Tag: Bridget Bishop

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On 28 July 2022, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was officially exonerated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the crime of witchcraft.

During the Salem witch trials, Andover neighbors and afflicted accusers claimed 22-year-old Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was a witch. At her examinations on August 10-11, 1692, Elizabeth confessed to signing the Devil’s book, participating in a mock sacrament, and afflicting numerous people. On 5 January 1693, the grand jury indicted her for afflicting Ann Putnam Jr. Elizabeth was convicted of witchcraft less than a week later. Fortunately, Governor William Phips gave a temporary reprieve to several condemned witches, including Elizabeth, shortly before their execution date (RSWH, pp. 541, 543-544, 771-772, 811).

However, those convicted of a capital crime lost their civil rights and liberties. On 13 September 1710, Francis Johnson petitioned for restitution for his sister Elizabeth Johnson Jr. He also submitted a claim for 3 pounds for providing Elizabeth with provisions during her six-month imprisonment. His request was noted but ignored.

In 1711, a Reversal of Attainder nullified all witch trial judgments against George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacobs, John Willard, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Elizabeth How, Mary Easty, Sarah Wildes, Abigail Hobbs,* Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Martha Carrier, Abigail Faulkner,* Ann Foster,* Rebecca Eames,* Mary Post,* Mary Lacy,* Mary Bradbury,* and Dorcas Hoar.*

Omitted from the 1711 act, on 19 February 1711/2, Elizabeth petitioned on her own behalf for a reversal of attainder and for restitution. No action was taken. When Elizabeth Johnson Jr. died on 3 January 1746/7, the weight of her conviction remained (RSWH, pp. 875-876, 887-888, 901).

In the 20th century, six more victims of the Salem witch trials were vindicated. Finally, in the 21st century, students from the North Andover Middle School took on Elizabeth Johnson Jr.’s case and she finally was acquitted of witchcraft.

Resolve relative to the indictment, trial, conviction, and execution† of Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd, and Elizabeth Johnson Jr. for “Witchcraft” in the Year Sixteen Hundred and Ninety-Two.

Whereas, Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd, and Elizabeth Johnson Jr. were indicted, tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed† in the year sixteen hundred and ninety-two for “Witchcraft”; and

Whereas, The above named may have been illegally tried, convicted, and sentenced by a possibly illegal court of Oyer and Terminer created by the then governor of the Province without authority under the Province Charter of Massachusetts Bay; and

Whereas, Although there was a public repentance by Judge Sewall, one of the judges of the so-called “Witchcraft Court,” and by all the members of the “Witchcraft” jury, and a public Fast Day proclaimed and observed in repentance for the proceedings, but no other action taken in regard to them; and

Whereas, The General Court of Massachusetts is informed that certain descendants‡ of Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd, and Elizabeth Johnson Jr. are still distressed by the record of said proceedings; therefore be it

Resolved, That in order to alleviate such distress and although the facts of such proceedings cannot be obliterated, the General Court of Massachusetts declares its belief that such proceedings, even if lawful under the Province Charter and the law of Massachusetts as it then was, were, and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings, even if then legally conducted, have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings; and be it further

Resolved, That the passage of this resolve shall not bestow on the Commonwealth or any of its subdivisions, or on any person any right which did not exist prior to said passage, shall not authorize any suit or other proceeding nor deprive any party to a suit or other proceeding of any defense which he hitherto had, shall not affect in any way whatever the title to or rights in any real or personal property, nor shall it require or permit the remission of any penalty, fine, or forfeiture hitherto imposed or incurred.

Resolve of 1957, chapter 146 (approved 28 August 1957) as rewritten after amendments on 31 October 2001 and 28 July 2022 incorporated.

For related stories on Elizabeth Johnson Jr., see:

Footnotes:
RSWH: Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt by Bernard Rosenthal et al.
* not executed
† Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was found guilty but not executed for the crime of witchcraft.
‡ Elizabeth Johnson Jr. had no descendants and remained unmarried during her long life.

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Indictment v. Candy for afflicting Mary Walcott

A conversation between Tony Fels and Margo Burns about the confessions during the Salem witch trials. Read the original post, part 1, and part 2.

Tony Fels responds.

Margo, I’m afraid you have posited a straw argument concerning the confessors in order to knock it down. No serious historian of the Salem witch hunt believes that the confessors thought that, in confessing, they had obtained a “get out of jail free card” or had “caught on to the deal” about how to handle the witchcraft interrogators. Nor would any serious historian contend that simply because no suspect who confessed was executed, that this fact alone meant the authorities had decided on a policy to spare those suspects’ lives. Indeed, we know that the witchcraft court convicted five confessed suspects (leaving aside Samuel Wardwell, who recanted his confession) at the court’s fourth and last session in mid-September. These individuals might have met their deaths if events had turned out differently.

The whole Salem witch hunt process was a terrifying ordeal that unfolded without any certain outcome. As you point out, confession was nothing anyone would take lightly, since the last person who had confessed to witchcraft, Goody Glover in Boston just four years earlier, had been put to death for the crime. For strictly religious reasons alone, no pious Puritan—and nearly all of the adult confessors could be classified as such—would have casually acknowledged such terrible acts of blasphemy in their own behavior. And yet, of the 150 or so accused in the Salem witch hunt, roughly one-third of these suspects confessed to the crime, and none of these confessors was ultimately executed. Plenty of evidence, much of which is included in your own 2012 article (“‘Other Ways of Undue Force and Fright’: The Coercion of False Confessions by the Salem Magistrates,” Studia Neophilologica 84: 24-39), suggests why this outcome was not purely coincidental: confessing increased one’s chances of survival.

