en:

Mr. Phelps John White John More
Mr. Tailecoat Will Leawis Edw. Griswold
Mr. Hollister Sam. Smith Steph. Harte
Daniel Milton John Pratt Theo. Judd

Before this tribunal--representative of the others doing like service
later--made up of the foremost citizens, and of men in the ordinary
walks of life, endowed with hard common sense and presumably inspired
with a spirit of justice and fair play, came John Carrington and his
wife Joan of Wethersfield, against whom the jury brought in a verdict of
guilty.

It must be clearly borne in mind that all these men, in this as in all
the other witchcraft trials in Connecticut, illustrious or
commonplace--as are many of their descendants whose names are written on
the rolls of the patriotic societies in these days of ancestral
discovery and exploitation--were absolute believers in the powers of
Satan and his machinations through witchcraft and the evidence then
adduced to prove them, and trained to such credulity by their education
and experience, by their theological doctrines, and by the law of the
land in Old England, but still clothed upon with that righteousness
which as it proved in the end made them skeptical as to certain alleged
evidences of guilt, and swift to respond to the calls of reason and of
mercy when the appeals were made to their calm judgment and second
thought as to the sins of their fellowmen.

In no way can the truth be so clearly set forth, the real character of
the evidence be so justly appreciated upon which the convictions were
had, as from the depositions and the oral testimony of the witnesses
themselves. They are lasting memorials to the credulity and
superstition, and the religious insanity which clouded the senses of the
wisest men for a time, and to the malevolence and satanic ingenuity of
the people who, possessed of the devil accused their friends and
neighbors of a crime punishable by death.

Nor is this dark chapter in colonial history without its flashes of
humor and ridiculousness, as one follows the absurd and unbridled
testimonies which have been chosen as completely illustrative of the
whole series in the years of the witchcraft nightmare. They are in part
cited here, for the sake of authenticity and exactness, as written out
in the various court records and depositions, published and unpublished,
in the ancient style of spelling, and are worthy the cl