Chapter Six
Summer turned to autumn as Alice languished in the small stone gaol of Savannah. Each day behind bars crawled by, haunted by grief. Richard was gone – executed just days after the trial, his body buried in an unmarked grave outside the town limits. Alice had been left utterly alone, save for the child growing in her womb and the occasional brief visit from the matron who checked on her health.
In the eyes of the townsfolk, Alice Riley was a monster unworthy of kindness. Even the gaoler seldom spoke to her except to deliver meager rations. At night, curled on a straw pallet in her cell, Alice would whisper prayers in Latin, clinging to the remnants of her Catholic faith. No priest came for her; only an Anglican minister arrived once, urging her to repent and accept his church’s rites. Alice refused. She would die with the same faith she was born into, come what may.
Sometimes, in the deepest dark before dawn, Alice thought she heard Richard’s voice or felt his comforting hand. But she would wake to the cold reality of iron bars and stone walls. On those mornings, despair nearly suffocated her. Only the faint fluttering kicks of the baby inside gave her reason to rise and face another day.
As the chill of December swept over the colony, Alice’s time drew near. The women of Savannah – even those who scorned her – would not let a laboring mother suffer unaided. On a bitterly cold night just before Christmas, Alice was moved from her cell to a small infirmary room adjoining the gaol. There, by flickering candlelight, the matron and a midwife guided her through hours of agonizing labor.
Near dawn, on December 21, 1734, Alice gave birth to a baby boy. His first cry rang out, strong and healthy. Exhausted and weeping, Alice reached for him. The matron hesitated only a moment before placing the tiny, swaddled infant in his mother’s arms.
Alice cradled her son against her breast, tears of joy mingling with tears of sorrow. He had a fuzz of dark hair and Alice’s own green eyes. When he gripped her finger with surprising strength, a fractured laugh escaped her. Against all odds, something pure and good had come from this nightmare.
She named him Richard. In the weeks that followed, caring for little Richard filled Alice’s days in the cell with a new purpose. She nursed him, sang him soft Irish lullabies, and dreamed, however briefly, that they might somehow be allowed to live together.
But deep down she knew the reprieve would not last. The law had only delayed her sentence, not forgiven it.
Winter’s chill sharpened in January. When James was barely four weeks old, the gaoler came to Alice one gray afternoon with a sombre expression. “It’s to be tomorrow,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes. “At dawn.”
Alice felt as though the earth dropped from under her. Though she had known this day would come, her breath left her in a rush. She looked down at baby Richard suckling contentedly at her breast, oblivious to their fate. A tear fell onto his dark curls.
That night, she barely slept. She held Richard close, listening to his soft breaths, trying to memorize every detail of his tiny face.
When at last exhaustion overtook her, Alice drifted into a merciful dream. She saw herself not in the cell, but on a sunny green hillside in Ireland, under an ancient oak tree. Richard White was there, young and laughing, picking wildflowers and placing them in her hair. In her arms she cradled baby Richard, who gurgled happily and reached a tiny hand toward his father. They were together – a family – safe and free. Alice felt warm sun on her face and heard the distant echo of church bells. She turned to share a smile with Richard, heart brimming with peace.
A sudden jangle of keys jolted her awake, the dream shattering and Ireland’s green replaced by cold stone walls.
How cruel, she thought, that she must leave him so soon. He would never remember her, nor she see him grow.
Before the sun rose, the cell door creaked open. Two constables entered. One carried a length of coarse rope; the sight of it sent a jolt of terror through Alice. The other gently reached for the infant.
“No…please…” Alice begged, backing into the corner. Her shackles clanked. The baby woke and began to whimper at his mother’s agitation.
“We must take the child now,” the older constable said quietly, not unkindly. “He’ll be cared for.”
Alice pressed Richard to her chest, panic rising. “Don’t take him! Just a little longer, I beg you!” She kissed Richard’s forehead again and again, choking on sobs. The infant began to cry loudly.
There was no mercy in this moment. The constable pried the child from her arms. Alice cried out in anguish, collapsing to her knees as her baby was carried out of the cell, his wails fading down the corridor.
Her heart felt rent in two. She had known this separation was inevitable – that James would be left an orphan – but the reality was more painful than death itself. Two matrons from the orphan house stood waiting and quickly bundled the infant away to safety, leaving Alice with only the phantom weight of him in her arms.
The constables lifted her to her feet. Alice’s legs trembled. They led her out into the cold dawn light. A thin mist clung to the ground as she was escorted, shackled, through the silent streets toward the square – the very square where, nearly a year before, William Wise’s grave lay fresh and unmarked in a corner of the burial ground.
Awaiting her in the center of the square was a stark wooden gallows, its dark outline cutting against the pale morning sky. A noosed rope dangled from the crossbeam, swaying slightly in the breeze. A small crowd had gathered despite the early hour – townsfolk bundled in coats, curious onlookers, and a few grim-faced officials. Among them, she recognized Magistrate Causton and Recorder Christie, present to witness the sentence carried out. General Oglethorpe was not in sight; he had returned to England weeks before.
