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

Connecticut's dark past

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........

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