Tag: Proctor’s Ledge

Proctor's Ledge

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A student interview with Professor Emerson W. Baker on the triumph and tragedy of the 1692 Salem witch trials as part of the 2019 National History Day contest. (Missed Part 1or Part 2?)

Kayleigh: In Salem, they treat history like it’s more of a show than actual history. The museums are kind of terrible. Why do you think that is? Is it because they think people will be more interested in the drama than the truth?

Dr. Baker: I think part of the problem is that Salem has become a dark-tourism community, a witch-trials-tourism community. A large part of Salem’s economy depends on tourists, depends on people coming here to visit the sites associated with the witch trials. And it’s problematic. We have the 1692 deaths of 19 innocent people and we have the people who are promoting dark tourism. I call it the vampire-fangs-and-fried-dough phenomenon. People come here during Haunted Happenings and find this carnival-like atmosphere.

I think the problem is knowledge. One reason I started teaching about Salem witch trials and writing my book was that if you tell people the story, it gives them great pause about what they are doing in Salem. But the other problem is that people are doing this for a living. Most of the museums in Salem that make their money off of witchcraft tourism are not really museums. By definition, museums are nonprofit organizations. And these are all for-profit businesses, and, as you point out by your question, many of these places make their money promoting the spectacular, the morbid, the lurid, rather than trying to tell the story as we historians would like to have it told.

When they dedicated the memorial at Proctor’s Ledge* in July 2017, I was honored to be one of the few people who was asked to say a few words. What I said then was that I was thrilled to see Salem’s reaction when we came forward and told the mayor and her staff that we had confirmed the execution site. Frankly, when we did that I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was thinking, how on earth are we going to raise the money for a memorial? You know, we were just a small group of folks. Immediately, at that first meeting, the mayor and her aide simply said, “thank you for doing this. This is now our duty, our responsibility to help ensure that this site has been properly memorialized and is never forgotten again.” And the city took it upon itself immediately to build a memorial there.

To me, it was something wonderful that the city was willing to confront its past. So when I got to speak at the dedication, I mentioned this and the way the community came together to build this memorial. To me, I hoped it signaled a new beginning for Salem and how it treats the witch trials.

I would like to see in the future less celebration and more communion, dedication, and thought about the events of 1692, rather than celebration and the carnival-like atmosphere. Realistically, we’ll never get rid of that carnival-like element. I think we need more reflection and less celebration. I guess I am mildly optimistic that that can happen.

———

*Emerson Baker and the Gallows Hill Team spent five years researching data and analyzing topography to pinpoint the site where 19 victims of the 1692 witch hunt were executed. In 2017, a memorial was dedicated at the location.

Emerson (“Tad”) W. Baker is a historian and professor at Salem State University and the author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience (2014), The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft & Conflict in Early New England (2007), and The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651-1695 (1998).

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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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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.