In Salem Village in February 1692, Betty Parris, 9, and her cousin, Abigail Williams, 11, the daughter and niece, respectively, of Rev. Samuel Parris, started to have fits described as “beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect” by John Hale, the minister of the nearby town of Beverly. The girls screamed, threw things around the house, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions, as seen by the eyewitness account of Rev. Deodat Lawson, a former minister in Salem Village.
When the girls complained of being pinched and pricked with pins, a doctor by the name of William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Other women began exhibiting similar behaviors. When Lawson preached as a guest in the Salem Village meetinghouse, he was interrupted several times by outbursts of the afflicted.
The three people to be accused and arrested for allegedly afflicting Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and 12-year-old Ann Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard, were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba—Tituba being first. Some historians believe that the accusations by Ann Putnam, Jr. suggests a family feud may have been a major cause of the witch trials. During this time, a vicious rivalry was underway between the Putnam and Porter families, and deeply polarized the people of Salem. Citizens even resorted to heated debates, which erupted into full-fledged fights based on their opinions of the feud.
Good, a homeless beggar known to seek food and shelter from neighbors, was accused of witchcraft because of her appalling reputation. At her trial, she was accused of rejecting Puritan ideas of self-control and discipline when she chose to torment and “scorn [children] instead of lead them towards the path of salvation.”
Sarah Osbourne, rarely attending church meetings, was accused of witchcraft when Puritans believed that Osbourne had her own self-interests in mind when she remarried an indentured servant. The citizens of the town also disapproved of Osbourne trying to control her son’s inheritance from her previous marriage.
Tituba, a South American Indian slave by way of the West Indies, became accused because of her ethnic differences from most of the other villagers. She was accused of attracting Abigail Williams and Betty Parris’ attentions with stories of enchantment from Malleus Maleficarum. These tales about sexual encounters with demons, swaying the minds of men, and fortune-telling were said to stimulate the imaginations of girls, which made Tituba the target of such accusations.
These women were outcasts exhibiting characteristic traits typical of the “usual suspects” for witchcraft accusations and were left to defend themselves. Brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft, they were interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, and sent to jail.
Also in March, others were accused of witchcraft—Marth Corey, a child, Dorothy Good, and Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village, and Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich. Martha Corey expressed skepticism about the girls’ credibility of accusations and drew attention to herself. The charges against her and Rebecca Nurse deeply troubled the community because Martha Corey was a full covenanted member of the Church in Salem Village, as was Rebecca Nurse in the Church in Salem Town. this meant that if upstanding people could be witches, according to townspeople, then anybody could be a witch, and church membership was no protection from accusation. Dorothy Good, Sarah Good’s four-year-old daughter, was not exempted from questioning by the magistrates, as her answers were construed as a confession implicating her mother. In Ipswich, Rachel Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March on independent charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village.
Accusations and Examinations Before Local Magistrates
Sarah Cloyce, Nurse’s sister, and Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor were arrested in April, and brought before John Hathorne and Jonathon Corwin at a meeting in Salem Town. the men were local magistrates and members of the Governor’s Council. Present for the examination were Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, and Assistants Samuel Sewall, Samuel Appleton, James Russell and Isaac Addington. When Elizabeth’s husband, John Proctor, objected during the proceedings, he was arrested that same day.
A week later, Martha’s husband, Giles Corey, a covenanted member of the church in Salem Town, Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Mary Warren (a servant in the Proctor household and sometime accuser), and Deliverance Hobbs (step-mother of Abigail Hobbs) were also arrested and examined. Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren, and Deliverance Hobbs not only confessed, but named additional people as accomplices, prompting more arrests: Sarah Wilde, William Hobbs (Deliverance’s husband and father of Abigail), Nehemiah Abbott, Jr., Mary Eastey (Sister of Cloyce and Nurse), Edward Bishop, Jr. and his wife Sarah Bishop and Mary English.
On April 30, Rev. George Burroughs, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Morey, and Philip English (Mary’s husband) were also arrested. Nehemiah Abbott, Jr. was released when the accusers agreed he was not the person whose specter afflicted them. Mary Eastey was also released because her accusers failed to confirm she afflicted them, but later reconsidered and was arrested again. In May, the accusations continued to pour in, but some suspects evaded apprehension. Multiple warrants were issued before John Willard and Elizabeth Colson were apprehended; George Jacobs, Jr. and Daniel Andrews were not caught. Up to this point, all proceedings were investigated, but on May 27, 1692, William Phips ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties to prosecute cases of those jailed. Warrants were issued for even more people. Sarah Osbourne, one of the first three persons accused, died in jail on May 10, 1692.
