A Brewster Trail Keeps Her Murder And Memory Alive, 128 Years On

At first, Sadie Hassard — a fair-haired, blue-eyed housekeeper — didn’t mind the attention. Fred Alexander often walked her home from village meetings. But the farmhand grew violent when Hassard, 25, turned down his marriage demands. If he couldn’t have her, Alexander threatened, no man would.

He waited until the Sunday morning of May 17, 1896, when most of Brewster was at church, to confront Hassard one last time. The next day’s Barnstable Patriot lamented her murder as “one of the greatest tragedies Cape Cod has ever known.”

The grisly scene indeed shook the quiet village and played out not far from what is today the Eddy Bay Trail. Its half-mile path, which connects Lower Road to the highest bluff overlooking Cape Cod Bay, might never have existed if not for a chance discovery.

On a spring day in 2012, something by the road caught Mark Robinson’s eye. On hands and knees he crawled through the brush.

“I said, ‘Gee, it looks like a foundation for something,’” said Robinson, the executive director of the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts. “And one thing led to another.”

He had uncovered a stone wall, and the find began to open doors. Robinson pored over weathered maps and turned up a fascinating connection: The foundation had belonged to a barn built by Irish immigrants during their first years in Brewster. Archived news clippings help round out this family tale, one of hope and prosperity with a grim twist.

A Hopeful Journey

Both John Hassard and Sarah Hicks were born in 1845, at the dawn of the potato famine. With crops devastated and starvation looming, two million Irish fled for a new life overseas. Years later, hungry for their own opportunity, John and Sarah married and ventured across the Atlantic, with dreams of starting a family in America.

It’s not clear how the Hassards wound up in Brewster in 1868. But land records indicate that the couple, barely 23, put down roots on Captain Solomon Freeman’s pasture, north of what is today Lower Road.

Right away John made ends meet as a shoemaker, fashioning sturdy leather boots for sea captains. Soon, his knack for landscaping and gardening landed him work as a caretaker on the nearby Nickerson estate. Life was moving fast; within months of making their home in Brewster, the Hassards welcomed their first child.

At the same time, locals were leaving the village as maritime jobs dried up and moved off-Cape. But the Hassards had a barn and an acre to call their own, across the road from Freeman’s flourishing cranberry bogs. And before long, they were raising six kids.

Emigrating from Ireland had been a profound risk. But, for the Hassards, it proved that anything was possible. They even snatched up another 12 acres that stretched all the way to the shore.

But the family fortune was upended in 1890, when their only son, 19, was shot. John Jr.’s death was ruled an accident. But a more menacing tragedy struck six years later, ending with the Hassards burying Sadie beside her little brother.

‘An Awful Shadow’ Over Brewster

In 1896, Sadie Hassard was staying at the home of the widowed Reverend Thomas Dawes as his housekeeper. Meanwhile, Fred Alexander wouldn’t let up. Hassard lived in constant fear and took pains to avoid him. So Alexander paid her father a visit to discuss marriage plans.

John Hassard was not aware of the man’s threats, and Sadie wanted to keep it that way. But she did confirm that she wanted nothing to do with Alexander. With that, John considered the matter settled. He warned, “Don’t ever show yourself here again.”

The incident enraged Alexander, who continued to stalk Sadie for months. Finally, hours before he shot her, Alexander scribbled a letter to Reverend Dawes: “I will kill her today while you are all gone to church, and that will be the last of us both,” it read. “I won’t be taken alive.”

That Sunday, Alexander loaded his revolver and headed for the pastor’s home. While arguing through a window, he threw his arms around Sadie and pulled her outside. She broke free, and ran for it. Dawes was finishing his opening prayer when the congregation heard the gunshots. Sadie was hit twice and collapsed in the street. Alexander approached and pulled the trigger once more.

“To think that my Sadie was murdered in cold blood by such a man as he — well, it almost unnerves me,” John told The Boston Daily Globe. “I have had great trouble in my life and am used to bloody scenes… But this is the worst blow I ever experienced, because the act was so cowardly, taking the life of my defenseless girl in such a horrible way.”

A short time later, Alexander was dead. Just after dark, deputy sheriffs pulled his body from the bottom of Snow’s Pond, about a mile south of the crime. The coroner reported that Alexander had swallowed half a vial of strychnine and drowned in five feet of water. Retrieved from his vest pocket was the letter addressed to Dawes, but never sent.

Birth Of A Trail

A land transaction after the murder helped clear the way for the Eddy Bay Trail on the old Hassard property.

In 1899, the family sold everything for $700 and moved to Main Street. The buyers were the Thorndikes, who already owned the neighboring Freeman estate. A century later, those combined 32 acres went to the Thorndikes’ granddaughters. The land switched hands a final time in 2000, when Mary Louise and Ruth Eddy donated it to the Brewster Conservation Trust. In 2014, an Eagle Scout service project cleared the Eddy Bay Trail. At its head is the restored stone foundation.

John and Sarah Hassard lived into their 90s, and left their own mark on Brewster. In 1938, the newspapers congratulated the town’s oldest couple on 70 years of marriage. The celebration of course coincided with an even bigger anniversary — that of their fateful journey from Ireland.

“They have set an example of devotion and loyalty,” The Harwich Independent crowed, “which should be an inspiration to modern America.”