Fall River: An Authentic Narrative

by Catharine Read Williams

Catharine Williams (1787-1872) lived most of her life in Rhode Island, where she supported herself and her daughter by a productive literary career. Her most compelling work, Fall River , last published in 1833, recreates a notorious incident in the ill-fated town of Fall River, the trial of a Methodist minister for the murder of a pregnant mill worker whom it was suspected he had seduced. Williams's investigative report offers a vivid contemporary view of the lives of poor "factory girls" and of clerical corruption in the industrial towns of early New England. While based in fact, the book raises themes of sexual and religious hypocrisy and exploitation that may be compared with those of novels like The Coquette , Uncle Tom's Cabin , and The Scarlet Letter . At the same time, the author's mixture of journalism, biography, fiction, and exhortation makes this "authentic narrative" an unusual challenge to traditional notions of literary form and yields fresh insights
into the nature of early American women's writing.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History, Book Club

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 1993

About the author

Catharine Read Williams (1787-1872) was a Rhode Island writer and poet and a leading figure in the Dorr Rebellion in support of universal suffrage. In 2002, she was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Joyce]

The story is about a young girl named Sarah Maria Cornell who was my 4th cousin, 5x removed. She was the daughter of Lucretia Leffingwell.
If you are interested this book is free to read online at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/fallriver...

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended: sure
for people interested in history, for old-timey murderous bastard callouts, for lots of insight into just what people thought and did for trials and court in the time

Thoughts:
I read this because a newer book came out called The Sinners All Bow, which mentioned it was largely based on this book, which in turn is what inspired The Scarlet Letter. So yes, OF COURSE I had to go through the trouble of finding a library somewhere in the country that could send me a copy of this old text for me to read myself, so when the new book references it I will know precisely what it's talking about and can judge for myself, as well. Plus interesting to see any connections to The Scarlet Letter, which I will probably need to re-read soon now for the same reason.

ANYWAY! If you have not read anything from this time period before, it will be kind of difficult because the style of writing is very apologetic and flowery and roundabout. It's not just this author, it's the way things were then. If you are more familiar with the style, then it's pretty much as expected. However, I loved this author because there were times when she cut the bullshit and gave a very scathing and (for the time) direct insult to the ridiculous lies that were being told in the course of this case. I had some genuine cackles and OOOOH moments where she delivered such an excellent insult I just had to clap. So those were a real joy when they came up.

For the evidence presented and the walkthrough of the case, it starts out pretty dry because she gives a general history of the area which helps set up what people and life was like then. But it was pretty dull when I wanted to get to the meat of things. It's very logically set up, with a more or less chronological progression. Chapters are dedicated to the history of the area, background on Sarah Maria Cornell (the murdered woman, also SM Cornell, Sally, and sometimes she calls herself Maria S. in her letters), EK Avery (the priestly minister who *definitely* murdered her), the court case (which was a whole load of shit), and letters from Ms. Cornell to her family that are referenced elsewhere in the text. There are other chapters too but that's the bulk of what is included. It's a very clear progression with direct callbacks and references and rebuttals. Basically, it's like what the court case should have been if it weren't a load of bollocks.

As a sign of the times, there is of course lots of talk about religion and God, especially since it involved a man of (dubious) faith and his sheeple followers that lied and schemed to get him acquitted despite overwhelmingly clear evidence to the contrary. If you can't tell already, I have certainly been convinced by the arguments Catharine Williams puts forth. Unfortunately since at the time the best evidence they had was just people saying "yeah I saw a guy walking around there at that time" it was very easy to have someone else say something different and then it's just a debate of which person to believe. That debate was usually determined by judging each person's character to who is better regarded and trusted, mainly assessed through religion and their general standing in the community. But once again, that is determined by one person saying they're great, and another saying they were mean to them, so... pretty hard to pin anything down fully. As much hard evidence as could have existed (letters, other court records, etc) are discussed in here as well.

I am very much looking forward to seeing a sort of continuation and re-examination of this case in The Sinners All Bow. This as it was is interesting enough as a snapshot of the time, but I think in tandem with the other works related to it, they will all be better for the existence of the others.

[Eve Markley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written around 1833 and has been called America’s first true crime book. I read that it inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
I was reading a Kindle edition and it had, I think, been copied from a solid book using text scanning. The result was a sub-par text that was generously sprinkled with typos that were sometimes whimsical, sometimes outlandish, and sometimes impossible to decipher. I’m assuming that a real book might not have these problems.

The story suffers from the verbosity and indirect sentence construction that one expects from writings of this vintage. The author had a very strict standard about what was and what was not proper for publication. But in a murder case with sexual overtones, some of those details are required. Ms. Williams felt that the accused, though acquitted, was guilty and she sets out to prove her case.

She is quite emotional about it, but her logic is not as clearly spelled out as it needs to be for a story of this sort. But it did make me curious enough about the case to move on to another book about it, Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder and Justice in Early Industrial New England by David Richard Kasserman

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a little boring with the way it was written. It was a non-fiction true crime account of a woman that was murdered. The first half of the book was the most entertaining with the account of the victim's life and description of the murder. However, it became dry after the analysis of evidence when the author was trying to persuade the reader into believing that the accused was the actual murderer.

[Catherine Hultman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" was based on this true crime story. I read this and "TSL" (again) as a prelude to reading the new nonfiction book, "The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne" by Kate Winkler Dawson.

The author is no Hawthorne; however, it was interesting that the victimization of rape victims hasn't changed much in the last two hundred years.

[Jeni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, so it's not a lost classic, but reading it in the context of a sensational murder trial is interesting. There are many parallels to today's court atmosphere.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

*this is for a class* more later

[Bella Fiorucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

the story was very intriguing yet frustrating, and I appreciated the blend of narrative styles that were included

[s]

read for a crime lit class

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this - I got about half-way through and abandoned it, something I haven't done in a LONG time.