On This Day In History: Witchcraft Doesn’t Float

On this day in history: May 26, 1647 on 12seconds.tv and YouTube

Alse Young of Windsor was the first unhappy victim, but the court records give us no information concerning her trial. On the cover of Mathew Grant’s Diary, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull discovered the record “May 26. 47 Alse Young was hanged.” This supplies the blank in Winthrop’s History: “One –of Windsor arraigned and executed at Hartford for a witch.”¹ So far as known, this was the first execution for witchcraft in New England.

¹ Annie Eliot Trumbull, in The Hartford Courant, Dec. 3, 1904; Winthrop’s History, II: 374.

See “Hartford’s Witches from the Colonial History of Hartford” from RootsWeb at Ancestry.com.

Similar Posts:

• On This Day In History: Dot Dash
• On This Day In History: Guadalupe-Hidalgo Ratified
• On This Day In History: Revolutionary Album Released
• On This Day In History: Movable Type For The Masses
• On This Day In History: POTUS Transport First