Eunice Bolles

Eunice Bolles was an American child who was murdered at the age of six. Another child, Hannah Ocuish, was convicted of the murder and hanged.

In the summer of 1786, Eunice arrived home one day after a day spent picking strawberries in the local strawberry fields. She told her parents, James Bolles and Eunice Strickland, that an older girl, a 12-year-old Pequot named Hannah Ocuish, had -- in the words of Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward -- "bullied her and taken some of her strawberries. Six weeks later, on July 21, Eunice's lifeless body was found along the Norwich Road, 'mangled in a shocking manner' with 'a number of heavy stones placed on the body, arms and legs,' according to a contemporary Connecticut Courant newspaper report."

Historian Karen Haltunnen says:

"On the 21st of July, 1786, at about 10 o'clock in the morning, the body of the murdered child was found in the public road leading from New-London to Norwich, lying on its face near to a wall ... The neighborhood turned out to hunt for the murderer; Hannah was questioned and claimed that she had seen four boys near the scene of the crime. When a search failed to turn them up, Hannah was interrogated again, and then taken to the Bolles home to be charged with homicide in the presence of the dead child. She burst into tears and confessed. Only at this late point in the narrative is the reader offered a sequential account of the crime. Five weeks earlier, Eunice had reported Hannah for stealing fruit during the strawberry harvest, and Hannah had plotted revenge. Catching sight of her young enemy headed for school one morning, Hannah had lured Eunice from her path with a gift of calico, then beat and choked her to death."

Hannah initially said four boys had committed the crime, but then confessed under cross-examination. Per a cited overview on Wikipedia:

"The only evidence against her was her alleged confession to the investigators. The alleged confession was never corroborated by anyone besides the investigators. Ocuish had reportedly said before her alleged confession that she had seen four boys near the scene. During Ocuish's trial, she seemed unfazed and calm as the rest of those present, including the presiding judge, were brought to tears multiple times. At her execution, she thanked the sheriff for his kindness as she stepped forward to be hanged. Spectators to the execution said that Ocuish 'appeared greatly afraid, and seemed to want somebody to help her.' Ocuish's guilt has never been comprehensively proven nor disproven."

Sources

• Ancestry.com. Connecticut, U.S., Deaths and Burials Index, 1650-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
  • Name: Eunice Bolles; Birth Date: abt 1780; Age at Death: 6; Death Day: 21; Death Month: Jul; Death Year: 1786; Death Place: Connecticut; Burial Place: Connecticut; Gender: Female; FHL Film Number: 3092.
• "Hannah Ocuish." Wikipedia, revision of 23 November 2021. < link > Accessed 13 December 2021.
• "Last Tuesday came on..." The Connecticut Courant via Newspapers.com, published 9 October 1786, p. 3. < link > Accessed 13 December 2021.
• Woodward, Walt. "The Youngest Person Ever Executed in America." Today in Connecticut History, published 20 December 2020. < link > Accessed 13 December 2021.