Connecticut considers acquittal of accused witches centuries after hanging

Decades before the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, Elsa Young was murdered on the gallows in Connecticut, becoming the first recorded person to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft.

The Clerk of the City of Windsor recorded the death on May 26, 1647, in a diary entry that read: “Els Young was hanged.” Young was the first of nine women and two men executed by the Connecticut colony for witchcraft in 15 years, during which more than 40 people were put on trial for links to Satan.

Now, more than 375 years later, amateur historians, researchers, and descendants of accused witches and their accusers are hoping that Connecticut lawmakers will finally offer a posthumous acquittal.

While such requests are not new, they have become louder as many genealogy buffs discover they have distant relatives involved in lesser-known Connecticut witch trials.

“They’re talking about how it’s haunted their families for generations and how they’d love it if someone just said, ‘Hey, that wasn’t right,'” Connecticut Rep. Jane Garibay, who proposed a resolution of acquittal after receiving letters from relatives of accused witches in the eighth and ninth generations. “And it’s easy for me to do if it gives people peace.”

Other states and countries have tried to redeem the history of people being persecuted as witches. Last year, the Scottish Prime Minister issued a formal apology to some 4,000 Scots, mostly women, who were accused of witchcraft before 1736. Of these 4,000, about 2,500 were killed. A member of the Scottish Parliament last year called for their posthumous pardon.

In 2022, Massachusetts legislators formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to death in the midst of the Salem witch trials. Johnson is considered the last Salem witch accused to have her sentence overturned by lawmakers.

In 2006, former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine unofficially pardoned Grace Sherwood, a widowed midwife who was accused by neighbors of destroying crops, killing livestock and creating storms, and subsequently accused of being a witch. With her hands tied, Sherwood was thrown into the river to see if she could swim, which was supposed to be evidence of guilt. She managed to free herself and spent seven years in prison.

Witch trials in Connecticut were held in the mid to late 1600s. In each of the New England colonies, witchcraft was considered a capital crime. According to the earliest laws in the Connecticut colony, “any man or woman (who) becomes a witch, that is, has or consults a familiar spirit, shall be put to death.”

Many historians believe that fear and anxiety among the religiously strict English settlers led to the witch trials, noting how hard life was given given epidemics, floods, cold winters and famine. Often the accusations began with a quarrel, the death of a child or a cow, or even butter that could not be whipped.

Many of the people executed as witches were poor single mothers.

Such was the case with Mary Johnson, a maid from Wethersfield, Connecticut, who was accused of “meeting the devil.”

She was tortured for years by a local priest who whipped her until she finally confessed to being a witch and confessed to being “unclean with men,” according to Bridgeport author Andy Piaschik, who wrote an article for the independent non-profit Connecticut Humanities organization. National Endowment for the Humanities. Johnson is believed to have been hanged after giving birth to a child with a man she was not married to.

“It’s important to correct the mistakes of the past so that we learn from them and move on, rather than repeating those mistakes,” said Joshua Hutchinson of Prescott Valley, Arizona, who traces his lineage to accused witches in Salem and is the host of “You’re Not You Shall Suffer: The Witch Trials Podcast.

He noted that even in recent decades, people have been killed in many countries because they were suspected of being witches or sorcerers.

Beth Caruso, a writer, co-founded the CT Witch Trials Justification Project in 2005 to clear the names of the accused. The group is calling on people who, through genealogy research, to be descended from the victims to contact Connecticut lawmakers and urge them to support the indemnity law.

Connecticut Senator Saud Anwar, who also proposed the acquittal bill, said he expects some people to scoff or scoff at the idea that the Legislature will take time to clear the records of accused witches. But he said posterity is feeling some “serious things,” including the voter who demanded the resolution.

“His wish was that if there was a way to close the families somehow,” Anwar said, “that would be one way he could say he did his share, even though his ancestors might not have done the right thing.” “.