Wenlock Christison  Wenlock Christison (before 1660 – c. 1679) was the last person to be sentenced to death in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for being a Quaker. Four people had previously been executed in Massachusetts for this reason. However, Christison was not executed. He left Massachusetts and lived the remainder of his life in Talbot County, Maryland. Wenlock's origins are unknown. Historians sometimes reported his last name as Christopherson. He may have been of Scottish descent, and referred to himself as a British subject. The earliest record of him is from 1660 when he was held in jail in Boston along with other Quakers, including William Leddra. What the charges were against Christison at that time are unknown but most likely he was held for violating an ordinance that prohibited Quakers from being in Boston. Christison, along with Leddra and several other Quakers, was released from jail and banished from Massachusetts "under penalty of death should he return". From Boston, Christison and Leddra went to Plymouth Colony, where they were robbed, whipped, imprisoned and eventually banished. By this time William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who had been banished from Massachusetts, had returned and were executed on October 27, 1659. Mary Dyer was executed on April 1, 1660 under the same circumstances. Seeking martyrdom, Christison and Leddra also returned to Boston. Leddra was arrested in late 1660 or early in 1661 while visiting some friends in prison. He was tried and hanged in March, 1661. Christison was arrested while attending Leddra's trial. He was arraigned on March 14, 1661, the day that Leddra was executed. His trial took place on April 3 and Governor John Endicott sentenced him to be hanged on June 13. The Quakers believed that during an altercation between the accused and Humphrey Atherton at the trial, Christison prophesied the outcome of his trial as well as the circumstances of Atherton's untimely death. Quaker writer George Bishop wrote, Yea, Wenlock Christison, though they did not put him to death, yet they sentenced him to die, so that their cruel purposes were nevertheless. I cannot forbear to mention what he spoke, being so prophetical, not only as to the judgment of God coming on Major-general Adderton, but as to their putting any more Quakers to death after they had passed sentence on him.