The Thing About Witch Hunts Podcast

Tag: american revolution

  • American Revolution: The Treaty of Watertown, MA with Marilynne K. Roach

    American Revolution: The Treaty of Watertown, MA with Marilynne K. Roach

    Show Notes

    The Treaty of Watertown: Independence, Alliance, and the Fowle House Council Chamber We step into an upstairs council chamber above a shoemaker’s house in Watertown, Massachusetts—where, on July 18, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to a crowd that included Mi’kmaq and Maliseet representatives, and where the next day the Treaty of Watertown was signed as the first international treaty negotiated by the new United States. With historian Marilynne Roach of the Historical Society of Watertown, we trace how the Edmund Fowle House became Massachusetts’ wartime seat of government, what restoration work revealed about the L-shaped chamber and its preserved details, and how archival minutes illuminate daily Revolutionary governance. We also follow the treaty’s 1980s revival by Mi’kmaq veterans, the renewed collaboration with the Grand Council of the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet representatives, and plans for Watertown’s July 18 celebration marking the 250th anniversary.

    Chapters

    00:00 Watertown Treaty Preview

    01:52 Fowle House Restored

    05:43 Council Work In Wartime

    07:50 Who Led The Council

    09:43 Edmund Fowle Home Life

    13:09 Declaration of Independence Read Aloud

    15:51 Treaty Negotiations

    18:40 Forgotten Then Remembered

    21:12 Planning The 250th

    23:42 Friendship Still Binding

    25:00 Symbols Of Liberty

    26:18 Witch Trials Echoes

    27:13 Hidden Shoe Magic

    28:17 Visit And Support

    29:26 Closing Thanks And Event

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    American Revolution_ The Role of Watertown, MA with Marilynne K. RoachDownload
  • The American Revolution and Salem Witch Trials Families with Dan Gagnon

    The American Revolution and Salem Witch Trials Families with Dan Gagnon

    Show Notes

    What does 1692 have to do with 1775? More than you might think.

    The families of 1692 did not vanish from history. One to two generations after the Salem witch trials, descendants of both the accused and the accusers were drilling on village training fields, defying British soldiers, and dying on the same battlefields. Israel Putnam, one of the Revolution’s boldest generals, was born in Salem Village, raised in a family at the center of 1692, and though he moved to Connecticut, he answered the call when Massachusetts needed him most.

    From Leslie’s Retreat in Salem to the Battle of Menotomy, Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston, Long Island, and Saratoga, the men of Essex County were present from the first confrontation to the wider war. And Benjamin Franklin’s tie to the Salem witch trials runs closer than most people know.

    This episode connects two of American history’s most significant chapters and asks: what did the witch trial era leave behind, and how did it shape the people who built this country?

    Danvers and Salem historian Dan Gagnon, author of A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse, returns to The Thing About Witch Hunts to tell stories of the North Shore’s role in the American Revolution as part of America 250. From a standoff at a toll bridge to the bloodiest stretch of road on Patriots Day 1775, the story of Essex County and the Lexington Alarm is one most Americans were never taught.

    Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack trace the thread from the Salem witch trials through Lexington and Concord, from the Rebecca Nurse Homestead to the halls of the Continental Congress, and from the accused of 1692 to the soldiers of 1775.

    What You Will Learn:

    • The through-line between 1692 and 1775 that changes how you understand both
    • Why Leslie’s Retreat in Salem months before Lexington and Concord matters more than you have been told
    • What happened when Salem witch trial family names started showing up on revolutionary muster rolls
    • Israel Putnam: the founding-era general with Salem Village roots whose story was nearly erased from history, and why
    • A founding father with a direct family tie to the Salem witch trials, and what that connection reveals
    • What one brutal day at the Battle of Menotomy cost a single Massachusetts town, and why they brought their dead home
    • What you can see at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead today that quietly holds the story of two centuries

    Dan Gagnon leads walking tours in Danvers and the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open seasonally. 

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    Links 

    Rebecca Nurse Homestead

    A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse by Dan Gagnon

    End Witch Hunts

    About Witch Hunts

    Salem Witch Trials History YouTube

    Transcript

    The American Revolution and Salem Witch Trials Families with Dan GagnonDownload