13/06/2026
An old theory about the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials has resurfaced that has been repeatedly rebutted by all of the present-day experts.
The theory states that the same judges from the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials sat on the pirate trial of Captain Thomas Pound in 1690, fueling the hysteria that resulted in 20 people executed and five more who died in prison.
The truth is that the two of the five judges on that pirate trial were minor judges in the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693 that mostly exonerated the accused and not the 1692 court. They were Waitstill Winthrop and John Richards.
Waitstill was the the grandson of John Winthrop, who was the 12-term governor of Massachusetts back in the 1630s and 1640s. Waitstill was not on the first court that convicted and executed everyone because he was elected as captain of the Military Company of Massachusetts in June 1692.
Richards was deposed in the first court, testifying against Dorcas Hoar and John Alden Jr.
The names of both of these men appear as “present” during hearings in the second court, resulting in the release of Mary Lacey Jr. and Mary Watkins at the tail end of the trials in 1693. We don’t have any of their thoughts or writings about the witchcraft trials other than that.
And Governor Simon Bradstreet, who was the governor at the start of the Salem hysteria and was in office at the time of the pirate trial, was a vocal opponent of the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials. He was a lame duck governor because Gov. William Phips was on his way to Massachusetts with a new charter, arriving in May 1692.
The impact of pirate trial of 1690 on the Salem witchcraft trials was miniscule, if at all. It is a bad theory from armchair historians. Piracy was rampant in the 1600s, but food shortages, droughts, war, government changes, panic and fear led to the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials that pitted neighbor against neighbor.
