December 31, at the Sprague household must have been one a great celebration. It was the birth date of Amasa's wife, Francis. Nineteen years after her birth, in 1817 Francis Morgan, daughter of Youngs Morgan and Mary Mitchell married Amasa Sprague in Groton, Connecticut on New Year's Eve.

The Sprague's had four surviving children in their twenty-two year marriage, Mary Ann Sprague, Almira Sprague, who would marry Thomas Doyle of Providence, future Mayor, Amasa II, and William Sprague IV, future Governor and Senator, like his uncle William, Amasa's brother.

After dining with his family, Amasa Sprague set out upon his journey. All that he saw while he walked along belonged to him, 'the Lord of the Manor'. Directly across from his home on Dyer Street was the print works. William II had started bleaching and printing calico in 1824. Like his father before him, Amasa and his younger, brother William worked in the employ of their father from the time they were small boys. His two sisters, Susanna and Almira reeled the yarn Amasa and William had carded and spun at the cotton spinning mill. Another brother Benoni refused to have anything to do with the Sprague enterprises. When William II died, Benoni was left a legacy but no share in the Sprague Company. The marriage of the sisters did not remove them from the Sprague Company. Susanna married a clerk at the company, Obadiah Mathewson and moved to Baltimore where the Sprague's had a house commissioned to sell their cotton goods. Almira married Emanuel Rice. Rice took charge of the cotton mill whenever young William was away.

Amasa himself was sent to Groton, Connecticut, to open a store and farm out cotton yarn to be woven by families in the nearby villages. In 1828, when his mother Annie Potter Sprague, a direct descendant of Roger Williams died, he returned to Spragueville in Cranston, to help his father. Fanny took charge of the household, raising her own children as well as those of Susanna who died in 1824. 3

Amasa and his brother William Sprague, had inherited the print works from their father when he died on March 28th 1836, at 63 years old from an inflammation of the throat, caused by a fragment of rib bone which lodged in his throat. Surgeons had advised the opening of the side of neck and removing the bone but Sprague insisted on having it forced down into the stomach.4 The two Sprague brothers formed the powerful A&W Sprague Company.

While his brother William was politically active, at first as a representative from Warwick in the state legislature, then a state representative in the United States Congress, Rhode Island Governor, then in the state legislature again, then elected United States Senator in 1842, Amasa was running the Sprague Company. He had tried his hand at politics too, and represented Cranston in the state legislature for the years 1832, 1840 and 1841. Here he could act with the interest of the Sprague Company.5

Although he was 'barse' of nearly five hundred workers and several mills, Amasa Sprague was not afraid to work side by side with his workers at the mill. Some of the workers even boarded at the Sprague home and sat down to meals at with the Spragues.

The workers lived in the mill houses, worshipped in the church, and traded in the Brick store, built by the Spragues. This village was known as Spragueville and Amasa was the 'master of all he seen' as walked along to his death that New Year's eve.

The route Sprague took was a well used foot path that many of the mill workers used during the week. It passed down into a gully, over a brook and then through a field before reaching the Pocasset River.6

Michael Costello, a worker in the home of Amasa Sprague took the same path as Sprague did on his way home to Johnston from the Sprague mansion. It was probably about 4:20 pm when Costello started to cross the bridge.

"The first thing I discovered was some blood on the bridge. The bridge was slippery, and I had my tin pail in my left hand and held on to the rail. Looking down to mind my steps, I saw the blood three or four yards before me, and looking forward I saw him lying upon his hands and knees and the tips of his toes, his face downwards. He didn't move; and I didn't want to go near him; so I thought I would just go up to the house, the Carpenter house which belongs to Mr. Sprague. And I saw a man drawing water at the door, and told him there was a man at the bridge lying a very bad way, and I thought he ought to be taken care of."7

Costello's testimony at finding the body of Amasa Sprague.

Costello was told by the man at the Carpenter place that Dr. Israel Bowen, who lived a short distance away, "about a quarter of a mile from the place of the murder" on the Johnston Rd was not at home. Costello then went to the Thornton home and aroused the son, Thomas. Together Thornton, Costello and some neighbors went to the bridge and the fallen man. It was Thornton who mustered the courage to approach the man. The body had been beaten so badly about the face, that recognition was at first impossible. Someone thought that the coat the victim was wearing looked like Mr. Sprague's.

