Friday, April 15, 2016

Elizabeth Hutchinson - Witch?

According to family search, all of us kids are descended from Elizabeth Hutchinson, who is our 9th great grandmother.  She is mom's 8th great grandmother and she is a survivor of the Salem Witch Trials.  If you use RelativeFinder.org and log in with a Family Search account you can see exactly how our genealogy gets back to her.  Pretty fascinating, and also, I am not 100% sure it is all accurate since there are often errors, but still cool to think about. 

Elizabeth Hutchinson was born 22 February 1622.  She died on 28 November 1700.  She was married to Isaac Hart, but I don't know when.  According to Family Search: Elizabeth age 70 was accused of witchcraft and sent to prison in Boston on May 18, 1692, and held there until December. Elizabeth's son, Thomas, petitioned the court for her release. She was not released until December, at which time the sheriff of Boston presented his bill for food and care during her 8 months in prison.

I just finished reading the book Witches by Stacey Schiff and while she does not talk about Elizabeth in her book (there were SO many people charged with witchcraft she had to focus on a smaller group of them), it does fit the timeline and information for that period.  Lots of women (and a few men) from all ages were accused.  Anyone accused of a crime (whether ultimately found guilty or innocent) had to foot the bill for all expenses during their incarceration.  

Here is a link to a little bit of information about her.

And I couldn't find the source for this, but there was this clip on Family Search: EXAMINED. Accused of being witch. A needle was stuck into every square inch of her body. Eight men observed her nude having the needle stuck into her. They were searching for a place on her skin that had no reaction to the needle prick. If she didn't react it meant that this was the place where the Devil had touched her. She would have no feeling where he touched.

Did I mention that I am glad I wasn't alive back then?  Some pretty crazy stuff.

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