In 1849, Jonathan Gibbon Mills, a Harrisburg area dentist, was charged by sisters of the following crimes: (1) by Mary Elizabeth Lutz, with seduction on a promise to marry; (2) by Catharine Ann Lutz, for fornication and bastardy; and (3) and by both Mary Elizabeth Lutz and Catharine Ann Lutz for attempting to procure an abortion.
In the indictment for Mary Elizabeth Lutz, Mills was charged as follows:
Jonathan Gibbons Mills, of the county aforesaid [Dauphin] dentist, on the tenth day of May, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty nine, and on divers other days and times between that day and the taking of this inquisition, in the county aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this court, with force and arms, willfully, maliciously, unlawfully, and wickedly, did administer to and cause to be administered to, and taken by one Mary Elizabeth Lutz, single woman, she the said Mary Elizabeth Lutz, being then and there big and pregnant with child, divers large quantities of deadly, dangerous, unwholesome and pernicious pills, herbs, drugs, potions, teas, liquids, powders, and mixtures; with intent thereby then and there, to cause and procure the miscarriage and abortion of the said Mary Elizabethh Lutz, and the premature birth and destruction of the said child, of which the said Mary Elizabethh Lutz was then and there big and pregnant; to the great damage of the said Mary Elizabeth Lutz, to the evil example of others in like case offending, and against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania…. [As repeated in Mills v. Commonwealth, 13 Pa. 631 (1850)]
On all counts against him, as shown by the newspaper articles that follow in this blog post, Mills was convicted.
However, when the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1850, the Court ruled that abortion at any stage of gestation was a criminal offense:
The error assigned is that the indictment charges that the defendant, with intent to cause and procure the miscarriage and abortion of the said Mary Elizabeth Lutz, instead of charging the intent to cause and produce the miscarriage and abortion of the child. But it is a misconception of the learned counsel that no abortion can be predicated of the act of untimely birth by foul means.
Miscarriage in both law and philology, means the bringing forth the foetus [fetus] before it is perfectly formed and capable of living; and is rightfully predicated of the woman, because it refers to the act of premature delivery. The word abortion is synonymous and equivalent to miscarriage in its primary meaning. It has a secondary meaning in which it is used to denote the offspring. But it was not used in that sense here, and ought not to have been. It is a flagrant crime at common law to attempt to procure the miscarriage or abortion of the woman. Because it interferes with and violates the mysteries of nature in that process by which the human race is propagated and continued. It is crime against nature which obstructs the fountain of life, and therefore it is punished. The next error assigned is, that it ought to have been charged in the count that the woman had become quisle. But, although it has been so held in Massachusetts and some other States, it is not, I apprehend, the law in Pennsylvania, and never ought to have been the law anywhere. It is not the murder of a living child which constitutes the offense, but the destruction of gestation by wicked means against nature. The moment the womb is instinct with embryo life, and gestation has begun, the crime may be perpetrated. The allegation in this indictment, was therefore sufficient, to wit: “that she was then and there pregnant and big with child. By the well settled and established doctrine of the common law, the civil rights of an infant in ventre sa mere are fully protected at all periods after conception…. There was therefore a crime at common law sufficiently set forth and charged in the indictment.
But although we see no error in the record, the sentence must be reformed on account of certain proceedings in this court…. [Mills v. Commonwealth, 13 Pa. 631 (1850)]
The Mills decision of 1850 amounted to the judicial criminalization of abortion in Pennsylvania.
In her doctoral dissertation at Pennsylvania State University, Emily A. Seitz wrote in 2021:
By mid-century, states were indeed clarifying the legality of abortion, almost exclusively through statutory regulations that criminalized abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Pennsylvania, however, followed a different route to criminalization when its Supreme Court considered Commonwealth v. J. Gibbons Mills in 1850. The Mills decision rejected the doctrine of quickening and criminalized abortion at any stage of pregnancy at common law, a path states considered interventionist. The Mills opinion also explicitly equated the terms “abortion” and “miscarriage” and failed to offer guidance regarding the legality of medically necessary abortion. Ten years later, the Pennsylvania legislature followed suit and passed statutory legislation criminalizing “unlawful” abortion in Pennsylvania, again with no guidance regarding what constituted an “unlawful” or “lawful” procedure. [Emily A. Seitz, Prescribing Pregnancy Loss: Women Physicians and the Changing Boundaries of Fetal Life in Nineteenth Century America, 2021]
Writing on the subject of the judicial criminalization of abortion in Pennsylvania, Anthony M. Joseph concluded his article in 2007, with the following:
Although the “Pennsylvania Model” offered a common-law route to criminalization that was as legally credible as the statutory road taken by other states, even in Pennsylvania it was soon superseded. In 1860, the state legislature enacted an abortion provision of its own…. Above all, the powerful current in favor of codification ensured a short shelf-life for common-law crimes even in states whose courts were bold enough to declare them. By the mid-nineteenth century, a judge-made common law of crimes seemed a creaky and perpetually suspect body of law that was better replaced with polished and comprehensive criminal codes that clearly informed the people of the law. The Pennsylvania model was rejected in Pennsylvania and elsewhere not because of any fatal inadequacy in its common-law supports, but because a legal and political world concluded that it had found a better way to make abortion a crime.
