DIVINING ROD.

In the manuscript Discourse on Witchcraft, 1705, written by John Bell,

p. 41, I find the following account from Theophylact on the subject

of rabdomanteia, or rod divination: “They set up two staffs, and

having whispered some verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the

operation of dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell,

forward or backward, to the right or left hand, and are agreeably given

responses, having made use of the fall of their staffs for their signs.”

With the divining rod seems connected a lusus nature of ash tree bough,

resembling the litui of the Roman augurs and the Christian pastoral

staff, which still obtains a place, if not on this account I know not

why, in the catalogue of popular superstitions. Seven or eight years

ago I remember to have seen one of these, which I thought extremely

beautiful and curious, in the house of an old woman in Beeralston,

Devonshire, of whom I would most gladly have purchased it; but she

declined parting with it on any account, thinking it would be unlucky

to do so.

Divination by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel.

Hosea, too, reproaches the Jews as being infected with the like

superstition: “My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff

declareth unto them.” Chap. iv. 12. Not only the Chaldeans used rods

for divination, but almost every nation which has pretended to that

science has practiced the same method. Herodotus mentions it as a

custom of the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans.

The earliest means made use of by the miners for the discovery of the

lode was the divining rod. The method of procedure was to cut the twig

of twelve months’ growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by

both hands in a peculiar way, walking across the land until the twig

bent, which was taken as an indication of the locality of a lode. The

person who generally practices this divination boasts himself to be the

seventh son of a seventh son. The twig of hazel bends in his hands to

the conviction of the miners that ore is present; but then the peculiar

manner in which the twig is held, bringing muscular action to bear upon

it, accounts for its gradual deflection, and the circumstances of the

strata walked over always containing ore gives a further credit to the

process of divination.

The vulgar notion, still prevalent in the north of England, of the

hazel’s tendency to a vein of lead ore, seam or stratum of coal, &c.,

seems to be a vestige of this rod divination.

The virgula divina, or bocalns divinatorius, is a forked branch in

the form of a Y, cut off an hazel stick, by means whereof people have

pretended to discover mines, springs, &c., underground. The method of

using it is this: the person who breaks it, walking very slowly over

the places where he suspects mines or springs may be, the effluvia

exhaling from the metals, or vapor from the water impregnating the

wood, makes it dip, or incline, which is the sign of a discovery.

We read, in the same work for Nov. 1751, xxi. 507: “So early as

Agricola, the divining rod was in much request, and has obtained great

credit for its discovery where to dig for metals and springs of water:

for some years past its reputation has been on the decline, but lately

it has been revived with great success by an ingenious gentleman, who,

from numerous experiments, hath good reason to believe its effects to

be more than imagination. He says, that hazel and willow rods, he has

by experience found, will actually answer with all persons in a good

state of health, if they are used with moderation and at some distance

of time, and after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. The

hazel, willow, and elm, are all attracted by springs of water; some

perhaps have the virtue intermittently; the rod, in their hands, will

attract one half hour, and repel the next. The rod is attracted by

all metals, coals, amber, and lime-stone, but with different degrees

of strength. The best rods are those from the hazel, or nut tree, as

they are pliant and tough, and cut in the winter months. A shoot that

terminates equally forked is to be met with, two single ones, of a

length and size, may be tied together with a thread, and will answer as

well as the other.”

* * * * *

THE DEMONSTRATION OF METALLIC TRANSMUTATION, AFFINITY, AND THE SECRET

OF PHILOSOPHERS; OR, HOW TO CHANGE LEAD INTO QUICKSILVER.―Let there

be one pound of lead melted in an earthen vessel, and then put into it

also one pound of that tinny metal which is usually called by the name

of marcasite; and when they are both melted together you must stir them

up and down, and temper them to a pefect medley with a wooden ladle.

In the mean space you must have four pounds of quicksilver warmed in

another vessel standing by, to cast in upon that compounded metal,

for unless your quicksilver be warm it will not close nor agree with

your metals; then temper your quicksilver and your metal together for

a while, and presently after cast it into cold water; so shall it not

congeal in any hard lump, but float on the top of the water, and be

very quick and lively.

* * * * *

TO TINCTURE SILVER INTO GOLD.―Make first a tart lye, put quicklime

into a pot, whose bottom is full of many small holes, put a piece of

wood or tile-shard upon it, then by degrees pour in the powder and hot

water, and by the narrow holes at the bottom let it drain into a clean

earthen vessel under it; do this again, to make it exceeding tart.

Powder filbium and put into this, that it may evaporate into the thin

air; let it boil at an easy fire, for when it boils the water will be

of a purple color; then strain it into a clean vessel through a linen

cloth; again, pour on the lye on the powders that remain, and let it

boil so long at the fire, till the water seems of a bloody color, no

more. Then boil the lye that is colored, putting fire under, till the

water be all exhaled; but the powder that remains being dry, with the

oil of tartar dried and dissolved, must be cast again upon plates made

equal of parts of gold and silver, within an earthen crucible; cover it

so long with coals, and renew your work, till it be perfectly like to

gold.

* * * * *

IRON CHANGED INTO BRASS.―It is reported that in the Mountain

Carpatusan, Hill of Pannonia, at a certain town called Smolinitum,

there is a lake, in which are three channels, the waters of which are

so impregnated with copper and gold, that upon adding absolute vitriol

portions of pure gold become deposited.

