MARY JOHNSON. Wethersfield, 1648.
This Mary Johnson left a definite record. It is written in broad lines
in the dry-as-dust chronicles of the time. Cotton Mather embalmed the
tragedy in his _Magnalia_.
"There was one Mary Johnson tryd at Hartford in this countrey, upon an
indictment of 'familiarity with the devil,' and was found guilty
thereof, chiefly upon her own confession."
"And she dyd in a frame extreamly to the satisfaction of them that were
spectators of it." _Magnalia Christi Americana_ (6: 7).
At a session of the Particular Court held in Hartford, August 21, 1646,
Mary Johnson for thievery was sentenced to be presently whipped, and to
be brought forth a month hence at Wethersfield, and there whipped. The
whipping post, even in those days, did not prove a means to repentance
and reformation, since at a session of the same court, December 7, 1648,
the jury found a bill of indictment against Mary Johnson, that by her
own confession she was guilty of familiarity with the devil.
That she was condemned and executed seems certain (it being assumed that
Mary and Elizabeth Johnson were one and the same person, both Christian
names appearing in the record), since at a session of the General Court,
May 21, 1650, the prison-keeper's charges for her imprisonment were
allowed and ordered paid "out of her estate."
A pathetic incident attaches to this case. A child to this poor woman
was "borne in the prison," who was bound out until he became twenty-one
years of age, to Nathaniel Rescew, to whom L15 were paid according to
the mother's promise to him, he having engaged himself "to meinteine and
well educate her sonne.
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