The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments: Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts

In Short

This collection presents a historical mosaic of the punitive measures once standard in Massachusetts and beyond. By curating snippets from newspapers and court records ranging from the mid-17th to the early 19th centuries, it captures the raw, often visceral reality of early American justice. The volume serves as a somber reflection on how a society defines "crime" and "correction," moving from the rigid, often petty moral policing of the Puritan era to the more formal, yet still brutal, legal structures of the young republic.

The Story

The narrative begins by framing the evolution of punishment as a mirror to social values. Early entries reflect a time when the boundary between private morality and public law was nonexistent. Magistrates intervened in personal lives with startling frequency, fining individuals for wearing silver lace, building homes without permission, or even growing hair considered too long for a Christian man. The "story" of justice here is one of escalating severity as the colonies grew and, eventually, as the nation formed its own legal identity.

The text documents a transition from the public, shaming rituals of the early settlers—the bilboes, the pillory, and the ducking-stool—toward the more systematic, state-sanctioned violence of the post-Revolutionary era. We see the shift in how criminals perceived their own fates. Records from the late 1700s suggest that for many "idle vagabonds," the prospect of hard labor at places like Castle Island became more terrifying than the immediate, sharp pain of the whipping-post or even the finality of the gallows. This psychological pivot highlights a crucial, if grim, development in the administration of justice: the birth of the prison as a tool of prolonged mental and physical attrition.

The collection does not shy away from the darker corners of this history. It catalogues the execution of twenty-six pirates in a single day at Newport, the selling of convicts into temporary indentured servitude to cover damages, and the frequent, often arbitrary use of capital punishment for theft and forgery. Simultaneously, it tracks the slow, painful enlightenment of the legal conscience. The text highlights the repeal of attainders for those wrongly accused during the 1692 witchcraft trials, alongside protests against the brutal treatment of prisoners. By the early 19th century, the narrative arc reaches its conclusion in a period of transition, where public floggings fall out of favor and the morality of the law is increasingly challenged by citizens and activists alike. The closing accounts, such as the imprisonment of Prudence Crandall for educating Black children, signal that while the medieval methods of the past were fading, the impulse to use the law as a weapon of social control remained deeply embedded in the culture, leaving the reader to contemplate the distance—or lack thereof—between the old ways and the new.

How It Unfolds

The Puritan scaffold The record opens with the moral minutiae of the 1600s, where authorities regulated everything from the length of a man’s hair to the contents of his private speech. Fines and public shaming served as the primary tools for enforcing communal piety and rigid social hierarchy.

The shift toward state labor As the 18th century progresses, the focus moves from local, public humiliation to state-run incarceration. Reports from court sessions reveal that criminals began to fear the long-term, isolating drudgery of prison life more than the traditional, instantaneous punishments of the rod or rope.

The era of mass execution Interspersed throughout are graphic accounts of large-scale capital punishments, including the mass hanging of pirates and the execution of young men for burglary. These episodes emphasize the state’s absolute, terrifying authority over the bodies of those deemed threats to commerce and order.

The beginning of reform The final movement tracks the slow decline of archaic practices, such as the ducking-stool and the public whipping-post. It introduces early instances of public outcry against state cruelty, marking the hesitant start of a conversation about human rights within the American legal system.

The People

The figures in these pages are rarely defined by their own voices; instead, they appear as subjects of the court’s machinery. James Ray, a thief in 1788, emerges as a rare, vividly realized character whose impudence vanishes the moment he realizes his sentence involves years of hard labor rather than a quick whipping. His transformation from defiance to despair serves as the collection’s most poignant evidence of the changing nature of fear.

Prudence Crandall provides a striking contrast to the typical criminal subject. As an educator imprisoned in 1833 for teaching Black students, she embodies the shift from the colonial-era concern with "moral" crime to the emerging, ideologically driven conflicts of the 19th century. Her calm demeanor inside the jail cell, where she is placed in the same quarters as a murderer, highlights the absurdity and injustice of the laws she defies.

The High Sheriff of Boston, who physically intervenes when an executioner shows too much "sympathetick feeling" for the culprits, represents the cold, unwavering arm of the law. His actions, cheered by the public, underscore the chilling demand for strict adherence to the letter of the sentence. Finally, the unnamed debtors listed in an 1819 Christmas-day jail report function as a collective figure, reminding us that for many, the "crime" of poverty was punished with the same cold indifference as murder, regardless of the season or the family’s needs.

In Its Own Voice

"It is observable of this man, that he has been lately released from a two years' service at the Castle, that during the trial he was very merry and impudent, and continued in the same humor while his sentence was reading, holding up his head and looking boldly at the Court, till the three years' confinement was mentioned; when his countenance changed, his head dropped on his breast, and he fetched a deep groan."

This account of James Ray’s sentencing illustrates how prisoners began to fear imprisonment more than corporal punishment.

"Long hair and love locks are bushes of vanity whereby the Devil leads and holds men captive."

This quote, attributed to a writer from 1632, demonstrates the intense, often absurd religious zeal that once dictated the legal punishment of New England colonists.

What It's Really About

At its core, this book is an inquiry into the "bitterness of things" that arise when a society codifies its anxieties into law. It explores the tension between the human impulse for vengeance and the slow, difficult maturation of justice. The collection asks fundamental questions: Is punishment meant to deter, or is it meant to satisfy the public’s thirst for a spectacle of retribution? By exposing the specificities of what early Americans deemed punishable—from the "crime" of being a common scold to the "necessity" of hard labor—the text argues that our legal structures are less an objective reflection of morality and more a shifting set of responses to the social prejudices of the time.

Why Read It Today

This book is for the reader who values the texture of history over a polished narrative. It is an honest, unvarnished look at the past, offering no comfort to those who wish to romanticize the "Olden Time." Because it relies on raw newspaper clippings and court records, the prose can be disjointed and repetitive, yet this fragmentation is precisely what gives it power. You are not being told a story; you are looking through a crate of old papers, finding the brutal, daily reality of an earlier age.

Modern readers will find the attitudes here jarring—particularly the casual misogyny regarding "scolding women" and the horrific justifications for slavery and the suppression of education. However, it is precisely this discomfort that makes the volume essential. It forces an encounter with the reality that what we today view as "cruel and unusual" was once considered the height of civilized, orderly, and even godly conduct. The book stays with you not because it is pleasant, but because it challenges you to look at your own era’s punishments and ask which of our current practices will one day be viewed with the same shock and disbelief. It is a dense, sometimes dry, but deeply thought-provoking record of the human capacity for both cruelty and eventual, hard-won change.