Warrants were issued for 36 more people, with examinations taking place in Salem Village: Sarah Dustin, (daughter of Lydia Dustin), Ann Sears, Bethiah Carter Sr. and her daughter, Bethiah Carter Jr., George Jacobs, Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs, John Willard, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Abigail Soames, George Jacobs, Jr. (son of George Jacobs, Sr. and father of Margaret Jacobs), Daniel Andrew, Rebecca Jacobs (wife of George Jacobs, Jr. and sister of Daniel Andrew), Sarah Buckley and her daughter Mary Witheridge.
Also included were Elizabeth Colson, Elizabeth Hart, Thomas Farrar, Sr., Roger Toothaker, Sarah Proctor (daughter of John and Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Bassett (sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Susannah Roots, Mary DeRich (another sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Pease, Elizabeth Cary, Martha Carrier, Elizabeth Fosdick, Wilmot Redd, Sarah Rice, Elizabeth Howe, Capt. John Alden, (son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins), William Proctor (son of John and Elizabeth Proctor), John Flood, Mary Toothaker (wife of Roger Toothaker and sister of Mary Carrier) and her daughter Margaret Toothaker, and Arthur Abbott. The Court of Oyer and Terminer convened at the end of May, bringing the total number of people in custody to 62.
Cotton Mather wrote to one of the judges, John Richards, a member of his congregation, on May 31, 1692, expressing support of the prosecutions, but cautioned him:
“…do not lay more stress on pure spectral evidence than it will bear … It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the Shapes of persons not only innocent, but also very virtuous. Though I believe that the just God then ordinarily provides a way for the speedy vindication of the persons thus abused.”
Formal Prosecution: The Court of Oyer and Terminer
The Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem Town on June 2, 1692, with William Stoughton, the new Lieutenant Governor, as Chief Magistrate, Thomas Newton as the Crown’s Attorney prosecuting the cases, and Stephen Sewall as clerk. Bridget Bishop’s case was first to the grand jury, endorsing all indictments against her. They accused Bishop as not living a Puritan lifestyle, wearing black clothing and odd costumes, that were against Puritan code. When examined before her trial, Bishop was asked about her coat, which was awkwardly “cut or torn in two ways.”
Bishop’s “immoral” lifestyle confirmed to the jury she was a witch, and convicted. The same day, June 3, Rebecca Nurse ad John Willard, the grand jury endorsed indictments against them, but they did not go to trial immediately—reasons are unclear on this. Bishop was executed by hanging on June 10, 1692.
Following the execution, the court adjourned for 20 days—June 30—seeking advice from New England’s most influential ministers “upon the state of things as they then stood.” The collective response came back from Cotton Mather on June 15:
“1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbors, that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities.
2. We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honourable rulers, to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected.
3. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things rejected only upon the Devil’s authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant of his devices.
4. As in complaints upon witchcrafts, there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and there may be matters of presumptions which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is necessary, that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation.
5. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as is possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may no thing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God; but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard [be consulted in such a case].
6. Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and, much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused person’s being represented by a specter unto the afflicted; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may, by God’s permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the Devil’s legerdemains.
7. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given to the Devils by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusations of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid unto their charge.
8. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the direction given in the laws of God, and the wholesome statutes of the English nation, for the detection of witchcrafts.”
Hutchinson summarizes the letter, “The two first and the last sections of this advice took away the force of all the others, and the prosecutions went on with more vigor than before.”
Nathaniel Saltonstall, Esq. resigned from the court on or about June 16, presumably dissatisfied with the letter that it had not outright barred the admission of spectral evidence. According to Upham, Saltonstall deserves credit for “being the only public man of his day who had the sense of courage to condemn the proceedings, at the start. As more people were accused, arrested, and examined, by former local magistrates in Salem Town, John Hathorne, Jonathon Corwin, and Bartholomew Gedney, became judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Suspect Roger Toothaker died in prison on June 16, 1692.
From June 30 through early July, the grand jury endorsed indictments against Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor, Martha Carrier, Sarah Wildes, and Dorcas Hoar. Sarah Good, Elizabeth How, Susannah Martin and Sarah Wildes, along with Rebecca Nurse went to trial and found guilty. They were all executed by hanging on July 19, 1692. Around mid-July, the constable in Andover invited the afflicted girls from Salem Village to visit with his wife to determine who was causing her afflictions. Ann Foster, her daughter Mary Lacey, Sr., and granddaughter, Mary Lacey, Jr. all confessed to being witches. Anthony Checkley was appointed by Governor Phips to replace Thomas Newton as the Crown’s Attorney when Newton took an appointment in New Hampshire.
The grand juries indicted George Burroughs, Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, and George Jacobs, Sr. The trial juries convicted Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor was granted a temporary stay of execution due to pregnancy. On August 19, 1692, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, and John Proctor were executed.
