Born ‎21 Feb 1620/21 Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, baptised ‎21 Feb 1620/21 St. Nicholas Ch., Gt. Yarmouth, Co Norfolk, England, died ‎19 Jul 1692 Salem Village, Essex, Massachusetts‎, approximately 72 years, buried ‎22 Jul 1692 Nurse Family Burying Ground, Danvers, Essex, Mass
Rebecca was in the eyes of those who knew her the very essence of what a Puritan mother should be. Deeply pious, she was so steeped in Scripture that the country roughness - she had a Chaucerian fondness for triple negatives - was often shot through with a poetical Scriptural quality. It was not merely a matter of lugging in texts, but a deep, instinctive poetry but a deep, instinctive feeling that overflowed into her simple, pregnant speech. When Rebecca spoke, it was as if one of the grand women of the Old Testament were speaking Naomi or Ruth amid alien corn (Rebecca herself remembered her birthplace, Yarmouth, England) or Rachel or indeed, her own namesake.

In her home, she resembled the wise woman of Proverbs and her children she had reared up with loving devotion to both their spiritual and their temporal welfare. Now, in her old age they rose up and called her "blessed", not only her four sons and four daughters, but perhaps what is the most tribute, her three sons in law and four daughters-in-law.

This is not to say she was altogether a saint. Even the Bible women (as anyone can discover by studying Scripture closely) had their 'off' days. The years had made Rebecca hard of hearing and infirm. When she was ill and did not clearly understand what was said to her, she could sometimes lose her temper. As a result, Rebecca was one of 19 hanged as Witches in the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Her trial is most often cited for the injustice of this trying period.

The night after the hanging, her family secretly removed her body from the mass grave and took it to the family burial grounds at their family farm.

(Source; "The Devil in Massachussets", 1989 Marion L. Starkey p. 78 - 84, 159 - 165, 175 - 176, 189. "Salem Posessed, the social origins of Witchcraft" 1974, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum.)

Rebecca was a 70 year old woman when she was hung for Witchcraft. She was hung on Gallows Hill with four other women, July 19, 1692. She was among Salem's most respected and religious citizens. The families of Edward and John Putnam issued the complaint against Rebecca. On March 23, a warrant was issued for her arrest. Her answer to the complaint was "I am innocent as the child unborn, but surely, what sin has God found out in me, unrepented, he should lay such affliction on me in my old age?" She was subject to an examination by women of the town and some said they found a "mark" by the devil. Others said the mark was of natural causes.
The house where Francis and Rebecca (Towne) Nurse lived still stands and is maintained by the Historical Society.

Rebecca Nurse was an ancestor of genealogist Walter Goodwin Davis, and Sarah (Towne) Cloyce, an accused but not executed third sister, was an ancestor of Red Cross founder Clara Barton (via Bridges and Barton) and of Pillsbury (Flour) CEO Philip Winston Pillsbury (via Harrington, Stevens, and Winston). Brothers of these three sisters were forebears of architect Ithiel Town (1784-1844); Mrs. Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt Gerry (wife of forestry pioneer George Washington Vanderbilt of Biltmore and of Senator Peter Goelet Gerry); First Lady Grace (Goodhue) Coolidge; novelist Kenneth Lewis Roberts, author of Northwest Passage; Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago; and actresses Lucille Ball and her daughter, Luci Arnaz, these last via Larrabee, Cummings, and Ball.
[towne.william.1599.descendants.1473672.ged]

Ref; History of the Town of Sullian, NH Vol. 2- By; Rev. Josiah Lafayete Seward, Priately Pub. Keene, NH, 1921.
Ref; Baptized; 21 Feb. 1621, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
Executed for witchcraft on July 19, 1692, having been acquitted on her first trail, but later rearrested and convicted, her attitude throughout demonstrating the highest nobility of character.

!CHR: "About Towne" newsletter Vol. XVI No. 1 p15 "baptized in that
church"
[Church of St. Nicholas] "per Norfolk Record Office Records."

!HISTORY: "About Towne" (ref. above) "William and Joanna's children
who
came with them on the ship circa 1635 were: Rebecca, age 14".
"Rebecca Nurse was born Rebecca Towne, the eldest child of William
and Joanna Blessing Towne of Great Yarmouth, England & Salem, MA.
Two of
Rebecca's sisters, Mary Towne Estey and Sarah Towne Bridges Cloyce
were tried
for witchcraft. Mary Estey was executed and Sarah Cloyce was
finally released
from prison after suffering greatly." Kile Unterzuber (CompuServe
76472,45)

!BUR: Rebecca was buried on the "Family Farm"; "Currents of Malice"
pg 402
"Rebecca Nurse's body was probably thrown into a crevice...According
to
tradition, her body was recovered at night by members of her family
and placed
in a grave next to that of her husband."

!DEA: "Currents of Malice" 1990 by Persis W. McMillen pg. 282, 393
"Sarah
Wilds..was hanged on July 19th (1692) along with Rebecca Nurse,
Elizabeth How,
Susannah Martin and Sarah Good."
Rebecca (Towne) Nurse was one of 19 who were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was one of the most pious individuals and is usually held up as the example of how wrong it all was.

Born ‎18 Jan 1617/18 Yarmouth, Bristol, England, died ‎22 Nov 1695 Salem Village, Essex, Massachusetts‎, approximately 78 years