User:Zzzeee2000/Betsy Wheeler

Betsy Wheeler was a thirteen-year-old who accused her father, Ephraim Wheeler, of raping her in 1805. Ephraim would be convicted and sentenced to hang in 1806, the first to hang for rape in Massachusetts for rape in over seventy-five years.

After a fight with his wife, Hannah, Ephraim Wheeler ordered that both his daughter Betsy and his son Ephraim junior, go with him to visit their uncle who lived about four and a half miles away. About a mile into the trip, Ephraim tells Betsy to get off the horse and to follow him into the woods, Betsy protests and asks if her brother can come with them, to which Ephraim tells her that her brother needs to stay and hold the horse. Betsy went, and they got between ten and twelve rods into the woods, before Ephraim told Betsy to lie down and that he would kill her if she didn’t. When she still refused, Ephraim took ahold of her and threw her to the ground, and she would later testify that he struck her 2 or three times on the head when she tried to scream, pinched her throat, and held her mouth so she couldn’t make any noise.

When Betsy returned home after, she privately told her mother what had happened to her, and that Ephraim planned to permanently leave with her and her brother. Hannah Wheeler asked her brother-in-law to go to the justice of the peace and had Ephraim arrested.

Betsy did not relent her story and the matter went to trial. Betsy testified at trial that her father’s attack on her was not the first time he had attempted to assault her, detailing two other times where Ephraim had made attempts. Ephraim was convicted and sentenced to death on Friday, September 13, 1805, though his execution wouldn’t be for another five months. Ninety-four Berkshire County voters, Betsy, her mother, and brother as well as Ephraim and his lawyers all petitioned to the governor to either pardon or commute his sentence, all four of which were denied.

Thousands showed up to watch Ephraim hang in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1806. Ephraim Wheeler is the only known case in Early America of a conviction and execution of a father for the rape of his daughter.