SOURCE: "John Hawthorne, Magistrate," in Salem Witchcraft and Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, Heritage Books, Inc., 1992, pp. 64-75.

In the excerpt below, Robinson provides a short overview of Hathorne's life and examines the similarities between Hathorne and the fictional character of Colonel Pyncheon in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables.

… William Hathorne made full use of his position as magistrate to obtain wealth. During the Quaker persecution the authorities took a yoke of oxen from the Quaker John Small to settle a fine. Small's wife came to court and asked the magistrates William Hathorne and Daniel Denison, "If her husband and the Friends were such an accursed people, how then did they meddle with their goods, for they must be accursed also?" Denison turned to the woman and said, "Woman, we have none of it, for we give it to the poor." As she was speaking...