Rebecca Nurse (née Towne; February 13, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

The daughter of William (c. 1598–1672) and Joanna Towne (c. 1595/99–1682) (née Blessing), Rebecca Nurse was born in Great Yarmouth, England in 1621.

It was later written that Rebecca had "acquired a reputation for exemplary piety that was virtually unchallenged in the community," making her one of the "unlikely" persons to be accused of witchcraft.

In 1678 they were offered the opportunity to lease-to-own a 300-acre (120 ha) farm in the rural village area of Salem (today Danvers, Massachusetts), originally a part of a grant given to Townsend Bishop in 1636.

Upon hearing of the accusations, the frail 71-year-old Nurse, often described as an invalid, said, "I am innocent as the child unborn, but surely, what sin hath God found out in me unrepented of, that He should lay such an affliction on me in my old age.

"[3] A public outcry greeted the accusations made against her, as she was considered to be a woman of very pious character, who lived in amity with her neighbours, and had a reputation for benevolence.

Her neighbor Sarah Holton, accused Rebecca of acting quite unreasonably in a quarrel over some trespassing pigs and cursing her husband to his death.

Sarah Holten believed that Rebecca placed a curse on her husband but later thought better of it and was one of the first to speak about the injustice of the trials.

[6] Hathorne was no doubt influenced by the fact that his sister Elizabeth Porter was a close friend of Rebecca, and one of her staunchest defenders.

The jury asked Rebecca to explain her remark that another accused witch, Deliverance Hobbs, was "of her company", the implication being that they had both signed a pact with the Devil.

Although her exact resting place has never been confirmed her descendants erected a tall granite memorial in the family plot in 1885 at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead cemetery in Danvers (formerly Salem Village), Massachusetts.

(From the poem "Christian Martyr," by John Greenleaf Whittier) In 1706, her accuser, Ann Putnam, Jr., composed a confession in consultation with the Reverend Joseph Green, Samuel Parris's successor as minister of Salem's church.

[10] She expressed great remorse for her role against Rebecca and her two sisters, Mary Eastey and Sarah Cloyce, in particular: "I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father's family in the year about '92; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons; and that it was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time, whereby I justly fear I have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon myself and this land the guilt of innocent blood; though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded by Satan.

In 1712, the Salem Towne church reversed the verdict of excommunication it had passed on her: "that it be no longer a reproach to her memory or an occasion of grief to her children".

The first memorial to anyone accused of witchcraft in North America, the granite obelisk bears an inscription by poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who lived nearby at that time.

[15] In 1892, the community erected a second monument recognizing the 40 neighbors, led by Israel and Elizabeth (Hathorne) Porter, who took the risk of publicly supporting Nurse by signing a petition to the court on her behalf in 1692.

[citation needed] She is likewise a major character in Robert Ward’s Pulitzer Prize-winning operatic adaptation of Miller's play.

Nurse can also be found as a supporting character in Katherine Howe's historical fiction, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

[18] Rebecca Nurse is the ancestor of several notable people, including Vincent Price, Erin Nielsen, Mitt Romney, Zach Braff, Bryce Wilson, Amy Grant, Reed Austin, and Lucille Ball.