Connecticut's forgotten witch trial past

Decades before Salem, Connecticut was the centre of America's witch trials. A new statewide haunted history trail connects the towns and sites tied to this overlooked chapter of history.

As I wander the tree-lined streets of Windsor, Connecticut's historical Town Green, I'm drawn to a circular patio of red Heritage Bricks – many of which feature inscribed personal tributes to local friends and family. I scan the inscriptions and spot a chilling outlier: "Alice 'Alse' Young: Witch Hanging Victim, May 26, 1647."

Young was the first documented person to be executed for witchcraft in the American colonies.

While Salem, Massachusetts is intrinsically linked with witch trials, the neighbouring state of Connecticut experienced its own wave of mass hysteria that predates the infamous Salem panic by more than four decades. Now, Young's memorial brick is a stop on Connecticut's new Haunted History Trail, a self-guided statewide route encompassing more than 130 locations – from ancient burial grounds to haunted homes to occult shops – associated with paranormal or tragic stories.

Warning: This article contains mentions of hangings that some may find upsetting

Boasting a nearly 400-year history, Connecticut is home to an unusual wealth of supernatural sites. But its true witchy past might be scarier than all its ghost stories combined.

Occurring between 1647 and 1697, Connecticut's witch trials grew out of the Puritan witch-hunting culture early colonists brought over from England. Salem's witch trials began in 1692 and lasted only 15 months, but during Connecticut's own 50-year witch panic, at least 49 individuals were accused of entering into pacts with the devil or used supernatural powers to cause harm to others. Of those, 34 were indicted and at least 11 were hanged.

The last suspected Connecticut witch – Mary Barnes – was executed in 1663 on Hartford's Gallows Hill, but trials continued to be held in the state until 1697. The final American colonial executions for witchcraft took place in Salem in 1692.

That Salem held the final witch trial executions helps explain its enduring notoriety – immortalised in films from The Crucible to Hocus Pocus. But why do so few know about Connecticut's dark witch trial past?

"We don't know what happened to all those records," says Beth Caruso, co-founder of local historical advocacy group, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. "It may be that when people started being ashamed of these trials, some of the powerful families destroyed [them]."

Even as a lifelong Connecticut resident, I knew nothing about its role in the colonial witch trials. So, I set out to drive through one of the darkest chapters of my state's past.

Dating to 1633, Windsor's historical centre is filled with red 17th- and 18th-Century gabled houses. It's easy to imagine Puritans in bonnets scurrying through the streets. The city was both Connecticut's first English settlement and Young's hometown when her execution ignited the nation's witch trials.  

As was often the case in witchcraft accusations, the suspected evidence was thin to the point of absurdity: Young and her daughter survived the 1647 influenza epidemic while four children living next door died. It was enough to see Young hanged in the Connecticut Colony's capital, Hartford. "Her case was pretty unjust, and she suffered," says Caruso. "On top of it, nobody even knows her story."

I also find a Heritage Brick honouring another Windsor resident, Lydia Gilbert. Gilbert was tried and executed in 1654 after one of her boarders was accidentally killed during a militia training exercise by a fellow soldier, who was acquitted. It's uncertain why blame shifted to Gilbert.

"[She] likely would not have been present on the green at the time of the shooting, as only men served in town militias," writes Caruso. "Supernatural speculations such as this would never hold up in any modern court." Nonetheless, Gilbert was condemned and, like Young, hanged in Hartford.

Hartford soon became the epicentre of Connecticut's witch trials. The Hartford Witch Panic (1662-1663), a flurry of trials that concluded in four hangings, began when eight-year-old Elizabeth Kelly, delirious from fever, cried out that her neighbour, Judith Ayres, was choking her. Another woman, Ann Cole, was believed to be possessed by the devil. Executions were carried out at the Meeting House Square, located on the site of the current Old State House. 

Just a little further along the trail is Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground, where I see the graves of 14 of the men responsible. Established in 1640, the 1.3-acre plot is the city's only surviving 17th-Century landmark. As we strolled among the weather-worn headstones, Christine Jewell, Director of the Ancient Burying Ground's Association, told me about the magistrates and jurors buried here who cooperated in zealously sending people to their doom. 

Their engraved names are tricky to read, but I can't miss the life-sized statue of Reverend Samuel Stone near the cemetery's entrance. Hartford's co-founder, this Puritan minister was part of a tribunal investigating Connecticut's witchcraft charges.

