When Love Died

In 1824, Boston was a small farming community, about twenty–five miles south of Buffalo, New York. Buffalo itself was still only considered a village with a population of just over two thousand people. It was a hard life in that time where families tried to eke out a meager living selling their crops and growing their own fruits and vegetables to be canned and preserved for the long hard winters. They were a God–fearing community who gathered on Sundays in a neighbor's home to hear the visiting preacher who traveled from town to town until churches could be built for congregations. But just as in our world today, not everyone grows up to be honest and respectful. The three Thayer brothers moved to Boston with their parents and quickly became known as drunkards and ne'er–do–wells. When a Great Lakes seaman by the name of John Love needed a place to stay for the winter while the lakes were frozen over, they offered him room and board for a price. He didn't plan on the ultimate price that he had to pay.When the brothers' crops were not successful, they asked Love for a cash loan to make ends meet. Love was glad to help out his newfound friends. But they never planned on paying him back. Instead, they planned to murder him and hide his body.This was an important time in Western New York; the area was growing in population, and the Industrial Revolution was making life and work easier. The building of the Erie Canal, which traveled from Albany to Buffalo, was one of the engineering marvels of the time and, after many years of labor, opened in Buffalo in 1825.The story builds to the actual murder, arrest, and trial of the three brothers and ends with their eventual hangings in the Buffalo village square in 1825 attended by a crowd that was estimated at the time to be over twenty thousand people.

-- Sherrie L. Pluta