The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

‘ [161] remember it well, for it was a clear, warm day about the last of October, and it was a brave sight to behold. There was Marshal Michelson and Captain Oliver, with two hundred soldiers afoot, besides many on horse of our chief people, and among them the minister, Mr. Wilson, looking like a saint as he was, with a pleasant and joyful countenance, and a great multitude of people, men, women, and children, not only of Boston, but from the towns round about. I got early on to the ground, and when they were going to the gallows I kept as near to the condemned ones as I could. There were two young, well-favored men, and a woman with gray hairs. As they walked hand in hand, the woman in the middle, the Marshal, who was riding beside them, and who was a merry drolling man, asked her if she was n't ashamed to walk hand in hand between two young men; whereupon, looking upon him solemnly, she said she was not ashamed, for this was to her an hour of great joy, and that no eye could see, no ear hear, no tongue speak, and no heart understand, the sweet incomes and refreshings of the Lord's spirit, which she did then feel. This she spake aloud, so that all about could hear, whereat Captain Oliver bid the drums to beat and drown her voice. Now, when they did come to the gallows ladder, on each side of which the officers and chief people stood, the two men kept on their hats, as is the ill manner of their sort, which so provoked Mr. Wilson, the minister, that he cried out to them: “ What! shall such Jacks as you come before authority with your hats on?” To which one of them said: “Mind you, it is for ”’