#145 The Witches of Springfield
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is the late 1640s. More than forty years before the famous witch hunt in Salem, William Pynchon’s town of Springfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, was roiled by the strange doings of Hugh and Mary Parsons, an unhappy and anxious couple with poor social skills. In that dark, solitary place on the edge of the North American wilderness, anxiety, depression, a bad marriage, and conspiracy theories combined with bad luck and no little neurosis to produce an epic tragedy, preserved for us by many pages of deposition transcripts taken by Pynchon. True crime, Puritan theology, rumor mongering, strange doings, and the inherent justice of the New English courts combine for a fantastic story.
And, of course, there is some great trivia: What does “wearing the green gown” mean?
Closing disclaimer: This episode is absolutely not in recognition of “Women’s History Month.”
X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2
Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast
Selected references for this episode
Malcolm Gaskill, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World
David M. Powers, Damnable Heresy: William Pynchon, the Indians, and the First Book Banned (and Burned) in Boston
Nachman Ben-Yehuda, “The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective,” American Journal of Sociology, July 1980.
Useful prerequisite: The Life and Times of William Pynchon
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 145. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on March 11th, |
| 0:16.7 | 2024, in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:19.9 | We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning |
| 0:25.0 | without intentional presentism. |
| 0:28.2 | I suppose it must be set up front that even though it is now March and this episode is |
| 0:35.1 | history and involves women, it's absolutely not the Women's History Month |
| 0:41.2 | episode of the podcast. I don't know if there will be a Women's History Month episode of the |
| 0:47.7 | History of the Americans podcast, but if I make one, I can assure you it won't be about witches. |
| 0:55.3 | Even I am not that devil may care. |
| 0:59.5 | It's the late 1640s. |
| 1:02.6 | More than 40 years before Salem's bull market and witches, |
| 1:07.4 | witches popped up on the banks of the Connecticut River |
| 1:10.5 | in William Pensions Town of Springfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony. |
| 1:16.6 | This is the story of a brickmaker named Hugh Parsons and his wife, Mary, |
| 1:22.2 | and the ugly collapse of a tough marriage on the edge of the wilderness in Puritan New England. |
| 1:28.9 | Insofar as this episode assumes some familiarity with early Springfield and William |
| 1:34.4 | Pension, it would behoove you to listen to our episode from the end of January, 2024, |
| 1:40.9 | The Life and Times of William Pension, before you get to this one. |
| 1:45.7 | In that episode, I referred to Pensions investigation of accusations of witchcraft against |
| 1:50.9 | the Parsons, and I promise to come back to it in the future. |
| 1:55.1 | This is the fulfillment of that promise. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Henneman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Henneman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.