Tombstone Tuesday ~ Daniel Farmer, hanged 1822, buried at Derryfield, New Hampshire

This tombstone was photographed at the Derryfield Cemetery, also known as the Center or Huse Cemetery, on Mammoth Road in Manchester, New Hampshire.

SACRED

to

The memory of

DANIEL D. FARMER

Who died Jan. 3rd

1822   4.28

When I stopped to take a photo of this tombstone, I never expected to find such an interesting and tragic story!  

Daniel Davis Farmer was born 28 March 1793 at Derryfield, now Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of Joseph Farmer and Dorcas French; married on 10 August 1813 in Goffstown to Abigail Hackett of Dunbarton, the daughter of Josiah Hackett and Abigail Rathborn.  They had four children and lived first in Goffstown and then in Manchester.  

On 5 April 1821 Daniel Farmer had an ongoing dispute with a woman named Anna Ayer.  She accused him of being the father of her unborn child.  He went to her house in Goffstown to discuss this with her, and out of anger (and they had been drinking rum) he beat her and her 14 year old daughter with a shovel, and burned their house.  The daughter recovered and the mother died on April 12th.  He was arrested and found guilty in October 1821 at the courthouse in Amherst, New Hampshire.  He was hanged on the common in Amherst on Thursday, 3 January 1822.  His body was given to his family and buried at the Derryfield Cemetery on the following Saturday.  According to The History of Goffstown  "A large audience attended his funeral, and a sermon was delivered by Rev. Mr. Paige, from Psalms XCII, 1, 'The Lord Reigneth'".  

The books listed below say that Farmer was executed at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  I'm not sure why his tombstone has "4.28" after the date.  

Sources:

From Archive.org  you can read the full book online:  The Life and Confessions of Daniel Davis Farmer: Who Was Executed at Amherst, N.H. on the 3d day of January, 1822 for the Murder of the Widow Anna Ayer, at Goffstown, on the 4th of April 1821: To Which is Added His Valedcitory Address and Some of His Correspondence During His Imprisonment, by Daniel Davis Farmer, published 1822.   https://archive.org/details/lifeconfessionso00farm   

You can also read the entire trial online at Google Books The Trial of Daniel Davis Farmer for the Murder of the Widow Anna Ayer, at Goffstown, On the 4th of April, A. D., 1821, reported by Artemas Rogers & Henry B. Chase, Counsellors at Law, Concord, NH, 1821.  This book is also on the shelves of the New Hampshire Historical Society library in Concord, New Hampshire. 

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ Daniel Farmer, hanged 1822, buried at Derryfield, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 4, 2018, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/09/tombstone-tuesday-daniel-farmer-hanged.html: accessed [access date]).