On or about this day in 1629, one John Dean, described in court documents as “an infant between eight and nine years,” was hanged in Abingdon, England for setting fire to two barns in the nearby town of Windsor. According to Historia placitorum corone: The history of the pleas of the crown, Volume 1 by William Axton Stokes and Edward Ingersoll, this juvenile felon was indicted, arraigned and found guilty all on the same day, February 23, “and was hanged accordingly.” The actual date of his execution is not known, but it can’t have been long afterward. The wheels of...