Seen in the Courant:
On May 26, 1647, a Windsor woman named Alse Young was hanged for witchcraft where Hartford’s Old State House now stands.
On Saturday, a group of descendants, historians and interested onlookers gathered down the road at Barnard Park - the South Green - to remember Young and 10 other Connecticut residents executed for witchcraft in Colonial Connecticut. As each of the names of the nine women and two men was read, a bell was rung, and a white rose laid at the base of a tree, over which a hangman’s noose dangled. A 12th rose was laid to remember the children of the executed.[...]
Young’s execution is the first one recorded for witchcraft in New England, and her name is known only because the Windsor town clerk at the time recorded it in his diary. No official record of her trial exists. From some counts, she was the wife of a John, a carpenter, and he left town soon after her death. A woman thought to have been her daughter was later accused of witchcraft in Springfield, though the daughter was not executed and her case may not have even come to trial; historians say second-generation accusations were common.
Windsor takes great pride in being the first English town in Connecticut. However, I’m guessing this is a “first” that the town’s fathers might not be so quick to advertise.
The article mentions that the folks who organized the commemoration are also expressing interest in seeing a formal memorial established, and that Connecticut hasn’t followed Massachusetts’ and Virginia’s lead of posthumously exonerating those executed.