Berengera Dalton Caswell

  General Notes:

www.rootsweb.com research of J S Russell:
Name: BERENGERA DALTON CASWELL Sex: F Birth: 17 FEB 1828 in Brompton, Richmond County, Quebec, Canada Death: 23 DEC 1849 in Saco, York County, Maine Burial: Manchester, New Hampshire Note:
Note from CASWELL descendant - S. Phaneuf
Berengea was for Abigail Caswell's sister BERENGEA DALTON CASWELL who died 23 Dec 1849. The story goes that she fell though winter ice, drowned and her body was found down in Saco, ME 1 May 1850. Her body was not interred in Canada but in Manchester, NH in my gggreatgrandfather's plot. Just how her body went from the St. Francis River to Saco, ME is beyond me '96 that's over 200 miles and not by any direct route.
The Saco record reads: Saco Records: Volume II: 1840 - 1869, pg 30:Miss Berengera D. Caswell whose body was found in the Brook on Storer Street April 13 Ult. was this day May 1, 1850 disinterred to be conveyed to Manchester, NH. Abraham Forsskol, Town Clerk.
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E-mail received 2-7-05: (Note e-mail address in AOL address book)
I am a historian at the University of New England writing a book on the death of Berengera Dalton Caswell (ID I3318). I was poking around the RootsWeb.com site and found your entry for Berengera. I was fascinated to learn that she is buried in Manchester, as indicated by the note from "Sue." Could you put me in touch with Sue? I would like to see Berengera's grave and would greatly appreciate if you (or Sue) could tell me where in Manchester I could find it.
I can tell you that she didn't fall through the ice and drown . . . she died during a botched abortion and the doctor who performed was tried for murder. It's a fascinating story --- and I'd be happy to share the details. I'd be curious to know how you or other family members came to hear the story of Berengera's life and sad death. And yes, I know how she got from Canada to Saco, too!
Elizabeth De Wolfe
University of New England
Biddeford, Maine
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
AMID 1850s PROSPERITY, A DEATH AND INNOCENCE LOST
By SETH HARKNESS, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Staff photo by John Ewing
A paperback book published in the early 1850s tells the story of Mary Bean's murder in Saco. History professor Elizabeth De Wolfe plans to publish her book on the case next year.
SACO '97 In the spring of 1850, residents of Saco discovered the partially clothed body of a young woman bound to a plank and floating in a stream near where the city's police station stands today. An investigation quickly revealed that the woman, identified as Mary Bean, a 20-year-old factory worker, had been pregnant and died of a botched abortion. The board to which she was tied was a perfect match for one that was missing from the barn of a local physician, James Smith.
The case drew attention from newspapers across New England and showed the world a darker side of the mills that had recently become the economic engines behind the rapid growth of Saco and Biddeford.
Though it has long since passed out of popular memory, the story of Mary Bean was revisited recently by a University of New England history professor.
Elizabeth De Wolfe, an associate professor of history, says the story of this factory girl provides a lens for understanding the wrenching changes of 19th-century industrialization.
"The murder of Mary Bean reveals what was simmering beneath the surface of a no longer serene Saco," De Wolfe said.
De Wolfe said the mills' promise of prosperity was tempered by the drawbacks of rapid growth in Biddeford and Saco, where the population doubled between 1840 and 1850.
She said the reactions to Bean's death illustrate attitudes toward the proper place of young women at a time when many parents had deeply mixed feelings about seeing their daughters go off to work.
De Wolfe did much of the research for her upcoming book on Mary Bean at the Dyer Library in Saco. On Tuesday, she presented her findings at the library to about 40 members of the Saco Historical Society.
James Smith was tried in 1851 and sentenced to life in prison for the death of Bean. He appealed and was released on a technicality after serving only two years. The trial, however, gave Saco residents many new insights into their own community.
The man they knew as a doctor, for instance, turned out to have no medical training whatsoever. Nor was Mary Bean really the person people thought. Her sister identified her as BERENGERA CASWELL, a French Canadian who had left home to work in the mills in Manchester, N.H.
There, she met a young man from Saco, got pregnant, then followed him to Maine, where he arranged for her to take on a false name and see Smith for an abortion.