I agree with you that such a likelihood could not have been discerned before the trials themselves got underway with the court’s first session on June 2-3. Eight people had confessed by this point (Tituba, Dorothy Good, Abigail Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Mary Warren, Sarah Churchill, Margaret Jacobs, and Rebecca Jacobs). In your post, you mention 11 confessors before the first trial, but I’ve never seen the names of the three additional people you are referring to. You know the examination and related records better than I do, and these additional names may have surfaced since the publication of your own article. But just focusing on these eight, while one (Good) was a young child and two (Warren and Churchill) quickly recanted their confessions, the other five were all people who could have been selected to be tried at the court’s first session (June 2-3) or its second session (June 28–July 2), but none was. Instead, one non-confessing suspect (Bridget Bishop) was tried and convicted at the first session and on June 10 hanged, followed by five non-confessing suspects (Sarah Good, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth How, and Sarah Wilds) tried and convicted at the second session and hanged on July 19. At this point (roughly mid-July; there were no confessions in June) it seems possible to imagine that some of the remaining suspects and others still to be named might have begun to see an advantage to confessing.

One (the Salem slave Candy) did so on July 4, followed by five people (Ann Foster on July 15, and then Mary Lacey Sr., Mary Lacey Jr., Richard Carrier, and Andrew Carrier, all on July 21-22), all from Andover, the town to which the witch hunt had by now spread. These latter five were all linked to Martha (Allen) Carrier, an Andover woman strongly suspected of witchcraft by many of her neighbors and who had been accused and arrested at the end of May. It is reasonable to believe, though we have no direct evidence to this effect, that all five, which included two of Carrier’s children, confessed in the hope that their confessions might insulate them from sharing in what appeared to be the impending fate of Martha Carrier. The non-confessing Carrier was indeed tried first at the court’s third session (August 2-5) and was hanged along with the session’s four male convicted suspects, all also non-confessors (John Willard, George Jacobs Sr., John Procter, and George Burroughs) on August 19.

The approach and aftermath of the court’s third session opened a floodgate of further confessions coming from Andover or Andover-related suspects: two more relatives of Martha Carrier on July 23 (niece Martha Emerson) and July 30 (sister Mary Allen Toothaker); a middle-aged woman (Mary Bridges Sr.) on July 30 and her five daughters on August 3 (Mary Post) and August 25 (Mary Bridges Jr., Sarah Bridges, Susannah Post, and Hannah Post); two more of Martha Carrier’s children (Sarah and Thomas) on August 11; Rebecca Eames on August 19; and at least seven more Andover individuals (Elizabeth Johnson Jr., Mary Barker, William Barker Sr., Mary Marston, Elizabeth Johnson Sr., Abigail Johnson, and Abigail Dane Faulkner) by the end of the month. September brought perhaps another 22 confessions along with the court’s fourth session (September 6-17), during which some of the first confessing suspects (Abigail Hobbs, Ann Foster, Mary Lacey Sr., Rebecca Eames, and Abigail Dane Faulkner) were convicted based either on their guilty pleas or by a jury’s decision after a trial. Still, even these convicted confessing suspects avoided execution on September 22, on which date eight more convicted non-confessors (Martha Cory, Mary Esty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd, Mary Parker, and Samuel Wardwell) were hanged.

(I have checked all of the above names and dates with the authoritative Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, ed. Bernard Rosenthal, Margo Burns, et al., 2009. The same information may be found in Margo’s article, referenced above. Most historians, including Margo, seem to use Thomas Brattle’s assertion, written on October 8, 1692, that there were 55 confessors among the accused. Nobody, so far as I know, has published a complete list of these names. Based on data found in Records, I include Abigail Dane Faulkner among the August confessors. When she, along with Elizabeth Johnson Sr., and Abigail Johnson, are added to the other August confessors, the total for that month reaches 15, not 12, as noted in Margo’s Table 2 on p. 26 of her article. If 55 is the correct total for the overall number of confessors, then 22 additional suspects must have confessed in September.)

Why did all these individuals confess to crimes we know now they had never committed? We cannot expect the suspects themselves to have explained their motives at the time, because a confession by definition offered an admission of guilt. To the examiners and their surrounding communities, these people acknowledged they had entered into a pact with the Devil to hurt others through witchcraft. In your own article on the subject, Margo, you have emphasized the role played by judicial intimidation, which included everything from intense questioning and incarceration under harsh conditions to the occasional use of physical torture. This is undoubtedly a part of the story. For myself, I would emphasize the role played by guilt for these highly religious people. Under the frenzied conditions of a witch hunt, it was not hard for many of them to imagine that in some way or other they had allowed Satan to enter into their lives by wishing someone harm or hoping to gain personal advantage in some way that the Puritan community frowned upon. There is explicit evidence of this motivation in the confessions of Abigail Hobbs, Margaret Jacobs, Abigail Dane Faulkner, and others.