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How the cases were reported in the newspapers of the time.
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From the Sunday Dispatch, New York City, June 17, 1849:
POLICE RECORDER
WHOLESALE SEDUCTION
A correspondent of the Police Gazette, writing from Harrisburgh, under the date of June 8, gives an account of three seductions in one family, by a dentist named Jonathan Gibbon Mills. It appears that the fellow settled there about two years ago, and after bringing his poor wife to a premature grave by his cruelty and neglect, seduced a poor girl, who brought a charge of fornication and bastardy against him, which, through her immediate and pressing wants, he was enabled to settle for a trifle. Daring this time he was paying attention to the daughter of a respectable resident of Harrisburgh, who, on being made acquainted with his character, forbade him from his house. Finding himself thus deprived of her society, Mills resorted to covert means of meeting the unsuspecting girl and her two sisters at his office and in the streets, to each of whom he made promises of marriage. — Neither of the girls made a confident [sic] of the other, but looked hopefully to the future, when all obstacles might be removed to their happy union. He then accomplished their ruin, and it is said that a letter of his has been found, in which he had threatened the destruction of the peace of the family for his summary ejectment from the house by the father.
Mills was arrested on a charge of fornication and bastardy (one of the girls being unable to conceal her situation any longer), and as he was not able to give the requisite security for his appearance at Court, offered to compromise by marrying the girl. Word was sent to the family, when it was discovered that another daughter of the heart-broken parent was enciente [pregnant] by Mills also! On this being known, there was a strong disposition to inflict a summary punishment upon him, while the father, determined to have vengeance on the destroyer of his peace and of his family, made preparations to shoot him. The villain was glad to have himself taken to jail, to escaped the violence of an indignant populace, where he is now awaiting his trial, when he will doubtless be sent to the State Prison, for seven or ten years.
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From the Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis), July 19, 1849:
WHOLESALE SEDUCTION, &c. — A correspondent of the N. Y. Herald, writing from Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, under date of June 8th, tells a horrible story, in effect as follows:
“Of three sisters in one family at that place, two have been positively seduced (one having become a mother, another being enciente, and a third is rumored to have shared a like fate, all being the unsuspecting victims, it is alleged, of one man, Jonathan Gibbons Mills, a surgeon dentist, from Lancaster City. While addressing the elder sister, he had been forbidden the house by the father, on account of another alleged offense of the kind which he compromised with a poor girl; but he afterwards covertly got the artless sisters to meet him separately at his office, and, promising marriage to each, they so relied upon his attachment that neither made a confidant of the other. Mills is a widower, but he is suspected of having made way with his wife by unfair means.
“He was arrested and taken before Squire Snyder on a warrant for fornication and bastardy. Not being able to procure bail, he offered to marry the mother of the child; but the ruin of the next youngest daughter being now made known, the popular feeling favored strongly of the application of Judge Lynch’s code to the culprit, while the father, almost distracted with sorrow, loaded his musket, intending to have summary vengeance on the despoiler of his peace and of his family. The villain to save himself from being lynched, made a speedy retreat to jail, where he is awaiting the various actions which will result in some seven to ten years in the penitentiary.”
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From the Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 24, 1849:
A NOTORIOUS SEDUCER CONVICTED
A telegraphic dispatch to the Pennsylvania, from Harrisburgh, under date October 19, says:
“Jonathan Gibbons Mills, notorious as being the seducer of three sisters of one family, residing in this town, was this morning convicted on the first indictment for seduction. The youngest of the three being at the time of seduction barely sixteen. Mills’ counsel moved an arrest of judgment and for a new trial. Four days were consumed in the trial of this case. Four other indictments are yet hanging over the head of this man Mills — two for attempts to procure abortion, and two for other crimes too indelicate to mention.”
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From the Lewistown Gazette, October 27, 1849:
Harrisburg, October 19 [1849]
CONVICTION — Jonathan G. Mills, a dentist of this place, who was charged with the seduction of three young women, sisters in this place, was tried on one of the charges before out Court of Quarter Sessions, and the jury this morning brought in a verdict of guilty.
