Mary Carrington

Mary (parents unknown, born about 1602) migrated to New England with her husband John Carrington on the "Susan and Ellen" in 1635. She must have died before 1651, when John and his second wife Joane were (probably) executed for witchcraft, Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut.

Anderson, in the Great Migration Begins, disagreed that Mary Corrington, passenger of the Susan and Ellen in 1635, was married to the same person as the John Carrington who married Joan. In any event her passenger listing seems to be our only record of her.

From Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, by John Putnam Demos (Oxford Press, NY), 1982, pp348-349

Less than three years after the trial of Mary Johnson, Wethersfield produced a second witchcraft case. The accused were a married couple, John and Joan Carrington by name. Charged with having "entertained familiarity with Satan, the great enemy of God and mankind, and by his help...done works about the course of nature," the Carringtons were convicted in March 1651 and sentenced to death. In the absence of explicit documentation, their execution cannot be proven - but seems highly probable all the same. In March 1653 probate was filed on John Carrington's estate. The inventory came to [23 pounds 11 shillings], and debts reduced this total by almost half.

As in the Johnson case, there is no way to recover a picture of the supposeed "victims" - if any. However, John Carrington did leave a thin trail of evidence which permits partial reconstruction of his earlier life. He arrived in Boston, from England, aboard a ship called the Susan and Ellen, during the summer of 1635; he was accompanied by a wife named Mary. There is no trace of his movements between that time and August 1643, when a deed of sale locates him in Wethersfield. In June 1644 he was defendant in a civil action before the "particular Court" at Hartford, and in 1650 the same court fined him ten pounds for bartering a gun with an Indian. Meanwhile he was active in a modest way at Wethersfield, buying land by private transaction in 1647, and receiving a small grant from the town in 1649. The legal records identify him as a carpenter. In December another resident of Wethersfield, one Edward Veir, took sick and died, leaving a will which made several references to John Carrington and a third party named Thomas Kirkham. Apparently Carrington, Kirkham, and Veir had recently completed a deal for "peas and wheat," and then may have been growing corn together as well. Veir was concerned that his friends not "lose anything" as a result of his death; he also asked that they be paid for making his coffin. Veir was unmarried, and his properties were relatively few; Kirkham appears (from other sources) to have stayed poor throughout a long residence in Wethersfield; and Carrington's own inventor was among the smallest in the whole range of early Connecticut probates. Hence the picture suggested here is one of close collaboration among three of the most humble members of the community.

At the time of their arrival in Boston John and Mary Carrington were both recorded as being thirty-three years old. No children were listed as traveling with them. However, there is reason to believe that they subsequently produced at least one son - namely, a second John Carrington, later of Farmington, Connecticut. No specific birth-date can be assigned to this child, though 1640 seems a reasonable (if approximate) supposition. It is clear, in any event, that Mary Carrington died at some point in this sequence, and that her husband was remarried to a woman variously called Joan or Joanna. For it was Joan Carrington who stood indicted with John in 1651. In sum, the "witches" in this case were a married couple of roughly middle age. (John was forty-nine at the time of his trial; his wife, most likely, was also in her forties). John was in his second marriage (and possibly Joan was, too). John had been a resident in Wethersfield for at least eight years, certainly long enough to establish a "reputation". His economic position was quite lowly - likewise, no doubt, his social status. (He never held any offices in Wethersfield). Perhaps his only distinction was his alleged ability to "do works above the course of nature". And that was an unlucky distinction indeed.

After the trial of the Carringtons, Wethersfield remained free of witchcraft, or at least of witchcraft proceedings, for more than a decade.

IT IS NOT KNOWN WHETHER CHILD OR CHILDREN BELIEVED TO BE JOHN CARRINGTON'S WERE WITH WIFE MARY OR WITH WIFE JOANE. However, Mary was 33 when she arrived in New England with her husband in 1635 and apparently had not yet been able to have children.

(3) JOHN & JOANE CARRINGTON, EXCERPTS FROM "MORE INFO" [CONTRIBUTED TO ANCESTRY.COM BY "229DuchSkleve"]

John Carrington came to Amer w/ a wife, Mary, on the "Susan & Ellen" which sailed May 1635. They were listed as 33 yrs old. No residence nor destination was recorded. They arrived at Boston & settled in Wethersfield. ("Planters of the Commonwealth" by Chas E Banks). Some writers say this John moved to Farmington, but since he died in Wethersfield, most newer researchers say this was probably a son John. His homestead was on the east side of Sandy Lane, just south of Thomas Standish.John appears in various town & court records there. . In March 1648 he was fined 10 pounds for bartering a gun with Indians.. Mary must have died as John is tried & convicted of "familiarity w/ Satan" with a wife named Joane. As far as I know, there is no proof that they were executed but it seems they were. There is a Court Record from 1652/3[1651/1652] in March that reports an inventory of John's estate, no list of children, and orders the inventory "be filed but not recorded" (guilty conscience?) Other sources incl: "Hist of Ancient Wethersfield" by Adams & Stiles; "Witchcraft Delusion" & "A Digest of CT Probate Records" by Manwaring. I, too, found a reference I believe in the "The Town & City of Waterbury from the Aboriginal Period to 1895" that Rebecca Carrington who marr Andrew Andrus "May" have been the sister of John of Farmington (poss son of John & either Mary or Joane)..

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