But confession also carried the hope that the Puritan belief in public repentance might take precedence over the Biblical injunction to “not suffer a witch to live.” Most confessions, beginning with Tituba’s, included anguished portions in which blame was shifted to someone else, typically to suspects who had previously been named. Confessors claimed that these other persons—for example, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn for Tituba, Martha Carrier for many of the Andover confessors, George Burroughs for nearly all of them—had forced them to carry out the Devil’s wishes. In so doing, they likely hoped to elicit some sympathy for their plight as victims. Family members and friends also played key roles in exerting pressure on suspects to confess, believing that this might be the only way to save their lives. Andover resident Mary Tyler’s brother insisted repeatedly that she do so, both because he thought she must be a witch if so many people had said so and also because “she would be hang’d, if she did not confesse.” A petition submitted in January 1693, urging the newly reconstituted court to ignore the confessions made earlier by some of the Andover suspects, acknowledged the same motivation when it stated, “Confessing was the only way to obtain favor, [and] might be too powerful a temptation for timorous women to withstand, in the hurry and distraction that we have heard they were then in.” That these desperate strategies probably worked to some degree is suggested by the facts that it took until the witchcraft court’s fourth session before any of the confessing suspects were brought to trial, and that when the first group of confessors were finally convicted, this step seems to have been forced on the justices, who were coming under criticism for apparent hypocrisy in overlooking such “obviously” guilty suspects in favor of going after only those who had forthrightly proclaimed their innocence. Even after their conviction, these confessed suspects were still shown a final, and, as it turned out, decisive bit of leniency in receiving temporary stays of sentencing or execution, which Thomas Brattle stated, “for two or three [of them] because they are confessours.” (Abigail Faulkner received a stay of execution by reason of her pregnancy, and Dorcas Hoar, convicted during the same fourth session of the court, also received an unusual stay of execution following her confession just after her sentencing.)

Confession also had a larger impact on the overall course of the witch hunt. From Tituba’s admission of guilt at its start all the way up through the first group of Andover confessors in mid-July, confessions gave credence to the accusations of witchcraft and accelerated the drive to uncover more witches in the communities. Only toward the witch hunt’s end did the sheer number of confessions serve to undermine the credibility of the charges and help bring the panic to a close.

As I see it, the crux of the dispute between you, Margo, and me, lies, as with so many of the controversies generated by the study of the Salem witch hunt, in the question of where blame should be placed. In rejecting what you see as a “nice [but fictitious] story” that draws a moral distinction between those suspects who went to their deaths upholding the truth that they were not witches and those suspects who confessed to crimes they had not committed, you appear to want to concentrate all of the blame for the witch hunt on the Puritan judicial establishment, making sure that nobody gets distracted into thinking that confessors bear at least part of the blame. Hence your emphasis as well on the coerced nature of these confessions. There really was no meaningful choice for a suspect to make, you assert, since all were headed for execution anyway. Confessors did no greater harm than truth-tellers at Salem.

But the Salem magistrates, it’s worth remembering, were not autocrats but elected officials. The Puritan colony of Massachusetts, from top to bottom, fully supported the witch hunt when it was at its height, and even after the English-appointed governor in early October had abolished the first witchcraft court (which the Massachusetts House of Representatives endorsed only in a very close vote of 33-29), it took years for most residents to recognize that a serious miscarriage of justice had been done. In 1695, three years after the witch hunt’s end, a majority of Salem villagers could still sign a petition in support of Rev. Samuel Parris, perhaps the chief instigator of the panic.

In my view, the colony as a whole bears the lion’s share of the blame for the witch hunt, chiefly because of the extremism of its religious views, which lent themselves to picturing the world as a Manichean struggle between Christ and Satan, good and evil. In this context, the determination of thoroughly average people like Rebecca Nurse, Martha Carrier, and George Jacobs Sr. to tell the truth about themselves at all costs—itself one of the great virtues taught by Puritanism—may be seen as genuinely heroic, because it was the accumulated truth-telling of those 20 martyred individuals that did more than anything else to put an end to the catastrophe Massachusetts had brought on itself. The confessors, too, ironically testified to the great power of telling the truth, because when they later recanted their confessions after the witch hunt was over, the aspect of their behavior that they regretted most was that they had “belied themselves” before God.

Continue to Part 4.

Tony Fels is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of San Francisco, where he taught for 29 years. At USF he taught, among other courses, American religious history and historical methods, the latter of which centered on the historiography of the Salem witch hunt. His book, Switching Sides: How a Generation of Historians Lost Sympathy for the Victims of the Salem Witch Hunt, was reviewed on Witches of Massachusetts Bay. For more about Tony Fels, go to https://www.tonyfels.com.

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Wicked Salem by Sam Baltrusis covers 300-plus years of history and people in three categories: the Witches, the Murderers, and the Cursed. The book includes stories about Bridget Bishop, George Jacobs Sr., and Mary Estey; self-confessed Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo, Giles Corey, and Captain White’s murderer, Richard Crowninshield; Rev. Cotton Mather, Sheriff George Corwin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Harry Houdini. According to Baltrusis—a tour guide and paranormal researcher—each person profiled has a particular “haunt” in Salem.

Despite his scaredy-cat persona, Baltrusis tells intriguing stories filled with detailed information about actual people and places in Salem, intermingled with his personal and professional experiences. He interviews modern-day practicing witches, including Laurie Cabot the Official Witch of Salem and tour guide Thomas O’Brien Vallor. And in case readers get confused, Vallor adamantly explains: “The victims of the witch trials were definitely not witches.” The book also includes sidebars—most notably with Margo Burns, project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, and Kelly Daniell, archivist for Peabody Historical Society—for historical perspective.

In many instances, Baltrusis judiciously uses the word “allegedly,” especially in reference to oft-repeated “quotes” from long-dead people. In retelling a ghost sighting at the Samuel Pickman House, he admits, “after doing exhaustive historical research, I found no real proof to suggest the story of the murder or the supposed demonic infestation at the house is true” (17). I’m curious why it’s included, even if it’s a hotspot of paranormal activity. Baltrusis said he “made a concerted effort to stick to the historical facts, even if it resulted in debunking an alleged encounter with the paranormal” (235).

Lingering Lore and Legends

Baltrusis claims Wicked Salem is about “correcting the misinformation associated with the witch trials hysteria of 1692. Over the past decade, I have noticed a shift toward untangling these historical inaccuracies, but we still have a long way to go” (240). Yet much of the book, Baltrusis admits, came from updated excerpts from his nine previous books and published articles. (That must be why 18 pages about the U.S.S. Salem’s haunted attraction in Quincy was included, though the ship had nothing to do with the city of Salem.) In addition, he conducted interviews, read paranormal books on Salem, and checked out related blogs and websites for this volume.

