Jesse Harding Pomeroy was a convicted American murderer and possible serial killer and the youngest person in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to be convicted of murder in the first degree. He was found guilty by a jury trial held in the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County in December 1874. He was also a suspected serial killer.

William Gaston was a lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. A Democrat, he was the first member of that party to serve as Governor of Massachusetts (1875–1876) after the American Civil War. He was a successful trial lawyer and politically conservative Democrat, who won election as governor after his opponent, Thomas Talbot, vetoed legislation to relax alcohol controls.