Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation

I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation

Chadwick, Bruce

Hardcover

19th Century United States HistoryRegional: SouthTrue Crime

Publisher Price: $35.99

ISBN10: 1620455579
ISBN13: 9781620455579
Publisher: Trade Paper Press
Published: Jan 1 2009
Pages: 288
Weight: 1.25
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.50 Depth: 9.50
Language: English

A good story, well told, of a sliver of life in Richmond, a small, elite-driven capital city in the young nation's most influential state.

--Publishers Weekly

George Wythe clung to the mahogany banister as he inched down the staircase of his comfortable Richmond, Virginia, home. Doubled over in agony, he stumbled to the kitchen in search of help. There he found his maid, Lydia Broadnax, and his young protegéeacute;, Michael Brown, who were also writhing in distress. Hours later, when help arrived, Wythe was quick to tell anyone who would listen, I am murdered. Over the next two weeks, as Wythe suffered a long and painful death, insults would be added to his mortal injury.

I Am Murdered tells the bizarre true story of Wythe's death and the subsequent trial of his grandnephew and namesake, George Wythe Sweeney, for the crime--unquestionably the most sensational and talked-about court case of the era. Hinging on hit-and-miss forensics, the unreliability of medical autopsies, the prevalence of poisoning, race relations, slavery, and the law, Sweeney's trial serves as a window into early nineteenth- century America. Its particular focus is on Richmond, part elegant state capital and part chaotic boomtown riddled with vice, opportunism, and crime.

As Wythe lay dying, his doctors insisted that he had not been poisoned, and Sweeney had the nerve to beg him for bail money. In I Am Murdered, this signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor to Thomas Jefferson, and Father of American Jurisprudence finally gets the justice he deserved.

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