One can sympathize with Thomas and his fellow pimple-faced pubescents as they fought the battle between their primitive urges and their social mores against this bleak sexual landscape. It was a battle they had virtually no chance of winning; their only hope was to avoid detection by both God and man.
Thomas tried to be careful, stealthily confining his sins to quiet barnyards and remote fields far from prying Pilgrim eyes. There were no rumors, no gossip, no one to raise a voice against him as he surrendered and gave free reign to his passions.
For weeks, months, perhaps a year, he went about his furtive practices undetected. But it came to an end suddenly one day when he was caught literally with his pants down. A colonist crossing a remote field stumbled across Thomas enthusiastically sodomizing a mare, no doubt as pornographic thoughts of a young strumpet named Eliza or Prudence filled his head.
Needless to say, such villainy had no chance of going unpunished. Once the stunned witness recovered his wits, he headed directly to the proper colonial authorities. A complaint was lodged. Thomas was detained. His days as a practicing zoophile were over.
At first, he vehemently denied the charges, but the magistrates persisted. No record survives of their methods for extracting the truth. But in the end, Thomas broke and made a clean breast of things.
No doubt to ensure the salvation of what was left of his immortal soul, he told the entire shocking story. Yes, he shame-facedly admitted to his inquisitors, it was true.
He had engaged in immoral congress with the mare as accused. He had been introduced to the practice by a fellow farm worker who had many fond memories of his youth on a farm back in merry old England. As quills flew furiously across parchment, he freely described dozens of unnatural acts with all manner of animals. When he finished, he had implicated no less than a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey in addition to the mare.
Unfortunately, the details of his crimes fell victim to the squeamishness of the times. Mr Bradford: I forbear perticulers. And accordingly he was cast by y e jury, and condemned. It being demanded of him the youth confessed he had it of another who had long used it in old England, and they kept cattle together.
And after executed about y e 8. Of Sept r , A very sade spectakle it was; for first the mare, and then y e cowe, and y e rest of y e lesser catle,. Tags: , animal cruelty , bestiality , charles olson , john holmes , pilgrims , plymouth colony , puritans , september 8 , thomas granger , william bradford , zoophilia. So you bang horses and sheep, I take it? As so in the days of Noah…. Your email address will not be published.
Doe Thomas Granger and the beasts he lay with September 8th, Headsman On this date in , a teenager was hanged in the Plymouth colony for bestiality — in accordance with the law of the Pentateuch. A very sade spectakle it was; for first the mare, and then y e cowe, and y e rest of y e lesser catle, were kild before his face, according to y e law Levit: On this day..
You've probably already heard about how there were no turkeys at that first Thanksgiving in But you likely don't know about an especially grim episode that occurred 21 years later, in the midst of a colony-wide sin outbreak, when a man named Thomas Granger was executed for having sex with a number of animals, including the bird that would become the Thanksgiving mascot. The story comes from Of Plymouth Plantation , a diary by Governor William Bradford that is the most complete and authoritative primary source from that period.
Here's what Bradford wrote of Granger:. Horrible it is to mention, but the truth of the history requires it. Basically, someone walked in on Granger, a teenage servant, while he was engaged in "lewd practice towards the mare," and the young man eventually confessed to having sex with the horse regularly, along with several other farm animals. Then, as now, bestiality was a serious crime. But back in , the punishment was strange by modern standards: The authorities worked to determine which animals Granger had had sex with, then killed them in front of him before executing Granger himself.
They then buried the animals, as opposed to eating them, because their bodies had been defiled. This procedure was based off of the Bible passage Leviticus Riley Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Drummey added that the killing and burying of the animals would have been a hardship for the colonists and was therefore another indicator of how seriously this crime was viewed: "You're talking about an agricultural society.
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