Last Salem ‘witch’ pardoned in Massachusetts, thanks to North Andover Middle School students

It took greater than three centuries, however the final Salem “witch” who wasn’t has been formally pardoned.

Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., clearing her title 329 years after she was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to dying on the peak of the Salem Witch Trials.

Johnson was by no means executed, however neither was she formally pardoned like others wrongly accused of witchcraft.

Lawmakers agreed to rethink her case final yr after a curious eighth-grade civics class at North Andover Center College took up her trigger and researched the legislative steps wanted to clear her title.

Subsequent laws launched by state Sen. Diana DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen, was tacked onto a funds invoice and accepted.

“We are going to by no means be capable to change what occurred to victims like Elizabeth however on the very least can set the file straight,” DiZoglio stated.

In an announcement, North Andover instructor Carrie LaPierre — whose college students championed the laws — praised the kids for taking up “the long-overlooked concern of justice for this wrongly convicted girl.”

Johnson is the final accused witch to be cleared, in accordance with Witches of Massachusetts Bay, a gaggle dedicated to the historical past and lore of the Seventeenth-century witch hunts.

“For 300 years, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was with no voice, her story misplaced to the passages of time,” stated state Sen. Joan Beautiful, of Salem.

Johnson was 22 when she was caught up within the hysteria of the witch trials and sentenced to hold. That by no means occurred: Then-Gov. William Phips threw out her punishment because the magnitude of the gross miscarriages of justice in Salem sank in.

“Elizabeth’s story and battle proceed to vastly resonate immediately,” DiZoglio stated. “Whereas we’ve come a good distance for the reason that horrors of the witch trials, girls immediately nonetheless all too typically discover their rights challenged and issues dismissed.”