In 1785 or thereabouts, Margaret Krieger stood accused of a most heinous and ungodly offense. In the vernacular of 18th-century New Englanders, she was “an extraordinary woman” – or, in modern parlance, a witch. For the crime of being strong, capable and independent in an age when women were treated as chattel, the widow from North Pownal was given a Hobson’s choice: She could either climb to the top of a tall tree that would be chopped down with her in it or be thrust through a hole in the ice on the Hoosic River.