A crowd of on-lookers gathered about. It was the son of Henry Fenner, the keeper of the hotel, a short distance away, who shouted that the man looked like Amasa Sprague. Dr. Bowen soon arrived and turned the body face up and announced that it was Amasa Sprague.
"When I arrived there, there were a number of the neighbors present, I turned the body over and recognized it as the body of Amasa Sprague; and from appearances had no doubt that he had been murderd." Testimony of Dr. Israel M. Bowen.8 The town coroner, Robert Wilson, was immediately send for.9

It being a Sunday, Robert Wilson was found waiting for the evening services to begin at a meeting house in Olneyville, about two miles away from the murder scene. He stopped briefly at his home to get a few things he would need and hurried to view the battered body of Amasa Sprague. He called for the town sergeant and a coroner's jury was empanelled. A brief examination of the body took place, with a light of a small lantern. It was between the hours of six and seven. Stephen Mathewson found a pistol in the snow near the bridge. Upon further examination of the weapon later at Dr. Bowen's house, the muzzle of the gun was found to have wadding that was a piece of a Boston newspaper. An attempt had been made to fire the pistol but the percussion lock had been snapped.10

The body was carried in a cart to the Sprague home, where Dr. Lewis Miller closely examined it at 9:30 or so.

Testimony of Dr. Lewis:

"I was called upon to examine the body of Mr. Sprague about 9 o'clock in the evening. I do not know by whom I was sent for. I examined the body; it was there in the house. This was Sunday evening. The body was lying on the floor, the head and shoulders a little elevated. The body had been already examined. I made no search for wounds there. A ball wound was discovered very near the end of the ulna, or knuckle of the wrist upon the outside. The radius, or large bone of the right arm, was not broken off. It might have been fractured. The ball came out on the top of the arm. The wound was larger where the ball came out. Gun shot wounds are always larger where the balls come out. I cannot tell how near the gun was to the object wounded. A wound is always dark where the ball enters. The ball which made the wound might be of the size of 24 to a pound. I think it larger than the pistol which was found near the spot would carry. It was not smaller than would be used for a small musket.

The next wound which I examined was on the chin, rather underneath, as if the blow had glanced under. The edges of this would were ragged. It could not have been made with a cutting instrument. The next wound which I examined was on the nose. The blow broke the bridge of the nose to pieces. The bones were crumbled; so much that it was not easy to replace them. The nose was turned upon one side.

The next wound commenced on the left and upper side of the forehead. The skull was cut entirely through; the bones broken, the membrane ruptured, and the bones oozing through. This wound was half an inch in width. It might have been made with the breech of a gun. It was not made with a cutting instrument. A part of the skull was beaten in. The bone lower down, the temporal bone was fractured into several pieces.

There was another wound on a line with this and further back. The scalp was cut through, and the skull fractured. There were two wounds on the scalp on the back part of the head and a little higher up than the one last mentioned. The scalp was cut through but the bone was not fractured; – pretty clean cuts. Can't say whether it might have been done with the guard of a musket. The wounds were not smooth like the cut of a sharp instrument. Might have been made with a blunt sharp instrument. Probably the edge of the guard of a musket might have done it.

The wound which I examined next, was nearly opposite, the first wound on the head which I examined, and on the right side. The skull was fractured in this place. There was a wound on the right cheek and temple, which had the appearance of having been made by a flat instrument. The cheek bone was broken in, and the lower part of the skull bone fractured.

I did not discover any other wounds. Two of the wounds pretty certainly would either of them had been fatal, perhaps three. A man could not stand after receiving either of the three. The wound in the wrist would disable the right arm. The arm seemed to have been raised in the act of defense when the ball entered it. Balls, glance very often on striking a bone, sometimes comes out near the place where they entered. I have no doubt that the deceased came to his death by these wounds. Undoubtedly these were the cause of death." 11