“The Burial of Roger Malvin” and HistoryQ. D. Leavis states that Hawthorne had among his ancestors a "judge who hung witches and the major who whipped Quakers" (30). This is a reference to an example of historical allusion in Hawthorne's short stories. This essay will explore a variety of historical incidents mentioned in his short story "Roger Malvin's Burial." Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” lays out the author's deep historical connections: William Hathorne was a colonial magistrate involved in the persecution of Quakers, another Protestant religious group. Hawthorne later described him as "a grave, bearded man, clad in sand and crowned with a steeple", a hard and dark man. His son John Hathorne was well known as the Puritan judge who condemned women as witches in 1692 during the Salem witchcraft trials, and who later expressed no remorse for his actions. . . . Of his ancestors, particularly Judge John, Hawthorne would later say: “I…. . . hereby take shame upon me because of them, and pray that any curse incurred by them may be removed. . . can be now and henceforth deleted (14). It is therefore not surprising that Hawthorne, in “The Burial of Roger Malvin,” uses the story as a source for this tale. Wagenknecht notes in Nathaniel Hawthorne a confidence in history (60). Some other critics comment on Hawthorne's incorporation of history into his literary works. Stanley T. Williams in "Hawthorne's Puritan Mind" states: What he wrote about New England was not merely "local color"; rather, it was the subconscious mind of New England. It was this memorable art that distinguished him from Emerson and Thoreau, an art that included his distillations of historical episodes into moods. (43) Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty and E. Hudson Long in the middle of the article ......edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawRoge.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts /english/modeng /parsed&tag=public&part=allFuller, Edmund, and B. Jo Kinnick in “Stories Derived from Life in New England.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Leavis, Q. D. “Hawthorne as Poet.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by AN Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Swisher, Clarice. “Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989. Williams, Stanley T. “The Puritan Mind of Hawthorne.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.