Jan. 20, 2026
East Montpelier, Vermont: The 14-Hour Marriage That Ended in Murder
On September 5th, 1889, George Gould walked up the path to the Cutler farm in East Montpelier, Vermont, with his new wife Laura. They had been married for barely fourteen hours. By noon, George would be dead—shot in the face at point-blank range by a man who had waited twenty-two years for his chance.
The murder of George Gould sparked one of the strangest legal cases in Vermont history. What began as a simple crime of passion became a decades-long tragedy involving a scandalous courtroom confession, a wedding performed through prison bars, and a woman who could never escape the name of her husband's killer.
Timeline of Events:
- 1867 – Sherman Caswell begins working at the Cutler farm after returning from Civil War service
- September 4, 1889 – Laura Cutler and George Gould marry
- September 5, 1889 – Sherman Caswell shoots George Gould from an upstairs window
- March 1890 – Caswell convicted of second-degree murder, sentenced to life
- April 1890 – Laura marries Caswell through prison bars
- 1902 – Sherman Caswell pardoned after twelve years
- April 2, 1911 – Laura dies; death certificate lists her name as Laura Caswell
Sources: The Argus and Patriot newspaper (Montpelier, VT), Vermont Historical Society, VTDigger "Then Again" column.
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WEBVTT
00:02.039 --> 00:06.752
[SPEAKER_00]: September 5th, 1889, 11 o'clock in the morning.
00:08.035 --> 00:17.500
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura cut their gold, walked up the path to her family's farm, and eastmump hill your Vermont, wearing yesterday's wedding dress.
00:18.779 --> 00:20.521
[SPEAKER_00]: she'd been married for 14 hours.
00:21.883 --> 00:27.189
[SPEAKER_00]: Her new husband George stopped at the wood shed to gather kindling for the stove.
00:28.751 --> 00:35.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside the farmhouse, the elderly woman Laura had hired as a shop-grown, was waiting with a warning.
00:36.379 --> 00:45.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell, the hired hand who'd worked the farm since 1867, was upstairs, and he was drunk.
00:45.610 --> 00:47.853
[SPEAKER_00]: George knew the danger.
00:49.114 --> 00:50.256
[SPEAKER_00]: He brought a revolver.
00:51.878 --> 00:53.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord changed out of her good clothes.
00:55.122 --> 00:57.065
[SPEAKER_00]: The farmhouse felt too quiet.
00:58.667 --> 01:02.371
[SPEAKER_00]: Then George stepped outside with an arm load of kindling.
01:04.354 --> 01:06.557
[SPEAKER_00]: A shotgun blast from an upstairs window.
01:07.578 --> 01:08.399
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight feet away.
01:08.439 --> 01:14.807
[SPEAKER_00]: Bird shot at that distance doesn't scatter.
01:16.019 --> 01:29.168
[SPEAKER_00]: 14 hours after his wedding, George Gold was dying by the fence, and Eastmont, Pillar of Vermont, was about to witness one of the strangest murder cases in American legal history.
01:30.937 --> 01:33.141
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back, friend, to hometown history.
01:33.902 --> 01:41.375
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world.
01:42.297 --> 01:43.098
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters.
01:43.859 --> 01:55.780
[SPEAKER_00]: In today, we're exploring how a 14-hour marriage in East Montpire, Vermont, ended in murder, 20 years of secrets, and a name that became a prison
01:57.970 --> 02:02.618
[SPEAKER_00]: East Montpire of Vermont in 1889 was dairy country.
02:03.760 --> 02:08.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Rolling hills, family farms, everyone knew everyone's business.
02:09.991 --> 02:14.919
[SPEAKER_00]: Population was just under a thousand folks, if you counted the surrounding countryside.
02:16.462 --> 02:19.607
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of place where a scandal could follow you for life.
02:21.241 --> 02:23.705
[SPEAKER_00]: the Cutler Farm set just outside town.
02:24.786 --> 02:28.191
[SPEAKER_00]: By all accounts, it had been in the family for generations.
02:29.433 --> 02:39.368
[SPEAKER_00]: When William Cutler died in 1884, and his wife, Fanny, in 1888, they're only daughter Laura inherited everything.
02:40.732 --> 02:45.703
[SPEAKER_00]: the farm, the deaths, and the impossible decision that came with them.
02:47.286 --> 02:54.541
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 37 years old, in 1889, that meant she was quite old for her first marriage.
02:55.784 --> 03:01.035
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had two options, both of them were standing in her kitchen.
03:01.015 --> 03:10.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Jane's Sherman Caswell, everyone called him Sherman, had worked the cutler farm as a hired hand since 1867.
03:10.586 --> 03:21.319
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd come home from the Civil War with a leg wound from Gettysburg, where he'd helped repel Pickett's charge on July 3, 1863.
03:23.581 --> 03:27.546
[SPEAKER_00]: That wound still made the heavy
03:28.657 --> 03:30.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell was 46 years old.
