This week’s episode of The X Files took place in Connecticut, and had the theme of witches/the witch trials. This got me to thinking, did you all know that CT was prosecuting alleged witches long before the much more famous trials in Salem, MA?
Connecticut’s witch trials were held in the mid-1600’s, and the first person executed for witchcraft in the thirteen American colonies was Alse Young of Windsor. She was hanged in May 1647 in Hartford’s Meeting House Square, now the site of Connecticut’s Old State House.
Before hysteria began to sweep the town of Salem in 1692, nine people had already been executed for witchcraft in Connecticut.
