Topsfield dair6/1/2023 Indeed, Topsfield was founded in part based on "alarming" 1633 news that the Roman Catholic French had planted settlements nearby and intended to send settlers "with divers priests and Jesuits among them". The witchcraft delusion is an extreme example of how religion is alloyed in Topsfield history, but other examples abound. While the causes of the 1692 witchcraft episode continue to be the subject of historical and sociological study, there is a consensus view that land disputes and perhaps economic rivalry among factions in Salem, Salem Village and Topsfield fuelled animosity and played an underlying role. Many other Topsfield residents were accused of witchcraft until the hysteria ended in May 1693, when the governor of Massachusetts set free all of the remaining persons accused of witchcraft and issued a proclamation of general pardon. Sarah Wildes and Elizabeth Howe from Topsfield were hanged along with Rebecca Nurse. While Sarah was eventually set free, Mary was hanged in September. Young Salem Village girls allegedly possessed by the devil-the source of Rebecca Nurse's witchcraft accusation and most others-also named as witches Rebecca's Topsfield sisters, Sarah Cloyce and Mary Esty. She was the daughter of William Towne of Topsfield. In July 1692, Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village (then part of the town of Salem, now part of present-day Danvers) was hanged at Gallows Hill in Salem. Of these, 19 were hanged and one was pressed to death for refusing to plead. In that year alone, however, over 160 people, mostly from Essex County, Massachusetts, were accused of witchcraft. Historians conclude that not more than 15 people were executed as witches in the American colonies before 1692. People were accused of witchcraft in Europe and the colonies during this time, but executions were relatively rare in the colonies. Belief in witches was normal in the seventeenth century. The Salem witch trials of 1692 touched Topsfield directly. The Topsfield town records last mention Native American residents in 1750. There is no record of hostilities between the colonists and Native Americans in Topsfield, however, even during the French and Indian Wars, which covered the period 1689–1697. Native Americans were held in low regard and were poorly treated by the colonists. Nine years later, two young men were punished for digging up the grave of the sagamore and carrying his skull on a pole. Masconomet died in 1658 and was buried on Sagamore Hill, now in Hamilton. Topsfield was incorporated as a town in 1650. The General Court of Massachusetts renamed the place Topsfield in 1648, undoubtedly after Toppesfield, England, a small parish in the county of Essex north of London. Tradition has long held that the Agawam called the place Shenewemedy, meaning "the pleasant place by the flowing waters." More recent historians believe that Shenewemedy was how the Agawam pronounced New Meadows, rather than a word in their own language. They originally named their settlement New Meadows. The English had settled within the bounds of modern-day Topsfield by 1643. Masconomet deeded all the Agawams' land to Winthrop in 1638 in exchange for twenty pounds sterling. He welcomed Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop on his arrival in Salem Harbor in 1630. However, the first European explorers had brought smallpox to New England, decimating all the shore tribes from the Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay in 1616.Ĭhief Masconomet, for whom Masconomet Regional High School is named, was the sagamore or chief of the Agawam at this time. They claimed the land north of the Danvers River, the whole of Cape Ann and from there to the Merrimack River. The Agawam tribe inhabited Topsfield prior to and during the British colonization in the early seventeenth century. Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Topsfield. Topsfield is located in the North Shore region of Massachusetts. The population was 6,569 at the 2020 census. Topsfield is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |