Abigail Hobbs was a girl of about 14 years old when she was arrested for witchcraft on April 18, 1692 along with Giles Corey, Mary Warren, and Bridget Bishop. Prior to living in Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts), she and her family had lived in Casco, Maine, the frontier of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, during a time when there were many attacks by the Wabanaki Native Americans. Her stepmother, Deliverance Hobbs, and her father William Hobbs, were also both charged with witchcraft.
During her multiple examinations by local magistrates between April and June 1692, Abigail confessed and accused others of witchcraft, including John Proctor. At her trial in September, she pled guilty to both indictments against her, one for afflicting Mercy Lewis and another for covenanting with the Devil.
Governor William Phips granted Hobbs a reprieve in January 1693, after Chief Magistrate William Stoughton had signed the warrant for her execution.
In 1710, her father, William Hobbs, petitioned the General Court to compensate him for £40 expenses that the family's imprisonment cost him but said he was willing to accept £10, which the court granted him in 1712.
Abigail Hobbs was among those named in the Act for Reversal of Attainder by the Massachusetts Great and General Court, October 17, 1711.
Famous quotes containing the words abigail and/or hobbs:
“Traveller take heed for journeys undertaken in the dark of the year.
Go in the bright blaze of Autumn’s equinox.”
—Margaret Abigail Walker (b. 1915)
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)