NORTHAMPTON – About 50 people gathered for the annual laying of the wreath at the Daley and Halligan memorial stone, overlooking the corner of Prince and Earle streets, on Thursday. Dominic Daley and James Halligan were Irish Catholic immigrants who were charged with a murder that occurred in Wilbraham in November, 1805, wrongly convicted in a one-day trial the following April in Northampton and hanged in front of an estimated 15,000 spectators on Pancake Plain in Northampton on June 5, 1806. In 1984 the two were exonerated in a proclamation by Governor Michael Dukakis.
Kevin Gutting can be reached at kgutting@gazettenet.com.