Wicked Puritans Essex County

Wicked Puritans of Essex County follows in the footsteps of other Wicked titles and chronicle Essex County's darker history its "seedy underbelly" that traditional accounts frequently overlook. The book will be a grab bag of malfeasance - corruption, murder, bootlegging, prostitution, any sort of zany, sordid activity. One of the stories will be about the Hoddy Murder. "Wenham, 1637: John Williams a ship's carpenter, said to be of Wenham, has been found guilty of the murder of John Hoddy and executed in Boston. It is one of the earliest murders occurring among the European settlers of the colony. Both men had recently escaped from the Ipswich jail and were traveling together. Williams murdered his companion and stole his belongings, including the poor man's bloody clothing. He was apprehended in Ipswich wearing the dead man's clothes and ultimately confessed when Hoddy's body was found. He was executed, by hanging, in Boston, September 28th."