As the son of Wilma Jane Nurse Shogren I have two direct ancestors who were convicted of witchcraft in the area of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. My seventh great-grandmother Rebecca Towne Nurse and her sister, Mary Towne Eastey, were both hung on July 19, 1692. A third sister, Sarah Towne Cloyes, was accused but eventually released.

There are various spellings of the Nurse surname, the most common of which being "Nourse." It appears the name changed back and forth several times. Nurse is an occupational name, such as "Baker", "Carpenter" or "Cook".

I. Rebecca's ancestry

I have been able to trace the line back to Rebecca's maternal great-grandfather, John Blyssange, (my 10th great-grandfather) born in England in 1549.

His son, William Blessing, Rebecca's grandfather, was born about 1575 in Somerleyton, Norfolk, England. This is in East Anglia, the area that nearly all the individuals in the Nurse family tree came from. The nearby town of Great Yarmouth, where many of them lived, about 100 miles North of London,  a fishing port then, is now a seaside resort.

 The original Great Yarmouth coat of arms had three herrings, in honor of the small fish that had brought prosperity to the town. Later King Edward III, because of the support Great Yarmouth had  given the crown in a war with France, gave the town permission to add his royal lion to their coat of arms. So today the coat of arms of Great Yarmouth has three lion heads, each with herring tails.

To see Great Yarmouth as it was in 2003 Click here

William's daughter, Joanna Blessing (1595-1682) married William Towne and they were Rebecca's parents. Joanna was born in Great Yarmouth and died in Topsfield, Essex county, Massachusetts. The couple had eight children, Rebecca, Edmond, Jacob, Joseph, Mary, Sarah, John and Susannah. All but Sarah and Joseph were born in England.

William Towne and Joanna Blessing possibly left England on the ship "Rose of Yarmouth" in April 1637.  The exact date they left England and name of the ship used is not known. He was a puritan and apparently left England because of religious persecution like most of the people who left England for Massachusetts at that time.

There is much less information on Rebecca's husband Francis Nurse. He was born January 18, 1618 in England and died November 22, 1695 in Salem Village. He and Rebecca married August 24, 1644 at Salem. What was then known as Salem Village is now Danvers, MA.

Francis had appeared in Salem in about 1640 at about the age of 19. He was described as "a youth," possibly an indentured servant. The first mention of him in Salem, lightly crossed out in court records, (probably by a sensitive descendant), is the presentment on March 31, 1640, of "Francis Nurse a youth for stealing of victualls (food) and for suspicion of breaking (into) a house."

After Francis and Rebecca married, they lived for the next 30 years in the more thickly settled part of Salem, "near Skerry's" not far from where the bridge now crosses to Beverley. By trade he was a tray maker and artisan and in addition, he worked a small farm. They had eight children, Benjamin, Michael, Rebecca, John, Samuel, Sarah, Mary and Francis.

The Nurse farmhouse, Danvers, MA, now a museum.

II. Accusation and Trial

In the midwinter of 1691/92, girls living in Salem Village began to fall into horrid fits, and their parents tried to discover what was causing their distress. In late February, the village doctor concluded that the girls were being afflicted by witchcraft; and the girls, at the urging of their elders, named three witches - Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn. Tituba was a South American Arawak Indian house servant that the minister, Samuel Parris, a former planter, had brought with him from Barbados.

Other accusations followed and then on March 19, 1692, the girls named the frail 71-year-old matriarch, Rebecca Nurse, as one of their tormentors. When informed of her being accused of practicing witchcraft, Rebecca exclaimed, "...as to this thing, I am as innocent as the child unborn, but surely what sin hath God found out in me unrepented of that he should lay such an affliction upon me in my old age?"

On March 23, 1692, a warrant was issued for Rebecca's arrest for practicing witchcraft. The following day she was taken from her sickbed, arrested and brought to home of a Nathaniel Ingersoll for examination. She was committed to prison but she refused to confess. Rebecca was then brought before the magistrates for examination at the meeting house.

Rebecca was sent from Boston jail to Salem to be questioned once again by the Court on May 31.

On June 2 two physical examinations were performed by a jury of women. They found what a majority of them believed to be a mark of the devil -- although two of the women disagreed, saying the mark was due to natural causes. Rebecca asked that others examine her before she was brought to trial, but the request was denied.

Rebecca Nurse was tried on June 29, 1692. Her accusers included the four young girls who initiated the witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Rev. Parris and several members of the Putnam family. Rebecca's son, son-in-law and daughter-in -law spoke in her defense. In addition, some 40 members of Salem Village signed a declaration defending her character.

