mental illness and impoverished

As per Espy card In 1643 in Massachusetts, James Britton confessed to committing adultery and named Mary Latham, described as a proper young woman about eighteen years of age, as his partner. The two were tried and condemned for their offense and were executed together. According to Ann Jones in Women Who Kill (1980), their case was one of the earliest recorded executions for adultery in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Barber’s Boston Common adds that on March 21, 1643, James Britton and Mary Latham were hanged on the Boston Common, where the punishment was carried out publicly.

Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, 1623-1960,

Jones, A. (2009). Women who Kill. New York: The Feminist Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10609.

p. 13 Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, 1623-1960,

"severe mental depression" (Baker, 2016)

Hearn (1999, p. 16); Winthrop, J (1853). History of New England from 1630-1649. Little Brown & Company; "Romeo, E. K. (2020). The Virtuous and Violent Women of Seventeenth-Century
Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts Press.
"

Hearn points out in correspondence with Espy that she has been confused with Elizabeth Johnson....Mary, he calls the Wethersfield witch, was confused by Taylor's witchcraft delusion.

From the Espy notecard: BISHOP, Alice. The first and only female to be hanged in Plymouth Colony (Mass.) was Alice Bishope, for the murder of Martha Clarke, her own child, the fruit of her own body. From Hang By the Neck by Teeters, page 120. Alice Bishope cut the throat of her 3-year-old daughter, Martha Clarke. From Women Who Kill by Ann Jones, New York, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1980, page 29. Her source is Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, editor, Boston, White, 1855, Volume II, page 134. Also referenced in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Streib has additional documentation but not online

Families of Ancient New Haven, Vol 1, by Jacobus, Donald Lines, 1887-1970, pg 145; The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1908) by John M. Taylor found at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12288/12288-h/12288-h.htm

Hang by the Neck …”: The Legal Use of Scaffold and Noose, Gibbet, Stake, and Firing Squad from Colonial Times to the Present. By Negley K. Teeters and Jack H. Hedblom. Springfield, Illinois: 1967, page 134 (Espy's notecards generally refer to this book as simply "Teeters"

As per Espy card, Mary Parsons of Springfield, Massachusetts, and possibly her husband Hugh, were accused of witchcraft and the murder of their child. She was executed, likely by hanging, at either Boston or Springfield on May 29, 1651. According to accounts, after losing a child, Mary became distraught and claimed that the Devil appeared to her in the likeness of her dead child, speaking to her and asking to come into her bed. She was also accused of using witchcraft to harm Martha and Rebecca Moxen, the daughters of Springfield’s minister. While she denied the charges of witchcraft, she admitted guilt in the death of her own child. These details are recorded in Teeters’ Hang by the Neck and Barber’s Boston Common.

Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, 1623-1960,

Perhaps the dates for Elizabeth and Katharine Grady reflect the dates that the courts tried the captains? https://uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2017/10/26/there-be-great-witches-among-them-witchcraft-and-the-devil-in-colonial-virginia/

Maryland Archives Provincial Court Proceedings, 1658

page 125 of Susan Hiller's 1971 dissertation found online: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3173714/1/838832.pdf

The data are entered in the order as Baker (2016) has them. Therefore, it is unclear as to why Mary Sanford, apparently hanged in 1662, came after the preceding two who were hanged in 1663

Witchcraft in Connecticut as per Espy Papers. I changed the date of her sentence to 1663

alcoholism, victim of domestic violence,

Espy notecard: Elizabeth Greene was hanged at St. Mary’s, Maryland, on July 8, 1661, for infanticide. References indicate that a woman by this name was executed sometime in the 1660s for this crime. The case is noted in Hang by the Neck… on pages 120–121, which cites a sheriff’s endorsement on the death warrant dated at St. Mary’s on July 8, 1661, preserved in the Maryland State Archives.