03:32.064 --> 03:34.710
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been asking Laura to marry him for years.
03:36.193 --> 03:39.720
[SPEAKER_00]: When her father was alive, Willard had refused permission.
03:40.923 --> 03:42.325
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, Laura was too young.
03:43.869 --> 03:46.935
[SPEAKER_00]: After Willard died, Laura kept refusing.
03:48.181 --> 03:51.967
[SPEAKER_00]: But Caswell had a point in his favor, his army pension.
03:51.987 --> 03:59.838
[SPEAKER_00]: $8 to $12 a month doesn't sound like much, but that's roughly $300 a year today.
03:59.878 --> 04:03.203
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to pay down the farm mortgage.
04:04.485 --> 04:07.229
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to keep Laura from losing everything.
04:10.113 --> 04:11.395
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was a complication.
04:11.435 --> 04:17.344
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Caswell, he and Laura had been common law married for decades,
04:18.590 --> 04:29.504
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont in 1889 recognized common law marriage, meaning long-term co-habitation could create legal marriage, even without a ceremony.
04:30.705 --> 04:35.131
[SPEAKER_00]: If Sherman's claim was true, Laura was already his wife by law.
04:36.593 --> 04:45.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura would later testify under oath that she and Caswell had been intimate since 1867 when
04:46.838 --> 04:48.780
[SPEAKER_00]: The other option was George Gould.
04:50.182 --> 04:55.548
[SPEAKER_00]: George was a farmhand, Caswell had hired the year before to help with the heavy work.
04:57.050 --> 05:05.900
[SPEAKER_00]: He was 36 years old, roughly five foot six, with short hair parted in the middle, and along my stash curled up at the end.
05:07.262 --> 05:15.411
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the Montpellier Argus and Patriot newspaper, George had no money of his own,
05:16.876 --> 05:22.343
[SPEAKER_00]: But he kept finding reasons to visit the cutler farm, even when he wasn't working.
05:23.845 --> 05:25.647
[SPEAKER_00]: The attraction was Laura.
05:26.909 --> 05:30.774
[SPEAKER_00]: By summer 1889, she agreed to marry him.
05:32.216 --> 05:34.118
[SPEAKER_00]: They set a wedding date for September.
05:35.640 --> 05:37.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell was furious.
05:40.226 --> 05:46.714
[SPEAKER_00]: In the days before the September wedding, Caswell asked Laura directly, where they
05:48.179 --> 05:49.341
[SPEAKER_00]: his tongue grew darker.
05:50.523 --> 05:52.085
[SPEAKER_00]: When drunk he cursed her.
05:53.347 --> 05:57.172
[SPEAKER_00]: When sober, he made cold, economic calculations.
05:58.334 --> 06:01.319
[SPEAKER_00]: If she married George, they'd lose the farm.
06:02.861 --> 06:04.263
[SPEAKER_00]: George knew about the threats.
06:05.205 --> 06:11.554
[SPEAKER_00]: When he came to the farm on September 5th, the day after his wedding, he had a loaded revolver.
06:13.627 --> 06:26.922
[SPEAKER_00]: On the evening of September 4th, 1889, George Gould and Laura Cutler were married at a minister's home, somewhere in Eastmont, Pilar, the ceremony was simple.
06:28.264 --> 06:30.566
[SPEAKER_00]: They spent the wedding night away from the farm.
06:32.028 --> 06:41.659
[SPEAKER_00]: That morning, September 5th, Sherman Caswell set down to breakfast with Laura.
06:43.141 --> 06:50.013
[SPEAKER_00]: Around 11 o'clock that morning, George and Laura returned to the cutler farm, as husband and wife.
06:51.356 --> 06:59.009
[SPEAKER_00]: The elderly Phoebe Perry, an 84-year-old woman, Laura had hired as a chaperone after her mother died.
06:59.991 --> 07:06.242
[SPEAKER_00]: Readed them with the warning, Sherman Caswell was upstairs, and he was pretty full.
07:07.164 --> 07:07.765
[SPEAKER_00]: He was drunk.
07:09.010 --> 07:14.659
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the danger, George decided to stay, he'd come prepared with the revolver.
07:15.901 --> 07:19.287
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura went inside to change clothes and prepare for dinner.
07:20.309 --> 07:27.961
[SPEAKER_00]: George switched from his formal hat to a work hat, removed his coat, and headed to the work shed beside the house.
07:30.445 --> 07:32.048
[SPEAKER_00]: German casual fired.
07:34.542 --> 07:41.729
[SPEAKER_00]: The bird shot struck George's left cheek, a point blank range, too close for the pellets to spread.
07:42.870 --> 07:48.376
[SPEAKER_00]: The blast tore away teeth, part of his upper lip, his nose and chin.
07:49.517 --> 07:50.438
[SPEAKER_00]: It broke his jaw.
