Born in St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
Ancestors 
Daughter of William Towne
and Joanna (Blessing) Towne
Sister of
John Towne, Susannah Towne, Edmund Towne, Jacob Towne I, Mary (Towne) Estey, Sarah (Towne) Cloyes and Joseph Towne
Wife of
Francis Nurse
— married
about 24 Aug 1644 in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts
Descendants 
Mother of
John Nurse,
Rebecca (Nurse) Preston,
Sarah (Nurse) Bowden,
Samuel Nurse,
Mary (Nurse) Tarbell,
Elizabeth (Nurse) Russell,
Francis Nurse Jr.,
Sarah (Nurse) Bowden and
Benjamin Nurse
Died in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts Bay Colony
Profile managers:
Puritan Great Migration Project WikiTree 
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Profile last modified
| Created 21 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 15,332 times.
| Rebecca (Towne) Nurse migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1620-1640). Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
Biography
Rebecca (Towne) Nurse is Notable.
Rebecca was born/christened 21 FEB 1620/1 in Norfolk, England, the daughter of Joanna (Blessing) and William Towne. She and her five siblings migrated with their parents to Salem in New England in 1635.[1]
Rebecca (Towne) Nurse was executed for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials
Rebecca Towne Nurse (or Nourse) (February 21, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was executed for witchcraft by the government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England in 1692, during the Salem witch trials. She was the wife of Francis Nurse, with several children and grandchildren, and a well-respected member of the community. Although there was no credible evidence against her, she was hanged as a witch and died on 19 Jul 1692 at Proctor's Ledge, Gallows Hill, Salem, Massachusetts Bay. [2]
This occurred during a time when the Massachusetts colony was seized with hysteria over witchcraft and the supposed presence of Satan within the colony.[3]
In most cases, the bodies of those hanged or pressed were cast off into a shallow ditch, not deserving of a Christian burial due to the charge of witchcraft. However, the family of Rebecca Nurse, according to legend, got to her body, removed it from the ditch in Salem and buried it in secret on the family farm in Salem Village (now Danvers, MA)... Several years after her execution, it was agreed that she had been innocent of being a witch.
Family
Spouse: Francis Nurse (1618 - 1695)*
Children:
- John Nurse (1645 - 1719)*
- Rebecca Nurse Preston (1647 - 1695)*
- Samuel Nurse (1649 - 1715)*
- Sarah Nurse Bowden (1651 - 1754)*
- Elizabeth Nurse Russell (1656 - ____)*
- Mary Nurse Tarbell (1657 - 1749)*
- Francis Nurse (1660 - 1716)*
- Benjamin Nurse (1666 - 1748)*
( source needed)
Massachusetts Remediation
- 17 October 1710, Convictions Reversed, The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, An act, the several convictions, judgments, and attainders be, and hereby are, reversed, and declared to be null and void.[4]
- 17 Dec 1711, Compensation to Survivors, Governor Dudley, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, approved compensation to such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead [For Rebecca Nurse £25][4]
- 28 Aug 1957, No Disgrace to Descendants, General Court of Massachusetts, ...such proceedings, were and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings...have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws, no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings.[5]
- 31 Oct 2001, Additional Victims Included, Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives in General Court, AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE WITCHCRAFT TRIAL OF 1692, chapter 145 is hereby further amended by adding Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd.[6]
Sources
- ↑ Filby, P. William, ed. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, (Farmington Hills, MI, USA: Gale Research, 2009)
- ↑ “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/salemwitchcraftw02upha_0/page/268.
- ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Rebecca Nurse," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed September 18, 2013).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Upham, Charles Wentworth. Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. (1867) v2, page 480.
- ↑ https://www.mass.gov/doc/resolves-of-1957-chapter-145/download
- ↑ https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2001/Chapter122
- The Salem Witchcraft Papers (SWP No. 094) Rebecca Nurse
- The Towne Family Memorial: Compiled from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Towne Manuscripts, Public and Family Records; for A.N. Towne Esq., San Francisco, Cal. By Edwin Hubbard. Chicago, Illinois. Fergus Printing Company. 1880.
- Matt Madden, “Examination of Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village," Salem Witch Trials in History and Literature, An Undergraduate Course, University of Virginia, Spring Semester 2001
- Find A Grave Memorial# 5872; Record added: Jul 13, 1999. Entered by Elizabeth Loftus.
- Tabley, Charles Sutherland. Rebecca Nurse: Saint But Witch Victim (Marshall Jones Company, 1930. Ninth printing 2008, by the Danvers Alarm List Company, 149 Pine Street, Danvers, Mass. 01923) February 21, 1621 is the date she was baptized in England.
- The Rebecca Nurse Homestead 149 Pine St., Danvers, MA 01923. Open to the public. Phone: (978) 774-8799
- Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1986 Victor Pisano) PBS Home Video: The Rebecca Nurse Homestead was used for filming this movie.
- Biographical data - Rebecca Nurse Ray, Benjamin and the University of Virginia. "Important Persons in the Salem Court Records". Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. n.p. Web. 2001. retrieved 5 November 2016.
- Gurnee and the Salem Witch Trials
- Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Biography of Rebecca Nurse, Victim of the Salem Witch Trials." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/rebecca-nurse-biography-3530327 (accessed January 12, 2020).
- Dow, George Francis. Witchcraft Records Relating to Topsfield, The Historical Collections of The Topsfield Historical Society (Topsfield, Mass., 1908) Vol. 13, Page 39-58.
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Rebecca is 36 degrees from Aretha Franklin, 19 degrees from Paul McCartney, 21 degrees from Bob Dylan, 18 degrees from Leonard Cohen, 18 degrees from Johnny O'Keefe, 20 degrees from Gordon Kirkpatrick, 14 degrees from Richard Monsour, 27 degrees from Mama Cass Cohen, 32 degrees from Mary Servaes, 37 degrees from Jan Johansson, 22 degrees from France Gall and 21 degrees from John Tyner on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
T > Towne | N > Nurse > Rebecca (Towne) Nurse
Categories: English Immigrants to America | Salem, Massachusetts | Salem Witch Trials | Accused Witches of New England | Death by Hanging | Puritan Great Migration | Notables
PGM is now co-managing this profile since Black Sheep Project is no longer active. I've added the project box and PGM as co-manager. John, we hope you will continue to watch over this profile. thanks.
From Wikepedia: In 1706, her accuser, Ann Putnam, Jr., gave a public church confession upon entering the Salem Village congregation. She expressed great remorse for her role against Rebecca and her two sisters, Mary Eastey and Sarah Cloyce, in particular: "I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father's family in the year about '92; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons.
An Undergraduate Course, University of Virginia"As land became scarcer, quarrels regarding boundaries between the settlement to become known as Topsfield and Salem went on for a century. The Putnams of Salem Village embodied this battle in their quarrels with the Nurse family, Mary Easty's brother-in-law. According to Boyer and Nissenbaum in Salem Possessed, considering the bitterness between these families"
Yes, I know it is an artifact. So WHY was it left on this page for years? It's not as if this is an abandoned profile of an obscure person. Are we never to point out errors which common sense should have prevented in the first place?
Claudia, I started looking into your Josiah Nourse-131 (which had no sources) and added some sources, including father Ira (who did not initially have a profile here on wikitree). We need to confirm that Ira was son of Ebenezer of Framingham, Mass., then I think we can confirm the lineage back to Salem.