As Alice was brought to the foot of the gallows, the whispers of the crowd reached her ears:
“She’s the first woman to be hanged in Georgia,” an older man muttered to his companion.
“Aye, and a “Papist” at that,” the other replied under his breath. “Mark my words, nothing but trouble.”
Alice was too numb to respond or even feel anger at their prejudice. Her grief and fear overwhelmed all else.
The constables guided her up the wooden steps to the platform. The rope was adjusted around her neck, the coarse hemp scratching her skin. Alice shivered in the cold; or perhaps it was the nearness of death sending tremors through her.
An Anglican minister stood beside her, Bible in hand. He murmured prayers for her soul and urged her to confess and seek forgiveness. Alice barely heard him. Her mind was far away – drifting to a sunny day by the river when she and Richard had laughed about nothing; to the gentle touch of her infant’s hand; to the memory of green hills in Ireland she would never see again.
When the minister prompted her for final words, Alice roused herself. If she could not live to raise her son, perhaps she could clear her conscience. She looked out over the expectant faces of the crowd. Her voice came surprisingly clear in the quiet morning.
“I die today having spoken one great lie,” she said, her voice steady though tears brimmed in her eyes. “I lied in hoping to save Richard. I was not innocent of Mr. Wise’s death, but neither was I the instigator.” She lifted her chin slightly and declared, “My only regret is that my wicked confession cost the life of the man I loved.”
A few in the crowd murmured in confusion at her words. Thomas Christie frowned, scribbling notes – later he would record that she denied the murder of Wise and lamented that her false confession had brought about White’s death.
Alice closed her eyes. She whispered a final prayer in Latin, commending her soul to God and begging forgiveness. In her mind, she saw Richard waiting for her just beyond, hand outstretched.
The constable tightened the noose. The executioner – a burly man named William Grickson – stepped forward and placed a hood over her head. The world went dark and muffled.
Her last breath trembled out in a soft plea: “Please… take care of my baby.”
The trapdoor released.
Alice Riley fell suddenly through the floor of the gallows. The rope snapped taut with a harsh crack. Her body jerked at the end of the rope and then hung limp.
A collective exhale passed through the assemblage. Some turned away, unable to watch the life strangle out of her. Others peered with morbid fascination.
Alice’s heart had stopped near-instantly; mercifully, she did not struggle long. The frail young woman swung gently at the gallows, her feet bare and her head bowed by the hood. Thus ended the short, tragic life of Alice Riley, at age sixteen – the first woman ever executed in Georgia.
They left her hanging for some hours in the square, as was custom, the rope creaking with each faint breeze. By the time the sun stood high overhead, a few onlookers noticed something strange: not a single strand of Spanish moss hung from the oak branches above the gallows. All the other trees around were draped in the gray-green tufts, but this one oak by the scaffold stood barren, as if blighted.
The crowd slowly thinned as the morning wore on. Children were shooed away by their mothers. The constables returned to the gaol, leaving behind the gallows and the body of a girl who had once dreamed of a new life across the sea.
No one claimed Alice Riley’s remains. There was no family to send word to, no priest to recite final rites. Her body was buried in the potter’s field at the edge of town, in a shallow grave unmarked but for a small wooden stake. The executioner etched an “A” into it with his knife. Not for “Alice,” some said—but for “accursed.” No one seemed to know for certain.
Only one person came to visit the grave in the weeks that followed.
Jacob.
He said nothing when he arrived. He brought no flowers. Just a small carved token, shaped like a flame, which he buried beside the stake. Then he stood in silence under the gray sky, hat in hand, and turned back toward the river.
The child, baby Richard, was taken in by the orphan house. The matron who had delivered him did her best, but he was a sickly boy from the start. Some said he carried the weight of his mother’s fate in his blood. He died in infancy, barely a year old.
They buried him in a different field. No marker. Just a name in a ledger. “Richard Riley – bastard son of Alice.”
Years passed. Savannah grew. The gallows were taken down. The square was paved and fenced, the old oak tree rotted and fell. But for reasons no one could explain, Spanish moss never returned to its branches, even when the tree regrew from the stump. Locals began to whisper that the square was cursed. That sometimes, on fog-heavy mornings, you could hear a woman sobbing near the place where the scaffold once stood.
They said it was Alice.
Some dismissed it as nonsense. Others crossed themselves when passing Wright Square.
But the truth was this: Alice Riley never truly left.
Not because she was vengeful, but because the land would not forget. Because some tragedies echo longer than lifetimes. Because the world had taken a frightened, hopeful girl and turned her into a cautionary tale.
And in the silence beneath the mossless tree, something lingered—neither wrath nor peace, but memory. The memory of a girl who only wanted to live free, and a boy who loved her enough to try.
They had dreamed of building a life in the New World.
Instead, they became its first ghosts.
The End