Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in colonial America, was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and infanticide before one of the earliest all-female juries in the United States.
[citation needed] Catchpole was an indentured servant in the colony of Maryland, arriving there by boat from the Commonwealth of England in January 1656.
Upon her arrival she was accused of several crimes, resulting in a trial on September 22, 1656 in the General Provincial Court in Patuxent County, Maryland.
[citation needed] She was accused of killing her child, cutting the throat of a female passenger while the woman was asleep, and stabbing a seaman in the back.
No other passengers substantiated these accusations, nor could any account for how Catchpole had hidden a pregnancy during the voyage and given birth on a small ship without others seeing evidence of this.