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From the Jeffersonian, Stroudsburg, November 1, 1849:
JONATHAN GIBBONS MILLS
This individual, once a citizen of Danville, was tried week before last at Harrisburg, for the crime of seduction and found guilty. That alone is a Penitentiary offence. Four other indictments are standing against him and will be tried next month, two of which are for attempts to produce abortion and two are for bastardy and fornication. He seduced three sisters in one family!
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From the Lancaster Examiner, November 28, 1849:
Jonathan G. Mills has been convicted at Harrisburg on a second indictment, and is to be tried on a third. He will not be sentenced on any on until all are tried.
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From the Sunbury American, December 1, 1849. A similar news item was also printed in the Sunbury Gazette and Northumberland County Republican of the same date:
THE WHOLESALE SEDUCER — Jonathan G. Mills has been convicted at Harrisburg on a second indictment, in the manner of the three sisters he seduced, and it to be tried on a third. He will not be sentenced on any one till all are tried.
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From the Sunday Dispatch, New York City, December 2, 1849:
Dr. Jonathan Gibbon Mills, who has earned for himself the reputation of “the Napoleon of Licentiousness,” has been convicted in the Court of Quarter Sessions, at Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, on an indictment for an attempt to produce abortion. There is another indictment for an attempt to produce abortion, and he will not be sentenced until it is disposed of.
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From the Columbia Democrat, Bloomsburg, December 15, 1849. Also from the Pittsburgh Daily Post, December 12, 1949:
THE SENTENCE OF MILLS THE SEDUCER
Harrisburg, December 6 [1849]
Jonathan Gibbons Mills, who some time since was convicted of seduction, in the Quarter Sessions of Dauphin County, and in whose case motions in arrest of judgment and for a new trial, were made by his counsel, was today sentenced and all motions overruled, by Judge Pearson. The sentence was in the case of seduction, imprisonment for three years in Dauphin County Prison, cost prosecution, and a fine of $100. In that of the two attempts to procure abortion, one year on each indictment, with cost, making five years solitary confinement in all. In the two cases of fornication and bastardy, of of which he was convicted, the usual penalty was imposed. Before sentence was passed, Mills read a long statement to the Court, detailing his past life, and in justification of himself. It appeared, he learned the printing business in the record office in West Chester, then studied dentistry in the same town after which he removed to Danville and married, his wife dying, he came to Harrisburg; his operations here, what he did, and what he has received are written above.
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From the Wilkes-Barre Advocate, December 19, 1849:
SENTENCE OF DR. MILLS
In the Court of Quarter Sessions, at Harrisburg, on Thursday last, Jonathan Gibbons Mills, convicted a short time previous of the Seduction of three sisters, in that place, was sentenced to pay a fine of $200, the costs of prosecution, and be imprisoned in the Eastern Penitentiary for the term of five years.
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From the Lancaster Intelligencer, July 9, 1850:
A NEW TRIAL GRANTED TO MILLS
HARRISBURG, July 2, 1850
The Supreme Court, this day, granted a new trial in the case of Jonathan Gibbons Mills, who was convicted last October, in this county, of the offense of seduction, under the act of 1843, and for which he was given the full benefit of the punishment, set forth to wit: three years in the County Prison. This Mills, you may recollect, is the person who destroyed a whole household by ruining three sisters. Judge Coulter delivered the opinion of the Court, and the judgment of the Dauphin County Court was reversed, on the grounds of a want of jurisdiction, the case having been tried at an adjourned Court, and by means of a special venire. I have been informed by the Counsel for the Commonwealth, that Mills will be again tried for seduction at the August session. There can be little doubt, that he again will be convicted. Writs of error were also allowed in the two prosecutions for attempt to procure abortion, by this same Mills, but as to those cases, no opinion has, as yet been given. Messrs. Kunkle, McAllister and Fox, deserved the thanks of the moral portion of the community, for the ability with which they have conducted these cases, on the part of the Commonwealth. Theirs is a labor, the reward for which cannot be obtained in this world, as the seduced are poor, very poor. — Pennsylvanian.
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Some sources:
Jeannette Barnes, Charles Rawn and the Case of Dr. J. Gibbons Mills, 1849. Dauphin County Historical Society, n.d.
Anthony M. Joseph, The Pennsylvania Model: The Judicial Criminalization of Abortion in Pennsylvania, 1838-1850, 2007. From the American Journal of Legal History, July 2007, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 284-320. Available through JSTOR.
Emily A. Seitz, Prescribing Pregnancy Loss: Women Physicians and the Changing Boundaries of Fetal Life in Nineteenth Century America, Pennsylvania State University [Doctoral Dissertation], August 2021.