Tag: Dorcas Hoar

By Posted on Posted in Book, History Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Curious what plants were well-known by the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay colonists, I delved into Michael Brown’s new book, Medieval Plants and Their Uses. Planting and harvesting were essential to the survival of communities. Besides food and medicinal purposes, though, could plants have been involved in the Salem witch trials? After all, one widely debunked hypothesis claimed ergot poisoning could have caused the witch hunt.

According to Brown, during wet weather a parasite caused fungus to grow on rye. Since grains were processed at the local mill, ergot poisoning could spread far and wide. Ergot-related mass casualties occurred in continental Europe but notably not in England, where wheat was the popular grain.

Also known as St. Anthony’s Fire, ergot poisoning could cause “hallucinations, convulsions, erratic behavior, or gangrene; death was common.” While some of these symptoms were apparent in the Salem courthouse in 1692, their underlying causes could be many different health issues. Plus, not every local household or family member displayed symptoms—which would happen if they shared bread—so it’s unlikely that ergot poisoning was a cause of the witch-hunt.

Planting the colony

From the start of the Great Migration, ships came from England with plant cuttings and seeds to grow crops and herbs for food, flavorings, and medicines. Recipes were passed down and shared, like making tansy tea for worms; using vinegar, salt, and honey for cleaning and sterilizing a wound; and eating dandelions to encourage urine flow.

Living on Will’s Hill, the tightknit Wilkins clan may not have been privy to the diuretic dandelion remedy. Patriarch Bray Wilkins reported “my water was sodainly stopt, & I had no benefit of nature, but was like a man on a rack” and accused his grandson-in-law John Willard—an outsider—of causing his bladder issue and his grandson Daniel Wilkins’ death. When a “skillful” woman’s remedies didn’t work, she asked Bray if any “evil persons” did him damage. He said he was “sore afraid they had.” Afflicted accuser Mercy Lewis even said she saw John Willard on his grandfather Bray’s belly. Bray later claimed it was not him “but the testimony of the afflicted persons and the jury … that would take away [John Willard’s] life if any thing did, & within about 1/4 hour after this I was taken in the sorest distress & misery my water being turned into real blood, or of a bloody colour & the old pain returned excessively as before which continued for about 24 hours together” (RSWH 528). It’s clear Bray’s urine retention was a real illness, such as an enlarged prostate, and not a witch’s curse. Yet John Willard was executed for witchcraft on 19 August 1692.

Brown also covers plants with religious associations and magical powers. For instance, Rev. John Hale could have put calendula under his pillow to reveal in dreams that Dorcas Hoar was stealing from him. Saint John’s wort could have expelled the demons from Rev. Samuel Parris’ home while mugwort could have kept ghosts and evil spirits away.

Besides offering insight into historic diets and medical remedies, this book covers common, everyday usage of plants for housekeeping, laundry, animal health care, beauty treatments, and even aphrodisiacs. Well illustrated with photos, Medieval Plants and Their Uses concludes with a few original medieval recipes, a list of plants (their medical and/or practical uses, name variants), and suggested reading.

Brown provides an accessible and fascinating insight into the uses of medieval plants.

Prerelease book provided by NetGalley and Pen & Sword Books Ltd. for review consideration.

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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.

By Posted on Posted in History Tagged with , , , , , , ,
Ann Foster examination, 1692

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

Margo Burns responds.

Tony, respectfully, it’s necessary to look at the historical data more closely—per case and on a timeline—before making claims about patterns that may have been discernable by the accused at the time they were accused. It’s simply not possible that the 11 people who confessed between February and May could have discerned any “pattern” about how their cases would be handled and made choices to confess. The magistrates easily forced confessions out of these people, people who were vulnerable and easily manipulated to say anything the authorities demanded of them—youths, people with low social status, or with some mental defect. And hardly people who were looking at some “big picture” or as some kind of “legal strategy.” No one knew anything about the plans or timing for prosecution anyway, or for certain who the Crown’s attorney or Chief Magistrate would be. At that point, June 2, over 70 people were in custody and 11 had confessed. Before then no one could have thought that confession might be some kind of get out of jail free card, especially considering that in the most recent witchcraft case in Boston, just three years earlier, with Stoughton on that bench. Goody Glover confessed and was hanged. Why would they think it would be different for them?