07:51.379 --> 08:00.448
[SPEAKER_00]: The shot also pierced the right side of his chest, smashing three ribs, and tearing holes in his liver and one lung.
08:00.428 --> 08:06.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside the farmhouse, Laura heard a tremendous blast, followed by terrible screams.
08:08.319 --> 08:13.386
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked upstairs, Caswell was standing at the window, empty handed.
08:15.149 --> 08:21.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura rushed outside, there was blood on the front step, scattered kindling.
08:21.978 --> 08:28.748
[SPEAKER_00]: George had staggered across the road, before collapsing by a fence.
08:30.145 --> 08:35.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Three men from a nearby stone quarry came immediately, but there was nothing they could do.
08:36.994 --> 08:41.219
[SPEAKER_00]: George Gould bled to death over approximately 30 minutes.
08:42.821 --> 08:46.146
[SPEAKER_00]: His face was mangled, his chest torn open.
08:47.608 --> 08:50.331
[SPEAKER_00]: He died 14 hours after his wedding.
08:51.678 --> 08:55.951
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell turned himself into authorities a month earlier that afternoon.
08:56.974 --> 08:58.899
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't run, he didn't hide.
08:59.862 --> 09:03.814
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked to town, found the sheriff, and confessed.
09:06.022 --> 09:16.739
[SPEAKER_00]: In late March, 1890, six months after the murder, the state of Vermont tried James Sherman Caswell for first-degree murder.
09:18.021 --> 09:20.405
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecution wanted the death penalty.
09:21.507 --> 09:23.190
[SPEAKER_00]: The case seemed straightforward.
09:24.071 --> 09:29.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell had shot an unarmed man at close range, with witnesses present.
09:31.047 --> 09:32.629
[SPEAKER_00]: he confessed immediately.
09:32.669 --> 09:38.337
[SPEAKER_00]: His defense attorney argued temporary insanity, driven by jealousy.
09:38.357 --> 09:42.323
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Lauren Cutler took the witness stand.
09:43.484 --> 09:50.614
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecutor asked her directly, what was her relationship with Sherman Caswell before she married George Gold.
09:51.936 --> 10:00.548
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura testified under oath that she and Caswell had been intimate since 1867, when she was
10:00.528 --> 10:07.394
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd lived together on the farm, conducting themselves as husband and wife in all but name.
10:08.615 --> 10:10.076
[SPEAKER_00]: The courtroom was stunned.
10:11.638 --> 10:17.263
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the August and Patriot, folks in the courtroom could scarcely believe what they were hearing.
10:18.424 --> 10:19.685
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just scandalous.
10:20.585 --> 10:29.353
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1890 Vermont, admitting to decades of sexual relations outside marriage, destroyed a woman's
10:30.667 --> 10:33.313
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had to have known this when she testified.
10:34.836 --> 10:36.039
[SPEAKER_00]: So why did she say it?
10:37.503 --> 10:45.621
[SPEAKER_00]: Historians believe Laura was trying to establish grounds for a second-degree murder conviction instead of first-degree.
10:46.023 --> 10:53.191
[SPEAKER_00]: If the jury believed she and Caswell had a long-term intimate relationship, they might see the murder as a crime of passion.
10:54.112 --> 10:56.995
[SPEAKER_00]: jealous rage, not premeditated killing.
10:58.397 --> 11:00.479
[SPEAKER_00]: Second degree murder meant life in prison.
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[SPEAKER_00]: First degree murder meant hanging.
11:05.145 --> 11:11.592
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether that was her intent, or simply the truth she couldn't hide anymore, will never know for certain.
11:13.073 --> 11:20.102
[SPEAKER_00]: The jury convicted Caswell of second-degree murder, life in prison, no death penalty.
11:21.443 --> 11:37.022
[SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks after the conviction, Laura Cutler traveled to the Vermont State Prison in Windsor, a massive stone fortress where prisoners wore black and white striped uniforms, and moved and lock-step silence,
11:38.285 --> 11:43.933
[SPEAKER_00]: She arranged for a justice of the peace, high-room hues, to perform a wedding ceremony.
11:45.235 --> 11:47.438
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont considered it legally binding.
11:48.940 --> 11:59.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Cutler became Laura Caswell, wife of the man who murdered George Gold, just months earlier, 14 hours into their marriage.
12:00.817 --> 12:01.778
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would she do this?
12:02.973 --> 12:04.475
[SPEAKER_00]: several theories exist.
12:05.697 --> 12:09.923
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps Caswell promised to share his army pension if she married him.
12:11.105 --> 12:15.091
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps guilt over her testimony drove her to make a men's.
12:16.372 --> 12:18.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps she genuinely loved him.
12:19.938 --> 12:24.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps she was trapped by social pressure and saw no other option.
12:26.024 --> 12:33.256
[SPEAKER_00]: about 18 months after marrying Caswell through the prison cell door, Laura filed for divorce.
