Tag: Jonathan Corwin

Examination of George Burroughs

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A conversation between Tony Fels and Margo Burns about the confessions during the Salem witch trials. Read the original post, part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Margo Burns responds:

Tony: Thanks for your thoughtful reply, but I still don’t accept your claim that my argument is based on the “straw man.” It is very common in popular explanations of the trials to claim that people consciously confessed to save themselves. As for “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,” here are four—Norton, Rosenthal, Baker, and Ray—who suggest that the confessors themselves believed that confession would spare their lives:

1) Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare, p. 303: “By [August and September], as other scholars have pointed out, it had become clear to the accused that confessors were not being tried.”

2) Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story, p. 151: “Some did manage to escape; those who could not generally opted to save their lives by confession.” p. 155: “On September 1, [Samuel] Wardwell, in a move that he had every right to believe would protect him, confessed to his witchcraft.”

3) Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft, p. 154: “So when [Samuel] Wardwell was questioned about witchcraft on September 1, he and others appear to have believed that confessing would at least delay their trial and execution, and might possibly even spare their lives.” p. 155: “[B]y the time [George] Burroughs was executed on August 19, it was clear that straightforward denials would be no use. Anyone who had pled not guilty was quickly convicted and executed .… Confession and cooperation at least gave the advantage of delay and offered some hope that the individual might ultimately be spared.”

4) Benjamin Ray, Satan & Salem, p. 123: “[Sarah] Churchill never formally retracted her confession. She almost certainly realized that to have done so would have forced the judges to put her on trial.” p. 125: “Hobbs and [Mary] Lacey clearly believed themselves to be free from trial because of their confessions.”

When I return to my original post in this thread, the point I was trying to make is that I do not accept the popular portrayal of those executed as martyrs. A martyr, by definition, is “a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle.” For this to be true, those who hanged would have felt or known that they had a choice that could affect whether they lived or died. That is just not true. This is all part of the general origin myth of America portraying our ancestors as noble. Then of course there had to be a reason why the condemned didn’t confess and save themselves, right? Maybe they were really principled Puritans, not willing to “belie” themselves. Really? This is not the case. Part of dismantling this whole portrayal is careful examination of what the accused could actually have known and when they could possibly have known it. The timelines of prosecutions and confessions don’t have any correlation, then or now. The confessions were coerced, which removes the possibility that the confessors knew what they were doing. The people who were executed are not martyrs, including my own ancestor, Rebecca Nurse. They were victims and it was tragic what happened to them, but they had no more agency in the outcome than the people who confessed had.

You are correct, Tony, that I put the blame and responsibility for the whole episode on the judges, because they controlled everything. They decided which legal precedents to follow and which to reject. From the start, local magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin made multiple decisions to accept all accusations. They entertained spectral evidence as valid, and then held everyone over in jail without the option of being released on bond, against legal precedent. These and other local magistrates were the ones coercing the false confessions. As for the assertion that the judges were all elected, that was not the case. William Phips and William Stoughton received their commissions as Governor and Lt. Governor from King William & Queen Mary in the new charter. Phips handed the management of the legal system over to Stoughton—when precedent would have had put the Governor himself in charge of such a court. Stoughton processed all these cases rapidly and left no opportunity for the convicted to appeal their sentences to the General Court, again, against precedent. Stoughton had been a judge on a variety of courts across Massachusetts and Maine for two decades and had served on the bench during numerous witchcraft cases before this, and he chose to handle things differently in 1692.

Margo Burns is the associate editor and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (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.

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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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1684 John Ward house (PEM)

For the 300th anniversary of the Salem witch trials, the Peabody Essex Museum created the Days of Judgement: Salem in 1692 exhibit and video. On display were original trial documents along with artifacts belonging to some people involved in the trials. Items included Judge Jonathan Corwin’s chest, Mary (Hollingsworth) English’s embroidered sampler, old George Jacobs’ canes, and John Proctor’s sundial.

Besides the exhibit, the Peabody Essex offered The Everyday & the Extraordinary: Salem in 1692 tours to school groups. Originally located across the street from the “old witch gaol,” the 1684 John Ward house helped students imagine what 17th-century life was like, from its simple furnishings to outmoded kitchen implements. The old home set the stage for talking about the social, economic, religious, and political conditions that led to the witch hunt.

Next, the students congregated in the one-room meetinghouse, which was similar to the 17th-century courthouse with bench seating, where they learned about court procedures. Afterward, the students reenacted the parts of accuser and accused using testimonies from the witch trials.

Recommended for middle and high school students, the program also provided teachers with a 50-page curriculum packet and reading list. Developed and tested by educators, the lesson plans introduced the basic story of the witch hunt and covered four themes: jurisprudence/law; folk belief and magic; group dynamics and prejudice; and material culture.

What the Witch Hunts Teach Us

Between the museum visits and the classroom lessons, students discovered why studying the Salem witch hunt is still relevant today. Some of the ideas include:

  • The importance of primary sources and how secondary accounts and later interpretations can change how we view history
  • The difference between bias and objectivity, and how loaded words can influence the audience
  • How group dynamics and mob mentality can influence outcomes
  • How to weigh evidence based upon what you know, and what’s admissible evidence within the historical context
  • How laws, scientific knowledge, and belief systems change over time
  • How traditions and practices are different among groups of people and through time
  • How ethnocentric groups discriminate, stereotype, and scapegoat others; and how we can combat intolerance and prejudice by recognizing it
  • How the roles of women have changed over 300 years; and why gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, race, culture, etc., influence us today
  • How to have courage and believe in yourself, like the innocent victims who would not falsely confess to witchcraft and were hanged

In 1998, the Peabody Essex Museum opened The Real Witchcraft Papers “permanent exhibit” at the Phillips Library across the street from the main museum. Before 2011, when the Phillips Library collection was moved to a “temporary” collection center during renovations to the building, the so-called permanent exhibit was dismantled and taken off display.

Today, the Peabody Essex no longer maintains a permanent witch-hunt exhibit nor offers witch-hunt-themed school programs, despite the huge value of using these artifacts and original documents as teaching tools. Over the last 10+ years, the Peabody Essex Museum changed its mission by focusing on art and culture, while relegating “history” to the tourist attractions. Unfortunately, those businesses don’t have the historical settings, artifacts, original documents, educational resources, and prestige to put together an influential exhibit and educational program like PEM did with The Everyday & the Extraordinary: Salem in 1692.

Note: Since this post was written, PEM’s Phillips Library moved to Rowley, Massachusetts. The Peabody Essex Museum also presented two Salem witch trials exhibits, with plans for more. Check the PEM site for upcoming events and exhibits.

To see photos of some of PEM’s Salem witch trials artifacts, check out The Salem Witchcraft Trials, a booklet by Katherine Richardson (1983).

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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.