William Stoughton (judge)

New England magistrate and colonial administrator

William Stoughton (1631 – July 7, 1701) was a New England magistrate and colonial administrator in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the chief justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence (based on supposed demonic visions).

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