Before her execution, Governor John Winthrop Jr. treated Mary Barnes as a patient. He recorded her symptoms, prescribed medicines, and tracked the costs in his medical notebook. In 1663, she was executed for witchcraft in Hartford, Connecticut.

This episode isn’t about the execution. It’s about fractured communities, failed institutions, and real people with lives that existed long before the gallows. It’s about what happens when a doctor’s patient becomes a community’s scapegoat, when churches wage war with themselves, and when the one leader who had stopped witch executions leaves town at the worst possible moment.

Between 1647 and 1663, Connecticut hanged more people for witchcraft than any other New England colony. Then it became the first to implement legal protections that saved lives, twenty-nine years before Salem would erupt. Understanding that transformation requires understanding Hartford’s breaking point.

Understanding how communities fracture, how institutions fail their people, and how fear finds convenient targets in those who don’t fit strict norms teaches us to recognize these patterns, whether in 1663 Hartford or anywhere scapegoating takes root.

This is the story of what happened when a doctor’s patient became a witch. When religious anchors became battlegrounds. When neighbors turned on neighbors. And eventually, when a community chose differently.

In May 2023, Connecticut officially absolved all 34 witch trial victims.

The Thing About Witch Hunts examines historical witch trials and contemporary persecution patterns worldwide. Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack explore the context that makes scapegoating possible and how communities can choose differently.*

End Witch Hunts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

Links

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Buy the Book: Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley 1647-1663

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