| Notes |
- Mary, the wife of Cornet Joseph Parsons, was the daughter of Thomas Bliss, of Hartford, Conn., a s/o Thomas Bliss, of Belstone Parish, Devonshire, England. She was born in England in 1620 and came to this country with her parents. The Bliss family soon became prominent in the Connecticut Valley, and has ever since been honorably known in the history of the country. In 1656, and soon after the removal of the Parsons family from Springfield to Northampton, Joseph Parsons brought an action for slander against Sarah Bridgman, the wife of James Bridgman, charging that Sarah had accused Mary, his wife, of being a witch. The record of this notable case will be found at considerable length in Trumbull's History of Northampton, Vol. I, pp. 43-50; also on pages 228-234, copied from the original record now on file in Boston. I will give only its substance.
Several Springfield families, including the Bridgmans, had settled in Northampton. It seems that Mary Parsons' strong personality had aroused enmity in Springfield, which followed her to Northampton, and neighborhood gossip did the rest and she was accused of being a witch. Margaret Bliss, the mother of Mary Parsons, hearing these stories lost no time in interviewing the author of these stories.
"Goodwife Bridgman was equal to the occasion and told her to her face that she did hear that her daughter was suspected to be a witch." Exasperated by this slanderous gossip, Joseph Parsons brought this action to defend the reputation of his wife. The belief in witchcraft was common at that time and the charge involved an unholy partnership with the devil. We, of the 20th Century, find it difficult to appreciate the situation as it existed 250 years ago, but the trials, persecutions, and punishments for witchcraft which took place in Massachusetts, a few years later, are the darkest blots upon its otherwise glorious history. The record of the testimony upon the trial which followed arouses mingled feelings of mirth and sadness and can be summarized somewhat as follows:
Following hard upon the heels of any disagreement, or quarrel, between Mary Parsons and any member of the Bridgman family, a fatal disease would seize upon some horse, cow, or pig, belonging to the Bridgman family and, as the disease could not be accounted for in any other way, it must be the result of Mary's uncanny influence exercised by way of revenge. Mrs. Bridgman's child died and she said she thought Mary Parsons had bewitched it.
Her eleven-year-old son fractured his knee, which seems to have been very bunglingly set by the "Chirugeon," and the little fellow in his agony cried out that Mary Parsons was pulling his leg off, and that he saw her on the shelf. When she went away he said that a black mouse followed her.
William Hannum testified that he had a ''falling out'' with Mary Parsons about the use of her brother John's (John Bliss) oxen. After that he lost, by disease, a "lusty cow" and a "lusty swine" that bad before been well and healthy. In a day or two after, while on his way to Windsor, with his cart and oxen, one of the cattle was bitten by a rattlesnake and died there. "These things," he said, "doe something run in my mind that I cannot have my mind from this woman."
A Mrs. Hannum was also a witness. She lived a short distance from Mrs. Parsons on Market Street. She testified that she had "been warned by some of Windsor and some of Norwattack (Northampton) to beware how I had to do with Mary, the wife of Joseph Parsons." Notwithstanding this warning, she spun yarn for Mrs. Parsons and there were disputes between them as to the quantity. Then Mrs. Parsons had asked that one of Mrs. Hannum's daughten might go to live with her, which had been refused. Then her daughter, "though formerly healthy, yet this summer hath been sickly and unhelpful to me which, though I know it may be by God's own immediate hand, yet it causes some jealousyes in me against Mary because it fell out within three or four days after I had given her a full denyal of my daughter's service."
And Trumbull adds : "Here is the covert insinuation of uncanny dealings by Mrs. Parsons. The daughter, charmed with the idea of living with one of the richest families in town was disappointed at the refusal of her mother and sulked and wouldn't help about the house work."
The decision of the court was in favor of the plaintiff and against Mrs. Bridgman, and she was ordered to make public acknowledgment of her fault at Northampton and Springfield, and that her husband, James Bridgman, pay to plaintiff £Io arid J.7 IS, cost of court.
And Trumbull makes the following comment on page 45 : "Mary Parsons was apparently a proud and nervous woman, haughty in demeanor and inclined to carry things with a high hand, she belonged to the aristocracy and evidently considered herself a dame of considerable importance. A woman of forcible speech and domineering ways she was not unwilling that her neighbors should have the benefit of her opinions on any sub ject touching herself and her family. A case so flimsy and frivolous and founded on jealousy, prejudice and superstition, conducted before honorable and sensible men, could not well have reached any other decision.
"To that community, however, in those days of belief in the supernatural it was serious and significant.
"Such gossip was an affront that Esq. Parsons could not ov.erlook in a town in which he ranked as one of the first in worldly possessions."
But the charge of witchcraft against this Mary Parsons did not end with the judgment in the slander suit.
Eighteen years after the charge was renewed and at about the time of the Salem witchcraft trials. The occasion was the death of Mary, a daughter of the same James Bridgman, and then the wife of Samuel Bartlett. The trial occurred in Boston and is referred to on pages 228-233, Vol. I, of Trpmbull's History of Northampton. At page 233 the author says, "the fact that Mrs. Parsons voluntarily appeared before the court 'desiring to clear herself of such an execrable crime,' and that subsequently she argued her own case before the court must not be overlooked.
On both these occasions she met her accusers boldly, protesting her innocence, and showing 'how clear she was of such a crime.' In this trial Mrs. Parsons was 'called to speak for herself' and from the meagre report upon record, undoubtedly did so most effectively."
In the Bliss genealogy, by J. H. Bliss (1881), pages 30-31, appear the record of the marriage of Joseph Parsons to Mary Bliss, and this mention of the witchcraft trial: "Mary Bliss, the mother of this family, two years after the birth of her youngest child, was charged with witchcraft by some of her neighbors who were envious of their prosperity and endeavored in this way to disgrace them.
"She was sent to Boston for trial, where the jury gave her a full acquittal of the crime and she returned home to N orthamp ton, from where they moved back to Springfield in 1679. Just after her acquittal in Boston her son, Ebenezer, was killed by the Indians and those who had been instrumental in bringing her to trial said, 'Behold, though human judges may be bought off, God's vengeance neither turns aside nor slumbers.' It is said that she possessed great beauty and talents but was not very amiable."
Mrs. Mary Parsons survived her husband twenty-seven years, dying in Springfield, in 1712, aged ninety-two. Her name as Widow Parsons appears in the Springfield records as a taxpayer and owner of real estate to the time of her death. [2]
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Old Dead Relatives
Abt 1628 - 1712 (~ 84 years)
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