and condemned to be burnt, and were actually roasted by fire, although we do not learn that the injuries thus inflicted proved fatal. The parties so tortured, or their friends, brought action in the regular courts, for the recovery of damages; but the jury gave them nothing.’
In the early days of Connecticut there were twelve crimes punishable by death, according to the ‘Capitall Lawes, established by the General Court the First of December 1642,’ the second of which is: ‘Yf any man or woman be a witch (that is) hath, or consulteth wth a familliar spirit, they shall be put to death. Ex. xxii. 18. Lev. xx. 27. Deu. xxvij. 10, 11.’122 And they had not to wait long for a victim, for the last entry in John Winthrop’s Journal for 1646 is, ‘One ... of Windsor arraigned and executed at Hartford for a witch,’ Nothing more is certainly known of this case, which is memorable as being the first execution for witchcraft in New England.
The Connecticut Legislature also applied the same law, somewhat modified, to the Pequot Indians, on May 31, 1675:123 ‘(2) That whosoever shall powau, or use witchcraft, or any worship to the divill, or any fals god, shall be convented and punished.’
The following are the known cases of witchcraft in Connecticut; but, as far as I can see, none present any particular features of interest for the reader.124
| 1646. | Winthrop’s ‘One ... of Windsor’ | executed. | |
| 1648. | Mary Jonson, of Hartford or Wethersfield | do. | |
| 1651. | Mr. and Mrs. Carrington, of Wethersfield | do. | |
| " | Goody Bassett, of Stratford | do. | |
| 1653. | Goody Knapp, of Fairfield | do. | |
| 1658. | Goody Garlick, of Easthampton, L.I. | acquitted. | |
| 1661. | Mr. and Mrs. Jennings, of Laybrook | freed by disagreement of jury. | |
| 1662. | Mr. and Mrs. Greensmith, of Hartford | executed. | |
| 1663. | Mary Barnes, of Farmington | do. | |
| " | Mrs. Elizabeth Seager, of Hartford (?) | acquitted. | |
| " | Mrs. Elizabeth Seager, of Hartford (2nd trial) | do. | |
| 1665. | Mrs. Elizabeth Seager, of Hartford (3rd trial) | convicted, but freed by the court. | |
| 1670. | Katharine Harrison, of Wethersfield | convicted; the court refused to sentence, and dismissed the accused. | |
| 1692. | Mrs. Staples, of Fairfield | acquitted. | |
| " | Goody Miller, of Fairfield | do. | |
| " | Elizabeth Clawson, of Fairfield | do. | |
| " | Mercy Disborough, of Fairfield | convicted, but probably pardoned by the general court. | |
| 1697. | Mrs. Denham and daughter | acquitted, perhaps accused only before the grand jury. |
But it was in Massachusetts that witchcraft was rampant. The Pilgrim Fathers when they landed at Plymouth, on December 22, 1620, brought with them from England the belief in witchcraft and the personality of the Devil, which was then the creed of the majority of those living in the mother country, and therefore they were no worse than their brethren or parents. So that we must not blame them if we find among their early records, dated New Plymouth, November 15, 1636, that they considered witchcraft a capital crime, and enumerated as such directly after treason and murder; and they defined the crime so punishable as ‘Solemne compaction, or conversing with the divell, by way of witchcraft, conjuration, or the like.’
The Devil, however, had got somehow into Massachusetts, for we read in Governor Winthrop’s Journal that in 1639 ‘The Indians near Aquiday being pawwawing in this tempest, the Devil came and fetched away five of them. Query.’
The first instance of witchcraft in this Colony is recorded in Winthrop’s Journal in 1648, but he gives no specific date of the court being held, but most likely it was that of May 13, 1648, of which a record remains: ‘That This Court, being desirous that the same Course which hath been taken in England for the discovery of witches, by watching, may also be taken here, with the witch now in question, and therefore do order that a strict watch be set about her, every night, and that her husband be confined in a private room, and watched also.’
The entry in the Journal is as follows: ‘At this Court, one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was: 1. that she was found to have such a malignant touch, as many persons (men, women and children), whom she stroaked or touched with any affection or displeasure, or etc., were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness. 2. The practising physic, and her medicines being such things as (by her own confession) were harmless, as aniseed, liquors, &c., yet had extraordinary violent effects. 3. She would use to tell such as would not make use of her physic, that they would never be healed, and, accordingly, their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons. 4. Some things which she foretold, came to pass accordingly; other things she could tell of (as secret speeches, etc.) which she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of. 5. She had, upon search, an apparent teat, as fresh as if it had been newly sucked, and, after it had been scanned; upon a forced search, that was withered, and another began on the opposite side. 6. In the prison, in the clear daylight, there was seen, in her arms, she, sitting on the floor, and her clothes up, etc., a little child, which ran from her into another room, and the officer following it, it was vanished. The like child was seen in two other places, to which she had relation; and one maid that saw it, fell sick upon it, and was cured by the said Margaret, who used means to be employed to that end. Her behaviour at her trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and railing upon the jury and witnesses, etc., and in the like distemper she died. The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest in Connecticut, which blew down many trees, etc.’
The next authentic instance is that of Mary Parsons, whose case seems to have been somewhat urgent, as on May 8, 1651, there is a minute on the court records:
