Tag: John Proctor

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Salem witchcraft trials scrapbook at the Superior Court in Salem, Massachusetts, 1973 (AP photo)

by Margo Burns, associate editor, Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

On January 11, 2023, the Peabody Essex Museum turned over 527 original documents from the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Archives in Boston. Owned by the Commonwealth, these documents had been on deposit with the Phillips Library since 1980.

In 1980, the entire collection of the records in the colonial Essex County Court Archive, from 1636 to 1800, moved from the basement of the Salem Superior Court building into the care of the renowned Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. Ellen Mark, manuscript librarian at the Essex Institute, described the courthouse in an AP news story in December 1980 as “a typical old building basement, complete with dripping heating pipes. It was a very poor place to store old documents.”

Fortunately, the Salem witchcraft trials records were still in their scrapbooks, on display upstairs. Upon being deposited at the Essex Institute, the two scrapbooks were disassembled, de-acidified in alkaline baths, and earlier hinges used to mount them in the albums were carefully removed. A minimal amount of conservation work was done to support their physical integrity, aside from being ironed flat. In January 1982, the records went to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover to be microfilmed.

Afterwards, the Essex Institute—whose collection concentrated its focus on local history, genealogy, and art—hosted the exhibit Salem Witchcraft: Documents of an Early Colonial Drama (June 1 to Oct. 31, 1982). In addition to a selection of original documents, the exhibit included George Jacobs Sr.’s cane and John Procter’s brass sundial, which were owned by the Institute. Admission was $1.50. The first item listed in all newspaper promotions was that “original documents of the Salem witch trials” could be seen at the Essex Institute by the public.

At the tercentenary of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1992, the Essex Institute opened the Days of Judgment exhibit in Plummer Hall, which included 33 documents and some of the objects in its collections related to people involved in the 1692 trials. That same year, the Essex Institute and the Peabody Museum merged to become the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM).

Direct access to the Phillips Library collections was in a reading room in Daland House, where I first started my own research, in what I recall as a tiny, dim room with only a few tables. In 1997, the library closed for nine months for a “massive restoration project, including climate control and modern archival storage” (PEM press release). In May 1998, the reading room reopened next door on the second floor of Plummer Hall: “Lined with columns and illuminated by chandeliers, it manages to be both formal and comfortable. The room is right out of the 19th century, complete with antique globe, oil paintings of Saltonstalls on the walls, and busts of Peabodys framing the door,” according to a January 14, 1999, article in the Boston Globe. On the first floor, the Essex Institute also featured a small display, The Real Witchcraft Papers “permanent exhibit,” with the canes, sundial, and a few original documents, including the warrant to arrest my ancestor Rebecca Nurse.

Transcriptions in process

In the 2000s, our team for Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt visited these documents frequently, working on making the most accurate transcriptions of them that we could, correcting a variety of previous errors in Boyer and Nissenbaum’s Salem Witchcraft Papers (1977), and including 71 more documents previously uncollected. Published in 2009, Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt was part of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that also supported a website at the University of Virginia, where a hypertext version of Salem Witchcraft Papers and digitized images from the 1982 microfilm could be accessed by anyone online. The website reduced the demand for access to the original documents, which was better in general for the integrity documents—but if one wanted to consult them, it was still possible.

From left: Marilynne K. Roach, Bernard Rosenthal, Margo Burns, Richard Trask, and Benjamin Ray, editors of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, working at the Phillips Library in Plummer Hall, June 2005.

On November 24, 2011, the Phillips Library again closed for “preservation and renovation work on Plummer Hall and Daland House (expected completion 2013).” That meant the entire collection—42,000 linear feet of historical documents—was moving off-site to a temporary location, where PEM announced there would still be access to the records until the work was completed. At this time, Elizabeth Bouvier, from the Supreme Judicial Court Archives, collected the 150-shelf-feet of the colonial court documents—still folded in docketed bundles, tied with string—but again, not the witchcraft trials documents. The word—whether true or not—was that out of deference to Salem, the witchcraft trials documents belonged in Salem and so they would stay.

Time wore on, and the off-site location remained a mystery, concerning a lot of us. More than 20 months later, the temporary location opened August 1, 2013, in an industrial building in the next town of Peabody. Although access was once again possible, the stark white walls and absence of windows had none of the charm of the resplendent reading room in Plummer Hall.

In 2015, Peabody Essex Museum announced a “$20 million renovation and improvement of PEM’s Phillips Library … housed in two noted 1850s architectural treasures, the John Tucker Daland House and Plummer Hall, both of which are being renovated by Schwartz/Silver Architects.”

What wasn’t clear to the public, of course, is the hard work that was happening behind the scenes: The entire collection of the Phillips Library was now physically on a single level, and the re-organization of the materials—which had at least four different cataloging systems—was under way, to produce what a 2017 press release would call “a consistent catalog of the entire Library collection and to make the catalog of the collection accessible online.” PEM’s website announced that the temporary location was going to be closed another six months (Sept. 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018), to move to the “new location,” which was assumed to be back in Salem.

Rumors bring people together

At a public meeting of the Salem Historical Commission on December 6, 2017, the architectural firm of Schwartz/Silver, with Bob Monk and Phillip Johns of the Peabody Essex Museum, submitted an application for renovations to Plummer Hall and Daland House. They revealed that the Museum had “no current plans to move the library collections back into this building.” The size of the growing collection was already twice as large as the capacity of the Stacks, but also that it was “not code compliant for staff use.” The cost would be enormous.

This was news. Everything that the public had heard before was that the two buildings were going to be renovated and the collection would be returning there. What was going on? It turned out that the plan was to move the Phillips Library holdings to PEM’s new Collection Center in Rowley, a building that had once been a toy factory and was now being re-fitted to store items from PEM’s vast collections in a climate-controlled space. The plan to move the library holdings away from Salem upset a lot of people, and the witchcraft documents were the prime example held up of why people felt the library needed to be IN SALEM. 

Frankly, it was a public relations fiasco that did not have to happen. CEO Dan Monroe did little to help the situation at a hastily called public forum in the atrium of the Peabody Essex Museum on January 11, 2018, which attracted “hundreds of people” working in the tourist industry, local academics, historians, and lovers of Salem, according to the Boston Globe coverage of the event. Monroe told the Globe, “There was an expectation by a number of people that we had a responsibility to consult with them about what would be done with the Phillips collection. That’s an expectation that we didn’t particularly share or understand.” Clearly. Donald Friary, Salem resident and President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, summed up the biggest issue: “No one in Salem knew this was happening. No one knew that they were looking for other sites… There is a very high level of mistrust.”

It seemed like Monroe was there to just show up and just get through the evening and keep doing what he had already planned anyway. There were heated exchanges. Monroe explained that it was going to be impossible to redo the buildings, and that the existing archival storage addition was deemed unsound and really was “condemned.” The audience offered many suggestions and questioned why different options had not been considered. Monroe just stood there and took it, looking impatient and petulant as he did, rebuffing it all. There was a claim that the witchcraft documents had “all been digitized” and were at the website. This was not entirely accurate: At that time only the 30 documents owned by the Phillips Library had been digitized.

Monroe was quoted in the Boston Globe stating, “History doesn’t reside in a specific state or a specific set of documents.” Except that when it comes to the Salem witchcraft trials, history is all about that place and those original documents.

Bottom line: Had Monroe been transparent ahead of time and let the public know that there turned out to be a severe structural problem with the building and PEM was very concerned about how to best preserve and protect such an important historical collection, things could have gone smoother. Yes, there still would have been lots of public discussions and sundry opinions, but with a shared goal of figuring out what was best for the collection—even though the final decision would always be PEM’s.

The newly formed group, “Save the Phillips Library,” collected over 5,000 signatures on a petition at change.org, appealing to Monroe not to move the collection out of Salem, but in vain. In July 2018, four months longer than originally announced, the Collection Center (recently renamed the James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Collection Center) opened with great fanfare, with PEM-hired buses taking people on the 15-miles-plus drive from Salem to Rowley that weekend. Finally, the new Reading Room was available to researchers again. The collection was in an excellent state of organization and preservation. Although the room had windows, it had all the atmosphere of an open-plan industrial office, despite being designed by Schwartz/Silver. Access was restored.

