In April of 1830, Joseph White, an aged, wealthy and despised resident of Salem, Massachusetts, was discovered murdered in his bedroom by servants. The city – still suffering from the stigma of the Salem Witch trials 140 years earlier – brought in famed orator and lawyer Daniel Webster to prosecute the men who were suspected of conspiring to kill White. The case was so famous in its day that Nathanial Hawthorne, a contemporary of the accused murderers, would use details from it to pen his literary masterpiece: “The Scarlet Letter”.
My guest is Edward Renehen Jr, and his book is called “Deliberate Evil: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, and the 1830 Murder of a Salem Slave Trader.”
Mr. Renehen’s website: https://edwardrenehan.com/
