Anne Hibbins of Boston was Executed for Witchcraft in Boston in 1656
Anne immigrated to Boston in the 1630s with her second husband William Hibbins, leaving three sons in England. William established himself as a merchant and served in politics, including as an Assistant to the Massachusetts General Court, but the couple’s fortunes changed dramatically after William lost 500 pounds in a business error, an enormous sum when average estates were valued at 100 to 200 pounds. In 1640, Anne clashed with carpenters over charges for work on her house. Despite lengthy mediation, she refused to let the matter go and was excommunicated from her church in 1641 for usurping her husband’s authority. This financial setback allegedly changed Anne’s temperament; historian Thomas Hutchinson later described her as “turbulent and quarrelsome.” William continued in politics despite their troubles, serving as Assistant from 1643 until his death in 1654. Once widowed and without male relatives in the colony, Anne became vulnerable. In 1655, she was arrested and convicted by a jury, but magistrates were uncertain and referred the case to the General Court for retrial. She was convicted again in May 1656 and hanged June 19. Minister John Norton reportedly said, “Mistress Hibbins was hanged for a witch only for having more wit than her neighbors.” Notably, she was tried by the same General Court her husband had served. Governor John Endecott presided over the government during Anne’s trial and execution, and the fact that the magistrates initially hesitated and referred the case back for retrial suggests significant uncertainty even among colonial leadership about the evidence against her. Her case highlighted the vulnerability of widowed women without male protection in Puritan society. Two centuries later, Nathaniel Hawthorne immortalized Anne Hibbins in fiction as Mistress Hibbins in The Scarlet Letter, portraying her as a witch who tempts the protagonist Hester Prynne to join midnight gatherings in the forest. Some sources have incorrectly claimed that Anne Hibbins was the sister of Governor Richard Bellingham, but this is fiction that appears to have originated with or been popularized by Hawthorne’s novel. While Hawthorne’s fictional depiction has kept Anne’s name alive in American literature, it has also perpetuated both an image of her as actually practicing witchcraft and false genealogical connections, rather than presenting her as a victim of injustice, complicating modern efforts to restore her memory accurately.
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Sources:
David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693
John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England
Paul B. Moyer, Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World