New at Old York
Humiliation, whipping, branding and ducking: Punishment in and around York's Old Gaol in the 1700s
By Curator of Collections Tom Johnson
This ducking stool, dating to between 1630 and 1700, is on display in the Old Gaol and is the type of stool used to punish York's "gossips and common scolds" in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Courtesy photo
York's first prison, built in 1653, was established by the Massachusetts Bay Puritan authorities to establish their order over the Province of Maine. It was they who came up with a standardized criminal code for the punishment of convicted prisoners. Many of these punishments were carried out by methods we would find barbaric.
On Gaol Hill today stands a reproduction pillory, where many people delight in having their picture taken while having their head and wrists clamped. But the fun of today was serious business in 1671 when York resident Thomas Withers was ordered to withstand two hours of public humiliation in the pillory "for putting large sums of money in the contribution box in meeting to induce others to give largely and then taking his donation back again."
Numerous sentences of whipping were carried out at the York gaol. The whipping post stood near the top of the path used to enter the building. Both male and female offenders were stripped of their shirts and whipped with cat-o'-nine tails - nine knotted pieces of leather cord fastened to a piece of rope, not the marsh plant - or birch rods, depending on the offence.
Birch rods could be most uncomfortable, but cat-o'-nine tails were reserved for lasting punishment. The knots at the end of the cord broke any welts raised by the whipping and ensured a bloody and painful lesion with lasting scars. The name probably originated from the "scratching" it gave to a convict's bare back. Lying, swearing, selling rum to the Indians or "writing against the government" were all causes for punishment at the whipping post. Ten lashes was the most frequent sentence; 39 and over were considered cruel punishment. York had at least two instances of the latter on its books.
How many know Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" was probably inspired by a visit Hawthorne made to the Old Gaol and the story of Mary Batcheldor? Batcheldor, held at the gaol in 1653, was convicted of adultery with her neighbor George Rogers, and was not only whipped 39 times, but was also branded by a red-hot iron on her cheek with the letter "A."
Rogers was whipped 39 times, but escaped any brands. Branding was more common than we might think. In the 1600s Quakers were labeled "blasphemous heretics" and any caught were branded with an "R" for rogue on their right shoulder. Given there were large Quaker settlements in nearby towns, it wasn't hard to find people to inflict this upon.
Thieves were branded with a "T," counterfeiters with an "F" for forgery and burglars with a "B."
The placid beauty of the York River is also difficult to reconcile with the historical record of another punishment - ducking. For it was in the York River that "gossips and common scolds" - usually women - were clamped with iron restraints into a stout oak chair which hung at the end of a free-moving arm. Both seat and woman would then be dunked, or "ducked," into the water.
Depending on the perceived severity and maliciousness of the offence, duckings could go on intermittently all day or for just a few seconds. Occasionally, bickering couples would be strapped in back-to-back and ducked as punishment for public displays of scolding.
York was fined for not providing a ducking stool in 1672, but soon remedied the situation and ducking became a common form of punishment here into the 1700s.
Think about that the next time you lose your temper publicly…