Baker (2016) cites the Bradstreet Journal as cited in Hearn's Legal Executions in New England, Page 44

https://media.archives.albany.edu/?manifest=https://media.archives.albany.edu/apap301/c0e39994246f195e49e501240d1739da/manifest.json

Marja, also spelled Marta or Marja in the records, was a Black woman enslaved by Joshua Lambe of Roxbury in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. On the night of July 11, 1681, she set fire to the home of Thomas Swann in Roxbury by placing a live coal from the hearth onto the floor near the door. Afterward, she returned to her master’s house and set it on fire in the same manner. She was arrested, brought before the Court of Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and confessed to both acts of arson, pleading guilty. The court convicted her and sentenced her to death by burning, one of the few documented uses of this method in colonial New England. She was executed on December 22, 1681. The case is recorded in the Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1630–1692, Volume 1, pages 198–199.

From the Espy Card: Mrs. Henry Lake of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was hanged sometime in 1681 for witchcraft. According to the account in Hang by the Neck by Teeters (p. 135), it was alleged that “the Devil drew her in by appearing to her in her own likeness and acting the part of a child of hers who had lately died, on whom her heart was much set.”

From the Espy card: Elizabeth Axell, daughter of Mary Axell, confessed her guilt in open court. A panel of matrons examined her claim of pregnancy and returned an affirmative verdict, leading the court to order a temporary respite. A marginal note in the record later stated that “after she was delivered, execution was performed accordingly.” Mary Axell herself was hanged on December 7, 1685, at St. Mary’s, Maryland. She had been sentenced to death for destroying her child, but because she was pregnant at the time of her trial, she received a reprieve until after she gave birth. Following her delivery, the Council instructed the sheriff to carry out the execution. According to the Archives of Maryland (Vol. XVII, p. 439) and corroborated by Hearn, the Provincial Court records dated October 3, 1685, note that in Cecil County she had slashed the throat of her infant.

Box 2 (1-Case Files), Folder 76 from the Streib papers. Witkowski (2010), Baker states southern states less likely to execute for witchcraft, Really, this case requires more

inquiry sent to the Rhode Island State Archives. Baker (2016) cites the Bradstreet Journal as cited in Hearn's Legal Executions in New England, Page 44

Variables 7, 8, 13, 15-18 from Romeo and Crane (2020) Note that Elizabeth had twins but the victims are counted as one

Hearn's notes to Espy As per espy papers. Specifically he cites Mather quotes several lost testimonies to this effect. See The Trial of Elizabe How, The Wonders of the Invisible World. Also see the trial documents this·case 1908 edition of Collections
in Records of Salem Witchcraft. Other sources include the
Salem Witchcraft of the Topsfield Historical Society and Upham's pages 216-223.

From the Espy notecard: " Bridget Bishop and George Burroughs, both executed for witchcraft in Salem Witchcraft trials. (She on June 10, 1692 and he on August 18, X8% 1692.) See American Criminal Trials, page 51, volume one."

From Espy notecard (see transcript link in V0): Source: Proceedings of the Council of Maryland
1692-1694 published in MARYLAND ARCHIVES
vol. VIII pages 366-368.

household, and that they had absconded to Virginia
carrying along with them the cream of the dead man's
estate, namely guns, chattels, three negro slaves

and an English servant-boy together with a twelve
foot boat well rigged. Hue and cry issued 9-30-92

and all taken up in Princess Anne County Virginia
and returned to Maryland. Special Court of Oyer &
Terminer convened 11-15-92 for their trial. Doubtless
convicted & executed. They vanish from all records at
this point and Abigail not included among survivors
of husband in his fiduciary record.

"Virginia also hanged an unnamed woman (race unknown) in 1692 for infanticide but the historical record is silent on the circumstances of the execution." in Baker's book but surely she can be found if we simply look at other hangings during that time

Provincial Court Judgment Record, Liber D. S., No. C, pp. 199-200.