All disputes about the move were resolved by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on October 20, 2020, when it ruled in the case of Peabody Essex Museum v. Maura Healey, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that the relocation was “consistent with equitable deviation from the terms of the founding statutes establishing the Essex Institute, an organizational forebearer of PEM,” but, even now, as a recent article in The Salem News observed, “there’s still lingering feelings back home from local historians over the Phillips Library’s distance from Salem.”

Reparations

Dan Lipcan, PEM’s Head Librarian since 2019, gets it, telling the Boston Globe in 2020, “The move to Rowley was very hurtful to people. One of the charges when I arrived was, ‘You need to repair relations with the community.’”

After years of ignoring its local history archival and artifacts collections, PEM opened its rotating Salem Stories and Highlights from the Phillips Library exhibits. In PEM’s main gallery, the Salem Witchcraft Trials 1692 exhibit opened, featuring the original documents in exquisite public displays, along with associated historical objects. Even with COVID rules keeping people six feet apart, the witchcraft exhibit drew thousands of visitors during its six-month run (Sept. 26, 2020–April 4, 2021).

In 2021, the Salem Witchcraft Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming exhibit cross-curated original documents with a gown by fashion designer Alexander McQueen from his 2007 collection inspired by his ancestor, “Memory of Elizabeth How, 1692,” plus selections from photographer Frances F. Denny’s series Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America (Sept. 18, 2021–March 20, 2022). There was something for everyone, including a board for visitors to post their own thoughts and responses to what had happened in 1692.

Then in 2022, there was the surprise pop-up exhibit, The Salem Witchcraft trials: The Towne Sisters with more original documents about the cases of sisters Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyse (Sept. 10, 2022–Nov. 28, 2022). This small exhibit was featured in the Phillips Library rotating exhibits space at PEM.

Meanwhile, the entire collection of the Salem witchcraft trials documents on deposit at Phillips Library has been professionally scanned and indexed on its website, paired with references to the transcriptions in Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. Plus, if you missed any of the witchcraft trials exhibitions at PEM, you can select the exhibitions at the website—including the 1992 one—to see what was in each, along with photos of all these installations.

With the recent expansion and modernization of the Massachusetts Archives facility in Boston, the Supreme Judicial Court called for the return of the Salem witchcraft trials documents to the Judicial Archives. This was done in January 2023 at a ceremony at the Massachusetts State Archives with Peabody Essex Museum CEO Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Director of the Phillips Library Dan Lipcan, Judicial Court Chief Justice Kimberly Budd, and Essex County Clerk-Magistrate Thomas Driscoll. PEM also presented another 30 Salem witchcraft records from the Phillips Library’s own collection to the Archives, from donations it had received over the years.

In an article in the Salem News, Hartigan said, “PEM is committed to telling the story of these events through exhibitions, lectures, and public programs as well as by making reproductions of the Salem Witch Trial documents available to the public on our website.” Driscoll summed it up about the documents, “These things belong to the people. I think it’s the right place for them to go.”

These 1692 witchcraft trials documents are now at the Massachusetts Judicial Archives located in the Massachusetts Archives building at Columbia Point in Boston. They are not the only original records from the witchcraft trials. More are in the Massachusetts Archives, as well as the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Public Library, and a few at various historical societies and libraries.

This post is a part of a more detailed presentation on the history of all the witchcraft manuscripts, to be presented at History Camp Boston 2023, on August 12, 2023, at the Suffolk Law School in Boston.

Many thanks to the numerous people who kindly answered my questions and made connections for me during my research: Dan Lipcan and Jennifer Hornsby (Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum), Michael Comeau (Massachusetts State Archives), Donna Segar and Emerson Baker (Salem State University), Marilynne K. Roach, and Robin Mason, who sent me down this path.

See also:

Salem witch trials documents return to SJC

Why go to Rowley? Salem’s PEM research library of course

A tribute to the Essex Institute—and Mary English’s chair

Teaching the everyday & the extraordinary: Salem in 1692

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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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As the first man accused of witchcraft at the 1692 Salem trials, John Proctor’s position was unique. Born in England in 1631, his family had lived in the Bay Colony since 1635. Proctor was a well-known yeoman farmer, with property in Ipswich as well as 700 acres leased from the Downing estate. Proctor also operated a tavern on a busy road in what nowadays is Peabody, Massachusetts.

