I do believe everyone knows of the Salem witch trials. How many of you know that it wasn’t just Salem? In fact there were a lot of different communities that witch trials took place in. Salem is just the one that is the most well known.
How many of you have heard of Witch Trials in Connecticut? Their trials started almost 50 years before Salem. In fact the peak of these trials happened only about 45 minutes from my house in Hartford Connecticut. Between 1647 and 1663 Connecticut executed 9 women and 2 men. The peak of the hysteria in this area was when a young girl in Hartford died after accused her neighbor of harming her. She was eight years old at the time and her neighbor made her a bowl of soup. The girl was sick for the following five days and accused the neighbor of tormenting her during that time. The neighbor and her husband left town knowing what was coming before they could be formally accused luckily escaping the hysteria of the time.
While she was lucky enough to escape many people in the towns of Connecticut were not quite as lucky and were accused an hanged accordingly. On May 26 in 1647 just over 375 years ago now in Hartford a young woman named Alse Young was hung for being a witch. It is believed that she is the first to be put to death in the witch hunts in the United States. Yet she is someone that I bet so many of you have never heard of. She was a wife and a young mother at the time. Many of you have likely not even heard of her name until today although I bet many of you could tell me at least one of the names of those accused of witchcraft in Salem. The reason for that is that Connecticut has done it’s best to sweep this history off the records. I have a great article for you from the New York Times if you are interested in learning more. You can find that here: Where Was the First Woman Condemned for Witchcraft? Not in Salem That article also mentions another wonderful resource, The CT Witch Memorial Page on Facebook. They were established in 2016 and do a lot to try to bring more awareness to the Witch Trials in Connecticut.
I hope that you have a magickal day!
Much Love and Many Blessings,
Jasmeine Moonsong