The Alice (Alse) Young Story: Significant Connections to the Rest of Early New England History Uncovered and Brought to Life in One of Windsor: the Untold Story of America’s First Witch Hanging Beth M Caruso

Beth M Caruso

Views of the New England witch trials are skewed by the intensity and magnitude of the Salem Witch trials of 1692, not to mention that the Salem trials are the only ones that get any recognition in history textbooks. But Salem was really the last big eruption, a grand gruesome finale of many witchcraft accusations.

“Who is Alice ‘Alse’ Young?” you may ask. You, like most people, are probably unaware that she is the first witch-hanging victim in the American colonies. Alice Young’s hanging occurred forty-five years before the Salem trials. Many other witchcraft accusations and trials soon followed in both Connecticut and Massachusetts. The largest one, called the Hartford Witch Panic, occurred in the early 1660s, well before Salem. Alice’s hanging laid a pattern of acceptance and continuation of a horrific European tradition of scapegoating and misogyny in the form of witchcraft accusations.

At first glance, the hanging of a single woman in Windsor, Connecticut’s earliest town may not seem important in understanding other bigger witch trials. However, it is critically significant. Through years of research, many with historian Dr. Katherine Hermes, I’ve found that Alice’s case most likely had a considerable influence on other trials through her next-door neighbor, Thomas Thornton, a possible relative to either her husband or herself. Thornton and his family were deeply impacted by the tumultuous events of Windsor in 1647, events that probably led to Alice’s hanging. Four of his six children died when an influenza epidemic took hold. Within a year of the tragedy, Thornton moved his family to Stratford, Connecticut, dropped his career as a tanner and made the unusual transition to become a minister. Consequently, Alice’s widower, John Young, also moved to Stratford. Thornton’s time in Stratford corresponded to the witch hanging of another former Windsor woman, Goody Bassett. Eventually Thornton moved his family to Ireland where he served as a minister under Cromwell and made the acquaintance of the Mathers. After Cromwell’s reign ended, Thornton was back in New England, this time serving as a minister to a congregation on Cape Cod. He retired in Boston and was a member of Cotton Mather’s church before and during the Salem witchcraft trials. Is it possible that he had an influence on Mather in his persuasive role in the Salem trials? Quite likely. As a retired minister who was called to the Mather home to be at the bedside of a young woman, Margaret Rule, supposedly hexed by a witch, one would assume that to be a possibility. Furthermore, Cotton Mather wrote about Thornton’s daughter Priscilla who died in 1647 and quoted her as having concerns that she and other children should get control over their sinful natures. He describes her conversion experience and her struggles with Satan on her deathbed. Salem witch trial judge Samuel Sewall was at Thomas Thornton’s side as he passed away. These connections to known Salem witch trial participants certainly gives one pause.

Another very interesting association among those whom Alice knew because of neighborhood connections is another possible family member, John Tinker, who was the long-time assistant to the Winthrops, leaders in both Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. Governor John Winthrop Jr. was an alchemist, well-respected physician, and governor of Connecticut Colony. He effectively stopped further executions in that early settlement after the Hartford Witch Panic. Alice Young existed in the middle of important political battles between differing families in the town of Windsor. At the heart of these struggles was John Tinker, whose family members surrounded the Young’s home on Backer Row. Therefore, Alice Young also found herself in the center of conflicts between opposing allegiances in the colonies and trauma caused by both disease and Indian wars in the midst of a largely unchartered wilderness. With escalating fears, uncertainty, and divisions, a perfect climate was in place to usher in the horrific beginning of the New England witch trials as well as influence future trials.

In my first novel in the Connecticut Witch Trials Trilogy, One of Windsor: The Untold Story of America’s First Witch Hanging, I sought to bring these significant factors together and capture the essence of the period both in the settings and through the characters. The two following novels in this trilogy, The Salty Rose: Alchemists, Witches & A Tapper in New Amsterdam and Between Good and Evil: Curse of the Windsor Witch’s Daughter further immerse one into this dramatic history.

For further academic investigation into these connections please see the following article:

Katherine A. Hermes and Beth M. Caruso, “Between God and Satan: Thomas Thornton, Witch-Hunting, and Religious Mission in the English Atlantic World, 1647-1693,” Connecticut History Review 61, no. 2 (Fall 2022): 42-82.