanity and was a maniac when he committed the deed.”
Image sources:
dohistory.org - “The Purrinton Murders”
findagrave.com - “Elizabeth ‘Betsey’ Clifford Purrington”