New Haven County Court Records: Blog

“The Disorder was the Cause”: A Case of Stillbirth and Slander

In honor of Women’s History Month, we examine two cases of malpractice and slander surrounding an incident of stillbirth.

When quoting from documents, we will use the actual spelling, including transcriptions of individual words as necessary. (For more information about colonial spelling practices, see The Standardization of American English at teachinghistory.org.) In certain circumstances, we will add missing letters to abbreviated words or substitute modern spelling in brackets to enhance reader comprehension.

John and Martha Grannis vs. Dr. Pierre E. Brandin

Writs for John and Martha Grannis vs. Dr. Pierre E. Brandin

In November 1810, John and Martha Grannis of Cheshire launched not one but two lawsuits against Dr. Pierre E. Brandin of Cheshire (his name is also spelled “Pier E. Branden” in the court records). Their first lawsuit alleged that although Brandin “publickly professed and promised the practice of physick, surgery and midwifery in all their various branches,” he “ignorantly, unskillfully, and negligently omitted to deliver” Martha’s child when they sought his services in midwifery in March 1810. As a result, the child did not survive and Martha “was exposed to the most imminent danger of her life, has forever lost her health, and received lasting & irreparable injuries and wounds.”

This wasn’t the only complaint the Grannises had about Brandin’s doctoring. Their second lawsuit further alleged that Dr. Brandin slandered Martha’s “fair & irreproachable character” with the “false scandalous & defamatory” claim that she “has got the venerial disorder the pox now upon her... & the disorder was the cause of her child’s being born dead & of her present sickness.”

In each case, the plaintiffs demanded $5,000, for a grand total of $10,000 in damages. However, upon consideration the Court found the defendant’s plea that he was “not guilty in manner and form” to be “Sufficient” and awarded him the recovery of his court costs. Unsurprisingly, John and Martha Grannis appealed to the Superior Court, and Burrage Beach, Esquire was bound on recognizance on their behalf “in case they make not their plea good” (County Court Records, New Haven County, Vol. 17, 1809-1812, p. 188).

We hope to discover more about what happened to Martha Grannis and her quest for justice in the Superior Court records.

Other Cases

“Back,” woodcut by Byron Randall, 1968, courtesy of Rootbeerlc, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License, via Wikimedia Commons.

For those who would like to read more about women in the New Haven County Court records, here are several cases that we previously chronicled:

• Phillis recovered full damages against the man who attempted to unlawfully imprison her.
• Mehittabel Whitehead wrote a successful rebuttal to the slander charge against her.
• Elizabeth Gould sued for slander after being accused of witchcraft.
• Mary Hoadly sued her extended family for slandering her as a “Whore.”
• Mary Tuttle, Silence Tuttle, and Lydia Clinton were attacked by a man deemed “under discomposure of mind.”
• Nelle was at the center of a dispute between enslavers as to whether she had the right to emancipation at age 18.
• Hanah was at the center of a dispute between enslavers regarding her illness.
• Sim was forced into service at a house where people were quarantined with smallpox.
• Caroline Saunderson, Dinah and Betty, and Amy resisted illegal enslavement.
• Hannah Arnold, sister of the infamous Benedict Arnold, sued him twice.
• Elizabeth Andross petitioned the court for her husband to stop abusing her.
• Sarah Humervile was prosecuted by the State for running a bawdry house.
• Elizabeth Jones and her husband sued a doctor for making her ailments worse.
• Ruth Fairchild and her husband sued a constable for slandering her as a “Lyar” and a “Whore.”
• Mary Prinn’s husband launched a lawsuit after she was assaulted by another woman.
• Sabina escaped her enslaver.
• Anna Guy and Abigaill Atwater served as their husbands’ attorneys in court.
• Hannah Hall, a divorced “feme sole,” represented herself in court.
• Annah Wooster sued for breach of promise when her betrothed married another woman.
• Women were subjects of several cases involving poverty and poor relief.
• A general overview of women in colonial Connecticut.

As noted in a previous post, the records for these cases, as well as several of the cases previously profiled in this blog, are currently in the process of being digitized. They will eventually be available for public viewing at the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA).

The Connecticut State Library would like to thank the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for their generous support of this project.