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Tag: witches

Ipswich and the Salem witchcraft trials

January 18, 2023January 18, 2023 Gordon Harris4 Comments
Ipswich MA and the Salem witchcraft trials

During the Salem witch trials, Elizabeth Howe of Linebrook Road was tried and hanged. The Ipswich jail was filled with the accused, but the ministers of the town opposed the trials as a delusion. Residents blocked the bridge to prevent the accusing girls from being brought into Ipswich.

Posted in HistoryTagged 1692, conspiracy, Court, fear, insanity, Salem, Topsfield, witches, women

Peg Wesson, the Gloucester witch

August 18, 2021November 12, 2022 Gordon Harris6 Comments
Peg Wesson the Gloucester witch

An old legend about the Gloucester witch Peg Wesson is often mentioned, but never was it told in such detail as in this story published in the Boston Evening Transcript, October 14, 1892. It was carried in papers throughout the country.

Posted in LegendsTagged 1745, Gloucester, witches, women

The witchcraft trial of Elizabeth Howe, hanged July 19, 1692

July 19, 2021November 18, 2022 Gordon Harris20 Comments
Mathison painting, "Examination of a Witch" trial of Elizabeth Howe of Ipswich

Elizabeth Howe and her husband James resided on outer Linebrook. She was charged with bewitching her neighbor’s child and was arrested on May 28, 1692. She was one of the five women hung in Salem on July 19, 1692.

Posted in History, People, Video, WitchcraftTagged 1692, Elizabeth Howe, Ipswich, July, Linebrook, witches, women

Mary Perkins Bradbury, charged as a witch

June 21, 2021October 21, 2022 Gordon Harris7 Comments
Mary Perkins Bradbury charged as a witch

Mary Perkins was born in 1615, the daughter of Sergeant John Perkins, Sr. and Judith Perkins. She became the wife of Capt. Thomas Bradbury of Salisbury, and was sentenced to death as witch in 1692, but was not executed. Over a hundred neighbors testified in her support.

Posted in Legends, WitchcraftTagged Perkins, witches, women

The witchcraft accusations against Sarah Buckley and Mary Witheridge

June 20, 2021 Gordon Harris3 Comments
Mary Walcott

On May 23, 1692, a complaint for witchcraft was filed against Sarah Buckley and her widowed daughter Mary Witheridge. The "bewitched" girls of Salem Village claimed that the women's specters had attacked them. Held in shackles in the cold crowded jail, both were acquitted in January,1692

Posted in History, People, WitchcraftTagged 1692, Salem, witches, women

The Witchcraft Trial of Elizabeth Morse of Newbury, 1680

June 6, 2021November 21, 2022 Gordon Harris27 Comments
Elizabeth Morse Witch of Newbury

Elizabeth Morse of Newbury was accused and found guilty of being a witch. She was initially sentenced to be hanged, but after spending a year in the Boston jail, she was sent home

Posted in LegendsTagged 1680, Newbury, witches, women

Rachel Clinton arrested for witchcraft, May 28, 1692

April 28, 2021November 12, 2022 Gordon Harris4 Comments
Rachel Clinton of Ipswich was accused of witchcraft

Everything about Rachel Clinton's life went wrong, and in her old age she was an easy target for the witchcraft hysteria that spread from Salem throughout Essex County.

Posted in History, People, StoriesTagged 1692, Ipswich, witches, women

“We walked in the clouds and could not see our way”

April 18, 2021 Gordon HarrisLeave a comment
A Modern Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft by John Hale, Pastor of the Church of Christ in Beverly, 1967

The wife of Rev. John Hale of Beverly participated in the witch trials until his wife was accused. Hale later published an analysis in which he asserted that Satan had tricked the Puritans, and made a plea for forgiveness.

Posted in HistoryTagged 1697, Beverly, conspiracy, fear, Salem, witches

The Legend of Goody Cole

April 15, 2021 Gordon Harris4 Comments

Some said that Goody Cole took the shapes of eagles, dogs, cats and apes. At last she lay under sentence of death in the Ipswich jail for changing a child in its cradle.

Posted in LegendsTagged 1680, John Greenleaf Whittier, witches, women

Four-year-old Dorothy Good is jailed for witchcraft, March 24, 1692

March 24, 2021November 12, 2022 Gordon Harris25 Comments

On March 24, 1682. a child, Dorothy Good of Salem was taken custody, and interrogated by the local magistrates for two weeks. Hungry, cold and missing her mother, Dorcas broke down and told the inquisitors what they wanted to hear, that her mother was a witch, and consorted with the devil.

Posted in History, StoriesTagged 1692, march, witches, women

The Spectre Leaguers, July 1692

March 19, 2021October 19, 2022 Gordon HarrisLeave a comment
Spectral leaguers, Gloucester MA

In the midst of witchcraft accusations in 1692, Gloucester was invaded by a spectral company for a fortnight. Their speech was in an unknown tongue, and bullets passed right through them.

Posted in LegendsTagged 1692, fear, Gloucester, insanity, July, witches

Lucretia Brown and the last witchcraft trial in America, May 14, 1878

January 2, 2021January 14, 2023 Gordon HarrisLeave a comment
Lucretia Brown Ipswich MA Mary Baker Eddy

Lucretia Brown, an invalid living on the South Green in Ipswich was a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy,. When she suffered a “relapse” in 1875, Mrs. Eddy convinced her that Daniel Spofford was exercising mesmeric powers upon her.

Posted in Houses, People, StoriesTagged 1878, Baker, Christian Science, Lucretia Brown, Mary Baker Eddy, Spofford, witches
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