-----Original Message----- From: Cathy Brinkman <brink@choice.net> To: SALEM-WITCH-L@rootsweb.com <SALEM-WITCH-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 9:53 AM Subject: RE: [SALEM-WITCH-L] CBS Movie >With respect to the CBS movie, my expectations were actually quite low, and >I was rather pleasantly surprised. >1) I do not know if Ann had a still birth immediately before the >accusations started; I have nothing in my geneaology records to indicate that, though I haven't checked the other children's birthdates to see if it is even conceivable. (Pun intended.) >2) I have some ancestors who were connected with the Quaker Church in Essex >County, MA about this time and there are court records to suggest that at >least one of them was tied to the back of a cart and dragged naked through >the streets for attending a Quaker meeting; Being a Quaker to this day, I'm familiar with the stories of early evangelism on the part of some. Boston puritans were not particularly tolerant of such behavior, and subsequently the treatment you mention was indeed applied more than once to the unwelcome "Quakers, Anabaptists, and Papists". I am ashamed to admit that I can not recall the name of "the first Quaker martyr", but she was hung in Boston after thrice ignoring warnings, being stripped to the waist and tied to an oxcart for a trip through the streets, and finally banishment upon pain of death. The Boston authorities were quite clear about their intent. Ah, my synapses fire at last... I believe her name was Mary Dyer. It's an interesting moment in history when the emergence of religions new and newer, divides of culture and geography, and the nascent ideas of the freedoms of conscience and the individual all collide with such stark consequences.