The following excerpt is from an interesting article by Vicki-Ann Downing, published in the July 3, 2011 edition of the Enterprise.
Easton {Massachusetts] – When retired teacher Elaine Anderson decided to learn more about her great grandmother
Elizabeth Dunphy McManus, she didn’t expect the search would lead her to jail.
But one June morning, Anderson and her friend, genealogy researcher Sara Carroll, both Easton residents, found themselves at the Plymouth County House of Correction, poring over old ledgers with the sheriff, Joseph D. McDonald, and his staff.
Anderson’s great-grandmother died in Plymouth in 1909, at age 56, in the midst of a one-month jail sentence imposed after she was tried in Brockton on a charge of “keeping a disorderly house.”
The allegation didn’t mean that McManus failed to vacuum and dust. Instead, her neighbors on Water Street in Brockton came forward to tell the court about disturbances linked to excessive drinking by McManus, her husband and her son.
