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Pages from the Diary of Samuel King

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Samuel King was a minister for the Baptist Church of Christ in Wendell, Massachusetts. The church was founded in 1799 and until 1819 the congregation met in various public buildings until its own meetinghouse was built. In these diary excerpts from 1806, King mentions where he visited and what he preached. It is interesting to note that on June 5, 1806, he attended the execution of Dominic Daley and James Halligan in Northampton, MA. These two Irish immigrants were accused on May 12, 1805, of killing Marcus Lyon. Despite their insistence that they were innocent, Daley and Halligan were executed in a wave of anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment. King was one of about 15,000 people who viewed the execution. Years later, another man confessed to having committed the murder for which Daley and Halligan were hanged.

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