However, Baltrusis repeats myths that have been corrected ages ago by historians and genealogists. Here are just a few:

  • Joanna Chibbun “declared that [Sarah] Good, who was pregnant in 1692 and lost her unborn child in Ipswich, actually murdered the infant” (72). Good’s infant daughter was born 10 December 1691, before she was charged with witchcraft (see New England Historical & Genealogical Register 157:9, published 2003).
  • In 1981, David L. Greene sorted out the identities of accused witches Bridget Bishop and Sarah Bishop (The American Genealogist 57:129-131). Although acknowledging the confusion, Baltrusis writes: Bridget “lived in Salem Village (present-day Danvers) but owned property on the eastern side of Salem’s current Washington and Church streets … that she sometimes leased out to tenants” (26, 41). Sarah Bishop and her husband ran an unlicensed tavern in Salem Village while Bridget Bishop lived in Salem Town. That’s why, regarding her Salem Village accusers, Bridget explicitly said: “I never saw these persons before; nor I never was in this place [Salem Village] before.”
  • On Bridget Bishop’s hanging, one of Baltrusis’ interviewees claims: “They could have just put the noose around Bridget’s neck and killed her instantly. But they didn’t. The executioners actually positioned the noose so she would die a slow, horrible death. She was hanging in the gallows—convulsing and losing control of her bowels—in front of a crowd of people. They were publicly shaming her before they killed her” (28-30). That’s not exactly true. Yes, hordes of people attended such a public spectacle, believed to be for their own edification. While we don’t know if the victims were hanged using the gallows or a tree, a quick death only happened if the victim’s neck snapped as their bodies dropped. That rarely happened; it often took “up to 20 minutes for the victims to die” by strangulation, as Margo Burns explains (67). And, yes, after death, the spontaneous relaxation of muscles sometimes caused bodily fluids to seep out.
  • Howard Street Cemetery is not where Giles Corey was crushed to death (18, 104, 106). The obstinate Corey suffered the medieval torture of peine fort et dure at the now-demolished 1683 jail at the corner of Federal Street and Prison Lane (now St. Peter’s Street). Like many of the witch trial victims, we don’t know where Giles Corey’s broken body was buried. But it’s not at Howard Street Cemetery, where the first burial occurred in 1801. (American Ancestors Magazine 15.4:36-37, published 2014)

More Weight

Throughout Wicked Salem, Frank C. Grace’s photographs capture the essence of the city’s past, while Baltrusis offers educational and entertaining stories—without the profound weight of history.

Granted, I’m not the intended audience of Baltrusis’ works. I’m skeptical about the existence of ghosts and paranormal phenomena. I’m disturbed by the continual misappropriation of the Salem witch trials with Halloween, Haunted Happenings, and horror thrills. And I have a penchant for being a mythbuster when it comes to innocent people accused of witchery.

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Proctor’s Ledge, Salem

If your ancestors lived in Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 17th century, at some point they were affected by the Salem witch trials of 1692. Perhaps they were one of the accused witches, one of the participants (afflicted “girls,” accusers, judges, or jury members), one of the trial attendees, or watched, as Rev. Nicholas Noyes said, the “firebrands of hell hanging there.” Perhaps they were neighbors of the accused or the accusers—or maybe they lived far enough away from the vortex. But, undoubtedly they knew about the events in Salem, whether from experience, word-of-mouth, ministers preaching, or reading various treatises on the subject.

More than 300 years have passed since the witch hunts, and over time, much has been lost, from original court papers to buildings associated with the trials. It’s as if the communal memory was erased, once men such as Rev. Cotton Mather and Robert Calef wrote their books. In the 19th century, after Salem’s maritime fortunes were on the wane, writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles W. Upham returned to the theme of witchcraft. Since then, many theories have been proposed of what really did happen in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to cause more than 150 people to be imprisoned for witchcraft—and the answers still elude us today.

A Discovery of Witches

Although we’ve lost much through the passage of time, we’ve also heard, seen, or read many things that are not true—from Salem tourist attractions, popular media, and even scholars—about the witch hunts of 1692. So let’s clear up 10 misconceptions.

