At the Sign of the Red Mantua

10/14/2026

10/01/2026

09/30/2026

Salem and Fairfield: Two Colonies, Autumn 1692

In October 1692, accused witches were held in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, yet the two colonies prosecuted them by markedly different means.

In Salem, there is no known record of a water test, and convictions leaned on spectral evidence.

In Fairfield, Mercy Disborough of Compo, confident of her innocence, asked to be put to the water test. She floated. Convicted in October 1692, she was reprieved in May 1693 after ministers declared water tests and spectral evidence invalid and officials found errors with the jury.

Connecticut's rejection of spectral evidence helped save Mercy's life. In 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly formally absolved her. Connecticut Witch Trial History Trail and Exoneration Project

09/21/2026

Very excited for this!

By the great Shelly Dziedzic Lizzie Borden Warps & Wefts

08/14/2026

A bit different than what I usually post, but amongst many of these beautiful liners is always some form of human tragedy. I wanted to highlight the two American victims of the 1917 Laconia disaster Mary Hoy and her daughter Elizabeth. They boarded the Laconia on February 17, 1917. They and the 289 people aboard were disturbed awake by the muffled explosion of a torpedo attack at 10:33 pm on February 25.

The Laconia blasted her horn 5 times, and the evacuation process began amidst a heavy winter swell. The well trained passengers and crew boarded the lifeboats with little panic. Of the 13 lifeboats launched, the No. 8 port side boat experienced some difficulty. Smashing against the hull swamping the boat, and largely stayed afloat due to its tanks.

During the cold night, Elizabeth aged 38, held her 58 year old mother Mary in her arms. Survivor Father Dunstan Sergeant later recalled, “Everyone began to feel sleepy and numb from the cold. Miss Hoy was holding her mother and patting her on the cheek, “urging her not to go to sleep,” but her mother was not asleep. She was dead.” Soon Elizabeth succumbed to exposure and died not long after. Both women would be buried at sea in the morning.

The Laconia sinking would unleash a new small wave of anger amongst the American population. Upset that more two American women were the latest casualties in a European conflict. Mary Hoy’s son Austin sent a telegram stating that if the president doesn’t do something than he would join a nation that would.

07/23/2026

How amazing!!

07/19/2026

Today, we remember the lives and legacies of the five women hanged 334 years ago.

On July 19, 1692, between 8am and noon, Sheriff George Corwin led Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, Susannah Martin, and Elizabeth Howe by cart through the streets of Salem to the ex*****on place. It was the first mass ex*****on of the Salem witch trials.

Facing the gallows, each woman met death in her own way. Rebecca Nurse prayed quietly, pausing only to look for her family in the crowd. Sarah Good, pressed one last time by Reverend Nicholas Noyes to confess, she refused and answered him with words that would outlive them both: "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." None of the five ever confessed. None of them stopped insisting on their innocence.

According to family tradition, Rebecca Nurse's family returned to the hanging site that night, recovered her body from its shallow, temporary grave, and carried her home by boat to be buried on their own land, a grave that remains unmarked and lost to history. The exact resting places of the other four remain a mystery as well.

334 years later, we remember their names not for what they were accused of, but for the truth they refused to abandon, even facing death.

07/10/2026

On this day Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England, Ireland, and France (long story)

Her disputed reign would last only 9 days

07/09/2026

I do love the 1910s deep down

07/04/2026

In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid ...