John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts.
16 Facts About John Hathorne
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John Hathorne is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
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Unlike Samuel Sewall, John Hathorne is not known to have repented for his actions.
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John Hathorne was a patrilineal ancestor of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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John Hathorne expanded on the successes of his father in building a small empire based on land and merchant trade to England and the West Indies.
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John Hathorne assumed positions of authority in the town, and was appointed a justice of the peace of Essex County, and served as a member of the colony's council of assistants.
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John Hathorne's questioning of a number of individuals was characterized at the time as somewhat harsh.
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Samuel Sewall Nathaniel Hawthorne Rebecca Nurse Joseph Dudley Cotton Mather Giles Corey 8.
John Hathorne is noted for his questioning of Rebecca Nurse and Bridget Bishop:.
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The special court was replaced in 1693 by the Superior Court of Judicature, on which John Hathorne was not immediately seated; it cleared most of the accused it tried of any wrongdoing, and the few convictions it handed down were vacated by Governor Phips.
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Later in the 1690s John Hathorne followed in his father's military footsteps and became more involved in the colonial military activities of King William's War, leading forces in the 1696 Siege of Fort Nashwaak.
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John Hathorne continued to be active in the colonial militia, and was promoted to colonel in 1711.
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John Hathorne was finally appointed to the Superior Court by Governor Joseph Dudley, a seat he held until 1711.
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John Hathorne died in Salem in 1717, and is interred in the Old Burying Point Cemetery along with a number of his descendants.
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John Hathorne is featured in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible.
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In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's play Giles Corey of the Salem Farms, John Hathorne is shown debating Cotton Mather on the nature of witchcraft and presiding over hearings in which Giles Corey refuses to enter a plea.
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John Hathorne is featured in Alice Hoffman's book Magic Lessons, where the protagonist Maria Owens first meets him in Curacao, West Indies and later in Salem, Massachusetts.