Sarah Wentworth Morton’s husband, Perez Morton, had an affair with her younger sister, Fanny. Fanny was living with the couple at the time. Was it consensual? Coerced? People speculate differently about that.

Time: 1787.

Background: Sarah and Fanny Wentworth were the offspring of a wealthy slave trader and moved in elite circles in post-revolutionary Boston. At this time, newspapers and novels were seeing a rise in both sentimental fiction and crime reporting.

1788: Fanny gave birth to a daughter. After the birth, Fanny killed herself. The daughter was shipped off to someone in Weston and as of yet, I haven’t found anything in the record about her. Newspapers published Fanny’s suicide note.

Fanny’s father wanted Perez indicted but John Adams intervened (yes! that John Adams). And there may have very nearly been a duel between Perez and one of the Wentworth brothers.

So there’s passion and controversy and scandal and at the center of it, a prominent lawyer and well-to-do member of Boston society. What to make of him?

I’ve been thinking of Perez Morton as a pompous ass (think: the insecure, egotistical cousin of the main character in Zadie Smith’s novel THE FRAUD). Morton became the grandmaster of the Masons. He was Attorney General for Massachusetts for many years. A prominent lawyer, in other words, one who had supported the revolution and garnered esteem from his peers. Still I didn’t like him, even if he didn’t coerce Fanny.

But then, just today, I found this hymn that Perez wrote (WHEN JESUS WEPT) and listened to a choral production of it and it kind of changed my mind about him.