1771 DOCUMENT: WIDOW CHARGED WITH THEFT, JAILED, AND THEN ESCAPES

Autograph document signed by Hunking Wentworth, John Newmarch and Wyseman Clagett. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 31 May 1771. 2 pages, 7 3/4 x 11 in. Remnants of original seals. Notation to verso. 

A final order from three New Hampshire justices of the peace. This order discusses the case against the widow, Margaret Burgess, who stole from Noah Sherburne of Newcastle on 26 May "One pair of Silver Buckles & divers [sic] other Goods of the Value of Thirty pounds lawful money." Burgess confessed to the crime and was committed "to the pretense that she may take her Tryal [sic] at the said Court to be holden on the first Tuesday in June next at Portsmouth afs’d." 

The order ends with the justices declaring Burgess to be taken to the jail and "to keep safely until she shall be thence deliverd by due Course of Law. hereof fail not." This ending proved to be ironic because, according to the notation made to the verso, Burgess escaped from the jail at Exeter on 1 September 1771. It's unclear how she escaped, and no further records of Burgess could be found to detail her life before and after her crime. 

Of the three justices of the peace, Clagett (1721-1784) is the most notorious. Born in England, Clagett spent 10 years in Antigua before being admitted to the bar in New Hampshire, where, according to The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire by Charles H. Bell, "Every petty violation of the criminal law which came to his knowledge he made the object of his official cognizance.... So frequent did such proceedings become in this tribunal, that they gave a new word to the common speech, and 'I'll Clagett you' took the place of 'I'll prosecute you'" (1894, 264-5). 

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Small rips at creases.