  • No accused witches in Colonial America were burned at the stake. Witchcraft was a capital offense, which meant death by hanging. In continental Europe, witchcraft was heresy against the church and punishable by burning at the stake.
  • What is now called Gallows Hill in Salem is not where the accused witches were hanged. In early 2016, the Gallows Hill Project team verified conclusions made by early 20th-century historian Sidney Perley that the victims were hanged at Proctor’s Ledge, on the lower slope of Gallows Hill bounded by Proctor and Pope streets. In 2017, a memorial was created and dedicated at that location.
  • Judge Jonathan Corwin’s house, now called the Witch House, is billed as “the only structure in Salem with direct ties to the witchcraft trials of 1692.” Yes, the wealthy judge lived there, but were any of the accused witches brought there? Probably not.
  • Salem is considered the epicenter of the 1692 witch hunt. However, the first accusations were from “afflicted” girls in Salem Village, now the town of Danvers. The witch hunt spread to other towns, most notably Andover. Salem is where the Court of Oyer and Terminer tried people accused of witchcraft and where the 20 victims were executed. The accused were jailed not only in Salem but in such places as Boston and Ipswich.
  • The “afflicted accusers” were not all girls. Nine-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams were the first to have strange fits. However, their “affliction” spread to the young and old, men as well as women and children.
  • Old, poor widows were not the only ones accused of witchcraft. People jailed for witchcraft in 1692 range in age from 4 years old to in their 80s, both male and female. Some were poor, some were wealthy. The first three people arrested for witchcraft were 38-year-old beggar Sarah Good; sickly 50-year-old Sarah Osborne; and Rev. Samuel Parris’ Indian servant Tituba. Sarah Good was hanged, Sarah Osborne died in jail, and Tituba, who pleaded guilty, survived.
  • Though Upham and many other writers claim Tituba told stories of voodoo and the Devil to impressionable young girls, starting the witch hunt, no contemporary accounts point fingers at Rev. Parris’ Indian servant. Images from the trials are of witches on broomsticks, witches with animal familiars (a yellow bird was rather popular), witches signing the Devil’s book in blood, heretical baptisms and communions—all centuries-old Western European themes, not voodoo. In the Danvers church records, Rev. Parris believed the “diabolical means” of making the witch cake “unleashed the witchcraft in the community.”
  • Bridget Bishop, one of the most notorious accused witches and the first to hang, was not the rowdy tavern keeper as often portrayed. In 1981, David L. Greene, editor of The American Genealogist, proved how Bridget Bishop of Salem Town and Sarah Bishop of Salem Village were conflated into one person. Both were married to men named Edward Bishop.
  • The youngest victim, Dorothy Good, is mistakenly called “Dorcas” in many books about the Salem witch trials. Dorcas is the name Judge John Hathorne wrote on her original arrest warrant, though he wrote Dorothy on subsequent records. (The name Dorcas is not a nickname for Dorothy.) According to William Good, his daughter Dorothy, “a child of 4 or 5 years old, was in prison seven or eight months and being chained in the dungeon was so hardly used and terrified that she has ever since been very chargeable, having little or no reason to govern herself” (petition for compensation, Salem, 13 September 1710).
  • Although the last executions for witchcraft occurred on 22 September 1692, there were more trials and even some guilty convictions. In March 1693, four weeks after she was found not guilty of witchcraft, Lydia Dustin died in prison because her family could not pay her jail fees.

The more you learn about the 1692 witch hunts in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the better you can understand the times and trials your ancestors lived through.

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Perley 1700 map Bridget Bishop lot shown in yellow
On Perley’s map, Bridget Bishop’s lot highlighted in yellow

As mentioned in a previous blog post, Which Bishop? The one who got away, Sarah (Wildes) Bishop and her husband Edward ran an unlicensed tavern in Salem Village near the Beverly line. Bridget Bishop, wife of Edward the sawyer, lived in Salem Town. Unfortunately, during the Salem witch trials, some afflicted accusers mistook one Goody Bishop for the other, heaping more accusations on one than she deserved. In 1981, David L. Greene solved the problem of mistaken identities in The American Genealogist (157:130), though people today continue to mix up the Bishop women’s lives.

Bridget Bishop lived in Salem Town

Sidney Perley’s “Salem in 1700” series mentioned past and post-1700 owners of property, including Thomas Oliver who married the widow Bridget (Playfer) Wasselbe in 1666:

“Benjamin Ropes House. Thomas Oliver owned this lot and the small house upon it as early as 1661. He died possessed of the estate in 1679. It was then appraised at 45 pounds. His widow Bridget Oliver continued to live there until 1681, and married Edward Bishop, being hanged as a witch in 1692. In the distribution of Mr. Oliver’s estate, in 1693, this house and lot were assigned to his grandson Job Hilliard of Boston, cordwainer, it being valued at that time at 38 pounds. Mr. Hilliard, for 65 pounds, conveyed the house and lot to Benjamin Ropes of Salem, cordwainer, January. 22, 1694/5” (Essex Antiquarian, 8:35-36).

After the death of her second husband, Bridget was granted administration on the Oliver estate on 24 June 1679. Instead of receiving the typical widow’s third, Bridget was ordered to pay 20 shillings each to two stepsons and her daughter. In return, the court gave “the estate to be for the use of the widow … and to have liberty to sell the 10-acre lot by advice of the selectmen of Salem, towards paying the debts and her present supply, and as need be, any other part of the estate” (Early Probate Records, 1635-1681, 3:319).

“Good fences make good neighbors”

Burdened with her dead husband’s debts, Bridget was in dire straits. Fortunately, in January 1679/1680, the selectmen allowed her to sell 10 acres of Salem land in the north field to John Blevin for 45 pounds (Essex deeds book, 5:274-276). In June 1681, she sold a narrow strip of land to schoolmaster Daniel Epes. It’s described as about two poles wide bounded by the street on the west (now Washington Street), with the length being the border between Epes’ land on the north and Oliver land on the south. In return, Bridget received 35 shillings in hand, plus a newly built fence 8 poles long and 5 feet high dividing the two properties—installed and paid for by Epes. This parcel, “lying on the back side of her house,” eventually became Church Street (Essex deeds book, 6:352-355).

Sometime after this date, Bridget married Edward Bishop. Contrary to Perley’s comment above, Bridget did not move out in 1681. The 1679 probate gave her rights to the Oliver estate until her death, not until remarriage. Edward, who had no property to call his own, moved into the Oliver house. According to Marilynne K. Roach, about 1685 Bridget and Edward Bishop built a second house on the Oliver lot (American Ancestors magazine, 14.4:45-47). As a sawyer (literally, someone who saws wood), it’s likely Edward used lumber from the old Oliver house to build the new structure.

Following the evidence

After the Bishop home was completed, John Bly Sr. was hired to tear down the cellar wall of the old Oliver house. In testimony given at Bridget’s witch trial in 1692, Bly claimed during demolition 7 years before, he found several poppets made with rags and hog bristles with headless pins stuck in them in the cellar wall.

