1730s. One evening in Savannah, with a gray overcast sky and stormy seas, a clipper ship suddenly ran aground. The noise caused people to go to the rescue. James Edward Oglethorpe was told that their vessel had begun its voyage from Ireland with sixty passengers, many of whom became ill and died, and that only thirty persons had survived the tumultuous journey through the storm. Oglethorpe, suspicious that the thirty were prisoners, sent them to the German village in Ebenezer, where the men would be used as laborers. Afterward, the thirty were frequently in trouble when, finally, two persons, a man, and a woman, were suspected of killing one of the German settlers. They were condemned to be hanged.
The hanging site was near the old jail in Telfair Square, surrounded by tall trees and the thickly curved branches of live oak trees. The woman was hanged higher than the male, the reason being that the public should not view the grotesque site of a hanging woman!
Source: Colonial Records of Georgia by Candler. Note: Correspondence between the Trustees and Oglethorpe reveals population issues, etc.