Thomas Granger

Thomas Granger (1625? – September 8, 1642) was the first person hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a servant to Love Brewster, of Duxbury, in the Plymouth Colony of British North America. Granger, at the age of 16 or 17, was in 1642 caught in the act of bestiality with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey, and was likewise indicted.

Granger confessed to his crimes in court privately to local magistrates, and upon indictment, publicly to ministers, and the jury. He was hanged on September 8, 1642. Before Granger's execution, following the laws set down in the book of Leviticus, the animals with which he had had sex were slaughtered before his face and thrown into a large pit dug for their disposal. No use was made of any part of the animals.

An account of Granger's acts is recorded in Gov. William Bradford's diary Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647. Granger's crime represents the colonies' first recorded act of bestiality, and the local reaction demonstrates the Puritans' immense fear of outside immoral influences.

References

• Bradford, William Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647. Ed. by Samuel Eliot Morison. New York: Knopf (1952)
• Lauria, Lisa M. (1998) "Sexual Misconduct in Plymouth Colony", The Plymouth Colony Archive Project