12:34.819 --> 12:36.882
[SPEAKER_00]: She realized marriage was a mistake.
12:38.605 --> 12:41.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell was never going to share his pension.
12:42.232 --> 12:45.417
[SPEAKER_00]: He was serving life in prison with no possibility of parole.
12:46.797 --> 12:52.526
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had legally bound herself to a convicted murderer, and now she won it out.
12:54.048 --> 12:56.852
[SPEAKER_00]: The Washington County Court denied her petition.
12:58.394 --> 13:03.482
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont divorce law in 1890 had quite strict requirements.
13:04.724 --> 13:14.138
[SPEAKER_00]: You could file divorce for adultery, cruelty, or desertion, but not for, I made a bad
13:15.535 --> 13:21.462
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had married Caswell, knowing he was imprisoned for murdering her first husband.
13:22.723 --> 13:29.772
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd made the choice voluntarily in front of witnesses with a justice of the peace officiating.
13:31.474 --> 13:33.896
[SPEAKER_00]: The court's reasoning was harsh, but clear.
13:34.898 --> 13:38.161
[SPEAKER_00]: You knew exactly what you were doing, and you did it anyway.
13:39.223 --> 13:41.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you live with the consequences.
13:42.805 --> 13:45.489
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.
13:47.011 --> 13:48.713
[SPEAKER_00]: They also denied her divorce.
13:50.215 --> 13:51.918
[SPEAKER_00]: She was trapped.
13:51.938 --> 13:56.084
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Caswell legally married to George Gold's murderer.
13:57.486 --> 14:02.653
[SPEAKER_00]: Unable to remarry, unable to divorce, unable to escape
14:04.287 --> 14:08.271
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura moved in with Lucius gold, Georges younger brother.
14:09.672 --> 14:13.336
[SPEAKER_00]: They lived together openly, maintaining a household.
14:14.577 --> 14:16.098
[SPEAKER_00]: But Laura could never marry him.
14:17.239 --> 14:19.742
[SPEAKER_00]: She was still legally, Laura Caswell.
14:21.263 --> 14:26.428
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1902, serving 12 years, Sherman Caswell was pardoned.
14:27.569 --> 14:32.674
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked out of the Vermont state prison
14:34.088 --> 14:39.654
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know where he went, when he died, or whether he tried to contact Laura again.
14:39.714 --> 14:47.583
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura continued living with Lucius Gold, until her death on April 2, 1911.
14:48.864 --> 14:50.266
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 59 years old.
14:51.768 --> 15:00.197
[SPEAKER_00]: The quiet heartbreak of those final years, watching your life shaped by impossible choices many decades ago.
15:00.177 --> 15:06.526
[SPEAKER_00]: unable to escape a name that marked you as the widow of a murderer in the wife of his killer.
15:07.608 --> 15:11.774
[SPEAKER_00]: Both identities true and neither one, the whole story.
15:13.176 --> 15:18.444
[SPEAKER_00]: When Laura died, her death certificate listed her name as Laura Caswell.
15:19.706 --> 15:29.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Laura Cutler, the farm girl who inherited and possible deaths.
15:30.721 --> 15:40.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Caswell, trapped by a marriage contract, signed through prison bars, unable to escape, even in death.
15:41.804 --> 15:48.358
[SPEAKER_00]: She's buried in East Montpellier, in the cutler cemetery, alongside George Gold.
15:48.338 --> 16:00.332
[SPEAKER_00]: The husband she was married to for 14 hours, and a few plots away from Lucius Gould, the man she lived with, for 20 years but could never marry.
16:01.454 --> 16:07.020
[SPEAKER_00]: Three men, three different relationships, one name she couldn't escape.
16:09.183 --> 16:14.970
[SPEAKER_00]: Today Eastmont, Pilar, is still dairy country, population around 2500.
16:16.182 --> 16:30.743
[SPEAKER_00]: The cutler form is long gone, probably subdivided decades ago, but the cutler cemetery remains on North Street where three granite headstones marked the graves of the people at the center of this story.
16:32.446 --> 16:45.885
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to think we're past the days where women had no economic options when marriages were economic survival strategies, when legal systems trapped people in impossible situations
16:47.317 --> 16:53.867
[SPEAKER_00]: But consider how many people today face choices between financial security and personal happiness.
16:55.197 --> 17:00.422
[SPEAKER_00]: How many relationships are shaped by economic pressure, rather than love?
17:01.703 --> 17:06.948
[SPEAKER_00]: How many legal contracts bind people to decisions they made in desperation?
17:08.590 --> 17:11.633
[SPEAKER_00]: Lower cutler's story isn't just historical tragedy.
17:12.654 --> 17:16.558
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a reminder that impossible choices create tragedies.
17:17.719 --> 17:21.863
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sometimes there's no escape from the names we carry.
17:24.205 --> 17:27.772
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the story of Laura Cutler's, impossible triangle.
