The 1662 Hartford Witch Trials

Mention witchcraft in America, and people immediately think of Salem. After all, the famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) trial of 1692 went down in history as a perfect storm of fear, religious fanaticism, and mass hysteria. What most people don’t realize, however, is that three decades before Salem, there was another witchcraft trial in nearby Connecticut, in which four people were executed.

In Salem, twenty people were put to death – nineteen by hanging, and one pressed with heavy stones – for the crime of witchcraft. It is, by far, one of the best-known legal debacles in American history, in part because of the sheer number of people involved. Hartford, on the other hand, was a much smaller trial and tends to get overlooked. However, it’s important to talk about Hartford, because it did set a bit of a legal precedent for witchcraft trials…