Individual Details
Elizabeth Jackson
(Abt Apr 1635 - 19 Jul 1692)
}
[[Category: Essex County, Massachusetts, Howe Name Study]]
[[Category: Topsfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Salem_Witch_Trials]]
[[Category:Accused_Witches_of_New_England]]
[[Category: Massachusetts, Immigrants from England]]
[[Category: Executed]]
[[Category: Death by Hanging]]
[[Category: United States, Death by Hanging]]
== Biography ==
: Elizabeth Jackson and the Salem Witch TrialsPerhaps the youngest person to make the journey with Ezekiel Rogers from Rowley in the East Riding to New England in 1638 was Elizabeth Jackson. (NOTE: Ezekiel Rogers appears on the Manifest of the ship John of London, and the Jacksons do not.[http://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/johnoflondon.htm Manifest of John of London, Summer, 1638] They clearly arrived soon after as they joined Rogers in the initial settlement of Rowley.) Elizabeth was born in the hamlet of Hunsley, probably somewhere near the modern High Hunsley Farm, part of the parish of Rowley, in May 1637. She was baptized on 1 May 1637 in East RIding.Yorkshire, Bishop's Transcripts of Baptisms, Borthwick Institute for Archives She was little more than a year old when she sailed from Hull with her parents, William and Deborah Jackson, for the new World. When Rowley was established, her parents were allocated a one and a half acre lot of landStandard History of Essex County, Rowley chapter, by CF Jewett but by 1652 they had increased this to 12 acres.
By the age of seven Elizabeth was already described as a maid in Ezekiel Rogers house and when she was twenty one years old she married James Howe on 13 Apr 1658Ipswich, Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriages who came from the neighbouring village of Ipswich. James was blind but he and his wife seem to have been successful farmers in Ipswich. They had five children..Daniel Wait Howe, Howe Genealogies, Vol. 2, Abraham of Roxbury, NEHGS; Boston; 1929; p158-159. and by all accounts, Elizabeth seems to have been an assertive personality, who initially proved she was more than able to defend the interests of her husband and children in these frontier lands. This may well have made her unpopular with some of her neighbours in what was then a predominantly male dominated society.
}The family's problems seemed to have begun in 1682 when Elizabeth was 45 years old. Hannah Trumble, a child of another local family, started having fits and during these sometimes accused Elizabeth of using witchcraft to make her ill. Later, when questioned after recovered from a fit, Hannah refused to name Elizabeth as a witch. However, the initial damage was done and Elizabeth's reputation in the local community was tarnished. She was refused admittance to Ipswich church, and for the following ten years her activities were increasingly confined to the family home and fields.
The issue of witchcraft was revived once more some ten years later in the nearby town of Salem. The colony was experiencing difficult times and aftera series of seemingly unnatural and unexplained events, some of the inhabitants looked round for people to blame, for scapegoats. The catalyst for the witchcraft hysteria which followed came from a group of young girls enthralled by the tales of Tituba, a Barbados slave, who allegedly ranted about black magic and Satanism. Their behaviour subsequently degenerated into a series of screaming spasms, probably encouraged by the attention their behaviour brought them from alarmed adults.
During the heights of their hysteria they accused a number of mainly middle aged or elderly women of witchcraft. Panic spread and the colony was soon in turmoil. The newly appointed Governor, Sir William Phipps, set up a special court with powers to hold hearings and, if necessary, conduct trials. The collective paranoia fed on the preachings of a young protestant theologian, Cotton Mather, who called for the firm control of witchcraft if the colony was to survive. The situation reached fever point when the ten year old accusation of witchcraft against Elizabeth was revived. She was summoned for a hearing and put in prison with a number of other women to await trial. Her warders treated her harshly in the hope she would confess her guilt but throughout her ordeal she was supported by her loyal husband and family. Many of those subsequently accused did confess and so survived by promising to give up witchcraft but Elizabeth continually refused to do this and always proclaimed her innocence.
Elizabeth was one of five women arraigned in the first Salem witch trial and was brought to court on the 30th June 1692. Despite strong support from family and friends, she was found guilty and hanged three weeks later on the 19th July 1692, along with the other four accused. A further fourteen alleged witches and warlocks were subsequently hung or pressed to death in Salem during the months of August and September 1692; by November more than 150 people had been accused.
