The hanging of Alse Young

Windsor resident Alse Young was hanged at Hartford on 26 May 1647 on a witchcraft charge. The Connecticut Witch Trials project calls her the first English colonist put to death on a witchcraft charge in North America.

Alse Young, also written Alice Young, lived in Windsor, Connecticut. She was hanged at Hartford on 26 May 1647. Matthew Grant, a Windsor resident and later the town's second clerk, wrote in his diary that Alse Young was hanged, and the Windsor Historical Society says the date sits on the inside cover. Wikipedia puts her age at roughly 32.

Governor John Winthrop Sr. of Massachusetts noted the case in his journal during spring 1647. His entry lists a woman of Windsor, with her name left blank, as tried and put to death at Hartford for witchcraft. The Windsor Historical Society says Winthrop and Grant supply the only direct records of her death. The Connecticut Witch Trials project adds the medical papers of John Winthrop Jr. as a third source and calls her the first English colonist put to death on a witchcraft charge in North America.

Beth M. Caruso, writing for the Connecticut Witch Trials project, found little evidence about Alse Young herself. An old map of Windsor shows a John Young living in Backer Row, a street that has vanished, and historians have presumed he was her husband.