“Mr. Burroughs was carried in a Cart with others, through the streets of Salem, to Execution. When he was upon the Ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his Innocency, with such Solemn and Serious Expressions as were to the Admiration of all present; his Prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord’s Prayer) [as witches were not supposed to be able to recite] was s well worded, and uttered with such composedness as such fervency of spirit, as was very Affecting, and drew Tears from many, so that if seemed to some that the spectators would hinder said the black Man [Devil] stood and dictated to him. As soon as he was turned off [hanged], Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a Horse, addressed himself to the People, partly to declare that he [Mr. Burroughs] was no ordained Minister, partly to possess the People of his guilt, saying that the devil often had been transformed into the Angel of Light. And this did somewhat appease the People, and the Executions went on; when he [Mr. Burroughs] was cut down, he was dragged by a Halter to a Hole, or Grave, between the Rocks, about two feet deep; his Shirt and Breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of Trousers of one Executed put on his lower parts: he was so put in, together with Willard and Carrier, that one of his Hands, and his Chin, and a Foot of one of them, was left uncovered. ~Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World.
September 1692
The grand juries indicted 18 more people in September. The grand jury failed to indict William Proctor, but was arrested on new charges. On September 19, 1692, Giles Corey, refused to plead at his arraignment, and was killed by peine forte et dure, a form of torture in which the subject is pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones, in an attempt to make him enter a plea. Four pleaded guilty an 11 others were tried and found guilty.
Cotton Mather wrote to Stephen Sewall on September 20: “That I may be the more capable to assist in lifting up a standard against the infernal enemy”, as he requested “a narrative of the evidence given in at the trials of half a dozen, or if you please, a dozen, of the principal witches that have been condemned.”
On September 22, 1692, eight more were executed, “After Execution Mr. Noyes turning to the Bodies, said, what a sad thing it is to see Eight Firebrands of hell hanging there.”
Dorcas Hoar was given a temporary reprieve, with support of several ministers, to make a confession on being a witch. Mary Bradbury, 77, escaped with help of family and friends. Abigail Faulkner, Sr. was given a temporary reprieve due to being pregnant, but many say Abigail’s reprieve became a stay of charges.
Mather completed his account of the trials, “Wonders of the Invisible World”, and given to Phips when he returned from fighting in Maine early October. Burr says Phip’s letter and Mather’s manuscript “may have gone to London by ship” around mid-October:
“I hereby declare that as soon as I came from fight … and understood what danger some of their innocent subjects might be exposed to, if the evidence of the afflicted persons only did prevaile either to the committing or trying any of them, I did before any application was made unto me about it p ut a stop to the proceedings of the Court and they are now stopt till their Majesties pleasure be known.” ~Governor Phips, Boston, October 12, 1692
Judge Sewall wrote on October 29: “the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves thereby dismissed … asked whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of inconvenience by its fall, [the] Governour said it must fall.” Governor Phips’ wife, Lady Mary Phips, was “called out upon” around this time. But after Phips’ order, there were no more executions.
Superior Court of Judicature, 1693
The new Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Gaol Delivery, in January 1693, convened in Salem, Essex County, headed by William Stoughton, as Chief Justice, and Anthony Checkley as Attorney General, and Jonathon Elatson as Clerk of the Court. The first 5 cases tried in January 1693 were those indicted but not tried in September: Sarah Buckley, Margaret Jacobs, Rebecca Jacobs, Mary Whittredge (or Witheridge) and Job Tookey. They were found not guilty and grand juries were held for the many still held in jail. Charges were dismissed for most, but 16 more people were indicted and tried, three of whom were found guilty: Elizabeth Johnson, Jr., Sarah Wardwell, and Mary Post.
Although Stoughton wrote warrants for the execution of these three and others remaining from the previous court, Governor Phips issued pardons that spared the lives. The Court sat again in late January/early February, in Charlestown, Middlesex County, and held grand juries and tried five people: Sarah Cole (of Lynn), Lydia Dustin and Sarah Dustin, Mary Taylor and Mary Toothaker. They were found not guilty, but not released until their jail fees were paid. Lydia Dustin died in jail on March 10, 1693.
By the end of April, the Court convened in Boston, Suffolk County, clearing Capt. John Alden by proclamation. Hearing charges against servant girl Mary Watkins, for falsely accusing her mistress of witchcraft. In May, the Court convened in Ipswich, Essex County, holding a variety of grand juries and dismissing all but five charges: Susannah Post, Eunice Frye, Mary Bridges, Jr., Mary Barker and William Barker, Jr. who were all found not guilty—putting an end to the series of trials and executions.
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