Jewell directed me to the monument of Samuel Wyllys. A prominent Connecticut magistrate, Wyllys was directly involved in investigating witchcraft accusations. His preserved collection of court witchcraft depositions were kept in his family for generations. "Part of what we know about the witchcraft trials is because of the Wyllys family," says Jewell.

We also visited the tomb of James Richards, a magistrate involved in the 1665 trial of Elizabeth Seager, on trial for the third time. Her conviction was ultimately overturned by the acting Connecticut Governor John Winthrop Jr.

A physician and alchemist, Winthrop often reviewed evidence in witch trial cases, intervening on Seager's behalf and saving Katherine Harrison from a death sentence in 1669. He then helped institute the "two-witness" rule and "rejection of spectral evidence" that effectively ended executions in the state.

"They would ask him, 'Was this caused by witchcraft?' And he always said it was medical," said Caruso. "He was a voice of moderation at a time when there weren't a lot of voices of moderation."

Before embarking on the trail, I knew nothing about Connecticut's role in the witch trials. But driving through the upscale coastal town of Fairfield – home to four spots on the Haunted History Trail – jogged a memory. While working at a Fairfield newspaper years ago, I'd heard the name Goody Knapp.

In Puritan society, "Goody" was an abbreviation of "good wife" – a title for married women of lower status. "We know certain women of the town came to Goody Knapp and [asked] her, 'You are a witch and who else is a witch?'," said Walt Matis, programme and volunteer coordinator of the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the town's first stop on the trail.

During Knapp's trial, it was intimated that she had "witches' marks" on her body. But she might not have been accused at all if not for another unfortunate Goody – Goody Bassett, a woman from the neighbouring town of Stratford.

It is unclear why Bassett herself was being tried, but during her trial (and likely under torture) she intimated that there was another witch in Fairfield that "held her head full high", says Matis. Bassett was hanged in 1651; Knapp was hanged in 1653 in a field located in what is now Bridgeport. Visitors can find her memorial along the trail at Bridgeport's Burroughs Community Centre.

In Fairfield, I also linger at Edward's Pond at the Fairfield Museum and History Center's Museum Commons, built on the town's 17th-Century Town Green. Now merely a divot, Edward's Pond was once used for ducking tests – where accused witches were bound and thrown into water. Floating meant guilt, sinking meant innocence. In 1692, accused and tried persons Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disbrow volunteered to be ducked. Both women floated but were eventually acquitted.

In need of a pick-me-up after all that gloom, I drive to Stratford, with its charming mix of historic Colonial and coastal bungalow architecture, and duck into Goody Bassett's Ice Cream Shop.  

"If you're from Stratford, you already knew the name Goody Bassett, so it was a fun name for kids growing up, usually around Halloween," says owner Paul Joy.

Joy also honours Bassett on his menu – Goody's Cauldron, a nine-scoop sundae ice-cream eating challenge.

It is believed that Bassett was hanged in Stratford, though no official records exist. Local legends pinpoint the town's Meeting House, Gallow's Brook or the former Phelps Mansion as possible sites, says Joy. In the absence of concrete proof, a stone plaque on the trail dedicated to Bassett sits under a tree on Stratford's West Broad Green. 

Connecticut's connection to witchcraft lives on: 35 stops on the Haunted History Trail are witch and occult shops. I visit The Blackbird House in Wethersfield, a colonial inland port where several alleged witches were accused and hanged. I snoop through tarot decks, crystals and minerals before buying a black witches' hat.

Justice may finally be near for Connecticut's accused witches. Caruso and Griego's 2017 petition to clear Young and Gilbert's names resulted in the passing of a unanimous resolution. "I think it was an important reckoning for [Windsor] to actually know what happened," said Caruso. Thanks to the project's efforts, First Church in Windsor, where the fervently anti-witchcraft pastor Reverend John Warham presided, also released an apology.

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The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project also helps locals with genealogical research. "I kept getting emails and notes from so many descendants, saying 'Thank you for humanising my ancestor'," says Caruso. "It just seemed like the right thing to recognise these victims since we know the stories are so absurd in many cases."

In 2023, Connecticut legislators passed a joint resolution exonerating all the state's victims. And now, the Connecticut Haunted History Trail is helping visitors – and locals like me – learn about the victims who were wrongly accused and forgotten, one stop at a time.

"More and more people are finding out," says Caruso. "It's not that people don't care. It's just that people don't know."

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