Hanged as a witch, she died on 19 Jul 1692 at Proctor's Ledge, Gallows Hill, Salem, Massachusetts Bay. “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/salemwitchcraftw02upha_0/page/268.
Finally, the atmosphere began to change, the accusers now became suspect and the frenzy subsided. All those accused were freed. Many years later, in 1710, legal proceedings were instituted to verify Elizabeth's innocence. The conviction was reversed and the family received compensation for the loss of her life. This, however, can have provided little real recompense for the family whose mother had been so cruelly taken from them. Like the other scapegoats for the colony's ills, Elizabeth was probably one of the more assertive and free thinking women of her time which might not have gone down well in a society then dominated by men and where women were expected to know their place. The Salem Witch trials were one of the most tragic events in early-modern American history and continue to fascinate the modern imagination. Many East Riding people have heard of the Salem witch trials but some do not realise that a locally born woman was one of the early victims of this collective frenzy.
No relation to Caleb (from Nicholas Jackson of Rowley, Massachusetts and his Descendants)
'''Massachusetts Remediation'''
# 17 October 1710, ''Convictions Reversed'', The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, An act, ''the several convictions, judgments, and attainders be, and hereby are, reversed, and declared to be null and void.'' “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17845/17845-h/salem2-htm.html#Page_ii.480.# 17 Dec 1711, ''Compensation to Survivors'', Governor Dudley, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, approved compensation ''to such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead'' ['''For Elizabeth How, £14]'''# 28 Aug 1957, ''No Disgrace to Descendants'', General Court of Massachusetts, ''...such proceedings, were and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings...have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws, no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings.''https://www.mass.gov/doc/resolves-of-1957-chapter-145/download# 31 Oct 2001, ''Additional Victims Included'', Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives in General Court, AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE WITCHCRAFT TRIAL OF 1692, ''chapter 145 is hereby further amended by adding Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd.''https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2001/Chapter122
== Sources ==
See also:
* [[Wikipedia: Elizabeth Howe]]* [http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n72.html The Salem Witchcraft Papers (SWP No. 072) Elizabeth How]* James Savage, ''A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May 1692,'' originally published 1860, electronic ver. copyright R. Kraft July, 1994; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, Inc; Call Number: Lib of Cong.# 65-18541, ISB# 0-8063-0309-3 * Blake Smith Jackson, ''Nicholas Jackson of Rowley, Massachusetts and his Descendants 1635-1976 with Allied Lines,'' 1977 * Philip Graystone, ''Elizabeth Jackson of Rowley,'' (UK: Lampada Press 1993)* Paul Boyer, ''Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft,'' (USA: Harvard University Press, 1974)* Paul Boyer, ''Salem-Village Witchcraft: a documentary record of local conflict in colonial New England,'' (USA: Wadsworth, 1972)* George Lincoln Burr, ''Narratives of Witchcraft Cases 1648 - 1706,'' (USA:Barnes and Noble 1946, repr. 1963)* Marion Starkey, ''The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials,'' (USA: Anchor Books, 1969)* Charles Wentworth Upham, ''Salem Witchcraft: with an account of Salem village and a history of opinions on witchcraft and kindred spirits,'' (USA: originally published Boston 1867, republished Dover, 2000.* [http://womenhistory.blogspot.com/2008/05/elizabeth-jackson-howe.html History of American Women. Elizabeth Jackson Howe]* “A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft TrialsIllustrated by a Verbatim Report of the Trial of Mrs. Elizabeth Howe : Perley, Martin Van Buren : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Project Gutenberg. Accessed January 8, 2020. https://archive.org/details/ashorthistoryoft54042gut.* Ancestry.com, comp. Salem Witches. [database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2000. Original information from surviving legal records from the towns and villages in question and appearing in Godbeer, Richard, comp. ''The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England,'' Appendices A & B. [Information taken from Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak. 3 vols. New York, NY: 1977.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
[[Category: Essex County, Massachusetts, Howe Name Study]]
[[Category: Topsfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Salem_Witch_Trials]]
[[Category:Accused_Witches_of_New_England]]
[[Category: Massachusetts, Immigrants from England]]
[[Category: Executed]]
[[Category: Death by Hanging]]
[[Category: United States, Death by Hanging]]
== Biography ==
: Elizabeth Jackson and the Salem Witch TrialsPerhaps the youngest person to make the journey with Ezekiel Rogers from Rowley in the East Riding to New England in 1638 was Elizabeth Jackson. (NOTE: Ezekiel Rogers appears on the Manifest of the ship John of London, and the Jacksons do not.[http://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/johnoflondon.htm Manifest of John of London, Summer, 1638] They clearly arrived soon after as they joined Rogers in the initial settlement of Rowley.) Elizabeth was born in the hamlet of Hunsley, probably somewhere near the modern High Hunsley Farm, part of the parish of Rowley, in May 1637. She was baptized on 1 May 1637 in East RIding.Yorkshire, Bishop's Transcripts of Baptisms, Borthwick Institute for Archives She was little more than a year old when she sailed from Hull with her parents, William and Deborah Jackson, for the new World. When Rowley was established, her parents were allocated a one and a half acre lot of landStandard History of Essex County, Rowley chapter, by CF Jewett but by 1652 they had increased this to 12 acres.
