Edmund Ingalls Death by Bridge: 52 Ancestors 2021 Bridge

Possibly the First Wrongful Death Claim Against the Government

Edmund Ingalls: 1598-1648

Although I have previously written a blog post about the life of my ninth-great-grandfather Edmund Ingalls back in 2019, the post only briefly mentioned his dramatic death and the events that followed. Edmund was the only person in my tree who died as a result of a defective bridge.

Edmund Ingalls lived in and was one of the original settlers of Lynn, Massachusetts. In early March 1648, Edmund was returning home to Lynn from Boston, and was crossing the Saugus River on a bridge near Lynn. The bridge collapsed beneath Edmund and his horse and both plunged into the river.

1600s map of Lynn, Massachusetts area

I originally assumed Edmund drowned in the river, but apparently he was pulled out, seriously injured. He was able to write his will before dying from his injuries a few days after the accident. Although his birth date has not been verified, he was only around age fifty at the time of his death, and still had minor children at home. This death must have been a shocking blow to his family economically as well as emotionally.

The book The History of Lynn by Lewis and Newhall included a summary of events that occurred in the year 1648, which stated that “on the 23d of March, the Court allowed the town twenty pounds toward repairing the ‘great bridge’ over Saugus river. On the 18th of October thirty shillings were granted annually for the same purpose.” The repairs were obviously necessitated by the collapse that threw Edmund into the river.

Lynn, Massachusetts, 1800s, by John Bachelder

At some point after Edmund’s death, his eldest son Robert Ingalls, then age 27, filed a legal petition with the local courts on behalf of the family seeking compensation for Edmund’s death.

The History of Lynn by Lewis and Newhall includes a transcription of the petition, which reads as follows:

“The humble petition of Robert Ingalls with the rest of his brethren and sisters, being eight in number, humbly sheweth, that whereas your poor petitioners father hath been deprived of life by the insufficiency of Lynne Bridge, so called, to the great impoverishinge of your poore petitioners mother and themselves, and there being a Court order that any person soe dyeing through such insufficiency of any bridge in the countrye, that there should be an hundred pounds forfeit to the next heire, may it therefore please this honorable Court to take your poore petitioners case into consideration.” (page 112)

Further in the history, the outcome of the petition is reported:

“This was granted. It was in conformity with an old British law, established by Howell the Good, King of Wales, by which the value of each person’s life was nominally fixed, and so much money paid, in case of his being killed.” (page 223)

This petition may be the earliest example of a wrongful death suit in colonial America.

Note that the cost of repairing the bridge was one fifth the amount paid to the Ingalls family for his death. This helps to show what a large sum one hundred pounds really was in 1648. Edmund’s tragic and untimely death shows that infrastructure maintenance was as critical in colonial America as it is today, and that governments were just as reluctant then to pay for this maintenance as now.

Sources:

History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscott, and Nahant

by Lewis, Alonzo, 1794-1861; Newhall, James R. (James Robinson), 1809-1893, pgs. 110 and 223,

https://archive.org/details/historyoflynness01lewi/page/110/mode/2up

 

Incredible summary of sources for life of Edmund Ingalls

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ingalls-52#_note-Burleigh

Burleigh, Charles: The Genealogy and History of the Ingalls Family in America Giving the descendants of Edmund Ingalls who settled in Lynn, Mass, in 1629, Published by Geo. E. Dunbar, Malden, Mass., 1903. https://archive.org/details/genealogyhistory01burl/page/16/mode/2up?view=theater

Some English Material Pertaining to Edmund and Francis Ingalls of Lynn, Mass by John Brooks Threlfall, published in Volume 52 (1976), pages 241-3 of The American Genealogist. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-.

https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=12344&pageName=241&rId=24157683

Additional English Data on Ingalls by Rosalyn Davenport Gibbs, published in Volume 56 (1979), pages 109-110 of The American Genealogist. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009 - .)

https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=12605&pageName=110&rId=24379154

Lynn, Mass [art original] : west view from near High Rock Subject: Highs Rock Cottage and High Rock are depicted in a circular vignette beneath the image. John Bachelder, painter. Out of copyright.

Bachelder, John B. (John Badger), 1825-1894Endicott & Co. (New York, N.Y.)