William Brown

Notes:

Constable of Salisbury in 1675. Testified against Susannah (North) Martin in her 1692 trial for witchcraft, following which she was hung.

From Massachusetts and Maine Families in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis, citation details below:

"That he did not share the place held by his two brothers in public life may perhaps be attributed to the sad fact of the insanity of his wife, who lost her reason about the year 1660. The story can best be told in the words of William Brown himself, in his deposition agains Susanna Martin used in 1692 at the trial of that strong and spirited woman, to whose witchcraft his demented wife laid her affliction:

"'The deposition of William Brown of Salisbury, aged seventy years, who, testifying, saith: That about one or two and thirty years ago Elizabeth, his wife, being a very rational woman and sober, and one that feared God, as was well known to all that knew her, and as prudently careful in her family, which woman going upon a time from her own house towards the mill in Salisbury, did there meet with Susanna Martin, the then wife of George Martin, of Amesbury. Just as they came together the said Susanna Martin vanished away out of her sight, which put the said Elizabeth into a great fright; after which time the said Martin did many times appear to her at her house, and did much trouble her in many of her occasions; and this continued until about February following, and then, when she did come, it was as birds pecking her legs or pricking her with the motion of their wings; and then it would rise up into her stomach, with pricking pain, as nails and pins; of which she did bitterly complain, and cry out like a woman in travail; and after that it would rise up to her throat in a bunch like a pullet's egg, and then she would turn back her head and say "Witch, ye sha'n't choke me." In the times of this extremity the church appointed a day of humiliation, to seek God on her behalf, and thereupon her trouble ceased, and she saw goodwife Martin no more for a considerable time, for which the church, instead of a day of humiliation, gave thanks for her deliverance. She came to meeting and went about her business as before. This continued till April following, at which time the summonses were sent to the said Elizabeth Brown and goodwife Osgood by the court to give their evidences concerning the said Martin; and they did, before the grand jury, give a full account. After which time the said Elizabeth told this deponent that, as she was milking her cow, the said Susanna Martin came behind her and told her that she would make her the miserablest creature for defaming her name at the court, and wept grievously as she told it to this deponent. About two months after this deponent came home from Hampton, and his said wife would not own him, but said they were divorced, and asked him whether he did not meet with one Mrs. Bent of Albury, in England, by whom he was divorced. And from that time to this very day she has been under a strange kind of distemper and frenzy, incapable of any rational action, though strong and healthy of body. He further testifyeth that when she came into that condition this deponent (got) Doctors Fuller and Crosby to come to her for her release, but they did both say that her distemper was supernatural, no sickness of body, but that some evil person had bewitched her.'

"Sworn the 11th of May, Anno Domini 1692, before me, Robert Pike, Assistant."

William married Elisabeth Murford on 25 Jun 1645. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Mary Brown was born on 17 Jun 1647 in Salisbury, Essex, Massachusetts.

George married Christian Hibbert on 30 Sep 1611 in St. Edmund's, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Christian died on 28 Dec 1641. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From Massachusetts and Maine Families in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis, citation details below:

The Parish of St. Edmund's, Salisbury, had been a stronghold of Puritanism since the resignation of Rev. Hugh Williams and the induction of Rev. Peter Thacher as rector by Bishop Davenport in 1622/3. Mr. Francis Dove, twice mayor of the city, was one of the wardens of St. Edmund's, and it is not surprising to find Christian Brown and her family, under his advice and protection, joining the group of their fellow parishioners who ventured forth from old Salisbury in 1638 to found a new Salisbury on the western continent where the persecution of Archbishop Laud could not follow them.

The courageous widow appears on the undated list of the first settlers of Salisbury, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, among whom the common lands of the new town were first divided. She also received lands in the divisions of 1640 and 1641. She did not long survive the hardships which her adventure must have imposed upon her, however, and her death is recorded on December 28, 1641.