[BEADLE FAMILY MASSACRE]. The New-Hampshire Gazette and General Advertiser. Vol. XXVI, No. 1364. New Hampshire, December 21, 1782. Four quarto pages on one large folding, light-blue laid-paper folio sheet. Each page approximately 392 x 503 mm. Worn, soiled, a horizontal tear throughout the paper, separating the upper half from the lower, some foxing, toning, several marginal tears. On p. 2 is a contemporary account of the first documented mass murder/suicide in the United States. William Beadle (1730-1782) had been a successful merchant, who had sent aid to Boston when the British closed the port after the Boston Tea Party. In 1780, Congress devalued Continental Currency, thus making Beadle’s huge fortune essentially worthless virtually overnight. Rather than descend into poverty, he decided that, instead of allowing his wife and four children to suffer, that it would be better that they should die. On December 11, 1782, he murdered his wife and children by cutting their throats, and shot himself in the head with two pistols. His act was so heinous, he was denied burial; his body was unceremoniously dumped into the Connecticut River (however, the article in this newspaper states he was “dragged to an abscure [sic] place and buried with every mark of infamy.”).