♀Rebecca Towne

Rebecca Towne (christened 21 February 1621 – 19 July 1692), known as Rebecca Nurse, was the wife of Francis Nurse of Salem Village, Massachusetts, and one of the first women accused in the Salem witch trials^W of 1692, hanged at the age of about seventy. She was the sister of Jacob Towne (died 1704), the eighth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Katherine Towne (1662–1714).

Family

A compiled family history, Walter Goodwin Davis’s The Ancestry of Lieut. Amos Towne, gives her christening at St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk on 21 February 1621; the christening rests on that compiled account alone. She was the eldest known child of William Towne and Johanna Blessing, who had married at St Nicholas in April 1620. The family had crossed to Massachusetts by 1640, and William Towne was later settled at Topsfield.

The petition of the Towne children to the court at Ipswich, dated 17 January 1682/3, names her among the six heirs of William Towne, who had died without a will about ten years earlier. It asks that the land be divided “equally devided to his three sons Edmond Jacob and Joseph” and the moveables go “to the Daughters Rebecka, Mary & Sarah”. Her husband signed with a mark, “Francis Nurs a mark with the consent of Rebecka”, and the court at Ipswich allowed the division on 10 April 1683. The petition names Francis Nurse as her husband. No children are known for her.

1692

Dow’s History of Topsfield records that Rebecca Nurse, daughter of William Towne, was among the first accused of witchcraft, on a complaint made by Edward Putnam and Jonathan Putnam. She was arrested in March 1692, and the standard accounts of the trials record that a jury found her not guilty at her trial in June, that it was sent back by the court to reconsider and then found her guilty. Dow lists her among those hanged at Salem on 19 July 1692. Two of her younger sisters were also caught up in the accusations: Mary Esty was hanged in September, and Sarah Cloyce was imprisoned and, in 1693, released without being tried.