The ''Mary Russell'' was a trading boat that set sail from the harbour of

Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. With a population of 14,148 inhabitants at the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, Cobh is on the south si ...

, Ireland, on 8 February 1828, carrying a cargo of mules bound for

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

. When it returned to Cobh on 25 June 1828, the ship's captain had brutally murdered seven of his crewmen. The story was largely forgotten until 2010, when ''The Ship of Seven Murders,'' a book which detailed the case, was published. Built in 1817, the ''Mary Russell'' was a small wooden brig of 132 tonnes, drawing 13 feet under load, single-decked with beams. That

tonnage Tonnage is a measure of the capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on '' tuns'' or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically refers to a cal ...

would make it about 80 feet in length. The ship was built entirely of wood, with wooden masts and rope

rigging Rigging comprises the system of ropes, cables and chains, which support and control a sailing ship or sail boat's masts and sails. ''Standing rigging'' is the fixed rigging that supports masts including shrouds and stays. ''Running rigg ...

. The bottom was sheathed in copper to protect the vessel from

shipworm The shipworms, also called teredo worms or simply teredo (, via Latin ), are marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae, a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commonly eventual ...

Crew

The ship's captain was William Stewart, a Protestant man born in Cobh in 1775. His

chief mate A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the ship ...

was a Scotsman named William Smith, and his

second mate A second mate (2nd mate) or second officer (2/O) is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship holding a Second Mates Certificate of Competence, by an authorised governing state of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). ...

was a Swede named William Swanson. Also on board were John Cramer, the ship's carpenter; seamen John Howes, Francis Sullivan and John Keating; and three apprentices – John Deaves (aged 15), Daniel Scully (13), and Henry Rickards (12). There were also two stablemen on board to look after the mules: Timothy Connell and James Morley. In addition to the crew, there was one passenger on board: an eleven-year-old boy named Thomas Hammond. Captain James Gould Raynes, a Cork man, who had sailed to Barbados on board Hibernia, was relieved of his command for drunkenness. After much persuasion, he was granted passage back to Cork by Captain Stewart on board the Mary Russell.

Murders

Following a dream, Captain Stewart grew suspicious of the crew and feared a mutiny led by Captain Raynes. That Raynes would speak in Irish to the crew added to Stewart's paranoia. Captain Stewart first bound the seven men by hand and foot, pinioning them to the floor of the ship's main saloon. He then systematically killed them all, attacking them first with a crowbar, and then with an axe.

Trial

On Sunday, 11 August 1828, Captain Stewart was tried for murder of Captain James Gould Raynes at Cork

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. Unusually, both prosecution and defence were seeking the same verdict:

not guilty by reason of insanity Not or NOT may also refer to: Language * Not, the general declarative form of "no", indicating a negation of a related statement that usually precedes * ... Not!, a grammatical construction used as a contradiction, popularized in the early 1990 ...

Daniel O’Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

was engaged to appear for the prosecution at Stewart’s trial, but was unable to attend as he was fighting the pivotal

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

County Clare County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...

that first elected him to the

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References

* Souvenir of the Mary Russell Tragedy, ''Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society'', 1905 * ‘The Terrible Story of the “Mary Russell”’, ''Fifty Strangest Stories Ever Told'', Odham’s Press Ltd, London c. 1930 * ''The Ship of Seven Murders'', Alannah Hopkin with Kathy Bunney, The Collins Press, 2010 {{1828 shipwrecks Murder in Ireland Axe murder Maritime incidents in 1828 1828 in Ireland Massacres in Ireland Mass murder in Ireland 1828 murders in Europe 1828 crimes in Ireland 1820s murders in Ireland