Mary Osborn (murderer)
Mary Osborn | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1773 |
| Died | 17 August 1801 (aged 27–28) |
| Known for | Being the first woman to be executed in Upper Canada |
Criminal charges | Murder |
Criminal penalty | Capital punishment by hanging |
| Partner(s) | Bartholomew London (1798–1801) George Nemiers (1800–1801) |
| Children | 4 |
Mary London (better known as Mary Osborn, also Osburn and Osborne;[1][2] c. 1773 – 17 August 1801) was the first woman to be executed in Upper Canada for the murder of her partner, Bartholomew London.[3][4]
Early life
Osborn was originally from Bedford, Pennsylvania.[5][6] By her own account, her upbringing had been uneventful.[5]
By the time Osborn moved to Saltfleet Township (today Stoney Creek, Ontario), she was widowed with two sons.[3][7] According to her later co-accused, she claimed to have killed her first husband by poisoning him with hellebore.[2]
Immigration to Canada
Around 1798, Osborne accepted a job as the housekeeper of Bartholomew London, a farmer originally from New Jersey who had been imprisoned during the American Revolution for his loyalty to Britain.[3][1] Osborn was around 40 years younger than London, who had four children and four grandchildren of his own when they met.[3] He had left, and perhaps not legally divorced, his first wife in the United States in 1789.[3]
Nonetheless, London entered into a relationship with Osborn, who became pregnant in 1798 with their daughter, Hannah (born April 5, 1799).[3][2] London recognized Osborn as his wife or partner in May 1800 by changing his will to leave his estate of 200 acres to her.[3][5][8] This will instructed Osborn to provide for her sons, Nathaniel and William Osborn,[9] as well as Hannah in the event of his death.[3] Were Osborn to remarry, she would also retain one-third of London's estate, which was a generous settlement for a prospective widow at that time.[3] The will also excluded London's children from his previous marriage.[2]
Later in 1800, London hired another Pennsylvanian immigrant, 28-year-old George Nemiers (also recorded as Nemire[10]), to work on his farm.[8] Osborn and Nemiers were acquainted from having both lived in Carlisle for a time.[6][2][11] An affair began between Osborn and Nemiers,[1] and Osborn was pregnant again by late 1800, though she was unsure if the father was Nemiers or London.[11]
According to Osborn, Nemiers responded to news of her pregnancy by suggesting they should murder London.[3] However, when Osborn suggested that Nemiers should shoot London, Nemiers disagreed.[3] A short time after this discussion, Nemiers intervened in a verbal argument between London and Osborn by hitting London on the head with a hammer.[2][11][1] This assault left London with a fractured skull, but it became apparent that he would recover from his injury.[6][11]
Murder of Bartholomew London
After Nemiers' attack on London proved non-fatal, Osborn and Nemiers conspired to poison him.[11] Using an assumed name, Nemiers visited a doctor in Long Point in early 1801, claiming he required sulfuric acid for a poorly-healing wound.[7] In conversation with the physician, he asked how much of the substance would be needed to kill a person; the physician assured him that the amount prescribed would not prove fatal.[7] Nemiers subsequently asked the physician to increase the dosage, but was refused.[7][2]
The second attempt Nemiers made to secure lethal substances was successful.[7] He purchased opium and ratbane during a trip to the Finger Lakes in New York, and returned to Ontario on February 14, 1801.[3][7][2] Over the following days, Osborn was said to have served London whiskey laced with the substances from Nemiers, and London died after a third dose on February 17.[1][2][3][12] Hamilton Public Library recognizes this event as the first recorded murder in the city of Hamilton.[13][14]
Suspicion arose after physicians, including Dr. Oliver Tiffany, examined London's body and concluded he had been poisoned.[3][11] Osborn, then four months pregnant, was arrested along with Nemiers.[5] In the months before their trial, the couple attempted to blame one another solely for the crime.[11][12]
Trial
The trial of Osborn and Nemiers on the charge of murder commenced on August 14, 1801,[10] five days after Osborn's second daughter Catherine was born.[3][5] At this time, trials and indeed convictions for murder were rare in Upper Canada. In 1795, John White, then-attorney general for the region, had notably complained that all defendants tried for murder had been "acquitted [by juries, even] though the evidence was strongly against them."[5] Osborn's trial subsequently captured the attention of Silvester Tiffany, editor of the Niagara Herald newspaper.[5]
Proceedings took place at Niagara-on-the-Lake[15] before Judge Henry Allcock and Associate Justice William Dickinson,[16][17] with Attorney General Thomas Scott leading the prosecution.[7][18][19] 14 witnesses testified, including Robert Nelles, and presenters of unanimous medical evidence that London had not died from the fractured skull sustained some weeks before, but from poisoning.[7][9][12][16] After eight hours, the jury returned a guilty verdict for both Nemiers and Osborn, without determining which of the pair had administered the poison.[2][18] Allcock sentenced both to death by hanging, and for their bodies to be dissected afterwards.[5]
Post-conviction remarks
