CRAWFORD, Sarah – (d. 1801)
Mrs. Sarah CRAWFORD, of Knox County, Tennessee, (whose husband was absent, and who resided with her three children, about one hundred miles from her father’s) was most inhumanely murdered on the night of the 28th of July, by negro Jack, the property of Stephen PATE.
She was found the next morning living in the yard, one of the most shocking spectacles that can be conceived. It appears that she had been strangled and otherwise ill used on the bed, as blood was found thereon, and on the infant which she had in bed with her, and afterwards dragged in the yard, where she was beat to death with a board and claw hammer. There were fourteen wounds on her head, three of which penetrated to the skull; her breast and arms were much bruised, and one of them broken. The perpetrator of this horrid act was taken and committed to jail.
On his examination he confessed the fact, and acknowledged that his intention was to have gone to bed to Mrs. CRAWFORD, but that meeting with resistance he was induced to murder her.
A court was called on the Monday following, and being charged with the murder, he confessed the crime. The court on the examination of witnesses, pronounced sentence that he should be burnt to death on the commons of the town, and on Tuesday between the hours of twelve and four o’clock, the sentence was put into execution in the presence of a great concourse of people.
Source: Raleigh Register, and North-Carolina Weekly Advertiser, September 22, 1801.