M & S Rare Books
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(title 17, U. S. Code).
(PENNSYLVANIA -GERMAN VERSE BROADSIDE). (COX, SUSANNA). Ein Neues Trauer-Lied, Enhaltend die Geschichte der Susanna Cox, die in Reading wegen dem Mord ihres kindes hingerichtet murde. [Caption title]. Broadside, 16.5" x 7.5." Printed in two columns, with nice typographical border. In German. [Reading, Pa: 1809?]. 1st ed. Some browning, but very good. $425.00
S & S 18183, recording one apparently defective copy of this mourning piece. Not found in Seidensticker. Not in Arndt.
Susanna Cox was an unmarried domestic indicted for willful murder of her own baby, and despite defense by some of the best lawyers in the region, she was found guilty despite her insistence that the baby was born dead. Popular sympathy was aroused on her behalf and the governor was petitioned to spare her life.
On June 16, 1809, a little after 11:00 in the morning on a very hot day, the procession moved from the jail. First was a troop of infantry under a Captain Lutz, marching to the funeral notes of a fife and drum. Then the town officials, and then Susanna behind the wagon containing her coffin. At the gallows a brief religious service was held. The hanging took 17 minutes, and when taken down from the gallows she was bled to ensure death. Afterward the town fighter, Andrew McCoy, beat the hangman unmercifully. "It was indeed a day of sorrow--the saddest day Reading has ever seen." (Based upon a paper read before the Berks County Historical Society, March 18, 1900, by Louis Richards.)