By the age of seven Elizabeth was already described as a maid in Ezekiel Rogers house and when she was twenty one years old she married James Howe on 13 Apr 1658Ipswich, Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriages who came from the neighbouring village of Ipswich. James was blind but he and his wife seem to have been successful farmers in Ipswich. They had five children..Daniel Wait Howe, Howe Genealogies, Vol. 2, Abraham of Roxbury, NEHGS; Boston; 1929; p158-159. and by all accounts, Elizabeth seems to have been an assertive personality, who initially proved she was more than able to defend the interests of her husband and children in these frontier lands. This may well have made her unpopular with some of her neighbours in what was then a predominantly male dominated society.
}The family's problems seemed to have begun in 1682 when Elizabeth was 45 years old. Hannah Trumble, a child of another local family, started having fits and during these sometimes accused Elizabeth of using witchcraft to make her ill. Later, when questioned after recovered from a fit, Hannah refused to name Elizabeth as a witch. However, the initial damage was done and Elizabeth's reputation in the local community was tarnished. She was refused admittance to Ipswich church, and for the following ten years her activities were increasingly confined to the family home and fields.
The issue of witchcraft was revived once more some ten years later in the nearby town of Salem. The colony was experiencing difficult times and aftera series of seemingly unnatural and unexplained events, some of the inhabitants looked round for people to blame, for scapegoats. The catalyst for the witchcraft hysteria which followed came from a group of young girls enthralled by the tales of Tituba, a Barbados slave, who allegedly ranted about black magic and Satanism. Their behaviour subsequently degenerated into a series of screaming spasms, probably encouraged by the attention their behaviour brought them from alarmed adults.
During the heights of their hysteria they accused a number of mainly middle aged or elderly women of witchcraft. Panic spread and the colony was soon in turmoil. The newly appointed Governor, Sir William Phipps, set up a special court with powers to hold hearings and, if necessary, conduct trials. The collective paranoia fed on the preachings of a young protestant theologian, Cotton Mather, who called for the firm control of witchcraft if the colony was to survive. The situation reached fever point when the ten year old accusation of witchcraft against Elizabeth was revived. She was summoned for a hearing and put in prison with a number of other women to await trial. Her warders treated her harshly in the hope she would confess her guilt but throughout her ordeal she was supported by her loyal husband and family. Many of those subsequently accused did confess and so survived by promising to give up witchcraft but Elizabeth continually refused to do this and always proclaimed her innocence.
Elizabeth was one of five women arraigned in the first Salem witch trial and was brought to court on the 30th June 1692. Despite strong support from family and friends, she was found guilty and hanged three weeks later on the 19th July 1692, along with the other four accused. A further fourteen alleged witches and warlocks were subsequently hung or pressed to death in Salem during the months of August and September 1692; by November more than 150 people had been accused.
Hanged as a witch, she died on 19 Jul 1692 at Proctor's Ledge, Gallows Hill, Salem, Massachusetts Bay. “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/salemwitchcraftw02upha_0/page/268.
