Alse Young was killed at the gallows in CT, becoming the first person on record to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft. More than 375 years later, some are hoping lawmakers will finally offer posthumous exonerations.
Decades before the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, Alse Young was killed at the gallows in Connecticut, becoming the first person on record to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft.
While such requests aren’t new, they have become louder as many genealogy buffs discover they have distant relatives involved in the lesser-known Connecticut witch trials. In 2006, former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine gave an informal pardon to Grace Sherwood, a widowed midwife who was blamed by neighbors for ruining crops, killing livestock and creating storms and subsequently accused of being a witch. With her hands bound, Sherwood was thrown into a river to see if she floated, which was purported to indicate guilt. She managed to set herself free and spent seven years in prison.
For years, she was tortured by a local minister who whipped her until she finally confessed to being a witch and admitted to “uncleanness with men,” according to Bridgeport author Andy Piascik, who wrote an article for Connecticut Humanities, an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Johnson is believed to have been hanged after giving birth to the child of a man she was not married to.
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