Box 1, Folder 40 from Streib collection check dates of execution for Elizabeth Emerson as well

Taken directly from the transcript provided on the website Espy notecards read :"Elizabeth Lewis ~B68S. - (need confirmation) 5 | ee 1694

"Elizabeth Lewts being convicted for the murder of
a bastard child upon Stat. 21 Jac. 1 and sentenced
tO dle, Perr vione for Mere. ary iuming tue entld
was born dead and she ts reprieved till the 4th day
of the next General Court."

Source: JExecutave Jounnals,, Councal on, Colonial
Virginia. Entry dated 10-23-1689. Elizabeth Lewis “p63.

(need confirmation) ee 1694

"Elizabeth Lewts being convicted for the murder of
a bastard child upon Stat. 21 Jae. 1 and sentenced
to die, petitions for mercy, affirming the child
was born dead and she ts reprieved ttll the 4th day
of the next General Court."

Source: Executive Journals, Council of Colonial
Virginia. Entry dated 10-23-1689."

page 54 Graham, J. S. (2000). Puritan family life: The diary of Samuel Sewall (1878)

https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR1628.xml page 54 Department of Research and Record. Data on the Public Gaol. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., 1934. In 1704, in York County, "Bridgett, a negro Woman Slave belonging to Mr. John Page of this County being Indicted for burning the buildings of ye sd John Page being arraigned pleaded guilty whereupon this Court award Judgment of Death upon her." (W & M Quarterly, XIX, p. 185)

As per Espy notecard: Execution: May 1706 (often misreported as 1708)
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Crime: Murder of her husband

Primary Sources Cited in the Records

Records of the Court of Assistants, 1665–1711

Connecticut Colonial Records

Hartford County Probate Records

The Boston News-Letter, May 27, 1706 (report from Hartford dated May 20, 1706)

Summary of the Case

On May 20, 1706, Hartford officials reported that a woman—Abigail Thompson—had been condemned to die for murdering her husband. According to the accounts:

She killed him by throwing a pair of tailor’s shears at him.
The shears struck him on the head, and the injury proved fatal after several days.

Execution Date

Although some later compilations list May 1708, the Boston News-Letter account dated May 27, 1706 and the court record dated May 20, 1706 both confirm that:

She had already been condemned as of May 20, 1706

Her execution followed shortly thereafter in May 1706

From Espy notecard transcript: "Hannah Degoe, a mulatto woman of Rehoboth, Con-—
demned for the murder of her bastard eats iaitoh
Death warrant issued Repvenber Lath) 1710)
Bxecuted at Bristol, Rhode Island (then under
Massachusetts jurisdiction), on September 30th,
LOU eps dtd. March 19th, 1988, from Hearn.
Information from "Records Book" of personal clerk
to Judge Sewall, 1710, located in Massachusetts

State Archives, i4 years old.) See Ltr, dta,

May ecend from eobalit~ hc } new date of ex,

She's a child. It's just hard to fathom

See "additional references for the full transcript from the Espy papers" pg 332 of Baker's paper; Hearn (2007, p. 111); “Order for a Warrant for the Execution of Young Squamp and Waisoiusqua,” Connecticut Court of Assistants, May 15, 1711, Yale Indian Papers Project I have NOT yet reviewed the following correspondence between Hearn and Espy which might be of some relevence : https://media.archives.albany.edu/?manifest=https://media.archives.albany.edu/apap301/76d495b7c29b659370168dd520bc9ec6/manifest.json

as part of slave insurrection

as part of slave insurrection

Journals of the house of Burgesses, V, 8." Women's Life and work in the southern colonies, by Julia Cherry Spruill; Chapel Hill: U. of N. Ce Press, page 335,

Romeo and Crane (2020) cite Paul Donald Marsella for the date of execution, “The Trial and Execution of Elizabeth Atwood in 1720,”
Sextant 7, no. 2 (1997): 9–10

Need to check on race of this case given that Espy had her as "Black" and for murder?

In Box 1, Folder 61 of the Streib collection I made a note about her saving Elizabeth Garreton's life