"Stocks" were a type of device used in colonial America (although they were created far earlier in history, used often in Medieval times and even appearing in the Bible) to punish criminals. Stocks can take different shapes and forms, but most commonly involve locking a person's head and wrists (sometimes ankles as well) in between two boards. The person being punished is then left on public display, with the entirety of the town free to jeer, heckle, and pelt the "criminal" with garbage.
Stocks appear in The Witch of Blackbird Pond after Nat puts jack-o-lanterns in the house of William Ashby as a childish prank. These ghoulish decorations, though a common part of our contemporary American Halloween celebration, were once considered Satanic in nature. Nat and his fellow sailors are put in the stocks to punish them for this "outrageous blasphemy." This speaks to just how rigid and puritanical the settlements in America were at the time!
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