[Rhode Island]: [Dorrance, John]: [Fenner, Arthur]:

$350 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

REPORT OF THE CASE JOHN DORRANCE AGAINST ARTHUR FENNER, TRIED AT THE DECEMBER TERM, OF THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, IN THE COUNTY OF PROVIDENCE, A.D. 1802. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, THE PROCEEDINGS IN THE ... A record of "these bizarre cases" in which "a justice of the Court of Common Pleas and the Governor sued each other for libel" (Cohen). The cases, full of political contention and macabre intrigue, revolve around a story circulated by Rhode Island Governor Arthur Fenner, who claimed that John Dorrance, a local judge and president of the Providence town council, had sold the dead body - snatched from its grave - of an unidentified man who had committed suicide to his friend and physician Dr. Pardon Bowen for dissection in exchange for a beaver hat. The events in question in both cases took place in February of 1799 and began when a stranger, having wandered into the town of Scituate, Rhode Island, hanged himself. Shortly after the discovery of the man's body, town officials buried it. Two days later, however, the grave was found empty, with sleigh tracks leading away from the site in the snow. Following the tracks, a group of inquisitive Scituate citizens discovered that they led some ten miles east, all the way to Providence, directly to the doorstep of Dr. Benjamin Dyer, who, together with his friend and colleague, Dr. Pardon Bowen, were teachers of anatomy. It seemed as though some students of Dyer and Bowen had stolen the body for the purpose of dissection. Outraged, the Scit

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