Alse Young

Alse Young (1615 – 26 May 1647) of Windsor, Connecticut — sometimes Achsah Young or Alice Young — was the first recorded instance of execution for witchcraft in the thirteen American colonies. She had one child, Alice Beamon (Young), born in 1640, who was also condemned for the same crime thirty years later in the 1670s, but was not hanged.

Background and execution

Alse Young was born in 1615 in New Windsor, Berkshire, England, who bought a small parcel of land in Windsor in 1641, sold it in 1649, and then disappeared from the town records. The best evidence to suggest that John Young was her husband comes from a physician. She had a daughter, Alice Young Beamon, who was accused of witchcraft in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, some 30 years later. The second town clerk of Windsor, Matthew Grant, confirms her execution with the May 26, 1647, diary entry, "Alse Young was hanged." She was roughly 32 years old.

Exoneration At the urging of Beth Caruso, a local historian who wrote a book on her case, Alse Young was symbolically exonerated on February 6, 2017, by a Windsor Town Council resolution, along with Lydia Gilbert, the second Connecticut woman to be executed for witchcraft, who was also from Windsor.