October 28, 2022
Alse Young
Happy (almost) Halloween everyone! This Musing looks at an event that took place 375 years ago in the Connecticut Colony, when the first person, a woman, was executed for being a witch in the "New World".
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"Capitall Lawes" of the Connecticut Colony
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According to author Cynthia Wolfe Boynton, witchcraft officially became a crime in Connecticut in 1642, when twelve Capitall Lawes based on literal interpretations of the Bible were created by the Connecticut Colony's Generall (sic) Court. (p. 21). At that time there only needed to be one witness to accuse someone of an act of witchcraft. It wasn't until 1669 when John Winthrop, Jr. was governor, that an effort was made to reform what evidence was needed to convict someone of witchcraft. The new standards for evidence included the need for more than one witness to an event, and the acceptance that some predictions about future events could be made using "human skill in Arts" (p. 112) realizing that this was different from predictions arising from having an acquaintance with Satan.
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“One___ of windsor arrayned & executed at Hartford for a witche.”- John Winthrop, Sr. Journal
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The only known contemporary records directly pertaining to the first execution of a witch in the American colonies, are from the journal of John Winthrop, Sr., and the Matthew Grant Diary also known as the Old Windsor Church Record. At the time Winthrop simply writes, “One ________ of windsor arrayned & executed at Hartford for a witche.”
The second primary source, which lists an actual name, is the Matthew Grant Diary which wasn't discovered until the mid-1800s. Matthew Grant wrote on the inside cover, “Alse Young was hanged, May 26, ’47,". |
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“Alse Young was hanged, May 26, ’47”- Matthew Grant Diary
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Forty–five years before the Salem trials, Alse Young of Windsor, Connecticut, was the first person executed for witchcraft in the thirteen colonies. Not much is known about Alse. Gleaned from land and genealogy records, along with a handwritten notation on the back of a medical record, historians have pieced together what they believe is her brief history. It is speculated that Alse Young was married to John Young and had one child, a daughter. It is believed that her daughter, Alice, married Simon Beamon of Springfield, MA, becoming Alice Young Beamon, who was verbally accused of witchcraft thirty years later as a widow in Springfield. One of Alice's sons defended her from what the family considered a slanderous accusation, and she was never formally charged. |
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Between 1647 and 1697, over 40 accusations of witchcraft were made in Connecticut, and 11 people were executed the vast majority of whom were women. Women were more often targeted as witches than were men for several reasons. Women had the roles in society of food preparers, animal tenders, and midwives, therefore they were easily blamed for sickness, death, and childbirth problems. Women were also viewed as second-class citizens making them easy scapegoats for any misfortune that befell the community.
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Sometimes an accusation of witchcraft came down to simple jealousy and greed. During colonial times if a women did not have a son, and her husband died before her, she would inherit the family's land and money. Alternatively, if the wife died before her husband and without producing a male heir, the man’s property would go to the community upon his death. |
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Sources used for this Musing are listed below.
* Boynton, Cythia Wolfe; Connecticut Witch Trials: The First Panic in the New World, The History Press, Charleston SC; 2014
*Caruso, Beth; M. Alice ‘Alse’ Young – First Witch Hanging Victim in Colonial America; Legends of America website; retrieved October, 28, 2022.
*Levins, Sandy; Alse Young: America’s First Witch (And Hanged For It); November 1, 2017, WednesdaysWomen website; retrieved October, 28, 2022.
*Trumbull, Annie Eliot, One Blank of Windsor; Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut) · 3 Dec 1904, Sat · Page 31 retrieved October, 28, 2022.
*Witch Hunts in Connecticut; Legends of America website; retrieved October, 28, 2022. |
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