Elizabeth "Harriot" Wilson
AMERICAN EXECUTED FOR MURDER (1762-1786)
Elizabeth (Harriot) Wilson; Elizabeth Wilson (folklore figure); Harriot Wilson; Elisabeth 'Harriot' Wilson; Elizabeth 'Harriot' Wilson; Elizabeth Harriot Wilson
Elizabeth Wilson (1762January 3, 1786) was an American whose execution by hanging for the purported murder of her children in southeastern Pennsylvania during the immediate post-Revolutionary War period made her a folklore figure in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Although her responsibility for the children's deaths had not been definitively established, the hanging was carried out and a pardon, granted by the state and entrusted to her brother, William, was not delivered in time to stop the execution.