Ann Hibbins

Ann Hibbins (also spelled Hibbons or Hibbens) was a woman executed for witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on June 19, 1656.

[4] He had been a deputy to the General Court and became assistant governor in 1643, and thus was one of the magistrates who condemned Margaret Jones for witchcraft in 1648.

The evidences against her were read, the parties witnessing being present, her answers considered on; and the whole Court being met together, by their vote determined that Mrs. Ann Hibbins is guilty of witchcraft, according to the bill of indictment found against her by the jury of life and death.

[2]Historians have found two things out of the ordinary about Ann Hibbins' execution: that a woman of her high social standing would have been persecuted as a witch; and that no evidence, contemporary to her and used to convict her, survived.

[nb 2] In the novel, the central character, Hester Prynne, who has been convicted of adultery and sentenced to wearing the letter "A" upon her outer garment, comes in frequent contact with the witch, Mistress Hibbins.

Hawthorne's depiction of Hibbins has been analyzed by literary critics, who have determined that in the novel she, being a witch, represented for Prynne "a rejected possibility of dealing with social stigma".

It is possible that the list is not complete ; but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be ascertained:— Notes Footnotes