25-05-2025
Exhibit explores Springfield's witch panic that occurred years before Salem
SPRINGFIELD — Years before people accued of being witches were tortured, tried and hanged in Salem, witch hysteria swept through Springfield when a prominent couple began acting strangely in the eyes of suspicious citizens.
A new exhibit at the Springfield Museums called 'Witch Panic! Massachusetts before Salem' explores the case against Hugh and Mary Parsons.
William Pynchon, a businessman from outside Boston, and six other men founded Springfield 1636. As people settled into this town of around 100 citizens, there was a series of unexplained events that spooked nearly everyone, prompting whispers of evil spirits and witches.
'It's hard to pin down an exact place when a story like this starts because it's so dependent on fear and anxieties,' said Elizabeth Kapp, curator of history at the museums.
While there was nothing strange about adults falling ill in new settlements, it was unsettling when children got sick and died —especially when they were related to the founding and religious elite.
Pynchon's granddaughters, Sarah and Margaret Smith, became gravely ill and died in 1648.
George Moxon, the settlement's minister, spent the winter of 1651 nursing his daughters back to health. Martha and Rebecca Moxon were seriously sick in December and January but ultimately survived.
And then there was the unspeakable case of the missing cow's tongue.
Anthony Dorchester, a boarder living with the Parsons, had set upon cooking stew with a cow's tongue. But while he was in church, it disappeared, and that sent tongues wagging.
Nervous citizens began laying blame for their problems on the Parsons.
'One of the more prevalent stories that was repeated several times throughout both Mary and Hugh's trial was this story about a dinner that mysteriously vanished,' said Kapp. 'There's also stories of strange weather patterns and animals falling ill when usually they're quite healthy.'
Kapp said the Parsons became easy targets of suspicion.
Hugh was a brickmaker, and while his services were desperately needed, people found him to be prickly and off-putting.
'His skills were necessary, but his social interactions don't seem to have fit into societal expectations,' Kapp said. 'There are stories of him promising to fulfill brick orders and then he misses those deadlines. Upon being reminded of these deadlines, he's wishing ill upon people who ordered the bricks.'
Mary Parsons was a divorced woman from Wales who received special permission from religious leaders to be seen as a 'formally independent woman' because 'divorce was not a thing' in those days, Kapp said.
When she moved to Massachusetts, she began working for Pynchon, but even her professional relationship with him could not protect her from scurrilous accusations of witchcraft.
'Mary was also looking for answers to these mysterious events and accused someone else of witchcraft,' Kapp said. 'The problem: That wasn't taken as an accusation of witchcraft. It went to court as a slander trial.'
Parsons lost the case and was ordered to pay the defamed woman three pounds in silver or 24 bushels of corn.
'But it also meant the town of Springfield started wondering: Why was Mary Parsons looking for witches? Why does Mary Parsons know so much about witchcraft?' Kapp said.
Parsons was arrested on Feb. 26, 1651, Her husband was arrested the next day.
Their cases began in Springfield but were moved to Boston where the couple was jailed while awaiting their trials.
'She was tried on May 8, 1651, and was charged with two crimes, for having familiarity with the devil as a witch, and for willingly and most wickedly murdering her own child,' said Kapp.
Parsons was acquitted on charges of witchcraft but plead guilty to the killing, something that was never proved. 'There was no way to know one way or the other,' Kapp said, because Parsons died shortly after the trial and the court simply accepted her confession.
Hugh Parsons languished in jail for 15 months until he was tried. A lower court found him guilty of witchcraft, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. After his exoneration, he moved with his remaining daughter to Rhode Island.
All of this happened 40 years before the infamous Salem witch trials.
'The events in Springfield have been called by historian Malcolm Gaskell the first American witch panic because they truly consumed the entire town. That helped set a scene that led to Salem, because in Salem, we see basically what happened in Springfield, but exponentially growing,' Kapp said.
While the Springfield Museums features many traveling exhibits, 'Witch Panic' was curated by Kapp and a team of around a dozen employees working in the museums' collections, exhibits and archives.
Kapp said they based their exhibit on dozens of sources and 'hundreds and hundreds of pages' of documentation, including original notes William Pynchon took while speaking with his fellow citizens at the time.
The exhibit is on display now through Nov. 2 at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History.
Springfield Museums president and CEO Kay Simpson said she hopes the sprawling, two floor display helps the city capitalize on America's fascination of witches.
'It's a very important historical moment. It happened here and we were part of this fabric that was taking place in Massachusetts in the 1600's,' she said. 'It also points to how the image of witches has changed over the years. There's something inherently interesting about witches and witchcraft.'
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Read the original article on MassLive.