The first mittimus, in late May, to bring accused people back to Salem from jail in Boston for trial comprised a list of eight people who would ultimately put on trial that summer, plus Tituba, a confessor. While Tituba was the only one not tried that summer, she completely disappears from the legal record until she pops up again a whole year later to have her case dismissed. There is no way to figure out why. She is not part of any of the trials, including Sarah Good’s, for which she should have been a prime witness but she’s not there. The second best convictive standard as evidence in a witchcraft case was the testimony of a confessed witch—so why wasn’t Tituba called as a witness? By mid-July, this is all anyone knew about how things were going to unfold. A single data point, Tituba, does not make a pattern, and she wasn’t used as a witness against anyone.

By late June, before the court hanged 5 more people, the first prosecutor left, and frankly, a lot of things were up in the air about how the following cases would be handled. Ann Foster was interrogated five separate times in mid-July to produce a pretty amazing confession. How could she have concluded anything except that the authorities demanded a confession from her and would not stop until she had? And so she did. That is the purpose of interrogation: to elicit a confession to make prosecution easier. It’s hard to argue with evidence of someone speaking against their own self-interest. Before the Court had even convened in early June, only those 11 people had confessed. ALL the rest of the confessions, 43 of them, starting with Ann Foster’s, came from Andover residents or those who lived near enough to attend the church in Andover or were part of a family from Andover. You’d think that if there was a pattern to be discerned, people in other towns would have figured it out, too, to save themselves. Maybe you’d have some people who were already being prosecuted who would have caught on to the “deal” and recanted their claims to innocence at trial and thrown themselves on the mercy of the court, but no one did.

It’s also important to look at the recantations from several fully covenanted members of the Andover church who confessed in August under pressure and immediately recanted when the interrogations ended. Why would they recant? None of them claimed they’d confessed because they knew it would help them in any way, despite what they may have been told during the interrogations. For the rest of that summer, the interrogators used high-pressure interrogation tactics to coerce false confessions. The case of Samuel Wardwell in September is telling. He was the first confessor to be tried, and was hanged. When the time came for him to acknowledge his confession, he refused. He had discerned a pattern: everyone who was indicted end up being hanged. He knew that it didn’t matter if he confessed or not, and he knew his confession had been coerced. The court was going to hang him either way, so he recanted it.

In September, Dorcas Hoar possibly made a legal last-ditch effort to get some extra time before certain execution by confessing after she was sentenced. She probably did see that the four confessors sentenced to die got temporary stays, but it seems really unlikely that she was in a position to leverage four ministers to come to her aid to close the deal, unless it was in their best interest somehow, perhaps to show that it was still possible to save one’s soul.

I appreciate your effort to make the people who were executed “noble” for not confessing, but it’s revisionist history.

Continue to Part 3.

Margo Burns is the associate editor and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (Cambridge University Press, 2009), the most complete compendium of the trial documents. She’s been the expert featured on several Who Do You Think You Are? TV episodes and regularly speaks on the Salem witch trials at History Camp, historical societies, and libraries. Check out her 17th-Century Colonial New England website.

#CommissionsEarned on Amazon links.

By Posted on Posted in History, Tours & Sightseeing Tagged with , ,

Dorcas Hoar home, no longer extant

Dorcas Hoar made her mark on history and in the court records. Known for telling fortunes and being the center of a crime family, you’d think she would be easy to convict of being a witch. And she was. Yet an 11th hour confession and the pleadings of several ministers asking for a 30-day reprieve prevented her imminent execution. The timing was perfect, for her at least. The next day, September 22, 1692, eight victims of the Salem witch trials were hanged at Proctor’s Ledge on the edge of town. They were the last to suffer that fate.

#WDYTYA

On Monday’s hit TV show Who Do You Think You Are, actress Jean Smart learns that she is a descendant of the notorious Dorcas Hoar. She’s ably guided through the story by Professor Emerson W. Baker of Salem State University, author of A Storm of Witchcraft, and Margo Burns, project manager, Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt.

Dig deeper

If you’re curious about Dorcas Hoar’s story, check out my blog post, Dorcas Hoar Really Was a Witch. You also may want to take a roadtrip to Beverly. You can peek into the bedroom where 19-year-old David Balch, on his deathbed, claimed Dorcas Hoar was one of the witches tormenting him. Rev. John Hale, who played a major part in her story, wrote his book, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, at his farm there. Both homes, owned by the Beverly Historical Society, are open to visitors.

Although Dorcas’ house no longer exists, it was located at what is now the Central Cemetery at 60 Hale Street. Rev. Hale and his wife Sarah, who was accused but not formally charged as a witch, are buried at the Ancient Burial Ground at 15 Abbott Street.

Are you related to Dorcas Hoar (and Jean Smart)? Check out my post for Using Restitution Lists from the 1692 Salem Witch Trials to Rebuild Dorcas Hoar’s Family. Plus, check out Beverly resources as well as other research materials online.

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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.