Much of Proctor’s trial centered upon his disbelief in the afflicted accusers, including his maidservant Mary Warren. It was common gossip that Proctor thought they should have their lies beaten out of them or be hanged. To belie his opinion, the afflicted accusers did a call-and-response routine in the courtroom. For example, Abigail Williams said Proctor’s specter would attack Sarah Bibber and in response, Bibber would have a fit. Judge Thomas Danforth didn’t see it as stage direction, and Judges John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin—who had seen the play before—committed Proctor to jail.

Knowing himself innocent of witchcraft, Proctor looked to the judges and the local clergy for help but none was forthcoming. His friends and neighbors attested to John and Elizabeth Proctor’s good characters and Christian faith, petitioning for their release. It didn’t work. John Proctor even wrote to prominent Boston ministers asking that the trials be moved to Boston or at least the judges be replaced. He pleaded to the ministers to attend the trials too, to stop the “shedding of our innocent blood.” Apparently, he received no response.

Written under Duress

No doubt Proctor spent sleepless nights in jail, worrying about his fate and the fate of his loved ones. Despite suffering such injustice, Proctor’s unwavering faith shines through in his last will and testament, written in jail on August 2, 1692, with his brother Joseph Proctor, Philip Fowler, and Thomas Chote serving as witnesses.

While most wills of the 17th century start with a similar preamble, Proctor added artistic flourishes to his letters. He wrote in large script: “In the Name of God Amen!” He used a typical phrase, “of sound mind,” but with added weight that perhaps others were not. He openly declared: “I bequeath my Immortal Soul unto God” and distribute “my Earthly goods which God hath bountifully given me.” Finally, he had the last word.

Having had three wives and numerous children, 60-year-old Proctor divided his estate equitably among the children. In his will, he gave his two eldest sons, Benjamin and John Proctor, all his lands as their shares and then they had to pay their siblings equal portions. In 1695, the total estate was worth £208-0-0, divided by 12 surviving children, leaving £17-6-8 a share. Not factored into the equation and not mentioned in the will was the widow’s one-third dower.

This notable omission suggested that John Proctor expected his wife to hang. After all, the verdict in Elizabeth’s case was guilty, and though she had a short reprieve for her pregnancy, Judge William Stoughton was determined to see that sentence through. None of them anticipated a last-minute reprieve from Governor William Phips. Elizabeth, however, thought her husband was coerced into writing his will without mentioning their prenuptial agreement. She tried to plead her case after the estate was settled. Unfortunately, she was legally dead in the eyes of the law. In 1703, a reversal of attainder allowed her to challenge the courts. But it wasn’t until some of the trial victims and their families were awarded compensation in 1711 that she received her due. She and her deceased husband John Proctor received £150. The records did not show how the money was divided among the large Proctor family, but since Elizabeth’s name was in the decree, she hopefully received half.

A Lasting Legacy

Although Thorndike Proctor did not receive lands from his father John’s will, he decided to follow in his footsteps. He purchased part of the Downing estate where his father had lived, building a house near where the old tavern stood.

In 1724, Thorndike purchased Nicholas Chattwell’s house in Salem. According to Sidney Perley, from this house you could see the hanging of the alleged witches in 1692. His son Thorndike Jr. later purchased the land where the executions happened, at Proctor’s Ledge.

Thanks to the Proctor land purchases, Perley’s clues, and confirmation from the Gallows Hill Project team, today we can visit the place where 19 people were wrongfully hanged for witchcraft.

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ergot fungus on rye

A Q&A with Margo Burns, associate editor and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt and expert featured on the Who Do You Think You Are? TV series.

WitchesMassBay: What is the premise behind the idea that ergot caused the Salem witch hunts?