John Louder also testified that 7 or 8 years prior, when he was living with John Gedney Sr. (d. 1688), owner of the Ship Tavern, the Gedneys were having troubles with Bridget Bishop’s fowl escaping her property. One night, Louder experienced sleep paralysis, and in his hallucinations, he thought it was Bridget sitting on his stomach and choking him. The next day, he and Mistress Susannah Gedney were in their orchard when Susannah confronted Bridget—in the next adjoining orchard—about her supposed nighttime travels.

Another time, Louder opened Gedney’s back door and walked toward the house end when he spied Bridget in her orchard going toward her house. In fear, he froze in place, unable to move, and saw the devilish shapeshifting creature he’d seen before fly over the apple trees. He claimed he was struck dumb for three days afterward. At her trial, Bridget denied knowing Louder but admitted having some differences with the Gedneys before, whose orchard adjoined hers (Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, pp. 368-371).

Placing Bridget on the map

From probate records and trial testimony, we know Bridget’s second home was situated near the town house, with her garden “by the northwest corner of her house” and orchard bordering the former John Gedney Sr. property (shown on Perley’s 1700 map as estate of Deliverance Parkman). Today, a bank building at 71 Washington Street is the approximate site of the Bishop house while the old Lyceum Hall at 43 Church Street covers land previously occupied by Bridget’s orchard.

Bridget’s trial for witchcraft in 1692 was held in the town house only steps from her home. One block in the opposite direction and a few blocks north stood the old wooden 1684 jail (now corner of Federal and St. Peter streets), from which Bridget was carted to Proctor’s Ledge (7 Pope Street) and unjustly hanged for witchcraft on 10 June 1692.

A month after Bridget’s death, Job Hilliard was appointed administrator of his grandfather Thomas Oliver’s estate. In August 1693, the Oliver lot with orchard and garden was appraised for 20 pounds, and the house on it at 18 pounds (Essex Probate #20009).

FOR SALE: “A dwelling house, orchards, and garden containing about three-quarters of an acre of land butted and bounded as followeth: on the land of Mr. Daniel Epes northerly, on the land of John Preist easterly, on the land of Coles. Gedney & John Ropes southerly, & on the lane or Towne House street westerly, to have and to hold the said dwelling house & grounds together with all the trees, fences, ways, easements, waters, water courses, & all the privileges and appurtenances hereunto.”

After selling the property to Benjamin Ropes, Hilliard paid 9 pounds to widower Edward Bishop for building the house on the Oliver lot (Essex deeds, 10:112). According to Perley, Bridget’s house was torn down by 1768.

Special thanks to Emerson W. Baker, author of A Storm of Witchcraft. During lunch at History Camp Boston 2018, he drew a map for me showing Bridget’s orchard adjoining Gedney’s property, then wiped his mouth with the napkin before I could grab it.

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When the witch hunt started in Salem Village in February 1692, the Massachusetts colonists were waiting for Rev. Increase Mather to return home from England with a new governor, Sir William Phips, and joint monarchs William & Mary’s new charter. In the interim, four magistrates held examinations (hearings) to see if any of the accused should be held for trial. The jails in Salem, Boston, Ipswich, and elsewhere were filled with accused witches when Governor Phips arrived in May 1692. In short order, he established the special Court of Oyer and Terminer to handle the witchcraft cases, before heading northward to handle military issues with the Native Americans.

Led by Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, the Salem court had an imposing job set before them: Discover witches during unruly public meetings filled with afflicted accusers, scared or disbelieving townspeople, and bewildering stories of possession, strange occurrences, unexplained deaths, animal familiars, black Sabbaths, and the like.

Following the Rules?

In December 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony published the Body of Liberties. These 100 rules, which were based on both English law and Biblical law, were intended to be the foundation of the colony’s court system.

Under rule 94, Capital Laws, number 2 it says:

“If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death.”

Deuteronomy 18:10-11 had a much larger definition: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.” But the Salem judges specifically were looking for Sarah Good’s yellow bird or Bridget Bishop’s cat.

So, let’s look at some of the other legal points and see how they pertained to the Salem witch trials.

26. Any man that findeth himself unfit to plead his own cause in any Court, shall have the liberty to employ any man against whom the Court doth not except, to help him provided he give him no fee or reward for his pains. This shall not except the party himself from answering such questions in person as the Court shall think meet to demand of him.

On 9 September 1692, sisters Sarah (Towne) Cloyce and Mary (Towne) Estey petitioned the court to allow testimony on their behalf, “seeing we are neither able to plead our own cause, nor is council allowed to those in our condition” (Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, p. 620). These two eloquent women were fit to plead their cases, but clearly were not allowed to in the Salem court. They had no defense attorney and the judges were acting as prosecutors.

45. No man shall be forced by torture to confess any crime against himself nor any other unless it be in some capital case where he is first fully convicted by clear and sufficient evidence to be guilty. After which, if the cause be of that nature, that it is very apparent that there be other conspirators or confederates with him, then he may be tortured, yet not with such tortures as be barbarous and inhumane.

According to accused witch John Proctor, 18-year-old Richard Carrier and his 16-year-old brother Andrew Carrier, “would not confess anything till they tied them neck and heels till the blood was ready to come out of their noses” (Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700). The Carrier brothers had not even been indicted, much less been charged guilty before being tortured.

46. For bodily punishments we allow amongst us none that are inhumane, barbarous, or cruel.

It goes without saying that peine forte et dure, or being pressed to death like Giles Corey, is “inhumane, barbarous, or cruel.” Once the rocks were placed on his prone form, even if the 70-year-old Corey changed his mind and started talking, he’d probably die from the internal injuries anyway. It took him hours to die.

