John Willard
| John Willard | |
|---|---|
| Died | August 19, 1692 Salem Village, Province of Massachusetts Bay |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Constable |
| Known for | Convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials |
John Willard was one of the people executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials of 1692. He was hanged on Gallows Hill, Salem on August 19, 1692.
At the time of the first allegations of witchcraft Willard was serving as a constable in the village of Salem and his duties included bringing the accused before the court. Soon, however, he began to doubt the truth of the accusations and in May 1692 he refused to make any more arrests. In retaliation Ann Putnam, Jr. and others accused him of witchcraft, and of murdering thirteen citizens.
Some of his in-laws made accusations. Benjamin Wilkins would tell the court that Willard had previously beat his wife. Samuel Wilkins testified that he had repeatedly been irritated and afflicted by something in a dark colored coat -- and that it was John Willard. John Wilkins would blame the death of his wife, after having delivered a baby, on John Willard... [p]atriarch, Bray Wilkins, would say that he came down with his illness after John Willard had looked at him with an evil eye. Willard was found guilty of witchcraft on August 5, 1692. On August 19, 1692, he was hanged, along with John Proctor, George Burroughs, George Jacobs, Sr., and Martha Carrier. Willard maintained his innocence until the very end.
Most of the information on John Willard's early life is relatively obscure. However, most scholars conclude that he probably came from Lancaster, MA. Indeed, it was Lancaster where Willard fled to after being accused of witchcraft. During his youth John Willard lived in Lancaster and worked under a Major Simon Willard, one of the most prominent Massachusetts land speculators of the mid-seventeenth century. Some scholars have concluded that John Willard was either the son, or grandson of Major Willard.
The Wilkins disapproved of John Willard immediately after Margaret Knight decided to marry him. This was partly due to Willard's chosen profession and the failure of a business venture by Bray Wilkins decades earlier. In 1658 Bray Wilkins, the future grandfather-in law of John, had teamed up with a tailor named John Gengell to purchase, on credit, a 700 acre tract of land around Will's Hill. Soon Wilkins and Gengell put up houses and moved their entire families to the remote region. Wilkins and Gengell soon began logging and timber-processing operations. At first the duo prospered, as one of Wilkins' son would boast to a friend that the family operation produced 20,000 barrel staves and 6,000 feet of boards. In terms of profitability, however, the operation was a marginal one. In 1661, Bray Wilkins, in an embarrassing episode, would be arrested and admit to stealing hay in order to feed his oxen with which he transported his timber to Salem Town. Later, his business would suffer an even greater setback during the winter of 1664-1665 when his house burned down. Eventually, Wilkins and Gengell would be unable to keep up with the mortgage payments and would return two-thirds of the land they had been attempting to purchase, however, even with the reduced mortgage they were still unable to pay their debts. In June 1666, Robert Bellingham, the man they had purchased the land from and the Royal governor of Massachusetts, won a foreclosure judgement against Wilkins and Gengell. Bellingham's lawyers would seize the stock of shingles and other goods that belonged to Wilkins and Gengell. After some time, Wilkins would pay off the mortgage and hang on to his land but the experience left him with the view that farming was the only reliable way to have a secure living. Thus, seeing one of his daughters marry a man who had interest in land speculation, made him uneasy.
...
Wikipedia