In 1653 Christopher Collins of Lynn brought suit against Enoch Coldan for slander, for saying that Collins' wife was a witch and calling her a witch. The judgment however was for the defendant. Another accusation was promptly squelched in the fall of the same year.
Edmond Marshall of Gloucester unwisely stated publicly that Mistress Perkins, Goodey Evans, Goodey Dutch and Goodey Vincent were under suspicion of being witches. Their husbands at once brought suit for defamation of character and the verdict in each case was, that the defendant should make public acknowledgment within fourteen days in the meetinghouses at Salem, Ipswich and Gloucester.
To sentence a culprit to expiate his crime before the congregation in the meetinghouse was a common thing. The publicity, in theory, induced shame and thus served as a future deterrent. To sit in the stocks and then make public acknowledgment before the congregation was a favorite penalty. Sometimes the offender was ordered to stand at the church door with a paper on his hat inscribed with the crime he had committed. If for lying, a cleft stick might ornament his tongue. Whipping was the most frequent penalty, closely followed by the stocks, and after a time imprisonment became more common. The bilboes were used only in the earliest period. The use of the stocks and whipping post was discontinued in 1813 and not a single example seems to have survived in either museum or attic. The pillory was in use in State Street, Boston, as late as 1803, and two years before, John Hawkins stood one hour in the pillory in what is now Washington Street, Salem, and afterwards had one ear cropped--all for the crime of forgery. Branding the hand or cheek was also inflicted, and Hawthorne has made famous another form of branding, the wearing prominently upon the clothing, an initial letter of a contrary color, symbolizing the crime committed. This penalty was inflicted upon a man at Springfield, as late as October 7, 1754, and the law remained in force until February 17, 1785. As early as 1634 a Boston drunkard was sentenced to wear a red D about his neck for a year.[93]
[93] At the Court of Assize, at Springfield, the 2d Tuesday of September last, Daniel Bailey and Mary Rainer, of a Place adjoining to Sheffield in that county, were convicted of Adultery, and were sentenced to suffer the Penalty of the Law therefor, viz. to sit on the Gallows with a Rope about their Necks, for the Space of an Hour; to be whipt forty Stripes each, and to wear for ever after a Capital A, two Inches long, and proportionable in bigness, cut out in Cloth of a contrary Colour to their Cloaths, and sewed upon their upper Garments, either upon the outside of the arm, or on the back.--_Boston Evening-Post_, Oct. 9, 1752.