17:28.673 --> 17:34.163
[SPEAKER_00]: A 14-hour marriage, a murder, a prison wedding, in the name she could never escape.
17:35.425 --> 17:46.686
[SPEAKER_00]: If you found this story as haunting as I did, share it with someone who understands that the choices we make and desperation can echo across a lifetime.
17:46.666 --> 17:50.210
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story.
17:50.991 --> 18:02.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, it's east Mount Pilliers in possible triangle, 14 hours of marriage, 20 years of secrets, in a name that became a prison.
18:03.427 --> 18:11.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Good night for a hint.
00:02.039 --> 00:06.752
[SPEAKER_00]: September 5th, 1889, 11 o'clock in the morning.
00:08.035 --> 00:17.500
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura cut their gold, walked up the path to her family's farm, and eastmump hill your Vermont, wearing yesterday's wedding dress.
00:18.779 --> 00:20.521
[SPEAKER_00]: she'd been married for 14 hours.
00:21.883 --> 00:27.189
[SPEAKER_00]: Her new husband George stopped at the wood shed to gather kindling for the stove.
00:28.751 --> 00:35.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside the farmhouse, the elderly woman Laura had hired as a shop-grown, was waiting with a warning.
00:36.379 --> 00:45.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell, the hired hand who'd worked the farm since 1867, was upstairs, and he was drunk.
00:45.610 --> 00:47.853
[SPEAKER_00]: George knew the danger.
00:49.114 --> 00:50.256
[SPEAKER_00]: He brought a revolver.
00:51.878 --> 00:53.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord changed out of her good clothes.
00:55.122 --> 00:57.065
[SPEAKER_00]: The farmhouse felt too quiet.
00:58.667 --> 01:02.371
[SPEAKER_00]: Then George stepped outside with an arm load of kindling.
01:04.354 --> 01:06.557
[SPEAKER_00]: A shotgun blast from an upstairs window.
01:07.578 --> 01:08.399
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight feet away.
01:08.439 --> 01:14.807
[SPEAKER_00]: Bird shot at that distance doesn't scatter.
01:16.019 --> 01:29.168
[SPEAKER_00]: 14 hours after his wedding, George Gold was dying by the fence, and Eastmont, Pillar of Vermont, was about to witness one of the strangest murder cases in American legal history.
01:30.937 --> 01:33.141
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back, friend, to hometown history.
01:33.902 --> 01:41.375
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world.
01:42.297 --> 01:43.098
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters.
01:43.859 --> 01:55.780
[SPEAKER_00]: In today, we're exploring how a 14-hour marriage in East Montpire, Vermont, ended in murder, 20 years of secrets, and a name that became a prison
01:57.970 --> 02:02.618
[SPEAKER_00]: East Montpire of Vermont in 1889 was dairy country.
02:03.760 --> 02:08.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Rolling hills, family farms, everyone knew everyone's business.
02:09.991 --> 02:14.919
[SPEAKER_00]: Population was just under a thousand folks, if you counted the surrounding countryside.
02:16.462 --> 02:19.607
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of place where a scandal could follow you for life.
02:21.241 --> 02:23.705
[SPEAKER_00]: the Cutler Farm set just outside town.
02:24.786 --> 02:28.191
[SPEAKER_00]: By all accounts, it had been in the family for generations.
02:29.433 --> 02:39.368
[SPEAKER_00]: When William Cutler died in 1884, and his wife, Fanny, in 1888, they're only daughter Laura inherited everything.
02:40.732 --> 02:45.703
[SPEAKER_00]: the farm, the deaths, and the impossible decision that came with them.
02:47.286 --> 02:54.541
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 37 years old, in 1889, that meant she was quite old for her first marriage.
02:55.784 --> 03:01.035
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had two options, both of them were standing in her kitchen.
03:01.015 --> 03:10.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Jane's Sherman Caswell, everyone called him Sherman, had worked the cutler farm as a hired hand since 1867.
03:10.586 --> 03:21.319
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd come home from the Civil War with a leg wound from Gettysburg, where he'd helped repel Pickett's charge on July 3, 1863.
03:23.581 --> 03:27.546
[SPEAKER_00]: That wound still made the heavy
03:28.657 --> 03:30.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell was 46 years old.
03:32.064 --> 03:34.710
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been asking Laura to marry him for years.
03:36.193 --> 03:39.720
[SPEAKER_00]: When her father was alive, Willard had refused permission.
03:40.923 --> 03:42.325
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, Laura was too young.
03:43.869 --> 03:46.935
[SPEAKER_00]: After Willard died, Laura kept refusing.
03:48.181 --> 03:51.967
[SPEAKER_00]: But Caswell had a point in his favor, his army pension.
03:51.987 --> 03:59.838
[SPEAKER_00]: $8 to $12 a month doesn't sound like much, but that's roughly $300 a year today.
