But decades before Borden was born, another murder trial captured the attention of New Englanders β that of Methodist minister Ephraim Avery.
Cornell was known as a kind, generous woman as well as a skilled seamstress and weaver. And, you know, you can kind of control your own life. This was a big shift.
Women had typically married, raised families, and otherwise stayed at home. If they earned wages, it was usually doing domestic work. And this was a very, very religious area. Sarah Cornell was herself enamored with the Methodist movement, which then was known for its charismatic style of worship: passionate preaching and camp meetings that lasted for days.
On the morning of Dec. The corpse was dressed in a dark, heavy cloak and bonnet, its legs were bent with knees not far from the ground. Durfee yelled. Neighbors came running to his farm, including a doctor named Thomas Wilbur. The ground beneath Cornell was undisturbed, and her shoes were neatly next to her, says Dawson. Bruises around both hips looked as they were made by large hands. Ephraim Kingsbury Avery was a Methodist minister who was married and had a young family. Sarah Cornell had attended his church, briefly worked for him, and had asked for his help when questions over her moral character threatened her involvement with the Methodists.
Wilbur revealed to Durfee what Cornell had told him: Avery had assaulted her at a camp meeting that August. When she confronted him later with news that she was pregnant, he gave her the tansy oil with instructions to take it to end the pregnancy. But Cornell wanted to have the baby. Wilbur thought Avery had been manipulating her.
