Paul Caranci reading from his book: The Hanging and Redemption of John Gordon: The True Story of Rhode Island's Last Execution (RI)

On a frigid day in 1843, Amasa Sprague, a wealthy Yankee mill owner, left his mansion to check on his cattle. On the way, he was accosted and beaten beyond recognition, and his body was left facedown in the snow. What followed was a trial marked by judicial bias, witness perjury and societal bigotry that resulted in the conviction of twenty-nine-year-old Irish-Catholic John Gordon. He was sentenced to hang. Despite overwhelming evidence that the trial was flawed and newly discovered evidence that clearly exonerated him, an anti Irish Catholic establishment refused him a new trial. On February 14, 1845, John Gordon became the last victim of capital punishment in Rhode Island. Local historian Paul F. Caranci brings this case to life, graphically describing the murder and exposing a corrupt judicial system, a biased newspaper and a bigoted society responsible for the unjust death of an innocent man.

Researching and writing this book was an emotional experience that traced the sorrow of loss when Nicholas Gordon left his home and family in Ireland in search of a better life here in America; the unimaginable joy of the family reunited in Rhode Island just seven years later thanks to Nicholas's successful entrepreneurial efforts; and the  nightmare of being wrongfully accused of the murder of a member of one of Rhode Island's most prominent and powerful families - a nightmare from which there was no escape.
This book emphatically displays the impact of a bigotry and hatred that destroyed an entire family.  When John was tried, convicted and wrongfully executed for a murder he clearly did not commit, America ceased to be a land of opportunity.  The government could no longer be trusted by anyone of Irish descent or of Catholic faith.  The courts could no longer be viewed as a place for the administration of justice.  For an entire culture of Irish Catholic immigrants it signified the death of innocence itself.  The execution of John Gordon preordained so much more than the death of one innocent man.  For Irish Catholic immigrants living in Rhode Island, it signified the death of innocence itself!