03:59.878 --> 04:03.203
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to pay down the farm mortgage.
04:04.485 --> 04:07.229
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to keep Laura from losing everything.
04:10.113 --> 04:11.395
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was a complication.
04:11.435 --> 04:17.344
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Caswell, he and Laura had been common law married for decades,
04:18.590 --> 04:29.504
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont in 1889 recognized common law marriage, meaning long-term co-habitation could create legal marriage, even without a ceremony.
04:30.705 --> 04:35.131
[SPEAKER_00]: If Sherman's claim was true, Laura was already his wife by law.
04:36.593 --> 04:45.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura would later testify under oath that she and Caswell had been intimate since 1867 when
04:46.838 --> 04:48.780
[SPEAKER_00]: The other option was George Gould.
04:50.182 --> 04:55.548
[SPEAKER_00]: George was a farmhand, Caswell had hired the year before to help with the heavy work.
04:57.050 --> 05:05.900
[SPEAKER_00]: He was 36 years old, roughly five foot six, with short hair parted in the middle, and along my stash curled up at the end.
05:07.262 --> 05:15.411
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the Montpellier Argus and Patriot newspaper, George had no money of his own,
05:16.876 --> 05:22.343
[SPEAKER_00]: But he kept finding reasons to visit the cutler farm, even when he wasn't working.
05:23.845 --> 05:25.647
[SPEAKER_00]: The attraction was Laura.
05:26.909 --> 05:30.774
[SPEAKER_00]: By summer 1889, she agreed to marry him.
05:32.216 --> 05:34.118
[SPEAKER_00]: They set a wedding date for September.
05:35.640 --> 05:37.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell was furious.
05:40.226 --> 05:46.714
[SPEAKER_00]: In the days before the September wedding, Caswell asked Laura directly, where they
05:48.179 --> 05:49.341
[SPEAKER_00]: his tongue grew darker.
05:50.523 --> 05:52.085
[SPEAKER_00]: When drunk he cursed her.
05:53.347 --> 05:57.172
[SPEAKER_00]: When sober, he made cold, economic calculations.
05:58.334 --> 06:01.319
[SPEAKER_00]: If she married George, they'd lose the farm.
06:02.861 --> 06:04.263
[SPEAKER_00]: George knew about the threats.
06:05.205 --> 06:11.554
[SPEAKER_00]: When he came to the farm on September 5th, the day after his wedding, he had a loaded revolver.
06:13.627 --> 06:26.922
[SPEAKER_00]: On the evening of September 4th, 1889, George Gould and Laura Cutler were married at a minister's home, somewhere in Eastmont, Pilar, the ceremony was simple.
06:28.264 --> 06:30.566
[SPEAKER_00]: They spent the wedding night away from the farm.
06:32.028 --> 06:41.659
[SPEAKER_00]: That morning, September 5th, Sherman Caswell set down to breakfast with Laura.
06:43.141 --> 06:50.013
[SPEAKER_00]: Around 11 o'clock that morning, George and Laura returned to the cutler farm, as husband and wife.
06:51.356 --> 06:59.009
[SPEAKER_00]: The elderly Phoebe Perry, an 84-year-old woman, Laura had hired as a chaperone after her mother died.
06:59.991 --> 07:06.242
[SPEAKER_00]: Readed them with the warning, Sherman Caswell was upstairs, and he was pretty full.
07:07.164 --> 07:07.765
[SPEAKER_00]: He was drunk.
07:09.010 --> 07:14.659
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the danger, George decided to stay, he'd come prepared with the revolver.
07:15.901 --> 07:19.287
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura went inside to change clothes and prepare for dinner.
07:20.309 --> 07:27.961
[SPEAKER_00]: George switched from his formal hat to a work hat, removed his coat, and headed to the work shed beside the house.
07:30.445 --> 07:32.048
[SPEAKER_00]: German casual fired.
07:34.542 --> 07:41.729
[SPEAKER_00]: The bird shot struck George's left cheek, a point blank range, too close for the pellets to spread.
07:42.870 --> 07:48.376
[SPEAKER_00]: The blast tore away teeth, part of his upper lip, his nose and chin.
07:49.517 --> 07:50.438
[SPEAKER_00]: It broke his jaw.
07:51.379 --> 08:00.448
[SPEAKER_00]: The shot also pierced the right side of his chest, smashing three ribs, and tearing holes in his liver and one lung.
08:00.428 --> 08:06.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside the farmhouse, Laura heard a tremendous blast, followed by terrible screams.
08:08.319 --> 08:13.386
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked upstairs, Caswell was standing at the window, empty handed.
08:15.149 --> 08:21.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura rushed outside, there was blood on the front step, scattered kindling.
08:21.978 --> 08:28.748
[SPEAKER_00]: George had staggered across the road, before collapsing by a fence.
08:30.145 --> 08:35.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Three men from a nearby stone quarry came immediately, but there was nothing they could do.