After Osborn and Nemiers' conviction, Silvester Tiffany of the Niagara Herald spoke to both in prison.[5] Nemiers was remorseful for his crime, though he tried to blame his involvement on Osborn, depicting her as having "lured him to unlawful intimacy."[5]
For her part, Osborn showed an indifference to her sentence that took Tiffany by surprise, as did her refusal to offer a full confession or some show of remorse.[5] She suggested a third party was involved in the crime, and this person had suggested murdering London to "get the old rascal out of the way."[5] She further claimed that she had only ever given opium to London.[5] When Tiffany asked for the name of the third party, Osborn provided one, but warned him against investigating them: "two of us to die for this is enough."[5] Tiffany, who doubted Osborn's claims, never printed the individual's name.[5]
Execution
Osborn and Nemiers were executed by hanging on August 17, 1801, outside the court house in Niagara-on-the-Lake where they had been tried.[15][18][19] According to Silvester Tiffany, Osborn's final words on the gallows were: "May this be a warning to you all."[5] Their deaths attracted a large crowd of spectators,[6] and one woman in attendance reportedly mimicked Osborn's dying sounds and gestures.[5] At the time of her death, Osborn was 28 years old.[1][12]
The executions of Osborn and Nemiers constituted two of six capital convictions in Upper Canada between 1791 and 1801.[20] They were also the first of Upper Canada's convicts to have their bodies donated to medical science, in a practice that would continue until around 1830.[4] Osborn ultimately received no grave or memorial.[21]
Aftermath
London's daughter from his first marriage, Mehitable Whitsell, raised Hannah, Osborn's daughter with London.[3][2] Although paternity of Osborn's second daughter Catherine was never established, she was nonetheless registered as London's daughter,[22] and may have been raised by another member of the London family.[3][2] William, Osborn's son from her first marriage, fought for Canada in the War of 1812.[2]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hird, Sheila (July 1984). "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN EARLY NIAGARA". Welland History.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Hurst, Kimberley. "The Untimely Death of Bartholomew London" (PDF). United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada. pp. 1–7.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 MacDonald, Cheryl (26 July 2005). Deadly Women of Ontario: Murderous Tales of Deceit and Treachery (1 ed.). Amazing Stories. pp. 13–20. ISBN 978-1554390267.
- 1 2 Society, Osgoode (1992). Provincial Justice: Upper Canadian Legal Portraits from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Osgoode Society. pp. xii, 316–319. ISBN 978-0-8020-2896-9.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Halpenny, Francess G. (1983). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Volume 5, 1801 to 1820. University of Toronto Press. pp. 639–640.
- 1 2 3 4 Pavlich, George (2011). Law and society redefined. Themes in Canadian society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-19-542980-0.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Villemaire, Tom (3 April 2016). "Murderous couple mixed rogue romance and ratbane". The Sudbury Star.
- 1 2 Legall, Paul (10 June 2006). "Homicide in Hamilton; Remembering murders of the worst degree". The Spectator. p. 60.
- 1 2 Denyes, Brenda (2017-08-29). "Richard London 5th Regiment Lincoln Militia". Graveside Project. Historic Military Establishment of Upper Canada. Retrieved 2026-04-02.
- 1 2 Corupe, Linda (2004). Upper Canadian Justice: Early Assize Court Records (Court of Oyer and Terminer) of Ontario. L. Corupe. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-894756-42-6.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FitzSimon-Chitty, Paddy (4 December 2002). "Saltfleet Township was site of first woman executed for murder in Ontario". Stoney Creek News. p. 1.
- 1 2 3 4 "Flashback August 17, 1801: This Day in History". The Hamilton Spectator. 17 August 2013. p. 3.
- ↑ Hamilton Public Library. "Murders in Hamilton". HPL. Retrieved 2026-04-03.
- ↑ Hamilton Public Library. "Murders in Hamilton: 1801-1899". www.hpl.ca. Archived from the original on 2014-07-17. Retrieved 2026-04-03.
- 1 2 NOTL. "A History of Niagara's Historic Court House". Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Retrieved 2026-04-03.
- 1 2 Robertson, John Ross (1914). Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto: A Collection of Historical Sketches of the Old Town of York from 1792 Until 1837, and of Toronto from 1834 to 1914. J.R. Robertson. p. 280.
- ↑ Wilson, Bruce G. (2003). "DICKSON, WILLIAM". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 2026-04-03.
- 1 2 3 Robertson, John Ross (1954). Old Toronto: A Selection of Excerpts from Landmarks of Toronto. Macmillan. p. 166.
- 1 2 Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum (May 2025). Niagara’s Historic Courthouse (PDF). Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. p. 2.
- ↑ Girard, Philip; Phillips, Jim; Brown, R. Blake (2018-12-21). A History of Law in Canada, Volume One: Beginnings to 1866. University of Toronto Press. pp. 215, 761. ISBN 978-1-4875-3059-4.
- ↑ Wilson, Paul (13 November 2002). "Dead people - Hamilton's got great ones". The Hamilton Spectator. p. 32.
- ↑ Walker, Dan (1998). Vital Records of Upper Canada/Canada West: pt. 1. Niagara District, 1795-1856. Norsim Research and Pub. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-896264-30-1.