47. No man shall be put to death without the testimony of two or three witnesses, or that which is equivalent thereunto.

Since witchcraft meant being in league with the Devil, it’s surprising that the justices did not rely on the opinion of several prominent ministers who were against using spectral evidence—visions seen only by the afflicted accusers—as the main reason to charge a person. Nor did the justices find conflict in accepting the words, visions, and bodily contortions of the afflicted accusers that one could say were possessed by the Devil themselves. The afflicted accusers often supported each other’s testimonies or mimicked each other during the trials. The people in the court house became witnesses of the afflicted accusers.

Confessed witches sometimes claimed to have seen other accused witches at witch meetings. Since the court was using confessors to find more witches, the confessors were spared until a later date (that never came). In most circumstances, confessing to a crime was as good as or better than having two witnesses. Yet none of the confessors were hanged before Governor Phips stopped the trials.

94 Capital 11. If any man rise up by false witness, wittingly and of purpose to take away any man’s life, he shall be put to death.

After the trials were over, we don’t hear much backlash against the accusers or the judges and jury. Some disappear from the records, while others, such as Judge Stoughton, continued to be prominent members of society. However, Judge Samuel Sewall, numerous jurymen, and accuser Ann Putnam Jr. publicly asked for forgiveness for their part in the trials.

reposted from Genealogy Ink

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Witch trial display, Essex County Court library
Witch trial display, Essex County Court library (photo credit: THD)

The Supreme Judicial Court celebrated its 325th anniversary in Salem in January 2018. Previously known as the Superior Court of Judicature, this high court took over after the Court of Oyer and Terminer was dismissed by Governor William Phips in the fall of 1692. Appropriately enough, the law library inside the Essex County Superior Court building at 56 Federal Street, Salem, features a small witch trials display case.

The glass-topped pedestal display case contains a copy of the death warrant for Bridget Bishop, the first person hanged for witchcraft; a copy of the examination of Rebecca Nurse, in Rev. Samuel Parris’ handwriting; pins the afflicted accusers claimed were used by the “witches” to injure them in court; and the county seal used on the warrants. While there’s a debate whether the pins were used as 17th century staples to hold court papers together or if they were admitted as evidence, the county seal is genuine. First used in 1687, the seal affixed wax to documents, stamping them with the monogram “Essex.”

Note: To visit the library, you must go through security screening. Visitors are not allowed to bring cell phones and other electronic devices inside the building. Cameras require pre-approval from the security department.

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Kindness Rocks Project, Artist Row, Salem

The Salem of today is a vibrant city—upbeat, artsy, multicultural, progressive. That vibrancy comes from people who are willing to make their world a little better. Take, for example, Caroline Emmerton (1866-1942) who not only preserved the House of the Seven Gables and other historic Salem buildings, she used the income generated by the museum to support a settlement society that provided immigrants with medical care, education, job skills, and recreational opportunities.

But she was not alone. All around the city, from its maritime heyday to its manufacturing boom and the lulls in between, Salemites worked together to create a better society. The Marine Society at Salem (1766) offered relief to disabled and aged members and their families. The Salem Athenaeum (1810) provided books and conversation to its members years before Captain John Bertram’s family donated its mansion for the Salem Public Library (1889). The Salem Lyceum Society (1830) provided educational lectures and entertainment, including the first public telephone transmission between Alexander Graham Bell in Salem and Thomas Watson in Boston (1877). The Essex Institute (1848) encouraged the study of local history, genealogy, and art, while the Peabody Academy of Science (1867) explored the maritime history of New England, Pacific and Japanese ethnology, and the natural history of Essex county.

Yet one thing they didn’t do? Preserve the remnants of the Salem witch trials.

When people visit Salem today, they expect to see evidence of the 1692 witch trials. But where is the court house? The documents? The tangible objects that remind us of the victims, the accusers, the judges?*

Before there was such a thing as the tourist industry, people came to Salem to see “the witches.” In 1766, future U.S. president John Adams (1735-1826) visited “Witchcraft Hill” and mentioned in his journal the locust trees planted in memory of the witch-hunt victims. In 1831, Charles W. Upham started lecturing on the trials years before he published his Salem Witchcraft book (1867).

Click to enlarge article from The Pharmaceutical Era, 1898

Druggist George P. Farrington (1808-1885), who operated his pharmacy in Judge Jonathan Corwin’s old house (known as the Witch House), gave tours and charged admission. Abner C. Goodell (1831-1914), who collected works on witchcraft from all over the world, lectured and gave private tours of his home, which previously was the old Salem county jail before the new one was built around the corner in 1813. (The 1684 structure was rebuilt in 1763, with the frame and original timbers.) In 1935, his son Alfred P. Goodell (1877-1954) opened the Old Witch Jail and Dungeon after discovering an original 1692 bill for “keeping witches” in his home. Shortly after his death, the city of Salem tore down the historic building.

Why?

Salem is praised for its architecture, even for its doorways. Yet the city only has a few First Period houses (1626-1725) remaining, unlike Ipswich which boasts 59. Probably no one missed Bridget Bishop’s home and orchard, or remembrances of her sharp tongue, but why demolish Philip English’s mansion? Was it an effort to erase history?

Even today, people question why we’re so interested in the past, in understanding the events of 1692, when they wish to forget.

The Salem witch-hunt has much to teach us as individuals and as a society.

Sign at 10 Federal Street

It has nothing to do with Halloween and the macabre. Some of the accused may have dabbled in fortunetelling, folk-healing, and the like, but they were not witches who made pacts with the devil, performed Satanic rites, or shapeshifted to harm their neighbors. They were ordinary people with flaws, just like you and me.

