Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								

forgiveness. From the Decisions of Virginia General Court now being
printed by the Virginia Historical Society, we learn of one Margaret
Jones that at a court held at "James-Citty" on the 12th of October,
1626: "for ye severall offences aforenamed, of ye said Margaret Jones,
yt Shee bee toughed or dragged at a boats Starne in ye River from ye
shoare unto the Margaret & John and thence unto the shoare againe."
Toughed would seem a truly appropriate word for this ordeal. The provost
marshal's fees decreed by this court at this time were ten shillings
"for punishing any man by ducking."
In 1634 two women were sentenced to be either drawn from King's Creek
"from one Cowpen to another at the starn of a boat or kanew," or to
present themselves before the congregation and ask public forgiveness of
each other and God.
In 1633 it was ordered that a ducking-stool be built in every county in
Maryland, but I have no proof that they were ever built or used, though
it is probable they were. At a court-baron at St. Clements, the county
was prosecuted for not having one of these "public conveniences."
Half a century elapsed after the settlement of Massachusetts ere that
commonwealth ordered a ducking-stool. On the 15th of May, 1672, while
Richard Bellingham was Governor, the court at Massachusetts Bay passed
this law:
"Whereas there is no expresse punishment by any law hitherto established
affixed to the evill practise of sundry persons by exorbitancy of the
tonge in rayling and scolding, it is therefore ordered, that all such
persons convicted, before any Court or magistrate that hath propper
cognizance of the cause for rayling or scolding, shalbe gagged or sett
in a ducking stoole & dipt ouer head & eares three times in some
convenient place of fresh or salt water as the Court or magistrate shall
judge meete."
Governor Bellingham's sister was a notorious scold, who suffered death
as a witch.
John Dunton, writing from Boston in 1686, does not note the presence of
a ducking-stool, but says:
"Scolds they gag and set them at their own Doors for certain hours
together, for all comers and goers to gaze at; were this a Law in
England and well executed it wou'd in a little Time prove an Effectual
Remedy to cure the Noise that is in many Women's heads."
This was a law well-executed at the time in Scotland, though Dunton was
ignorant of it.
There are no entries to show that the law authorizing ducking ever was
executed in Massachusetts nor in Maine, where a dozen towns--Kittery,
York and others--were fined for "having no coucking-stool." It was
ordered on Long Island that every Court of Sessions should have a
ducking-stool; but nothing exists in their records to prove that the
order was ever executed, or any Long Island woman ducked; nor is there
proof that there was in New York city a ducking-stool, though orders
were issued for one; a Lutheran minister of that city excused himself