Witch trials in Maryland

It was not unique, but is a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe.

But as the century went on, Puritan immigration displaced the Catholics and turned Maryland overwhelmingly Protestant.

From 1644 to the 1670s, a series of religious conflicts in the colony eventually lead to the Protestant Revolution, and as a result Catholicism was made illegal in the province, and Puritans took control of the Maryland government.

Through testimonies held on June 23, 1654, it is revealed that Mary Lee was executed for being a witch three weeks prior to arriving.

Judicial witch trials lasted until 1712, when Virtue Violl was accused and found not-guilty.

Historian Francis Neal Parke believed that the jury held a similar belief to that echoed by Joseph Addison in The Spectator from 1711.

The earliest surviving documentation of witchcraft in the colony of Maryland dates back to the June 23, 1654 depositions of Captain John Bosworth, captain of the 'Charity of London', Henry Corbyn, a young merchant from London, and Francis Darby, a gentleman who was a passenger on the ship.

Francis Darby, who helped search Mary Lee's body, recalled how she was hung to death by the sailors.

[6] Word of Mary Lee's execution spread through the colony, as proof of witches in Maryland.

"[7] On another evening John Killey, a 25-year-old, claimed that at the house of Phillip Hide, Richard asked Peter to prove his wife was a witch again.

Speaker[8] Richard Preston required Peter Godson and his wife apologize, and were ordered to pay damages.

"[11] John Cowman was the first judicial conviction under the Statute of James I witchcraft, conjuration, sorcery or enchantment upon the body of Elizabeth Goodale, and sentenced to be hanged.

[2] On October 5, 1712, the provincial court met in Annapolis, Maryland with justice Thomas Smithson presiding.