The jury at first returned a verdict of "not guilty." Some who had been accused confessed to practicing witchcraft in hopes that their death sentences would be dropped. One of these women, Goody Hobbs, had muttered "she is one of us." In light of this, the judge asked that the verdict be reconsidered. When Rebecca was asked what Goody Hobbs had meant, she didn't answer. Later she said that she had not heard the question, as she was hard of hearing, and that "one of us" had meant that they were imprisoned together. The Governor granted a reprieve, but when Rebecca's accusers renewed their outcry it was withdrawn.

On July 3, Rebecca Nurse was excommunicated -- "abandoned to the devil and eternally damned." Then on July 19 she was driven in a cart with four other women to Gallows Hill where she was hanged. Tradition says that at midnight Francis Nurse, his sons and sons-in-law found Rebecca's body in the common grave where it had been flung and carried it home for a proper burial in an unmarked grave.

On March 2, 1703 a "Petition to the Governor and General Court" requesting the reversal of Attainder "on thoses Executed and those Condemned in 1692" was made by "several of the Inhabitants of Andover, Salem Village, and Topsfield."

In 1710 Samuel Nurse made this statement; We were at the whole charge of providing for her during her imprisonment in Salem and Boston for the space of almost four months. We spent much time and made many journeys to Boston, Salem and other places in order to have vindicated her innocence. Although we produced plentiful testimony that my honored mother had led a blameless life from her youth up, yet she was condemned and executed"

In March 1721at the request of her children, the notice of her excommunication was erased from church records.

In 1885; Nurse family had a monument erected to her at Danvers, Massachusetts, inscribed with a poem composed by John Greenleaf Whittier;

O Christian martyr, who for Truth could die
When all about thee owned the hideous lie
The World redeemed from Superstitions sway
Is breathing freer for they sake today.

Francis Nurse died in 1695, and the house came into the possession of his son Samuel. In 1775 Rebecca's great-grandson, Francis, occupied the house.

This Francis was a sergeant in Captain John Putnam's Alarm Company, which was to be ready to march within a few minutes notice in case of trouble. On April 19, 1775, Nurse received the alarm that British troops were marching to Concord and from this house he shouldered his musket and marched to the battle. Danvers was the farthest town to respond to the Lexington Alarm that saw action, and save for Lexington, suffered the most casualties.

In 1784 Phineas Putnam purchased the property. In 1908 the house was purchased and restored by the Rebecca Nurse Memorial Association. In 1926 the property was given to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; and in 1981, ownership of the homestead was taken on by the Danvers Alarm List Company, Incorporated, which is a nonprofit, educational, 18th century re-enactment group.

Today the house includes three restored rooms with period furnishings of the l7th and 18th centuries. Among other buildings on the properties is the ca. 1681 Zerubabel Endecott house frame, now clad on the outside to resemble a barn. Inside the building is an exhibit of "First Period" architecture as well as a gift shop area. A short distance away is a reproduction of the 1672 Salem Village Meeting House.

III. My Own Ancestry

Rebecca's son, Benjamin Nurse, born on January 26, 1666 who lived in Framingham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, was my direct ancestor. On February 21, 1688 he married Thomasin (also spelled Tamasin) Smith at Salem. She was the daughter of John Smith and Margaret Buffum. She was born April 01, 1671, and died sometime before February 16, 1714 in Salem Village, Essex County, Massachusetts. Benjamin Nurse died in 1747

The eight children of Benjamin Nurse and Thomasin Smith were: Thomasin, Benjamin, William , Elizabeth, Ebenezer, Margaret, Moses and Aaron.

In this generation my direct ancestor was William Nurse. He was born March 08, 1696, in Framingham, Middlesex County., Massachusetts and died on April 15, 1779, in Westborough, Massachusetts. He married Rebecca Fay on December 12, 1723, Shrewsbury, Worcester County., Massachusetts. She died June 22, 1776, in Westborough, Massachusetts.

They also had eight children, Abraham, Benjamin, Daniel, Lydia, Mary, Priscilla, Samuel and Zerviah. This is the fourth generation in a row to have eight children.

In this family Daniel Nurse was my direct ancestor. He was born June 15, 1729 and died May 25, 1805. On Feb. 25, 1759 he married Sarah Ball who had been born August 29, 1734, the daughter of Nathaniel Ball and Mary Weston (Wesson). They had a son, Joseph Nurse who was born May 9, 1766 and was next in my line.