Finally, the atmosphere began to change, the accusers now became suspect and the frenzy subsided. All those accused were freed. Many years later, in 1710, legal proceedings were instituted to verify Elizabeth's innocence. The conviction was reversed and the family received compensation for the loss of her life. This, however, can have provided little real recompense for the family whose mother had been so cruelly taken from them. Like the other scapegoats for the colony's ills, Elizabeth was probably one of the more assertive and free thinking women of her time which might not have gone down well in a society then dominated by men and where women were expected to know their place. The Salem Witch trials were one of the most tragic events in early-modern American history and continue to fascinate the modern imagination. Many East Riding people have heard of the Salem witch trials but some do not realise that a locally born woman was one of the early victims of this collective frenzy.
No relation to Caleb (from Nicholas Jackson of Rowley, Massachusetts and his Descendants)
'''Massachusetts Remediation'''
# 17 October 1710, ''Convictions Reversed'', The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, An act, ''the several convictions, judgments, and attainders be, and hereby are, reversed, and declared to be null and void.'' “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17845/17845-h/salem2-htm.html#Page_ii.480.# 17 Dec 1711, ''Compensation to Survivors'', Governor Dudley, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, approved compensation ''to such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead'' ['''For Elizabeth How, £14]'''# 28 Aug 1957, ''No Disgrace to Descendants'', General Court of Massachusetts, ''...such proceedings, were and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings...have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws, no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings.''https://www.mass.gov/doc/resolves-of-1957-chapter-145/download# 31 Oct 2001, ''Additional Victims Included'', Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives in General Court, AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE WITCHCRAFT TRIAL OF 1692, ''chapter 145 is hereby further amended by adding Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd.''https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2001/Chapter122
== Sources ==
See also:
* [[Wikipedia: Elizabeth Howe]]* [http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n72.html The Salem Witchcraft Papers (SWP No. 072) Elizabeth How]* James Savage, ''A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May 1692,'' originally published 1860, electronic ver. copyright R. Kraft July, 1994; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, Inc; Call Number: Lib of Cong.# 65-18541, ISB# 0-8063-0309-3 * Blake Smith Jackson, ''Nicholas Jackson of Rowley, Massachusetts and his Descendants 1635-1976 with Allied Lines,'' 1977 * Philip Graystone, ''Elizabeth Jackson of Rowley,'' (UK: Lampada Press 1993)* Paul Boyer, ''Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft,'' (USA: Harvard University Press, 1974)* Paul Boyer, ''Salem-Village Witchcraft: a documentary record of local conflict in colonial New England,'' (USA: Wadsworth, 1972)* George Lincoln Burr, ''Narratives of Witchcraft Cases 1648 - 1706,'' (USA:Barnes and Noble 1946, repr. 1963)* Marion Starkey, ''The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials,'' (USA: Anchor Books, 1969)* Charles Wentworth Upham, ''Salem Witchcraft: with an account of Salem village and a history of opinions on witchcraft and kindred spirits,'' (USA: originally published Boston 1867, republished Dover, 2000.* [http://womenhistory.blogspot.com/2008/05/elizabeth-jackson-howe.html History of American Women. Elizabeth Jackson Howe]* “A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft TrialsIllustrated by a Verbatim Report of the Trial of Mrs. Elizabeth Howe : Perley, Martin Van Buren : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Project Gutenberg. Accessed January 8, 2020. https://archive.org/details/ashorthistoryoft54042gut.* Ancestry.com, comp. Salem Witches. [database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2000. Original information from surviving legal records from the towns and villages in question and appearing in Godbeer, Richard, comp. ''The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England,'' Appendices A & B. [Information taken from Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak. 3 vols. New York, NY: 1977.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Events
| Birth | Abt Apr 1635 | Hunsley, Rowley, East Riding, Yorkshire, England | |||
| Death | 19 Jul 1692 | Gallows Hill, Salem, Essex, Province of Massachusetts Bay | |||
| Reference No | 3716781 | ||||
| Reference No | 3780056 | ||||
| Reference No | 60 |
Families
| Father | William Jackson (1607 - 1688) |
| Mother | Joane Jackson (1617 - 1680) |
| Sibling | Mary Jackson (1639 - 1715) |
| Sibling | John Jackson (1636 - 1718) |