The protagonist in The House of Seven Gables is Hepzibah Pyncheon. She is an aging gentlewoman who in the past had lived in luxury, but she has recently run into troubling economic times. She is an ancestor of a patrician Puritan background that goes all the way back to the colonial days of the United States. One of her earliest relatives
was Colonel Pyncheon who built a house with seven gables on property which was formerly owned by a man named Matthew Maule who was executed for witchcraft. It is said that Colonel Pyncheon was one of the main figures in having Maule executed.
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