Twelve years ago

TL;DR -- A cousin blogger had an interesting post today. She went back a few years to bring a post forward that remembered an ancestor who was hanged in the events of 1692 in Salem MA. That is, hanged by the neck until dead. We have had several posts on the theme but reference two of them: the first image looks at a family wirh two hanged on the same day as several others; the second image is about a hypothetical meeting where all ancestors involved from any side (pro, con, critical, ...) is identified with their relationship established. That event was 334 years ago.  

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Nutfield Genealogy, on FB, pointed today to a post from the blog dated 10 Jun 2017: Bridget Playfer Wasselbee Oliver Bishop, hanged as a witch in Salem. Going by today's date, we are talking 334 years ago. There was a question today on FB: Is there a victim of the 1692 witch trials in your family tree? 

Well yes. Lots and lots of families. So, first, we will look at one of them through posts with one of them from twelve years ago. Then, we will consider a slew of families who were on all sides of the controversy. 

A great-grandmother (Lucy Foster Wilson Gardner) of Dr. Frank (Gardner author) had two persons hanged in September of 1692. The Thomas Gardner Society published an article on Lucy's pedigree titled Trials of the Wilson Family that appeared in The Essex Genealogist and was accompanied by a Ahnentafel for Lucy. 

Later, we had posts about the family, such as Andover Ordeal, that recounted one generation which, after the witch trials, lost all of the children except one who had children one of which became Ann's forebear.  

The following image is taken from The Essex Genealogist (August 2014) and shows three generations of Wilsons. In Gen 1, Joseph Wilson married Sarah Lord. She and her daughter were imprisoned for several weeks but were cleared in 1693. For Gen 2, we see John Wilson, son of Joseph, marrying Mercy Wright whose grandfather was Samuel Wardwell who hanged with several others. In Gen 3, John Wilson, son of John, married Hannah Frye whose great-grandmother was Mary Ayer Parker. This widow of fifty-five years of age was hanged. One motive was getting her land as her husband had left her well off. Later, her sons were able to get their property returned. 

Now, switching gears, we had a couple of post dealing with a hypothetical meeting (Imagine a meeting). The intent was to bring back everyone who was involved in the incident, except for the victims. This table shows relatives of Dr. Frank as if we are talking two generations back (rather than a couple hundred years. 

Hathorne and Corwin were noted judges. For Dr. Frank, his grandmother was John Hathorne's sister who opposed her brother. Several jurors were grandfathers. One of the officiating ministers was an uncle. But another grandfather, graduate of Harvard (Rev. John Wise), was highly critical of the proceedings as opposed to Cotton Mather who was a cousin. 

There have been several posts on the subject. We will point to one: Meeting, again. 

Remarks: Modified: 06/10/2026

06/10/2026 --