“This is the day of your visitation, wherein the Lord hath visited you. This is the day the Lord is risen in his mighty power, to be avenged on all his adversaries. I suffer not as an evil doer. Mind the light that is within you; to wit the Light of Christ, of which He testified and I am now going to seal with my blood. Now ye are made manifest; I suffer for Christ in whom I live and in whom I die.”

— William Robinson, convicted of disobeying banishment, hanging, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Executed October 27, 1659

Robinson was a Quaker living in Rhode Island. Upon hearing of the nearby Massachusetts colony’s law exiling members of his religion, he went with several others to protest the law and was arrested and exiled. After he violated the terms of his exile, he was executed.

“Be it known to all this day, that we suffer not as evil doers, but for conscience[’] sake; this day we shall be at rest with the Lord.”

— Marmaduke Stevenson, convicted of disobeying banishment, hanging, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Executed October 27, 1659

Stevenson (sometimes spelled Stephenson) was a plowman in England until he took to a religious calling. He left his family and traveled to Barbados. Eventually, in Rhode Island he met William Robinson, with whom he traveled to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to protest a law banishing a new religious order called Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Stevenson was banished himself and, when he later returned to the colony, sentenced to die. He was hanged in the Boston Common, the first of three known as the “Boston martyrs.”

“Susan, receive me; I will soon be with you.”

— Jeremiah V. Craine, convicted of murder, hanging, California.
Executed October 26, 1855

Though married with four children in Kentucky, Craine had an affair with eighteen-year-old Susan Newnham. Craine, who believed in spiritualism, said his relationship with Susan was “sanctioned by heaven.” This did not stop Craine from shooting Susan several times, claiming that she pleaded that they make a suicide pact to escape gossip and her family’s anger about their relationship. Craine was stopped from committing suicide the next day.

At his execution, Craine read an address to the assembled crowd, calling Susan his “wife.” He was allowed to sing a song he wrote to the tune of “The Indian Hunter’s Lament,” in which he described his wish to die