Connecticut witch trials author to sign books at Chilmark Flea Market

Award-winning author Cindy Wolfe Boynton will sell and sign copies of “Connecticut Witch Trials: The First Panic in the New World” from 9 to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15, at the Chilmark Flea Market on North Road.

Published in 2014 by The History Press and now in its second printing, the book has been called “the definitive resource” about Connecticut’s witch panic, which began almost 50 years before Salem’s more infamous one.
“Connecticut’s witch hunt was the first and most ferocious in New England, yet few know it ever occurred,” said Boynton, a Connecticut resident who has been coming to the Vineyard each August for more than two decades. “Connecticut also holds the dark distinction of having a witch panic that spanned several decades, versus Salem’s seven months and, ultimately, a witch hunt that was proportionally much more deadly. Salem executed just 20 of the roughly 180 women and men brought up on formal witchcraft charges, while Connecticut executed 11 out of 34.”

Connecticut’s hanging of Alse (Alice) Youngs on May 26, 1647 was also the first witchcraft execution in New England or anywhere in young America.

“Puritans believed that the devil literally walked the earth,” Boynton said. “To them, the devil and witches were as real of a threat to their lives and communities as an uncaught serial killer would be to us today. Colonial Connecticut laws listed witchcraft as the No. 2 most serious capital offense. If you were accused of being a witch and couldn’t prove you weren’t, it was very likely you would die.”

A former correspondent for The New York Times and Boston Globe among other publications, Boynton is also the author of “Remarkable Women of Hartford” and two plays that made their debuts at the United Solo Theater Festival in New York City: “Right Time to Say I Love You” and “Dear Prudence.” For more information about her appearance at the Chilmark Flea Market, please contact cindy@cindywolfeboynton.com.