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The Biography of Elizabeth Howe!

Elizabeth Jackson Howe was born in or about 1635 in Rowley, Massachusetts. Her parents were William and Deborah Jackson. Elizabeth married James Howe in April of 1658. The couple had six children, and resided in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Topsfield was a Puritan community. They were a deeply pious society, with an extreme religious focus not only as a community but also on an individual basis. They believed firmly in the devil, and felt that he was not only an enemy to mankind, but to the Puritans specifically. The Perely family of Ipswich, Massachusetts, was the chief accusers of Elizabeth Howe there ten year old daughter they claimed was being afflicted by Howe. Elizabeth Howe was accused of afflicting several other girls within Salem Village. Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, Abigail Williams was eleven or twelve in 1692. She was one of the most well-known afflicted girls in the Salem Witch Trials. On May 28, 1692 a warrant was released for the arrest of Elizabeth Howe by John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin. She was to be apprehended and taken to the home of Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersolls. She stood charged with “Sundry Acts of Witch-craft done or committed on the bodies of Mary Walcott, Abigail Williams, and others of Salem Village.” She was apprehended by Ephraim Wildes, constable of Topsfield, on May 29, 1692. A copy of her original warrant can be read below. This transcript was taken from The Salem Witchcraft Papers. Elizabeth Howe’s trial began on May 31st of 1692. There were many different types of evidence that were used to convict a supposed witch. These were confession, supernatural attributes, the witch’s tit (any small skin growth found on the body of the accused), anger followed by mischief, and probably most importantly spectral evidence defined by //The Witches of Early America// as the supernatural phenomena thought to occur when a vision or ‘spectre’ of an accused witch appeared to a witness. Anger followed by mischief is one form of evidence that was brought against Elizabeth Howe. Public execution was considered the most severe punishment of the time in Puritan Massachusetts. It is logical then that this severe punishment would come upon those convicted of a most severe crime: witchcraft. Convicted witches were hanged on Gallows Hill. Elizabeth Howe was hanged on July 19, 1692 along with Rebecca Nurse her sister-in-law, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, and Susanna Martin. Elizabeth hung Howe, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, and Susanna Martin was on July 19, 1692 and buried in a crevice on Gallows hill.