08:36.994 --> 08:41.219
[SPEAKER_00]: George Gould bled to death over approximately 30 minutes.
08:42.821 --> 08:46.146
[SPEAKER_00]: His face was mangled, his chest torn open.
08:47.608 --> 08:50.331
[SPEAKER_00]: He died 14 hours after his wedding.
08:51.678 --> 08:55.951
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherman Caswell turned himself into authorities a month earlier that afternoon.
08:56.974 --> 08:58.899
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't run, he didn't hide.
08:59.862 --> 09:03.814
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked to town, found the sheriff, and confessed.
09:06.022 --> 09:16.739
[SPEAKER_00]: In late March, 1890, six months after the murder, the state of Vermont tried James Sherman Caswell for first-degree murder.
09:18.021 --> 09:20.405
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecution wanted the death penalty.
09:21.507 --> 09:23.190
[SPEAKER_00]: The case seemed straightforward.
09:24.071 --> 09:29.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell had shot an unarmed man at close range, with witnesses present.
09:31.047 --> 09:32.629
[SPEAKER_00]: he confessed immediately.
09:32.669 --> 09:38.337
[SPEAKER_00]: His defense attorney argued temporary insanity, driven by jealousy.
09:38.357 --> 09:42.323
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Lauren Cutler took the witness stand.
09:43.484 --> 09:50.614
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecutor asked her directly, what was her relationship with Sherman Caswell before she married George Gold.
09:51.936 --> 10:00.548
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura testified under oath that she and Caswell had been intimate since 1867, when she was
10:00.528 --> 10:07.394
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd lived together on the farm, conducting themselves as husband and wife in all but name.
10:08.615 --> 10:10.076
[SPEAKER_00]: The courtroom was stunned.
10:11.638 --> 10:17.263
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the August and Patriot, folks in the courtroom could scarcely believe what they were hearing.
10:18.424 --> 10:19.685
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just scandalous.
10:20.585 --> 10:29.353
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1890 Vermont, admitting to decades of sexual relations outside marriage, destroyed a woman's
10:30.667 --> 10:33.313
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had to have known this when she testified.
10:34.836 --> 10:36.039
[SPEAKER_00]: So why did she say it?
10:37.503 --> 10:45.621
[SPEAKER_00]: Historians believe Laura was trying to establish grounds for a second-degree murder conviction instead of first-degree.
10:46.023 --> 10:53.191
[SPEAKER_00]: If the jury believed she and Caswell had a long-term intimate relationship, they might see the murder as a crime of passion.
10:54.112 --> 10:56.995
[SPEAKER_00]: jealous rage, not premeditated killing.
10:58.397 --> 11:00.479
[SPEAKER_00]: Second degree murder meant life in prison.
11:01.360 --> 11:03.543
[SPEAKER_00]: First degree murder meant hanging.
11:05.145 --> 11:11.592
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether that was her intent, or simply the truth she couldn't hide anymore, will never know for certain.
11:13.073 --> 11:20.102
[SPEAKER_00]: The jury convicted Caswell of second-degree murder, life in prison, no death penalty.
11:21.443 --> 11:37.022
[SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks after the conviction, Laura Cutler traveled to the Vermont State Prison in Windsor, a massive stone fortress where prisoners wore black and white striped uniforms, and moved and lock-step silence,
11:38.285 --> 11:43.933
[SPEAKER_00]: She arranged for a justice of the peace, high-room hues, to perform a wedding ceremony.
11:45.235 --> 11:47.438
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont considered it legally binding.
11:48.940 --> 11:59.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Cutler became Laura Caswell, wife of the man who murdered George Gold, just months earlier, 14 hours into their marriage.
12:00.817 --> 12:01.778
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would she do this?
12:02.973 --> 12:04.475
[SPEAKER_00]: several theories exist.
12:05.697 --> 12:09.923
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps Caswell promised to share his army pension if she married him.
12:11.105 --> 12:15.091
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps guilt over her testimony drove her to make a men's.
12:16.372 --> 12:18.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps she genuinely loved him.
12:19.938 --> 12:24.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps she was trapped by social pressure and saw no other option.
12:26.024 --> 12:33.256
[SPEAKER_00]: about 18 months after marrying Caswell through the prison cell door, Laura filed for divorce.
12:34.819 --> 12:36.882
[SPEAKER_00]: She realized marriage was a mistake.
12:38.605 --> 12:41.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Caswell was never going to share his pension.
12:42.232 --> 12:45.417
[SPEAKER_00]: He was serving life in prison with no possibility of parole.
12:46.797 --> 12:52.526
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had legally bound herself to a convicted murderer, and now she won it out.
12:54.048 --> 12:56.852
[SPEAKER_00]: The Washington County Court denied her petition.
12:58.394 --> 13:03.482
[SPEAKER_00]: Vermont divorce law in 1890 had quite strict requirements.
