Tag: Simon Bradstreet

Charter Street Cemetery, Salem, Massachusetts, photo by Frank Cousins

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With the new Welcome Center now open inside the circa 1665 Samuel Pickman house and after the major restoration work on headstones, box tombs, and landscaping at the Charter Street Cemetery, let’s look back at this historic burying ground through the eyes of Frank Cousins (1851-1925).

In 1868, Cousins opened a general store at 170-174 Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts. Besides the necessities of local Salemites, his shop carried photo postcards and other knickknacks for tourists. At first, he bought other photographers’ images, but then he became interested in photography and sold his own images. (He also was interested in the colonial architecture of Salem and wrote a book about it.)

The Old Burying Point (or Charter Street Cemetery) was first used in 1637, though the earliest surviving gravestone dates to 1673.

Just inside the Charter Street gate.
In the center of this photo, you can see the box tomb of Governor Simon Bradstreet (1604-1697). He was acting governor at the beginning of the witch accusations until May 1692, when Rev. Increase Mather returned from London with the new Massachusetts charter and the new governor, William Phips.
The plaque on Governor Simon Bradstreet’s box tomb.
At the time of Nathaniel Mather’s death at age 19 in 1688, his father Rev. Increase Mather (1639-1723) was in London lobbying the king for the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter. Increase first visited his son’s grave while in Salem for the 1692 witch trials.
At two years old, Samuel Shattock (1678-1695) suffered from fits and catatonia. By 1692, his health issues were unresolved. During the Salem witch trials, people said he was bewitched. His parents, Samuel and Sarah Shattock, testified against accused witch Bridget Bishop.
Mary Corey was the second wife of accused witch Giles Corey. In 1678, she was charged with cursing & swearing, being drunk, and using abusive speech. She died in 1684, aged 63 years. Giles and his third wife Martha were executed as witches in 1692, Giles by peine forte et dure (stone weight torture) and Martha by hanging.
This dual headstone, featuring a death head and an urn, is for William Hollingsworth (1655-1688) and his mother Eleanor (1630-1689). Eleanor’s daughter Mary married the prosperous merchant Philip English (1651-1736) in 1675. Mary and Philip English were arrested for witchcraft in 1692. They escaped from the Boston jail and returned home after the trials were over.
This is my favorite Frank Cousins’ image from Charter Street Cemetery, and not because it’s the gravestone for Col. John Hathorne (1641-1717). This stone was encased in cement after being seriously damaged many years ago. (I’d guess the damage happened in the 1930s, based on a postcard.) Hathorne was the magistrate who handled the early arrests of accused witches and depositions of their accusers. He also became a judge on the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692.

No convicted witches executed at Proctor’s Ledge in 1692 are buried at Charter Street Cemetery. Their remains were taken from the shallow graves near the gallows and buried in secret by their family and friends. Their burial locations remain unknown. Requiescat in pace.

Digital Commonwealth features 2,669 images of the Frank Cousins Collection of Glass Plate Negatives 1890-1920, courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum. The original negatives are located at PEM’s Phillips Library in Rowley, Massachusetts.

Read more: If these stones could speak

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Massachusetts Bay Colony had numerous issues with pirates, from Dixey Bull to Blackbeard. During the interim (post-Andros, pre-Phips) government, the Court of Assistants ruled on a piracy case involving several men from Salem. The final verdicts would reverberate throughout the 1692 witch trials since seven of the nine justices who sat on the Court of Oyer and Terminer had served during the interim government.

For three months, Thomas Pound and his pirate crew captured several ships along the coast from Maine to Virginia. At his trial in January 1690, Pound detailed his travels and pillages. His plan was to head to Curacao to attack French ships, but Capt. Samuel Pease, commander of the sloop Mary, found them first. Outfitted by the government, Mary’s crew went to battle against Pound’s crew, and four pirates died. Capt. Pease died from his injuries a week later, adding murder to the felony and piracy charges.

Back in Boston, the Court of Assistants convicted the pirates and sentenced them to “be hanged by the neck until they be dead.” As the day of execution drew near, Magistrate Waitstill Winthrop sought support to ask Governor Simon Bradstreet to grant the pirates a reprieve. By the time the sheriff received the order, pirate Thomas Johnson had been turned off the scaffold and was dead, and the noose was being prepared for Thomas Hawkins. Since colonials rallied around such spectacles of death—and justice—Magistrate Samuel Sewall wrote in his diary, the last-minute reprieves “gave great disgust to the people; I fear it was ill done.” Sewall’s reluctant agreement with the other magistrates weighed heavily on him as he awaited reprisals from God.

Notably, in court Thomas Pound had pointedly claimed Thomas Hawkins, whose boat was used at the start of their enterprise, was not at any point a prisoner. Hawkins deserted the crew at Tarpaulin Cove, was captured separately, and taken in chains to Boston jail. He was not involved in the battle that killed Capt. Pease. Perhaps Pound wanted to remind the judges that Hawkins was well connected. Hawkins’ sister Elizabeth had married Adam Winthrop (brother of Waitstill) and John Richards, a magistrate; sister Abigail was married to the Honorable John Foster, a justice of common pleas; and sister Hannah was married to Elisha Hutchinson, a magistrate.

Influenced by elite connections instead of the rule of law, the judges failed in their duty to let justice be done. Two years later, these same men failed to respond to neighborly petitions to save victims accused of witchcraft based on spectral evidence. Yet when whispers of witchcraft enveloped elite members of society, those accusations never made it to court.

And as for the pirates? Most were released after paying 20 marks. Bound for England for trial, Thomas Hawkins was slain when the ship was attacked by a French privateer; Pound survived the battle, became captain of a Royal Navy ship, and died a “gentleman” in 1703.

Sources: Pirates of the New England Coast; Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1:309-310; New England Historical Genealogical Register Vol. 45:215-217; Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft.