Murder in a Mill Town : Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation

A master storyteller presents a riveting drama of America's first "crime of the century"--from murder investigation to a church sex scandal to celebrity trial--and its aftermath. In December 1832 a farmer found the body of a young, pregnant woman hanging near a haystack outside a New England mill town.When news spread that Methodist preacher Ephraim Avery was accused of murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, a factory worker, the case gave the public everything they found irresistible: sexually charged violence, adultery, the hypocrisy of a church leader, secrecy and mystery, and suspicions of insanity.Murder in a Mill Town tells the story of how a local crime quickly turned into a national scandal that became America's first "trial of the century."After her death--after she became the country's most notorious "factory girl"--Cornell's choices about work, survival, and personal freedom became enmeshed in stories that Americans told themselves about their new world of industry and women's labor