12 Messed-Up American Executions

Part 1 of 3: 1642–1899

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS INDELIBLY WOVEN into the fabric of American history. Possibly no other western civilization has killed as many of its citizens as America, who despite putting to death over 15,000 people, still ironically holds herself up to the world as an example of compassion, order, and enlightenment.

With the Commonwealth of Virginia on the cusp of abolishing the death penalty, and with similar legislation being introduced at the federal level, it’s time to re-visit some of the more strange and horrific executions throughout America’s history.

Thomas Granger, September 8, 1642

Sixteen-year-old Thomas Granger was hanged in Plymouth, Massachusetts for sodomizing 12 animals, including “a mare, a cowe, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey.”

New England experienced what could be rightfully called a bestiality panic between 1640 and 1643. When the Great Migration finally ceased in 1641, New England had a higher percentage of young unmarried men than at any other point in its history. In Massachusetts alone, the ratio of men to women in 1641was about 132:100. Young unmarried men accounted for most of the cases of bestiality in the 1640s.