Dwight Foster

Brookfield is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,390 at the 2010 census. Brookfield was first settled in 1660 and was officially incorporated in 1718. The town was settled by men from Ipswich as part of the Quaboag Plantation lands, though the settlers... would be temporarily removed from the lands by attacks during King Philip's War. During the winter of 1776, General Henry Knox passed through the town with cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to end the Siege of Boston. A marker along Route 9 commemorates his route. In March 1778, Joshua Spooner, a wealthy farmer in Brookfield, was beaten to death and his body stuffed down a well. Four people were hanged for the crime: two British soldiers, a young Continental soldier, and Spooner's wife, Bathsheba, who was charged with instigating the murder. She was 32 years old and five months pregnant when executed. Newspapers described the case as "the most extraordinary crime ever perpetrated in New England." Bathsheba was the mother of three young children, and in her own words felt "an utter aversion" for her husband, who was known to be an abusive drunk.
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