An interview with Professor Emerson W. Baker, part 2
A student interview with Professor Emerson W. Baker on the triumph and tragedy of the 1692 Salem witch trials as part of the 2019 National History Day contest. (Missed Part 1?)
Kayleigh: Danvers, Massachusetts, is almost disassociated with the 1692 Salem witch trials. Of course, Danvers has its memorial but it’s kind of out of place and hidden. Do you think it’s because of the way, like you said earlier, “Gallows Hill cast a large and dark shadow on Salem”?
Dr. Baker: I think Danvers has very deliberately chosen a separate path. Richard Trask, the town archivist of Danvers, has posted on the Danvers Archival Center website various articles and materials. In one he has written about how Danvers became a town. I actually quote it in my book, A Storm of Witchcraft. He talks about the whole process of when Danvers finally was allowed to split off from Salem in 1752. Many historians, like [Paul] Boyer and [Stephen] Nissenbaum, believe—and I would agree too—one of the triggers that caused the Salem witch trials was the inability to split off from Salem in 1692. Ironically, it took another 60 years, until 1752, before the Salem Villagers were allowed to become a separate town, for a number of political reasons. Trask’s article traces that evolution to when the town is named Danvers after an English nobleman, which was a common practice back then. Trask thinks that the town was perfectly happy with that, that they enjoyed the anonymity of no longer being part of Salem.
I think you’re right, part of it is that shame, that humiliation, but Danvers also tried to much more normalize the relationship [to its 1692 past] over the years. Remember, it was Danvers that was the first community that had a memorial [in 1885]. Then they added onto it in 1892. To me what’s really fascinating is: Where was that memorial placed? It’s placed at the Rebecca Nurse farm. When the memorial was placed there, the farm had long been occupied by members of the Putnam family. Have you been to the Rebecca Nurse farm?
Kayleigh: Yes, I have. A couple of years ago.
Dr. Baker: If you go down to the cemetery there, you’ll notice that there are probably more Putnams buried there than Nurses. For me, the fascinating piece is that the Putnams are actually related to the Nurses.* Nowadays this is one big, happy family. What’s neat to me, you know, is that the Putnam family was willing to let the Nurse Family Association erect this memorial to the [witch trials] past in their family cemetery that they also shared with the Nurses.
I think Danvers has always tried early on to atone for what happened in 1692. To me, the very different treatment of the tercentenary is a good example of how Danvers deals with these things. They wanted to build a memorial. But they were much more low-key, they didn’t get [Holocaust survivor and author] Elie Wiesel to dedicate it or stuff like that. If you’ve seen the memorial, it’s right there by the elementary school, it’s across the street from the site of the 1692 meeting house, it’s sitting there amongst the ballfields and elementary school. It’s part of this residential community and it just seems to blend in very nicely.
The other thing Danvers did in 1992, and you see this at the Nurse cemetery, they reburied what they think are [witch trials victim] George Jacobs’ remains. The way they did this was so Danvers. Salem, you know, they unveil this memorial, they have Elie Wiesel, they have all these bells and whistles. Danvers essentially had this private committal service for George Jacobs. They went to great lengths to be historically accurate with this. They built—well, a fellow who is a good carpenter built—a replica of a 17th-century coffin to put the bones in, they did that replica 17th-century gravestone, and recreated a committal service like you would have had in 1692—and they basically did it as a private ceremony. I think there was one reporter they allowed to be there. But there weren’t all these press releases, “Come watch us bury George Jacobs!” So, to me, it was much more an acknowledgment of the past and the wrong, but with absolutely no efforts to commercialize it.
Since 1892, at least, Salem has had this complex relationship. On the one hand, people want to make good on past sins and say “let these things never happen again.” On the other hand, they’re saying, “Would you like to take a tour of haunted Salem for $30?”
Danvers is not like that, it has never been like that. They’ve never tried to commercialize it in any way or draw any publicity to the community. The Danversites are not interested in doing that. They take quiet, humble acts to try to do penance for the events of 1692.
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*In 1692, some of the Putnam family, most notably Ann Putnam Jr. (1679-1716), accused 70-year-old Rebecca Nurse of being a witch. She was hanged on 19 July 1692. A generation or two later, the families intermarried.
Emerson (“Tad”) W. Baker is a historian and professor at Salem State University and the author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience (2014), The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft & Conflict in Early New England (2007), and The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651-1695 (1998).