The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-14

with his tongue that her husband, Thomas Staples, who had some experi- ence with the Particular Courtes" of that day, not always to his advantage, however, sued MT. Ludlow for defama- ton of his wife's character The | charges were false accusation in the Knapp case, "-"calling his wife witch" and charging her with tract of lying"
 | The hearing took place in New Ha- | ven May, 1854. Governor Eaton presi- 1 ded with Deputy Govednor Goodyear, | and three "Godly magistrates' as, as- sistants Among the many witnesses, | one Hester Ward swore That Good | wife Knapp was condemned for a witch and was confined in ye prison house in Fairfield" Mistress Pell swore that she was one of the women required by the court to search Mrs Knapp for the marks of a witch before she was con- demned, and that Mistress Jones was another. That Mistress Jones pressed Mrs. Knapp to confess whether there were any other witches, because (mark this) because Goodwife Bassett when she was condemned, said There was another witch in Fairfield that held her head full high. Mistress Pell further avowed that "she bade Mrs. Knapp doe as the witch at the other town did, that is, discover all she knew to be witches"
 Much other testimony of this nature followed, but none referring so point edly to Goody Bassett as this cited In passing 1t may be said that MT. Sta pies won his case and MT. Ludlow was fined fifteen pounds A year later he was fined ten pounds additional in the same matter.
 The Colonial Records would have us believe that the death of Goodwife Knapp ended the list of executions for this alleged crime in Connecticut, but according to the researches of the late Charles J. Hoadly, there were three or more hangings in Hartford as late as 1862.
 But to return to our kinswoman.
 The references made at the Staples trial in Fairfield to Goody Bassett ap- pear free from prejudice. She was not on trial. It is side-light testimony that leaves no reasonable doubt but that the wife of Thomas Bassett suffered not an ignominious death but mar tyr's death on the scaffold. Of herself or her husband we know but little, ex- cept that they came from England to Boston in the ship Christian" in 1884 5. Later they emigrated with the colo ny to Windsor. Conn, and after a short time removed to Stratford, this locality then being a part of the Connecticut colony.
 
 Goodman Bassett, is is said, died in Fairfield. Two sons grew to manhood l and it is possible some of their de- scendants may be living to-day.
 Of her, the mantle of charity of the | year 1901 would make, and justly so, | an innocent victim. We do not believe | ih witches orain witchcraft, as did our forefathers two and half centuries | ago. We do not believe witch, in their acceptation, existed in that day. It is not possible for us to conceive of l the bellishness of those who sought to fasten the stigma of sorcery upon some unfortunate woman, or the fiendish | means employed to dray them to death. Confess! contest! they demanded and then on the strength of that confession accomplished and gloated over the death of their victims. We stand ap- palled at the blow struck at Lincoln a Garfield-a Mckinley, and VOW to ex- terminate the whole vigorous brood of assassins, yet those loathsome murder CTS were less pitiless in their hunt for blood than were magistrates and wit nesses In New England in their hunt for victims for the gibbet during the witchcraft delusion of the seventeenth century. I am not ashamed of the swinging corpses of Johnson and Bas- sett and Knapp on the gallows of Con- nectieut, but I am ashamed of those who hung them there, whether gover- nor, minister, magistrate or citizen. I had rather to-day be descendant of Ioody Knapp, who, when she was about to die and bounded by her to implicate others in the