It is one of the oldest documented parts of our state’s history and also one of the darkest. The Connecticut witch trials took place from 1647 to 1663, more than four decades before the trials in Salem, Massachusetts.

“The Connecticut witch trials were extremely deadly. The first seven people tried and then indicted were convicted and subsequently hanged. Seven for seven. This is a brutal story,” said Beth Caruso, a member of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project.

Of the defendants, 34 people were tried and 11 were executed for witchcraft. While Salem is famous for its witch trials, Connecticut’s story isn’t often told.

“Salem was at the bottom. It was the grand finale of the witch trials,” Caruso said. “Everything that led to this started in Connecticut. In Connecticut it’s kind of at its lowest point, they don’t really talk about it.”

Author and researcher Beth Caruso lives in Windsor, where the first documented hanging person, Alse (Alice) Young, came from.

“I found out about Alice Young from a neighbor. Not much was known about her. It drove me crazy and I wanted to learn more,” she said.

Caruso combed through property records, birth and death certificates, and pieced together what happened to Young. She found out that in 1647 there was a flu epidemic in the city.

“She was probably charged with this epidemic and this large number of deaths right next to her, where four children died and her only child survived,” Caruso explained.

Young was eventually accused of being a witch and Caruso said she was hanged in Hartford.

“We don’t know exactly where,” she adds, “some people suspect it was near the Old State House.”

It was Young’s case that caused the hysteria, and some believe that she was the first victim not only in Connecticut but in all the colonies.

“The witch trials really began with Alice at her most gruesome. Before Alice Young, there were a few witch trials in the colonies, but they never resulted in an execution,” Caruso said. “It was her case that really opened the floodgates to this injustice.”

After Young, a second woman was charged in Windsor.

“Lydia Gilbert, this is a strange case. She was accused of practicing witchcraft with a weapon that someone else fired, resulting in death,” Caruso said.

Caruso and others pushed for both women to be honored by the city of Windsor. Today the courtroom at Windsor Town Hall is named after them, and their names are engraved on bricks displayed in a memorial near the town hall.

But their stories were just the beginning.

“During the Hartford Witchcraft Panic of 1662 to 1663, 11 people were accused of witchcraft and four were executed,” said historian Katherine Hermes.

Throughout the Connecticut colony, people were accused of being witches. From Wethersfield, Farmington and Hartford down to southern Connecticut in the Stratford area.

“Goody Bassett and Goody Knapp, who were in the southern regions of Connecticut, were hanged in this area, in the Stratford area,” Caruso said.

Connecticut’s colonial laws listed witchcraft as a capital crime.

“The definition of a witch back then was very different than what a modern person might imagine – these people were accused of allying with Satan to cause real harm to their communities,” Caruso explained.

The hysteria that sparked the witch trials occurred during a troubled time in history when Governor John Winthrop Jr. was abroad in England.

“(He) received a charter that united the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut,” Hermes said. “It was something that not everyone wanted and it was a time that caused a lot of anxiety. What would happen? Would the king take it away?”

Winthrop wanted to ease the panic by adding more parameters to the witch trial, requiring two people to appear as witnesses to the witchcraft, these researchers explain.

“He didn’t believe they could actually do the things they were accused of doing,” Caruso said, “like changing the weather, shutting down a bridge or causing a pandemic.” It just didn’t make sense to him . So he started arguing against these cases. We were lucky we had John Winthrop Jr., otherwise things would have been a lot worse in Connecticut.”

It wasn’t until 300 years later that the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project was founded and set out to eliminate this injustice. They brought in Rep. Jane Garibay and drafted a resolution.

“It’s very serious for these families,” Garibay said. “I kept hearing from people all over the country, even from England and Scotland, and from people who were descendants, and one from Pennsylvania said, ‘What should I tell my daughter and granddaughter about their ninth-generation grandmother? ‘” ‘Do you know, what happened to her?'”

Sen. Saud Anwar came to the Senate side, and although they faced some opposition, the May 2023 vote was 33-1 in the Senate and 121-30 in the House.

Advocates believe more needs to be done, such as keeping this history alive. In August, the first-ever Connecticut Witch Trials Festival was held on Pratt Street to do just that: educate people about what happened here in the 17th century.

“These people were killed because they were simply different,” said organizer Thomas Gormley. “That’s why we wanted to do the festival. We wanted to give people more knowledge. Because if you say, “Hey, have you heard of Connecticut?” Nobody knows. But you say, Salem, everyone knows.”

At a time when witches are taking center stage, these advocates say it’s important to also keep an eye on history and what can happen if things get out of hand.

“Today we see how certain groups, immigrants, are scapegoated and lies are spread about them that actually have harmful consequences,” Caruso said.

“It’s not so much that history repeats itself, but that human nature responds to crises in very similar ways. And in times of crisis, it is natural to turn to the outsiders of society, the marginalized, the people who can easily be scapegoated,” Hermes added. “I think we always learn a lesson from what happens. The witch trials in Connecticut and elsewhere were aimed at the poor; they were not exclusively, but mainly, aimed at women. They focused on evidence that was highly speculative, if not spooky, and evidence that would of course not be accepted in court today.”

Those involved in the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project would like to see a permanent memorial in Hartford to honor the lives lost and affected by the trials.