When Mary Powers married itinerant millworker Joel Preble in Auburn in the middle of May, 1861, she was about six weeks pregnant.

Preble was quiet about his background, so chances are he never told Mary that his father was in prison for killing his wife, according to the Lewiston Evening Journal.

With a couple weeks of her marriage, Mary’s husband was charged with bastardy and thrown in jail. Alone and without family in Auburn, Mary went to live with the Hayford family. A few weeks later, Preble paid off a widow who claimed he had fathered her child and was released.

He joined Mary at the Hayford’s apartment. The couple were soon arguing, and Preble began fashioning a crude knife from a file.

Mary was afraid, not only for herself, but also for the other women in the house.

“Don’t talk or laugh, for God’s sake,” she warned Sylvia Hayford and Sylvia’s sister Elvira. “He’s dreadful mad.”

The fight continued, even after Charles Hayford tried to stop it.

Preble told Hayford that while he was in jail, Mary had slept with another man. She had slept with Preble and others before their marriage as well.

“She’s a regular old rip,” he said, “and everybody knows it that knows her.”

Mary told him to get out.

“I won’t leave this house, and leave you in it alive, woman,” he told her.

But Hayford insisted, so Preble took his knife and left.

That was on Tuesday.

Thursday was the Fourth of July, and Mary went to the fireworks show with the Hayfords. As they were walking to the festivities, Preble appeared out of nowhere and insisted on joining them, the Lewiston Evening Journal reported.

During the fireworks and on the walk home afterward, he kept asking Mary to walk alone with him. She refused. Then finally, when the group was almost home, Preble became insistent. He grabbed hold of Mary, and she struggled to get away. Sylvia Hayford grabbed her other hand and tried to pull her back.

Preble struck a blow to Mary’s breast, and she screamed, “He has killed me!”

The violence happened so quickly that in the dark, Sylvia had no idea what had taken place. “You ain’t hurt much,” she reassured Mary.

“Oh yes, Sylvia, he has killed me. He has killed me,” Mary answered.

She stumbled and staggered and fell to the ground.

When the rest of the group saw Preble throw down the knife and run away, they realized what had happened.

The men quickly dragged Mary inside and saw their worst fears confirmed: a knife wound to the breast. Mary drew her last gasp and died.

They found Preble a few days later. He had been on the run until hunger drove him out of the woods and into the arms of the law. His trial came the following October. The court found him guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to hanging.

While Mary’s body rested in the family plot in Litchfield, Preble paced frantically in his jail cell, angered by a verdict he felt too severe.

“He clothes himself in the air of an injured man,” reported the Lewiston Evening Journal after his sentence. “We cannot imagine a state of mind less removed from penitence, or more maniacally wicked.”

Luann Yetter teaches writing at the University of Maine at Farmington and has written a history column for the Sun Journal for 11 years. Additional research for this column by UMF student David Farady.