Joshua Baehring

The bustling storefronts that line the New Haven Green once housed a darker, complex history of witchcraft accusations. 

Connecticut’s witch trials took place from 1647 to 1663, preceding the infamous Salem witch trials, according to Connecticut historian Walter Woodward. The trials took place mainly in Hartford, including nearly 40 cases, 11 of which resulted in executions, according to Michael Morand, New Haven’s city historian and director of community engagement at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 

“Connecticut actually was a hotbed of witchcraft accusations,” Samantha Moon ’26, a Yale history and economics major, said. Moon’s senior thesis focuses on Elizabeth Godman, a New Haven woman accused of witchcraft. 

New Haven in particular had four prosecutions and two slander suits over witchcraft, according to Morand. The city was founded in 1638 by English Puritans, and “the community at that time was very theocratic in structure,” Morand wrote in an email.  

“Because of that religious environment, they were more predisposed towards fears of witchcraft and accusing people of witchcraft,” Moon said.

Moon was drawn to Godman’s case because she was an unmarried woman of high status, which contrasted with the typical characteristics of women accused of witchcraft, she said. 

According to Moon’s research, Godman lived in the household of the deputy governor of the colony, Stephen Goodyear. Godman filed a slander suit in 1653 against a handful of New Haveners, including Goodyear and his family, in an attempt to “head off an accusation of witchcraft,” Moon said.

“What’s interesting is that she took the initiative to sue her accusers for slander before they could bring her officially to trial,” Rebecca Tannenbaum, a Yale history lecturer who will be teaching the course “Witchcraft in Colonial America” next semester, said.

“Unfortunately, it kind of backfired on her, because the court said, ‘Nope, it sounds like this isn’t slander. It sounds like you’re really a witch,’” Tannenbaum added. 

In 1655, Godman was referred to the criminal courts, where she was eventually acquitted and sent to live with another townsperson until her death five years later, according to Moon.

The house where Godman resided with Goodyear was along the New Haven Green, and based on Moon’s research, she suspects it was on Chapel Street between College Street and Church Street. 

Tannenbaum also described the story of a second slander suit under New Haven’s jurisdiction, involving Roger Ludlow and Mary Staples. Ludlow had “an ongoing dispute” with Staples, and claimed that Goodwife Knapp, a woman convicted of and executed for witchcraft, had given Staples’ name when asked to reveal other witches. 

Staples subsequently sued Ludlow for slander and insisted on examining Knapp’s corpse at the scene of her execution for a “witch’s teat,” a mark considered evidence that someone was a witch, Tannenbaum added.

“It was interesting because eventually Staples got the support of a lot of her neighbors, including John Davenport and his wife,” Tannenbaum said. “With the support of the local minister, the whole case against her fell apart.” 

Staples ultimately won her slander case against Ludlow.

All 51 people involved in Connecticut’s witch trials were exonerated by the Connecticut General Assembly in 2023.