New England's Other Witch Hunt

        Everyone knows about the witch hunt at Salem in 1692. But few people know that in the years before Salem, Connecticut was New England's fiercest witch prosecutor. The first person hanged for witchcraft in New England came from WIndsor, and every single person indicted for witchcraft in Connecticut in its early years was convicted and hanged.                   

WitchHunt

     Walt Woodward brings this extraordinary, but nearly forgotten story to life, in a lecture that begins with the Protestant Reformation and traces its history all the way through the Hartford Witch hunt of the 1660's, a nightmare of trials and executions that preceded Salem by a generation. 

Along the way, he answers all those questions you've wondered about the early witch hunts, and explains why almost everyone in the 1600s believed that witchcraft was very real, and terribly dangerous. 


Witches

     He also shows how Connecticut's Governor   John Winthrop, Jr. and his friend Rev. Gershom Bulkeley intervened to transform Connecticut from New England's most aggressive witch hunter to a colony that completely ended executions for witchcraft thirty years before the outbreak at Salem.   



TO SCHEDULE THIS LECTURE, Send an email to walt@uconn.edu. Or call the Office of the State Historian (860) 570-9089.


Office of the State Historian • 1800 Asylum Avenue, Room 210, West Hartford, CT • (860)570-9089 •  walt@cthistory.org