Hoskins, Robert (b. ABT 1550, d. ABT 1616)

Death: ABT 1616 Beaminster, Dorset, Canterbury, England

Death: 1782 Dorset, VT

Death: 15 JUN 1773 Hatfield, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: WFT 6, #1512
Media: Family Archive CD

Source: (Birth)
Title: WFT 6, #0591
Author: Patricia Parra
Media: Family Archive CD

Page: Tree #2155

Death: --Not Shown--

Note: In 1656 and ensuing years, Mary Bliss Parsons was charged and tried in court twice for being a Witch. Joseph brought action against the neighbor, Goodwife Bridgman, to protect the reputatio of his wife even thought she had such a strong personality, proud, nervous and haughty, whoch considered herself a welthy dame of considerable importance, which followed her from Springfield to Northampton. So neighborhood gossip accused her of being a witch.

The court favored Mary Bliss Parsons and James Bridgman had to pay a fine to Joseph Parsons. Later, their son, John, was also charged with witchcraft. The court paid it little attention. Joseph, disgusted with all this action, returned to Springfield, Mass. in 1679.

Mary Bliss Parsons was accused of witchcraft in 1674. She was imprisoned, sent to Boston for trial in 1675 and acquitted by a jury. She lived until 1712. Her husband was a freeman 1669, coronet of horse and one of the richest men in Northampton. An account is in "Witchcraft in New England" by her descendant Samuel Drake. It is also mentioned in "Witchcraft at Salem" by Chadwick Hansen, 1969, p 29.

THE WITCH OF NORTHAMPTON
Though proven not a witch - by Kathy Ann Behee Becker

My multiple great grandma was not a witch, honest. But this is the story of what happened to her. Watch out that it doesn't happen to you. And don't look at me if strange things go on around here.

The first case of witchcraft in Northampton came to trial in 1674. Mary Parsons, wife of Coronet Joseph Parsons, one of the first settlers in town, who had disembarked as a child in Plymouth and moved to the "wilds" to become one of Northampton's most prominent citizens, was accused.
"She was...a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, and of unquestioned respectability. Her accusers were also persons of high standing and good reputation. How much revenge, jealously, or spite may have influenced the prosecutors is not known, but there is reason to believe that the imputation grew out of an old quarrel of some eighteen years standing. (Trumbull's History of Northampton). Mary was different: rich, beautiful, high strung, argumentative. One man[...literally stalked her, so obesssed was he. He testified about how he waited and followed her at night (she was an insomniac). He said she walked through swamps and he saw her chemise never get wet. He had many stories about her walks while he covertly observed her---sometimes with other men for company. He reports her conversations with her husband in their yard. [He was hiding in the bushes.] He complained, "I cannot have my mind from this woman yt if shee be not right this way, shee may be a cause of these things, though I desire to look to ye overwhelming hand of God in all."

For eighteen years she was suspected as being the cause of unexplainable events and sicknesses of people and animals, and was brought to trial three times for the charge of practicing witchcraft. Finally she was taken to Boston and jailed for three months, her body searched for devil marks. In court she was called upon to speak for herself, which she did effectively. The jury found her innocent. Mary Parsons returned home to Northampton.

Not content to let the business end, the villagers took up calling her son, John Parsons, a warlock. He had angered "witch-finders," the Bartletts and Bridgemans, by defending the innocence and dignity of his mother. When Mary's younger son was killed in a battle at Northfield by Indians, it was said to be God's judgement on the family. Cornet Joseph Parsons and Mary and some of their children retreated to Springfield. John Parsons remained, held town offices in Northampton, and was a Captain in the King Philip's War.

As for the "wrath of God," two of Capt. Parson's children were killed by Indians, two drowned in the Connecticut River. A surviving son, William, married his cousin, Mary Ashley(Parsons). Lieut. William Parsons lost all but two of his children in infancy or to drowning. His only surviving son, Samuel Parsons, served as a Lieut. in the 2nd Mass. Rgt. in the Revolution; was wounded and lame the rest of his life. His daughter, named Mary Parsons, wed and moved to upstate New York and prospered.

Three generations later, a single son left Niagara County, took a wife, named Mary, and moved to Ohio. Their daughter now lives in Wendell, Kathy Becker, multiple-granddaughter of the "Witch of Northampton", Mary Parsons.

Footnote: The person Mary Parsons was accused of killing by witchcraft was one of her in-laws, John Stebbins, likely an ancestor of Wendell's Stebbins family, who were prominent in Northampton at the time. Ironically, her son, John Parsons, so called "warlock"' took as his wife another relative of the Stebbins family, Abigail Stebbins, joining the two families for all time.

Presently, [1996] descendants of both these families live side by side on Locke Hill Rd. by coincidence, with graves of the earlier Stebbins family not too far away in the Jennison/Locke Hill intersection cemetery.

Source: (Name)
Title: Torrey 2nd Supplement
Media: Book

Page: 48

Death: 29 JAN 1711/12 Springfield, Hampden, MA

Death: 29 NOV 1729 Northampton, Hampshire, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: IGI
Media: Other

Page: FHC File #1394090
Data:
Text: Rodney W. Lloyd, 803 Myrtle Ave, Prosser, WA 99350

Source: (Birth)
Title: Cemetery Inscription
Media: Book

Source: (Christening)
Title: Diocese of St. Asaph - Llanwyddelan, Montgomery, Wales
Media: Book

Data:
Text: Adfa Village

Christening: 15 FEB 1842 Llanwyddelan, Montgomery, Wales

Death: 28 APR 1892 Oxford, Marquette, WI

Burial: Oxford Cemetery, Oxford, WI

Death: 22 JUN 1649 Springfield, Hampden, MA

Death: 13 MAR 1739/40

Source: (Name)
Title: Mary & John Clearinghouse
Media: Book

Death: 1761

Death: 8 SEP 1675 Killed by Indians at Northfield, MA

Death: 1660 Died young

Death: 2 SEP 1718 Died young,

Death: 23 AUG 1739 Northampton, Hampshire, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: New England Marriages Prior to 1700
Author: Clarence A. Torrey
Media: Book

Death: 27 JUN 1689 Longmeadow, Hampden, MA

Death: 1 JUL 1744 Northampton, Hampshire, MA

Note: Jane was married twice, but still buried in the Oxford Cemetery as "Jane A. Lloyd". Next to her is an unreadable stone - probably W.L. Mackey

Source: (Birth)
Title: Cemetery Inscription
Media: Book

Death: 25 MAY 1874 Oxford, Marquette, WI

Burial: Oxford Cemetery, Oxford, Marquette, WI

Death: 24 DEC 1672 Northampton, Hampshire, MA

Death: 30 MAY 1760 Springfield, Hampden, MA

Note: "Giffard formerly of Rushall" in "Burkes Landed Gentry" Vol. II, pp.371.