13:04.724 --> 13:14.138
[SPEAKER_00]: You could file divorce for adultery, cruelty, or desertion, but not for, I made a bad
13:15.535 --> 13:21.462
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura had married Caswell, knowing he was imprisoned for murdering her first husband.
13:22.723 --> 13:29.772
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd made the choice voluntarily in front of witnesses with a justice of the peace officiating.
13:31.474 --> 13:33.896
[SPEAKER_00]: The court's reasoning was harsh, but clear.
13:34.898 --> 13:38.161
[SPEAKER_00]: You knew exactly what you were doing, and you did it anyway.
13:39.223 --> 13:41.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you live with the consequences.
13:42.805 --> 13:45.489
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.
13:47.011 --> 13:48.713
[SPEAKER_00]: They also denied her divorce.
13:50.215 --> 13:51.918
[SPEAKER_00]: She was trapped.
13:51.938 --> 13:56.084
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Caswell legally married to George Gold's murderer.
13:57.486 --> 14:02.653
[SPEAKER_00]: Unable to remarry, unable to divorce, unable to escape
14:04.287 --> 14:08.271
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura moved in with Lucius gold, Georges younger brother.
14:09.672 --> 14:13.336
[SPEAKER_00]: They lived together openly, maintaining a household.
14:14.577 --> 14:16.098
[SPEAKER_00]: But Laura could never marry him.
14:17.239 --> 14:19.742
[SPEAKER_00]: She was still legally, Laura Caswell.
14:21.263 --> 14:26.428
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1902, serving 12 years, Sherman Caswell was pardoned.
14:27.569 --> 14:32.674
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked out of the Vermont state prison
14:34.088 --> 14:39.654
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know where he went, when he died, or whether he tried to contact Laura again.
14:39.714 --> 14:47.583
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura continued living with Lucius Gold, until her death on April 2, 1911.
14:48.864 --> 14:50.266
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 59 years old.
14:51.768 --> 15:00.197
[SPEAKER_00]: The quiet heartbreak of those final years, watching your life shaped by impossible choices many decades ago.
15:00.177 --> 15:06.526
[SPEAKER_00]: unable to escape a name that marked you as the widow of a murderer in the wife of his killer.
15:07.608 --> 15:11.774
[SPEAKER_00]: Both identities true and neither one, the whole story.
15:13.176 --> 15:18.444
[SPEAKER_00]: When Laura died, her death certificate listed her name as Laura Caswell.
15:19.706 --> 15:29.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Laura Cutler, the farm girl who inherited and possible deaths.
15:30.721 --> 15:40.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Laura Caswell, trapped by a marriage contract, signed through prison bars, unable to escape, even in death.
15:41.804 --> 15:48.358
[SPEAKER_00]: She's buried in East Montpellier, in the cutler cemetery, alongside George Gold.
15:48.338 --> 16:00.332
[SPEAKER_00]: The husband she was married to for 14 hours, and a few plots away from Lucius Gould, the man she lived with, for 20 years but could never marry.
16:01.454 --> 16:07.020
[SPEAKER_00]: Three men, three different relationships, one name she couldn't escape.
16:09.183 --> 16:14.970
[SPEAKER_00]: Today Eastmont, Pilar, is still dairy country, population around 2500.
16:16.182 --> 16:30.743
[SPEAKER_00]: The cutler form is long gone, probably subdivided decades ago, but the cutler cemetery remains on North Street where three granite headstones marked the graves of the people at the center of this story.
16:32.446 --> 16:45.885
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to think we're past the days where women had no economic options when marriages were economic survival strategies, when legal systems trapped people in impossible situations
16:47.317 --> 16:53.867
[SPEAKER_00]: But consider how many people today face choices between financial security and personal happiness.
16:55.197 --> 17:00.422
[SPEAKER_00]: How many relationships are shaped by economic pressure, rather than love?
17:01.703 --> 17:06.948
[SPEAKER_00]: How many legal contracts bind people to decisions they made in desperation?
17:08.590 --> 17:11.633
[SPEAKER_00]: Lower cutler's story isn't just historical tragedy.
17:12.654 --> 17:16.558
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a reminder that impossible choices create tragedies.
17:17.719 --> 17:21.863
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sometimes there's no escape from the names we carry.
17:24.205 --> 17:27.772
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the story of Laura Cutler's, impossible triangle.
17:28.673 --> 17:34.163
[SPEAKER_00]: A 14-hour marriage, a murder, a prison wedding, in the name she could never escape.
17:35.425 --> 17:46.686
[SPEAKER_00]: If you found this story as haunting as I did, share it with someone who understands that the choices we make and desperation can echo across a lifetime.
17:46.666 --> 17:50.210
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story.
17:50.991 --> 18:02.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, it's east Mount Pilliers in possible triangle, 14 hours of marriage, 20 years of secrets, in a name that became a prison.
18:03.427 --> 18:11.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Good night for a hint.
