Joanne (UNKNOWN) Braybrook

Problems/Questions Profile manager: John Putnam [send private message]

Biography

Joanne (UNKNOWN) Braybrook was accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials

in 1653, she married 1st, Richard Braybrook.^[1]

After the death of her first husband, she married 2nd, on 17 May 1682, Thomas Penny.^[2][1]

The Step-Daughter

Court held at Ipswich, March 30., 1652 - “...Richard Braybrooke to be severely whipped for fornication, and the woman, Alice Eliss (servant of Richard Braybrooke), was freed from her service ; and said Braybrooke was to bring up the child and to provide for her till she be recovered from her travail ; and after her travail to be whipped...”^[3]

“The child, Mehitabel came to be viewed as the daughter of both Joan and Richard Braybrook. She was the only child the couple had...”^[4]

Salem Witch Trials

On 13 Sep 1692, Zebulon Hill complained that "Goodwife Piney," Joan Penny, afflicted his daughter, Mary, with witchcraft.^[5][6]

Zebulon Hill's wife Elizabeth Dike was the daughter of Agnes Tybott, and thus Thomas Penny's step-daughter.

In October 1692, Joan and her step-daughter, Mehitable Downing, who had also been accused of witchcraft, were in prison in Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay; their names appear among the 10 prisoners petitioning for release.^[7]

Massachusetts Remediation

1. 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.^[8]
2. 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
3. 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community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings...have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws, no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings.^[9]
4. 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.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} U.S., New England Marriages Prior to 1700 Online at: Ancetry.com
2. ↑ Vital Records from The NEHGS Register. Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (Compiled from articles originally published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register.) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB522/i/21068/364/45649393
3. ↑ “Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts : Massachusetts (Colony). County Court (Essex Co.) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Salem, Mass., Essex institute, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/recordsfilesofqu01mass/page/512/mode/2up.
4. ↑ The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F. Karlsen, pps. 95-98, https://a.co/2dsmJVN
5. ↑ The Salem Witchcraft Papers, Joan Peney
6. ↑ Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice, and Rebecca Beatrice Brooks. “The Accused Witches of Gloucester.” History of Massachusetts Blog, May 11, 2019. https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-accused-witches-of-gloucester/.
7. ↑ “SWP No. 167: Petitions from Relatives of Prisoners and Others (October 1692 - January 1693).” SWP No. 167: Petitions from Relatives of Prisoners and Others (October 1692 - January 1693) - New Salem - Pelican. Accessed May 21, 2020. http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n167.html.
8. ↑ “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. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17845/17845-h/salem2-htm.html#Page_ii.480.
9. ↑ https://www.mass.gov/doc/resolves-of-1957-chapter-145/download
10. ↑ “Chapter 122.” Session Law - Acts of 2001 Chapter 122. Accessed February 29, 2020. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2001/Chapter122.