John Richards (Salem witch trials) Boston on April 2, 1694. He had married Ann Winthrop, the widowed daughter-in-law of founder John Winthrop; they had no children. John Richards (Salem witch trials) John Richards (died April 2, 1694) was a colonial military officer, businessman, politician, and magistrate, best known for his participation in the Salem witch trials in 1692. John Richards was born in England, and traveled with his parents in 1630 to North America as part of the first major wave of migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1644 Ricards was enrolled in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which he would remain involved
Valais witch trials Valais witch trials The Valais witch trials consisted of a witch-hunt including a series of witch trials which took place in the Valais (the prince-bishopric of Sion, today part of Switzerland) beginning in 1428. The Valais witch-hunt is the first of the systematic campaigns which would become much more widespread in the decades to come, initiating the period of witch trials in Europe. The persecutions started in French-speaking Lower Valais and spread to German-speaking Upper Valais and to nearby valleys in the Western Alps. They subsided after six to eight years (c. 1434/6), but the phenomenon spread further afield from