The trial was a loss of innocence for Saco residents, proving they often no longer knew or could trust their neighbors. It also confirmed many of the worst fears of the rural families who were sending their daughters off to the mills, De Wolfe said.
Evidence introduced at the trial included an inventory of Bean's clothing, jewelry, and a calling card from an unknown man, all of which could be construed as poor reflections on her character, De Wolfe said. In a sense, she was on trial, too.
"The detailed attention to Berengera's clothing is a clear indication of another problem people saw with mill girls - they were just too darned independent," she said. "The implication was, it was in part her fault."
Bean's case inspired a work of fiction published even before Smith's trial ended.
"Mary Bean, The Factory Girl, The Victim of Seduction" offers another indication of how Bean's case resonated with the public, De Wolfe said. The story uses Bean's death to deliver a heavy-handed moral lesson that the world of capitalism is no place for young women.
"The assumption here is if you're single, you're feminine, and you're in the working world you are also having sex - and that's going to kill you," she said.
After De Wolfe's talk, Saco Historical Society President Frank Wood said he had been familiar with the basic facts of Bean's death, but the professor gave him much more to consider.
"To me, it was just a murder," he said.
Wood said the Dyer Library contains a wealth of diaries, photos and town records from the 19th century.
De Wolfe plans to publish her book about Mary Bean next year.
Staff Writer Seth Harkness can be contacted at 282-8225 or at:
sharkness@pressherald.com
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UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND - press release
History Scholar Elizabeth De Wolfe Discusses "Murder in Saco: The Stories of Mary Bean" at Dyer Library Jan. 18th
Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, Ph.D., associate professor of American studies, will talk about her investigation into the story of Mary Bean, a Saco Island factory girl who was murdered in 1850, at a meeting of the Saco Area Historical Society at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2005 in the Deering Room of Dyer Library at 371 Main St., Saco.
When the winter ice melted in April 1850, residents of Saco made a gruesome discovery: the body of a young mill girl tied to a board and submerged in a stream. The coroner's inquest revealed she had been pregnant and had died as a result of a poorly performed abortion.
Arrests were made and the subsequent trial - covered by reporters from across New England - revealed a seamy side of Saco that many readers were shocked to see: thieves, murderers, and even cross-dressers all lurking within the rapidly growing industrial town.
A local physician, James Smith, was found guilty and sent to jail, yet Mary Bean's story did not end there. Mary Bean lived on in two popular books about her life and mysterious death. This presentation will examine the life and death of Mary Bean in fact and in fiction and uncover what her many stories reveal about life in a changing Maine town.
Tension of Rapid Mill Growth
De Wolfe, winner of the 2004 Fairfield Award for research in Saco history, observes, "The murder of Mary Bean brought to the forefront what had been simmering in Saco - a tension between the economic benefits of the growth of the mills and the detriments of rapid growth, particularly in what was seen as a growing population of strangers. When the trial revealed the 'secret` life of several Saco residents, people worried if they could ever really know who their neighbors were."
"In addition to concerns about the growth of crime, the murder of Mary Bean revealed strong attitudes about the proper place of women, especially girls, in society. Although the prosperity of the mills was built on the labor of women, the trial and the fiction strongly suggested that the best place for young women was at home."
Elizabeth De Wolfe
Elizabeth A. De Wolfe is associate professor of American Studies in the Department of History where she teaches courses in women's history, communal societies, and American culture.
She earned her Ph.D. in American and New England studies from Boston University (1996), an M.A. in anthropology from the State University of New York/Albany (1985) and a B.A. in social science from Colgate University (1983). Dr. De Wolfe is the author of Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815-1867 (2002), which was awarded the Communal Studies Association's "Outstanding Book Award" for 2003.
She is also co-editor of Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers (2001). In 2004, Dr. DeWolfe received the University of New England's highest honor, the Kenneally Cup, in recognition of her excellence in teaching and service to the University. Professor De Wolfe has taught at UNE since 1996 and is currently the co-director of the Women's Studies Program. Kent State University Press will publish her current research on the murder of Mary Bean in 2006.
(Press release issued Jan. 5, 2005)