John Gordon

Who was John Gordon?

John Gordon was the last person executed by Rhode Island. His conviction and execution have been ascribed by researchers to anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Irish immigrant bias. As a result, he was posthumously pardoned in 2011.

In 1844, Gordon was tried and convicted for the December 31, 1843 beating murder of Amasa Sprague, a Cranston textile factory owner. The murder occurred within the village of Knightsville, Rhode Island. Sprague was a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. His brother William was a United States senator. Six months before his murder, Amasa Sprague had used his family's political influence to have Cranston resident Nicholas Gordon's liquor license removed by the city council. Nicholas Gordon and his brother John were Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland. Nicholas, John and William Gordon were all tried for murder, but only John was convicted, a conviction based on contradictory circumstantial evidence. William was found not guilty and in Nicholas's case, held after John's execution, the jury was hung. John Gordon was executed by hanging in the state jail in Providence. The court justices, which included Justice Job Durfee, that were involved in all three trials acted as both trial judges and the court of final appeal. Included in jury instructions, Durfee "told the jurors to give greater weight to Yankee witnesses than Irish witnesses."