Joseph Nurse married Hannah Davis and they had a son, my ancestor, another Joseph Nourse. He was born January 09, 1797 in Westborough, MA and died August 27, 1834.

This Joseph married Elizabeth Fiske and they had a son, my great-grandfather William Henry Nourse. born October 23, 1831 at Princeton, Worcester County, MA.

William Henry Nourse married Rosamond C. Stuart in about 1855 in Broome County, NY. She had been born on June 22, 1834 at Fort Ann, NY, which is very close to the Vermont state line. They came to Minnesota in 1856 or 1857 and took a "preemption" (homestead) claim in Goodhue County, Minnesota. (Near Zumbrota)

He later served in Company F, 2^nd Regiment of the Minnesota Cavalry, from February 24, 1864 to December 3, 1865. (He was the one who had the Civil War sword that still is in the family). Although the Civil War was still going on, this unit was sent to the West to eliminate any threat from the Indians and punish the Sioux for the Minnesota Indian uprising of 1862.

The unit was part of an army led by General Alfred Sully. They went into the Dakota Territory and fought at the battle of the Little Heart River (near the present site of Bismark, North Dakota) and later at the battle of the Little Missouri (Eastern Montana). The unit eventually went back to Fort Snelling, Minnesota where the unit was disbanded.

The family came to Jackson County, Minnesota in 1871 and he took a soldier's homestead claim on section 10, Kimball Township, "where they resided until the ravages of the grasshoppers caused them to leave."

He later took his family to Rice County, Minnesota and later to Kansas. In 1906 he died in the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Grant, (near the city of Marion) Indiana.
During the Civil War, the government needed to care for disabled soldiers returning from the conflict. In 1865, President Lincoln signed legislation to create the "National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and Sailors." Renamed the "National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers" in 1873, the original site was expanded from a basic shelter for veterans to a planned community, fully equipped with chapels, schools, hotels, libraries, theaters, and farm buildings. As the carnage of war left thousands in need of care, the Board of Managers of the Home created ten self-contained branch facilities throughout the country. The National Military Home in Marion, Indiana, was one of these branches. Opened in 1890, the 151-acre facility served veterans of the Civil War and every conflict thereafter. The Home was also racially integrated: white and black veterans lived together here a full eighty years before the integration of the military troops. After it's creation in 1930, the Veteran's Administration took charge of the home. Once serving as many as 1,700 veterans in its nearly one hundred buildings, the National Military Home in Marion, Indiana is now used as a military hospital for roughly 200 patients. Bounded by the Mississinewa River, the National Military Home still features a beautiful campus along with a rich national history of care for war veterans.

There were also eight children in this family of whom seven survived: Anne (Mrs. Marshall. B. Dunn), of Jackson; Joseph Henry, of Des Moines township who was my grandfather; Lelia (Mrs. Sherman. J. Dunn), of Grant County, Minnesota; Gilbert F. of Jackson; Walter of Rice County; Zella (Mrs. Charles Swan), of Wood Lake, Minnesota; Walter of Rice County; Mark R., of the Minnesota soldier's home at Minnehaha, as he was disabled in Porto Rico during the Spanish war.

My grandfather, Joseph Henry Nourse was born January 1861 in Minneola (Goodhue County) Minnesota. He died September 26, 1931 in St. Peter, Minnesota. On November 29, 1888 he married Flora Celley, who had been born in Franklin, Maine in December 1864. Flora had come west to Estherville, Iowa to live with her half-sister, Sara Walker, after her mother died. Later she lived at Dunnell, Minnesota, which is near Jackson. Joseph and Flora had five children:

     
Joseph Henry Nourse                                     Flora Celley Nourse                  Wallie in uniform; Wilma (Billie): Isabelle (Ike); Warren (Ken); Winifred (Boo); in 1919

Joseph Walter (Wallie), Nourse who stayed on the home farm and took care of his mother except for service in World War I.

Isabelle Webetrue (Ike) Schuneman was a psychiatric nurse who lived and worked in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her husband, Sanford Schuneman was the repair shop foreman for a Ford dealer in St. Paul.

Wilma Jane (Billy) Shogren, my mother, went Normal School, and then later Mankato State College, and became a teacher. She taught first in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota and later in the logging areas of Northern Minnesota such as Mizpah, Northhome and Silverdale.

Warren Kenneth (Ken) Nourse became an industrial arts teacher who lived and taught in Hutchinson, Minnesota.

Winifred Blanche (Booby) Miller, who married Albert Otto Frank Miller. He was the Jackson County Treasurer and after his death she became county treasurer for the rest of that term.