The Puritan in England and New England

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

But then he knows next to nothing about witches, 
even though there was, in his ancestry, one genuine 
Salem Witch, one of the last to join the sus. per coll. 
crowd. several of them back through the centuries' 
couplings, off of the Slothrop family tree. 
GR P334

Could he have been the fork in the road America 
never took, the singular point she jumped the wrong 
way from? Suppose the Slothropite heresy had the 
time to consolidate and prosper? Might there have 
been fewer crimes in the name of Jesus, and more 
mercy in the name of Judas Iscariot?
GR P565/566


IV. 
THIS was really a form of government, adopted 
by the inhabitants of the Colony, and was an 
assumption of the right of self-govern- 
ment, and especially of independence of 
the authority of Connecticut. This action led to 
a prolonged controversy, in which Mr. Pynchon 
acted as the leader of the Colonists. Their position 
was finally sustained by the General Court 
of Massachusetts, which, on the 2d of June, 1641, 
adopted an elaborate paper, which asserted the 
claim of the Massachusetts Colony to the plantation, 
and ordered that " William Pynchon, gent, 
for the year shall have full power and authority 
to govern the inhabitants of Agawam, now Springfield, 
to hear and determine all causes and offences, 
both civil and criminal, that reach not to life, 
limbs, or banishment, according to the laws heare 
established." A little earlier than this, namely, the 
I4th of April, 1640, the inhabitants assembled in 
general town-meeting, and changed the name of 
their plantation from Agawam to Springfield, 
as a compliment to Mr. Pynchon, whose home 
was in Springfield before his removal to New 
England.2 Mr. Pynchon was the magistrate of 
the Colony from the beginning to 1651, first as a 
member of the joint commission, then by vote of 
the people of Agawam, and after June 2, 1641, by 
commission from the General Court. 
The records of his court show the variety and 
importance of his duties. One of the most important 
cases was a suit for slander. John Woodcock 
was complained of for slandering the pastor, 
Rev. George Moxon, by saying that the said 
Moxon had taken a false oath against him at 
Hartford. Mr. Moxon claimed ,£9 19s. damages, 
but the jury awarded him ,£6 13s. There were 
suits for the collection of debts, and for violation 
of contract. Estates were settled in Mr. Pynchon's 
court, and the inventories in his Record Book 
give us glimpses of the sort of property and of 
household furniture in those times, as well as of 
the prices at which articles were valued. In 1651, 
Hugh Parsons was apprehended on charge of 
witchcraft. The testimony against him is recorded 
by Mr. Pynchon. The duty of the magistrate 
consisted in the examination of witnesses. Parsons 
was sent to Boston for trial. Witnesses were 
produced, and the testimony taken in Springfield 
was read, and the prisoner was found 
guilty of the sin of witchcraft. The 
General Court reviewed the case and reversed the 
verdict. The wife of Parsons had been insane, 
and had taken the life of her infant child. She 
was arrested for the double crime of witchcraft
and murder. Her examination was before Mr. 
Pynchon. She was tried in Boston, and found 
guilty of murder only. As there is no further 
record in her case, it is probable that she died in 
prison. This was forty years earlier than the 
great excitement in connection with witchcraft in 
Salem and Boston. It was, so far as I know, the 
earliest trial for witchcraft in Massachusetts. 

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