Leslie Lambert Rounds - I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott

I HAVE STRUCK
MRS. COCHRAN
WITH A STAKE

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I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott Leslie Lambert Rounds

I HAVE STRUCK
MRS. COCHRAN
WITH A STAKE

SLEEPWALKING, INSANITY,
AND THE TRIAL OF
ABRAHAM PRESCOTT

Leslie Lambert Rounds

The Kent State University Press KENT, OHIO

2020 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Catalog Number 2020027548

ISBN 978-1-60635-409-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Rounds, Leslie L., author.

Title: I have struck Mrs. Cochran with a stake: sleepwalking, insanity, and the trial of Abraham Prescott / Leslie Lambert Rounds.

Description: Kent, Ohio: the Kent State University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020027548 | ISBN 9781606354094 (paperback) | ISBN 9781631014291 (epub) | ISBN 9781631014307 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Prescott, Abraham, 1815?-1836--Trials, litigation, etc. | Trials (Murder)--New Hampshire. | Sleepwalking. | Insanity (Law) | Cochran, Sally, -1833.

Classification: LCC KF223.P74 R68 2020 | DDC 345.742/02523--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027548

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CONTENTS

My deepest gratitude goes out to my parents, Robert and Barbara Lambert, who, from our earliest days inspired me and my two sisters to love history and to seek the deeper personal stories behind the well-documented public pageant. My husband, Emory, and our five grown children deserve immense credit for patiently listening to iterations of Sallys tragic storyover and overyet always urging me to persevere. Ma, Harriet Boulris Rooney, and Beverly DeMontigny, too, believed in me and never failed to remind me of their faith. Im very grateful to Donna-Belle and James Garvin for jump-starting this project and to Richard Shaw and Mary Duran Cronkhite for filling in important details at the finish. My knowledgeable coworkers, Tara Raiselis and Carolyn Roy, provided so many important details along the way. Will Underwood, now retired, and Dr. Elizabeth De Wolfe had just the right advice, and Valerie Ahwee made excellent use of her eagle eyes, all serving to help me craft a better, more readable story. Finally, I thank all the girls and young women who came before, who deliberately stitched their history into their delicate and now iconic embroideries at a time when womens lives were often only recorded as nameless, impersonal tally marks on census pages.

There were many points of agreement between the witnesses at the trial. Eighteen-year-old Abraham Prescott came from a family whose members were poor and unsophisticated, and sometimes even violent with each other and with their neighbors. It was a family of a decidedly lower class than those who lived in the neighborhood of the Cochran farm. Prescott was often surly, and more than one person had seen him unmercifully beat the cattle in his care. He wouldnt make eye contact with anyone. Because he rarely spoke in front of people, there was plenty of disagreement on whether or not he was as smart as other boys his age, but many people thought that Prescott was something of a dullard. No one considered him friendly, but other farmers in the area thought he was a hard worker and that counted for a lot.

Sally Cochran was known to be a good neighbor and, like her husband, Chauncey, she was both respectable and respected. The Cochrans were among the first settlers of tiny Pembroke, New Hampshire, and the family had always behaved properly. Cochran men had frequently held leadership roles in the town. They were known for their modern, profitable farms and successful businesses. Cochran women were modest, hardworking, made fine helpmeets for their spouses, and diligently raised industrious childrenall that was expected of women of the era. There was no hint of scandal.

The true nature of the dreadful incident that preceded Sally Cochrans murder was less clear even than Prescotts motivation for killing her five months later. He claimed hed been sleepwalking on the January night when he took up an ax and beat the sleeping Cochrans nearly to death. That the Cochrans believed that claim was a cause for talk in the neighborhood. Not everyone thought it wise to let a boy like that live in the familys home.

Still, the tale of the January incident was a strange enough story that newspapers across the region ran it, including comments from the family physician who treated the injured couple. He believed it must have been a remarkable case of somnambulism. Tales like that were common enough in newspapers, used as filler between dense, lengthy descriptions of international affairs, with editors gravitating toward the unusual or remarkable local stories that arose occasionally. But the coverage for Prescotts January attack was brief. The murder and subsequent trials would generate much more attention in the press.