On a December morning nearly two centuries ago, John Durfee was crossing a field in Tiverton, an area now part of Kennedy Park in Fall River — when he saw something near a haystack.

As he came within about 10 rods of the stack yard on Dec. 21, 1832, he discovered the body of a woman.

“I discovered the body of a female hanging to a stake, which was the body of Sarah Maria Cornell,” Durfee later testified. “I went to her and discovered she was dead.”

Cornell was a mill worker living just across the state line in Fall River. In the days before her death, surviving testimony depicts a woman going about the routines of mill life and making plans that extended beyond that December night.

What Durfee found that morning would lead to accusations against a Bristol minister, weeks of testimony before the Rhode Island Supreme Court and questions that remain nearly 200 years later.

Now, the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society is bringing that story back into the spotlight.

“Bad Character: The Death of Sarah Maria Cornell, a Historical Reenactment” will be staged Nov. 13 through 15 at the Bristol State House, 240 High St., Bristol.

The scene in Tiverton

Durfee gave jurors a detailed picture of how Cornell was found.

Her shoes were off, and her feet were close together near the ground. Durfee tried to lift Cornell and slip the line from the stake but could not. His father told him to cut her down.

Richard Durfee, John’s father, testified that he saw no obvious signs of a struggle around the stack yard.

“Saw no sign of any thing on the ground, no appearance of any person having moved about in the stack yard,” he testified.

Those details would later become part of the debate over whether Cornell had died by suicide or been murdered.

Plans for another week

The women who saw Cornell shortly before her death remembered someone making plans for the future.

Cornell had boarded with the Hathaway family for about three weeks. Her landlady testified that Cornell asked to have supper ready before dark on Dec. 20. Before leaving, she changed into a better cloak than the one she wore to the mill.

“She appeared more cheerful than usual,” the woman testified. “Had been more cheerful throughout the day than she usually was.”

Her daughter, Lucy Hathaway, worked in the same factory room as Cornell and said Cornell had been planning to go out that Thursday for about a week.

Five minutes before Cornell left the mill, Hathaway watched her comb her hair.

“It was not broken,” she testified.

That detail later drew attention because a broken comb believed to be Cornell’s was found away from her body.

Cornell also asked Hathaway to purchase an apron like one being bought for another worker. When Hathaway declined, Cornell told her, “buy one like it and we then will wear them all alike next week.”

She asked Hathaway to wind yarn for her to knit and spoke about having her loom ready by Monday.

Within hours, she was dead.

A note points toward Bristol

The first coroner’s inquest concluded that Cornell had died by suicide, although its verdict attributed the act to the “wicked conduct of a married man.”

Then came a discovery among Cornell’s belongings.

John Durfee testified that at the bottom of her bandbox he found a small piece of paper, no more than about two inches square, along with a pencil. His sister later handed him what he believed was that same slip.

A penciled note bearing Cornell’s name and dated Dec. 20 was reproduced in the surviving record:

“If I should be missing, inquire of the Rev. Mr. Avery, of Bristol, he will know where I am.

Dec. 20th.

S. M. CORNELL.”

The note became a significant part of the growing suspicion that Cornell’s death may not have been a suicide.

The Rev. Ephraim K. Avery was a married Methodist Episcopal minister from Bristol. Cornell knew Avery through their connection to the Methodist church, and surviving correspondence attributed to Cornell would become central to the case against him.

Cornell’s pregnancy added another dimension to the suspicion surrounding Avery. In correspondence and statements introduced during the case, Cornell alleged that she and the married minister had been sexually intimate and that Avery was responsible for her pregnancy. Avery denied the allegation. Prosecutors later pointed to the alleged relationship and pregnancy as a possible motive for keeping their association secret.

Other correspondence attributed to Cornell also became important to the investigation. One Dec. 8 note appeared to arrange a meeting for Dec. 20 at 6 p.m. and included the instruction, “Say nothing.”

A second coroner’s inquest reached a dramatically different conclusion from the first, rejecting the initial finding of suicide and determining that Cornell had been killed. The new finding intensified the investigation and the scrutiny surrounding Avery.

What the body revealed

Dr. Foster Hooper examined Cornell after her body was exhumed.

His examination found an indentation around her neck and determined that Cornell was pregnant.

“The conclusion I formed from the appearance of the lungs was that death was produced by strangulation,” Hooper testified.

The defense disputed the conclusion that Cornell had been murdered.

A trial without an answer

Avery was eventually indicted for Cornell’s murder and brought before the Rhode Island Supreme Court in Newport in May 1833.

No witness testified to seeing Avery kill Cornell. The prosecution instead built a circumstantial case around the correspondence, the penciled note, Cornell’s pregnancy, witness accounts and Avery’s alleged movements.

The defense challenged that evidence and argued that Cornell’s death could have been suicide. After weeks of testimony, the jury acquitted Avery.

The verdict established that the prosecution had not proven Avery guilty of murder. It did not provide a definitive explanation for Cornell’s death.

Nearly two centuries later, the surviving testimony preserves remarkably ordinary details about Cornell’s final day: yarn she planned to knit, a loom she wanted repaired, and an apron she expected to wear with her coworkers “next week.”

Then there is the tiny penciled slip bearing her name and that message: “ If I should be missing, inquire of the Rev. Mr. Avery, of Bristol.”

Exactly what happened to her on that December night remains unanswered.

Bringing Cornell’s story to the stage

Those unanswered questions are at the heart of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society’s upcoming production.

“It’s a reenactment of the trial,” Executive Director Catherine Zipf said, though the production will offer more than a straightforward retelling of the courtroom proceedings.

“You’re gonna meet Sarah from beyond,” she said.

For Zipf, Cornell’s story also raises larger questions about power, class, religion and the circumstances Cornell faced as a young mill worker.

“There’s power relationships,” Zipf said. “The Methodists are very keen for him to be acquitted. She’s this small mill worker. There’s sort of no justice for her.”

Cornell’s pregnancy and her connection to the Methodist community add to the questions the production will explore.

Zipf pointed in particular to the Methodist camp meetings and revivals of the period, gatherings that could take place away from established communities and where participants could find themselves in what she described as a “state of godly ecstasy.”

“Did something happen at one of the meeting places? At one of the revivals?” Zipf said. “And if it did happen, was it consensual? Was it not consensual?

“There’s just a whole host of issues to be determined here that the play will explore,” she added.

The production is fully cast, with four performances scheduled at the Bristol State House. Shows will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13; 3:30 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14; and 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15.

The production will be a ticketed event. Tickets and additional information will be available through the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society at BHPSRI.org.

Source note: Quotations concerning the Cornell case are drawn from the published report of the 1833 trial of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery and from a contemporary facsimile of correspondence attributed to Sarah Maria Cornell. Historical quotations have been reproduced as they appear in the original sources, including period spelling. Avery was acquitted of Cornell’s murder, and no definitive account of the circumstances of her death has been established.