Old Planters Reunion

Friday, October 4 Explore the Massachusetts State Archives with John Warner, Archivist of the Commonwealth. Learning from Historic Maps by Staff of the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center. Networking Dinner: Fox’d and Fuddled: The History of Colonial Drinking. …

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‘No Common weale but by Common Consent’: Governance in Puritan New England

Old South Meeting House 310 Washington Street, Boston, MA, United States

Imagine a world in which political leaders retire gracefully after electoral defeat, in which voting rights are expanded, not restricted, where there’s free and vigorous debate. Welcome to 17th century New England, where the Puritan colonists developed, for the majority …

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In Distemper She Died: The Real Victims of Boston’s 17th Century Witch Trials

Loring Greenough House 12 South Street, Jamaica Plain, MA, United States

Massachusetts Bay began executing people for witchcraft in Boston almost 50 years before the Salem Witch Trials, including in Dorchester, Cambridge, and Charlestown. These executions are much lesser-known, totaling fewer than half the number that took place in Salem in …

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