Our upcoming programs will be announced as the events are planned. With COVID-19, we have been scheduling ZOOM programs. If you have missed a program, refer to our past programs page to view ZOOM productions. We usually have one program per quarter of the year.
The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Primary Sources Tell Us
In Person and Online
Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Join us for a talk by historian Margo Burns on the witchcraft trials of the Colonial era. This New Hampshire Humanities talk is co-sponsored by the Howe Library and the Hanover Historical Society, and will be followed at 7:45 by the annual meeting of the Historical Society. This program is hybrid: attend in person in the Mayer Room or register for the Zoom invitation here.
On first impression, the witchcraft trials of the Colonial era may seem to have been nothing but a free-for-all, fraught with hysterics. Margo Burns explores an array of prosecutions in seventeenth century New England, using facsimiles of primary source manuscripts, from first formal complaints to arrest warrants, indictments of formal charges to death warrants, and the reversals of attainder and rescinding of excommunications years after the fact; demonstrating how methodically and logically the Salem Court worked. This program focuses on the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and 1693, when nineteen people were hanged and one crushed to death, but also examines a variety of other cases against women in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.