Estate / Collection: The Victor Gulotta Collection

STOUGHTON, WILLIAM [and BRADSTREET, SIMON]

Document signed as Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Dorchester: 17 September 1700. Manuscript document with wafer seat stitched with an early and ribbon in a secretarial hand relating to the appearance of Elizabeth Shrimpton, executrix of the will of Colonel Samuel Shrimpton, before Stoughton. Signed in Stoughton's hand "Wm Stoughton" in the lower margin. The second page provides Elizabeth Shrimpton's signed attestation with a red wax seal, this page also signed by Isaac Addington and J. Roberts as witnesses. The third page is an earlier document on a shorter sheet here appended, dating from 1684 and being the bond of payment of 400 pounds from William Strong to Colonel Shrimpton, this page signed by Simon Bradstreet as Governor ("Simon Bradstreet Gobn.") as well as Edward Lyde and Thomas Longe. Overall 13 3/4 x 9 inches (35 x 22 cm); housed in a folder with portraits of Stoughton, Bradstreet, Cololonel and Elizabeth Shrimpton. Some staining and minor wear but well preserved overall. Provenance: The collection of the late Charles P. Greenough Brookline, Massachusetts, sold Anderson Galleries, New York, 3 May 1926, lot 74; Pacific Book Auctions, 12 November 2012, lot 21.

William Stoughton (1631-1701) is one of the most notorious figures of the Salem Witch Trials, having served as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer throughout the affair. Born in England, it is known that Stoughton and his parents were in Dorchester, Massachusetts by 1632. He graduated from Harvard in 1650 and chose politics over religion for a career. During the Dominion of New England period in the 1680s, Stoughton and his friend and business partner Joseph Dudley served in high-ranking positions under Governor Sir Edmund Andros. In 1692, when the Dominion of New England fell and Sir William Phips arrived from England carrying the new charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Stoughton was made Lieutenant Governor. Rumors of witchcraft at Salem were already rampant at this time, and Stoughton was appointed head of a special tribunal to deal with the many accusations and in June he was appointed Chief Justice of the colonial courts, a post he held for the rest of his life. During the trials he was notoriously harsh, for example sending the jury that had exonerated Rebecca Nurse back to keep deliberating, and he repeatedly defended the allowance of spectral evidence into the courtroom despite the protestations of many. It was only when the accusations of witchcraft reached the wife of Governor William Phips that the trials were shutdown in October 1692 after 20 had been killed. Stoughton never expressed remorse for his actions.

The present document dates to late in his life during the period in which he served as Acting Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The 1700 document signed by Stoughton recognizes an early document signed in 1684 by Simon Bradstreet, both relating to the Estate of prominent landowner Colonel Samuel Smith as executed by his wife Elizabeth Shrimpton. Thus, many important late 17th-century Massachusetts figures collide in this interesting document.

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