Author Paul Caranci reading at Symposium Books, East Greenwich

From the Author:
On a frigid day in 1843, Amasa
Sprague, a wealthy Yankee mill owner, left his mansion to check on his
cattle. On the way, he was accosted and beaten beyond recognition, and
his body was left facedown in the snow. What followed was a trial marked
by judicial bias, witness perjury and societal bigotry that
resulted in the conviction of twenty-nine-year-old Irish-Catholic John
Gordon. He was sentenced to hang. Despite overwhelming evidence that the
trial was flawed and newly discovered evidence that clearly exonerated
him, an anti Irish Catholic establishment refused him a new trial. On
February 14, 1845, John Gordon became the last victim of capital
punishment in Rhode Island. Local historian Paul F. Caranci brings this
case to life, graphically describing the murder and exposing a corrupt
judicial system, a biased newspaper and a bigoted society responsible
for the unjust death of an innocent man.

Researching and
writing this book was an emotional experience that traced the sorrow of
loss when Nicholas Gordon left his home and family in Ireland in search
of a better life here in America; the unimaginable joy of the family
reunited in Rhode Island just seven years later thanks to Nicholas's
successful entrepreneurial efforts; and the nightmare of being
wrongfully accused of the murder of a member of one of Rhode Island's
most prominent and powerful families - a nightmare from which there was
no escape.
This book emphatically displays the impact of a bigotry
and hatred that destroyed an entire family. When John was tried,
convicted and wrongfully executed for a murder he clearly did not
commit, America ceased to be a land of opportunity. The government
could no longer be trusted by anyone of Irish descent or of Catholic
faith. The courts could no longer be viewed as a place for the
administration of justice. For an entire culture of Irish Catholic
immigrants it signified the death of innocence itself. The execution of
John Gordon preordained so much more than the death of one innocent
man. For Irish Catholic immigrants living in Rhode Island, it signified
the death of innocence itself!