History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

CHAPTER XL.
EXECUTION OF DAILEY AND HALLIGAN.
The Trial. In April, 1806, occurred in this town the
trial of Dominic Dailey and James Halligan
for the murder of Marcus Lyon at Wilbraham, on the
9^'' of the preceding November. Lyon formerly lived in
Connecticut, and was on his way from Cazenovia, N. Y.,
to his home in that State, when he met his death. The
prisoners were Irish, young men who had been tramping
from Boston, apparently without specific aim, and their
m.otive was plunder. The case was tried before Hon. Theodore
Sedgwick and Samuel Sewell Esq. Though the evidence
was entirely circumstantial, the trial resulted in a
verdict of guilty, and a sentence of death. The trial seems
to have been fairly conducted, and the verdict just. The
certain parties believed
men were strangers in this section ;
the prisoners innocent, and in after years attempted to
throw the blame of the adverse verdict upon the inexpe-
rience of their counsel.
The Convicts Seek After the trial, which occurred on the
Religious conso- fourth Tucsday of April, the prisoners
were remanded to jail, and the execution
was to take place on the 5^'' of the following June. During
this short interval the prisoners, who were Catholics,
sought the consolations of their faith. As there were no
Catholic clergymen in this section of the State they ad-
dressed a letter to M. Cheverus, a Catholic priest at Boston.
"We are solicitous," they say, ''only about our salvation,
it is in your hands, come to our assistance." It was the
custom then on all occasions of capital punishment, for a
clergyman to preach a sermon just before the execution.