My great grandmother, Sarah Wiedrich would tell the story of
her grandmother, Sarah Norton who was murdered. She was elderly and was raped
and murdered by a local farm hand named Thomas Quackenbush. It was the winter
of 1875 in western NY State. She managed to crawl to a nearby farmhouse but
died. The murderer was one of a handful of criminals hung in Genesee County.
When we went to visit a local museum, the director asked my great grandmother
who was in her 90s by this time if she wanted to hold the rope used to hang
him. She declined. Years later on a trip to that local I drove by the museum
and there was a large banner across the front of the building for a display of
the hangings. The admission ticket as a reproduction of the ticket to view the
hanging of Thomas Quackenbush who murdered my 3rd great grandmother.
They had the scaffold and rope as part of the display.
#Sarah Norton, #Thomas Burton Quackenbush, #Murder, #Indian
Falls, NY, #Hangings, Genesee, NY
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