Page 22 - February 2017

A Monthly Look

Back At Our History

By Lt. Col. (Ret) Ron Guilmette

The Murder of Julia Hawkes

On Sunday, May 24, 1874, the body of Miss Julia Hawkes was observed partially submerged in the Monatiquot
River in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She was bound with rope and tied to a twenty-four pound tailor’s goose and only her
legs were seen protruding from the water. (A tailors goose is a heavy flat iron used to smooth out wrinkled fabrics) The
Norfolk County Coroner and a local sheriff/constable were called to the scene, and a telegraph was sent to state police
headquarters in Boston. State Police Deputy Constable Napoleon Bonaparte Furnald was assigned to investigate the case.
It was later learned, through autopsy, that the cause of death was that she had been shot in the head.

Furnald worked with State Police Deputy Constables Hollis Pinkham, Chase Philbrick, Christopher Bailey and Chief
Constable George Washington Boynton to solve the 1874 murder of Julia Hawkes, a domestic in the Howard House Hotel
on the corner of Broadway and Washington Streets in Hanover, MA. James Henry Costley, the hotel manager, was arrested,
charged and found guilty of the murder and was hanged in the Norfolk County Jail on Village Avenue in Dedham on June
25, 1875. He was the last person executed in the Dedham Jail. Chief Constable Boynton and state detective Chase Philbrick
attended the execution. In 1898 Governor Roger Wolcott signed legislation that eliminated county executions and death by
hanging, requiring that all future executions in the Commonwealth be carried out in the Charlestown State Prison electric
chair. The legislation also prohibited public executions.

James F. Gallagher, a retired Boston Police Superintendent and chief of detectives wrote two books involving state
police constables and their investigations. The first, A Monument to Her Grief, covering the Sturtevant Murders, and A

History of Homicide in Hanover, covering the Julia Hawkes murder. Both have been cited here and are available @: www.
RiverhavenBooks.com

Napoleon Bonaparte Furnald was born on August 23, 1828 in Quincy,
son of Lemuel and Mary Evans Furnald. Napoleon married Elizabeth Fuole
Dodge on June 9, 1850 in Quincy. In the 1870 Census they were living in
Quincy and he listed his occupation as “furniture dealer.” Chief Constable
Edward J. Jones appointed him a state police deputy constable for Norfolk
County in 1873 and he served until 1875. Furnald worked with State Police
Constables Hollis Pinkham, Chase Philbrick, Christopher Bailey and Chief
Constable George Washington Boynton to solve the 1874 murder of Julia
Hawkes, a domestic in the Howard House Hotel on the corner of Broadway
and Washington Streets in Hanover, MA. James Henry Costley, the hotel
manager, was found guilty of the murder, committed in Weymouth Landing
and the body dumped in the Monatiquot River. Costley was hanged in the
Norfolk County Jail on Village Avenue in Dedham. Napoleon Furnald died at
age 85 on May 1, 1914. His wife Elizabeth died in 1918 and they are buried
in Mt. Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy. (Family Search.com) (Genealogybank.
com) (Manual for the General Court) (Find A Grave) (Murder on Broadway
– John F. Gallagher)

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