The Virginia Gazette

Portsmouth, in New-Hampshire, August 17.

Last Saturday Morning was found dead in a Well here, a Female Infant lately born, and suppos'd to be murder'd; and Warrants being issued out by His Majesty's Justices of the Peace to search for the Mother, Inquiry was made through the Town by the Officers who had the Warrants; and in the Afternoon, a Widow Woman named Sarah Simpson, who had been suspected some Time before to have been with Child, was apprehended and charged with being the Mother of the Child found in the Well: which She deny'd: But at the same Time said, she would go and shew where she had buried her Child, and accordingly went with the Constable who apprehended her, and dug up her Child (as She said it was) being buried about four Inches under Ground by the River Side; whereupon she was examin'd and sent to Goal; and on Sunday last in the Afternoon an Irish Woman Servant of Dr. Joseph Franklin, of this Town, was apprehended as a suspected Person; but she denied that she had a Child: However that did not satisfy the Justices, so that they order'd her to be examined by four or five skilful Women; who reported, that according to their Judgment, she had been delivered of a Child within a Week: But yet she denied the Child found in the Well to be Hers, and would not give direct Answers to Questions put to her; however said at last, She might have done something as bad, and God was now about to bring her to Justice; but would, as yet, give no Account what was become of the Child she had had, whereupon She was committed to Prison. On Monday Morning She desired to see the Justices who had examin'd her the Evening before; accordingly they went to her, and then she own'd that she was alone delivered of a Male Child alive the Wednesday Morning before: that she put it alive into a Tub in her Master's Cellar, and then left it 'til the Friday Night following, when she threw it into the River (as she said) and went with the Justices to the Place, which was within sixty Yards of the Place where the other Child was dug up: Upon which, some are of Opinion, that there is another Mother yet to be found for the Child taken out of the Well; others think she is already found.