Margo Burns: The initial proposition of this idea came from an observation that the symptoms of the accusing girls in Salem Village appeared to resemble the physical and hallucinogenic symptoms of convulsive ergotism. Ergot is a toxic fungus that can grow on rye grain used to make bread in the 17th century, and it has a chemical similarity to LSD, a known hallucinogen. The connection does not explain why the adults in the community—parents, clergy, judges—interpreted such reported symptoms as being caused by bewitchment.

WitchesMassBay: Some notable people, including accused witch John Proctor, believed the core group of afflicted accusers were lying and pretending their illnesses. In 1692, would people have had an understanding that ergot (or contaminated food) caused hallucinations and physical reactions?

Margo Burns: Doctors and “chirurgeons” were often called for help when someone fell ill mysteriously, and ministers were often asked to come pray for the patients to recover with the help of God. A popular witch-finding guide of the period by Richard Bernard gives a list of examples of how doctors were able to diagnose what may have appeared to be bewitchment instead of known physical ailments, including one case that was as simple as the patient having worms, and who got better after “voiding” them. Blood-letting, laxatives, emetics, and diuretics were common treatments as a result of their understanding of how the four “humours” worked in the body. Some of their cures were actually right on the money. They knew about the dangers of spoiled food and many other things, which, frankly, were more common then than now.

WitchesMassBay: Today, the debate on ergot continues, with scientists and witch-hunt historians on both sides. Why is this such a popular theory?

Margo Burns: It is not technically a theory, but a hypothesis, a guess. It would be a theory if there were solid evidence to support it, but it is circumstantial at best. Both historians and medical professionals have found that the evidence offered contains cherry-picked data and ignores known exculpatory evidence. There doesn’t seem to be a debate about that, even though it is often portrayed as such in the popular media, because who doesn’t like experts disagreeing? Except that they don’t. If there’s debate, it is more like debating whether the moon landing was real or not: There will always be someone who believes it was faked, no matter what is presented to them as evidence.  Also, many people who hold this explanation as valid often do so because it positions the people of the 17th century as ignorant and superstitious while we in the 21st century are superior in our scientific understanding. Single-bullet solutions for complicated events are also reassuring, especially if it feels like a secret has been revealed, and we’re in on it.

Ergot as the toxic culprit behind the accusers’ symptoms was not necessarily what engaged people about this idea in the mid-1970s when first posited: It was that ergot was chemically and symptomatically similar to LSD.

WitchesMassBay: Any other theories you would like to debunk?

Margo Burns: It is not really about debunking as it is understanding that every critical approach to historical material is actually a filter through which the facts are perceived—some coming into focus and others blurring into the background, depending on the person’s interests and world-view, often with some creative embellishment to complete a popular trope of the time period.

Charles Wentworth Upham, an antiquarian from Salem writing during the mid-18th century, portrayed Tituba, known to be a slave from Barbados, as a Civil War-era stereotype of a voodoo-practicing Black African Mammy from the South, even though Tituba was consistently described in the primary sources as being an Indian. From this, he fabricated the story that the accusing girls had been learning magic from her and went dancing in the woods—none of which is in any of the primary sources—to explain the girls’ behavior. Because this story is vivid and shocking, it comes across as plausible and is generally accepted as true, even now and even though it is not supported by any primary sources.

Arthur Miller repeated the story about the girls dancing in the woods in his play, The Crucible, in the 1950s. Miller was swept up personally in Senator McCarthy’s anti-Communist activities, and the story of public trials based on false accusations condemning innocent people in Salem resonated for him. The Crucible is an extremely popular play, and his craftsmanship so superb that audiences start believing that the story and characters are based more closely on the real events and people than they are. His use of names of real people for his characters further blurs the line. The play is so compelling, in fact, that over the years in discussing the origins of his play, Miller himself began to believe that some of the fictive things he wrote were in the primary sources he had read, even though he hadn’t.

Margo Burns was project manager for Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, the most complete compendium of the trial documents.

Margo recorded two lectures on ergot—and both of them are different:

Ergot – What a long strange trip it has been -The Moldy Bread Myth by Margo Burns (Witch House, 2018)

The Salem Witchcraft Trials and Ergot, the “Moldy Bread” Hypothesis by Margo Burns (History Camp 2018)

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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.

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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.