Born: c. 1629

Suffolk County, England

Died: c. 1695

Ipswich, Massachusetts

Homemaker, care giver, and accused witch

Rachel Clinton was one of many people accused in the New England witch-hunts who regained her freedom in 1693 after a court-ordered reprieve. Her story shows how a formerly wealthy and respected citizen could be reduced to poverty after being wrongly accused of practicing witchcraft. It also one of the few documented accounts of witch-hunts elsewhere in Massachusetts prior to the Salem trials of 1692–93.

The Haffield Family Fortune

Rachel Clinton was born Rachel Haffield, the daughter of Richard and Martha Haffield, in Suffolk County, England, in 1629. Her father had a considerable amount of wealth and property but married below his social station when he took Martha as his second wife. Martha came from a poor family and apparently resented the higher social standing of Richard's first wife, and let it be known...