The man who built the 1st stocks in Boston was also the 1st to get punished by them!
Punishment has varied greatly over the years. While the death penalty has largely gone out of fashion in America today, it used to be a popular practice accompanied by various other tortures that would today seem even more barbaric.
Ducking stools, which simply plopped the person in and out of water until they practically drowned, were popular along with several other brutal punishments. For petty crimes, stocks were the most common form of punishment and ridicule.
The first man imprisoned in the stocks was a carpenter named Edward Palmer. After they were completed he was immediately locked up. Why? The magistrates of Boston believed Palmer charged too much to build the stocks they commissioned and charged him with extortion!