• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Salem Witch Trials

1777 Claims of Witchcraft In Salem, Washington County

October 28, 2019 by Marie Williams 6 Comments

statue at Salem Witch Museum by Marie WilliamsThere have been quite a number of witchcraft trials in what is now New York State, including in Westchester County, and on Long Island. In the midst of the American Revolution, in the town of Salem (now near the New York-Vermont border in Washington County, NY), there was another witch trial, of a sort.

Salem, NY, much like Salem, MA, has a very religious past. The community is said to be founded by Presbyterian Rev. Dr. Thomas Clark, who had emigrated from Ireland in the mid-1760s with his congregation, part of a Presbyterian schism.  Clark’s congregation first settled in nearby Stillwater, on the Hudson River but eventually landed in what is now Salem, NY, where they purchased a 25,000 acres among the mostly New England settlers already established there. [Read more…] about 1777 Claims of Witchcraft In Salem, Washington County

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: American Revolution, AmRev, Battle of Saratoga, Crime and Justice, Halloween, Legal History, Religious History, Salem Witch Trials, Washington County, Witch Trials

Witchcraft Claims In East Hampton, Long Island

October 27, 2019 by Marie Williams 1 Comment

statue at Salem Witch Museum by Marie Williams

In the United States, the first witch trial is believed to have occurred in Springfield, Mass., in 1645.  A fervor for hunting witches led to an increase in prosecutions in New England, and New York, in the 1650s and 1666s.  Women would be accused of witchcraft within New York’s colonial borders into the mid-1700s. Some of these trials would have a lasting impact on the colony and the country.

The 1650s was not an easy time to be a woman, especially if a neighbor held a personal grudge. In East Hampton, Long Island in 1657 Elizabeth “Goody” Garlick was accused of witchcraft, after 16-year-old Elizabeth Gardiner Howell became ill and suffered fevered dreams and delusions.  [Read more…] about Witchcraft Claims In East Hampton, Long Island

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Crime and Justice, Halloween, Legal History, Long Island, Salem Witch Trials, Witch Trials, womens history

Westchester County’s Katharine Harrison, Accused Witch

October 23, 2019 by Marie Williams 5 Comments

statue at Salem Witch Museum by Marie WilliamsHalloween is a time when representations of witches make their frequent appearance. The United States has a complicated history with witchcraft and the occult, due in part to its puritanical past and influx of diverse cultures.

Most Americans are familiar with the Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693) in Massachusetts, but trials for witchcraft have probably occurred as long as trials have existed, and still do in places where belief in magic is strong. In Europe people were tried for witchcraft throughout the 1700s. [Read more…] about Westchester County’s Katharine Harrison, Accused Witch

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Halloween, Legal History, Salem Witch Trials, Westchester County

Witches in America: A Tale of Three New Yorkers

May 20, 2018 by Peter Feinman Leave a Comment

witches being hangedWitches are in the news and three New Yorkers have tales to tell.

From Queens to Ithaca to Chittenango, New Yorkers figure prominently in the witch stories in American history. And there is Broadway too.

This week I examined the status of witches through the lens of the New York experience here.

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Cultural History, Frank Baum, Oz, Public History, Salem Witch Trials

Primary Sidebar

Help Support The Almanack

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • David Bentley on Civil War Albany Rises To Action
  • Arlene Steinberg on Sunshine, Coffee and Shoelaces: Keys to Immortality
  • Carol Kammen on Royal Government in the Declaration of Independence
  • Kera Demarest on The Decline of the New York State Museum
  • Pat Fiske on The Rockland County Work Camp That Inspired The Civilian Conservation Corps
  • Rev. John Renolfe Binder, Jr. on Comic Book Artist Jack Binder & Fort William Henry History
  • A Staten Island Side Story in Black History: Bill Richmond’s Punch to Emancipation – The British-American Historian on Staten Island Boxer Bill Richmond Delivered the Punches
  • Paul on The Decline of the New York State Museum
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Forest Rangers Recover Body From Ausable Chasm, Search for Homicide Evidence
  • Bob Meyer on Cremona to Central Park: Stradivari & Nahan Franko’s Legacy

Recent New York Books

hessians book
The Transcendentalist and their world
“The Amazing Iroquois” and the Invention of the Empire State
american inheritance
Norman Rockwell's Models
The 1947 Utica Blue Sox Book Cover
vanishing point
From the Battlefield to the Stage
field of corpses
Madison's Militia

Secondary Sidebar

Mohawk Valley Trading Company Honey, Honey Comb, Buckwheat Honey, Beeswax Candles, Maple Syrup, Maple Sugar
preservation league