* The Salem court house was torn down in 1760. The existing witch trial documents are scattered through various libraries and archives. The Peabody Essex Museum owns numerous objects of witch-hunt victims, most of which are not on display.

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Sidney Perley at Proctor’s Ledge

The year 2017 marked the 325th anniversary of the Salem witch trials in which 19 people were found guilty of witchcraft and were hanged between June and September 1692. 

Lessons and legacies of 1692 symposium

On June 10, the anniversary of the hanging of Bridget Bishop, hundreds gathered at Salem State University for a special symposium, Salem’s Trials: Lessons and Legacies of 1692, sponsored by Salem State University’s history department, the Voices Against Injustice, and the Essex National Heritage Area. C-SPAN recorded four of the six sessions.

Proctor’s Ledge dedicated

In January 2016, the Gallows Hill Project team announced it had confirmed historian Sidney Perley’s theory that Proctor’s Ledge was the site of the hangings, not the summit of Gallows Hill or anywhere else. Using Perley’s research, a 1692 eyewitness account of the hangings, ground-penetrating radar, high-tech aerial photography, and maps, the team reached its conclusion. Fortunately, in 1936 the city had purchased the land between Pope and Proctor streets and in 2017, a memorial was created. The official unveiling of the memorial was held on July 19, with numerous descendants of the victims attending.

Reproduction of the meetinghouse at Rebecca Nurse homestead

Having her day

Governor Charlie Baker declared July 19 Rebecca Nurse Day in Massachusetts. At the Rebecca Nurse homestead in Danvers, archivist Richard Trask spoke on behalf of the five women executed 325 years before, including 71-year-old Nurse. Afterwards, a wreath was ceremoniously placed at the Nurse memorial inside the family cemetery.

Talks and walks

At History Camp: Boston 2017, presentations included Marilynne K. Roach on How Governor Phips Stopped the Salem Witch Trials (sort of); Jeanne Pickering on From Witchcraft to Slavery: The History of the Hoar/Slew Family; and Lori Stokes on Puritans. Margo Burns, project manager for the Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, traveled throughout New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts with her talk on The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Sources Tell Us. At the North Andover Historical Society, Richard Hite gave a talk on witch trial-related burials at the Old Burial Ground and Char Lyons gave a tour of the cemetery. Kelly Daniell spoke at the Peabody Historical Society on the Life and Death of John Proctor. Emerson Baker gave a Salem Witch Trials Walking Tour. And Intramersive debuted its game theater experience, Daemonologie, in Salem.

World bewitch’d exhibit

On October 31, Cornell University opened its The World Bewitch’d: Visions of Witchcraft from the Cornell Collections exhibit. With 3,000+ items, Cornell owns the largest collection of books, manuscripts, and ephemera in North America about witchcraft, spanning from the 15th to 20th centuries. The exhibit, open through August 31, 2018, focuses on the spread of witchcraft beliefs in Europe, which ultimately caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

PEM library access

In December, the Peabody Essex Museum announced most of the Phillips Library collection will be moved to its new collections center in Rowley. People have been protesting the news, especially since much of the archives and materials form the backbone of Salem’s historical past, from documents of the Salem witch trials and seafaring ventures to local organizations’ records. The museum said it could not procure a Salem building fit for a climate-controlled space for storage and research facilities.

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Wrong! Edward & Sarah Bishop house site

One of my reasons for creating the Witches of Massachusetts Bay website is to right the wrongs. Even though it’s been 325 years since the witch trials, the topic is still popular and relevant in our society. That’s why new discoveries and better interpretations are made. Yet we keep hearing, reading, and seeing the same historical inaccuracies repeated. Why? Our brains are more apt to believe something wrong but oft-repeated than to replace it with new (and correct) information.

Today, I wanted to know if a structure exists where Edward and Sarah Bishop once held raucous, late-night shuffleboard parties at their unlicensed tavern on the outskirts of Salem Village. Naturally, I turned to Google maps and typed in 238 Conant Street, Danvers. Ironically, a lawyer has an office at that location.

Then I saw in the Google box that the address was labeled a landmark for Bridget Bishop. (Of course, I had to send Google a correction.)

On April 19, 1692, Bridget Bishop was confronted by Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam Jr., and others who charged her with “sundry acts of witchcraft” (RSWH, doc. 63, pp. 183-184). Judge Jonathan Hathorne did not believe Bishop’s claim that she didn’t know these girls. But it’s true. Bridget Bishop lived in Salem Town and probably had no reason to visit Salem Village.

“I doe tell the truth I never hurt these persons in [my] life I never saw them before”

In 1981, The American Genealogist (TAG) published David L. Greene’s article showing how the court and historians confused two women named Goody Bishop (“Salem Witches I: Bridget Bishop,” vol. 157, p. 130). It was three-times-married Bridget (Playfer) (Wasselbe) (Oliver) Bishop (c.1640-1692) who wore the flashy red bodice, lived in Salem Town, and was the first person hanged in 1692. Bridget’s home was at the corner of what’s now Washington and Church streets, with her orchard located at 43 Church Street in Salem, currently occupied by Turner’s Seafood at Lyceum Hall.*

Like Bridget, Sarah (Wildes) Bishop was married to a man named Edward Bishop (1648-1711). These two disturbed their neighbors with their drunken parties in Salem Village, now Danvers, near the Beverly line. Sarah and her husband Edward were accused of witchcraft, but they escaped from jail. By 1703, they had moved to Rehoboth where they opened an inn.

So 238 Conant Street in Danvers? Site of Sarah’s house, not Bridget’s.

* updated 8 July 2018