Where did my gifts come from??? I think I know! My 9 times Great Grandmother was accused and tried for Witch Craft twice in the 1600’s She was quite famous and several books have been written about her. She was known as The Witch of North Hampton Massachusetts, near Boston and Salem. In the year of 1656 was the first time Mary Bliss Parsons of Northampton was accused of witchcraft. Nineteen years later, in 1675, she was indicted for witchcraft again and imprisoned for 10 weeks in Boston to await her trial. Some of the magistrates who sat in judgment of her went on to also seat in judgment of the horrific Salem witchcraft trials of 1692-3, the last hurrah for New England’s witch hunters.
Mary Bliss was born in England in about 1627. She came to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1635 at the age of about eight
with her parents and four elder step-brothers.
By 1640 they, and many others, had followed the great Puritan
divine Thomas Hooker to Hartford in Connecticut Colony and
belonged to the first group of settlers there.
Many extant records and a number of depositions explain the accusations of witchcraft against Mary. When the whole story comes out it all comes down to basically 4 main things.
#1 Was jealousy of her — that she had the help of the devil for her wonderful life in others eyes —the successful delivery of her children while many women lost their babies. — This was very unusual in the 1600’s. Mary successfully delivered 11 babies and 9 of those grew into adulthood.
— Jealousy of her great beauty her It was written that Mary Parsons was ‘possessed of great beauty and talents.’ She was not very ‘amiable,’ she had ‘haughty manners’ and was ‘exclusive in the choice of her associates.’ So, there she was, beautiful and rich with a mind of her own to speak. So many were convinced Mary’s good fortune was a gift from the devil.
And finally jealousy of her for what was considered to be a very successful marriage. She married Joseph Parsons in 1646. He was young and handsome, and treated his wife & children well. (As well as any Puritan did at that time) He would become the wealthiest man in Hampshire County and, before he died, one of the richest in the territory. Joseph traded furs, owned a retail store and the sawmill and co-owned the first grist mill in Northampton. In 1661, he got a license to keep an ordinary, or tavern, there. He would become the largest land owner in the new settlement of Northfield, and in Boston he bought a house, a wharf and warehouses.
Joseph also served often as selectman and, because
he knew the Indians through his trading enterprises,
as liaison between the natives and the townsmen.
#2 Mary could read and write at a time that it was illegal for women to be educated. These were Puritan times. Women were nothing more than possessions. And worse yet she was known to advise and discuss business with her husband and he actually listened to her advice! That was a death sentence in itself at that time!
#3 Mary was known to have trouble sleeping at night and many times walked at night to settle her mind. Several people saw Mary walking out at night wearing nothing but her shift. One man said he followed her and saw her walk on water. When he reported her, he said her clothes were not wet. It was also rumored that if Mary walked by your home late at night that your baby would die within a day…. One neighbors cow died the day after Mary had went for one of her late night strolls past their home. Unfortunately her husband had confided to a friend that she would go days and days without sleeping and sometimes without talking.
#4 Mary was a known Healer. She was a self-taught great herbologist and talked with and visited the Indian Women at the Indian villages often to learn the craft of healing herbs and Indian ways. Going so far to even learn some of their language! Talking with Indians was considered to be devil influenced! The Indians after all were heathens and should be avoided at all costs! And even though many of the village people feared, hated and shunned her it would all change when they were sick and then they would show up at her doorstep begging for her help. She was known to have healing hands and it was recorded that she could improve someone’s illness just by the laying of hands on them. I believe in her own way she knew how to manipulate the energies of others Chakras. Today this is call Reiki! And I am a registered Reiki Master!
Mary at one time early in her marriage told her husband that she could see spirits fly around her in the dark. She was about 16 at this time. No one knows for sure why she was so disturbed during this time. I believe that she was coming into her psychic abilities and of course at this Puritan Time in History it scared her, and with good reason! I feel it would also explain why she had trouble sleeping and spent a lot of time alone and not speaking. It would have been a fatal mistake to share her feelings and fears. There would be no one that she could totally trust…..
Mary Parsons’ arrest, indictment, imprisonment and trial was on May 13, 1675.
Depositions and testimony of this trial have been lost, but historians assume that
many of the same charges brought against Mary during the first trial were
brought up again in the second trial. Mary testified to her innocence and that she had committed no crimes.
She said, “The righteous God knows of my innocency—with whom I leave my cause.”
A jury of 12 men found her innocent, (at both trials) and the governor, and magistrates of the Court of Assistants allowed her to go free. She went home to care for her children, the last of whom was still only two.