* * * * *

THE SYMPATHETIC AND OCCULT VIRTUES OF PLANTS, ANIMALS, METALS, &c.―In

these few remarks on the sympathetic influences I have ventured to

turn the light of a great central and positive science upon the

mysteries, which all men, who dare think, are anxious to penetrate―for

illustration:

If we bury a crab for three months in horse-dung, he will turn to

a scorpion. But if you thus bury a scorpion or lizard, he will die

instantly. Some, by the use of eels and brandy, cure a person of

drunkenness. But how? Why, simply by the power of sympathy. But once

for all, let me here say, that this knowledge I cheerfully impart

for the good of mankind. And every wise person will see in a moment

that great care must be exerted where knowledge might be used for a

bad purpose. But to proceed. A black cat drops dead at the sight of a

Bengal tiger; a cat of any other color is not affected in the least.

A snake will kill a bird by looking at it for the space of fifteen

minutes; but a snake can produce no effect on men or animals. Why?

Because the proper sympathies are not brought into action. A rat will

die by being compelled to look at or be near an English ferret. If an

ox is killed, and let lie in a tight house with plenty of glass windows

to admit the light, he will in a short time be converted into millions

of bees. If he is killed and let lie upon an open field, he will soon

be converted into millions of maggots.

Behold the beautiful doctrine of universal affinity or sympathy! If

a lady, with a fresh breast of milk, shall milk a portion of it into

a bag of corks, very soon thereafter her milk will all dry away. Any

person who will wear an eelskin around his body will never have a

cramp. But there is the gut of the ourang-outang, if worn around the

body, will cause a cramp as long as the person shall wear it. Persons

might be killed in this way, and they would be ignorant of the true

cause. If one have a severe colic, and hold a live duck to the belly,

the colic will immediately remove, but the duck dies. If a chicken,

or any other living thing, is thus held to the belly, it produces no

visible effect, either one way or the other.

The head of a hare being burned, will bring serpents together; but a

fume of peacock feathers being made, will disperse the serpents. If

a piece of meat is thrown to the dogs, they will seize it with great

avidity; but if a jasper stone be thrown out with the meat, the dogs

will instantly run away, with very great fright. Fenelon says that if

we wear the clothing of the dead, that it does wonderfully shorten our

lives.

* * * * *

THE CURE OF DISEASES BY MAGICAL, CELESTIAL, AND SYMPATHETIC

MEANS.―Among a variety of examples, the loadstone is one most

remarkable proof of the sympathy we speak of. However to hasten to the

point. Among stones, those which resemble the rays of the sun by their

golden sparkling prevent the falling-sickness and poisons, if worn on

the finger. The stone which is called oculis folis, being in figure

like the apple of the eye, from which shines forth a ray, comforts the

brain and strengthens sight. The carbuncle, which shines by night, has

a virtue against all airy and vaporous poisons. The chrysolite stone,

of a light green color, when held against the sun, there shines in

it a ray like a star of gold; this is singularly good for the lungs,

and cures asthmatical complaints; and if it be bored through, and the

hollow filled with the mane of an ass, and bound to the left arm, it

chases away all foolish and idle imaginations and melancholy fears,

and drives away folly. The stone called iris, which is like crystal in

color, being found with six corners, when held in the shade, and the

sun suffered to shine through it, represents a natural rainbow in the

air. The stone heliotropium, green, like a jasper or emerald, beset

with red specks, makes the wearer constant, renowned, and famous, and

conduces to long life; there is likewise another wonderful property

in this stone, and that is, that it so dazzles the eyes of men that

it causes the bearer to be invisible; but there must be applied to it

the herb bearing the same name, viz., heliotropium, or the sunflower;

and these kind of virtues Albertus Magnus and William of Paris mention

in their writings. The jacinth also possesses virtue from the sun

against poisons, pestilences, and pestiferous vapors; likewise it

renders the bearer pleasant and acceptable; conduces also to gain

money; being simply held in the mouth, it wonderfully cheers the heart

and strengthens the mind. Then there is the pyrophi, of a red mixture,

which Albertus Magnus reports that Æsculapius makes mention of in one

of his epistles to Octavious Cæsar, saying: “There is a certain poison,

so intensely cold, which preserves the heart of man” being taken out

from burning; so that if it be put into the fire for any time, it is

turned into a stone, which stone is called hyrophilus. It possesses a

wonderful virtue against poison, and it infallibly renders the wearer

thereof renowned and dreadful to his enemies. Apollonius is reported to

have found a stone (which will attract other stones, as the loadstone

does iron) most powerful against all poisons; it is spotted like the

panther, and therefor some naturalists have given this stone the name

of pantherur; Aaron calls it evanthum; and some, on accunt of its

variety, call it pantochras. It is by such and similar methods the

magicians, prophets, and seers of the Middle Ages and biblical times,

and many of the magi or wise men of ancient ages, succeeded in curing

numbers of diseases, without any medicine whatever; these men were the

true magicians, or ancient physicians, and of the race of Hindoos,

Israelites, Jews, Arabians, Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Chaldeans,

and many of our own times. They were usually named SIGNA MAGNA, to

distinguish them from the jugglers and sleight-of-hand tricksters, who

exhibited themselves for money, and whose performances of Legerdemain

consisted of a blustering volubility of words, thus diverting the

attention of their audiences while they, or their accomplices, of which

they traveled with one or more, made the necessary changes in their

paraphernalia to deceive the sense of vision, and apparently reverse

the order of things. No uncommon part of their programme was to obtain

the loan of large sums of money from the wealthy and moneyed classes,

thus getting a knowledge of the fact of such a sum being in their

possession, and afterward by fraud, violence, or digital dexterity,

securing it to themselves. The modern conjurer is, however, usually a

gentleman of the highest principle, and always prefaces his exhibitions

by the statement, that by dexterity he proposes to deceive. Most of

the apparatus employed is double, or contains two partitions, which by

simple turning, the contents are apparently changed.

* * * * *

ALLUMINA CHANGED TO SILVER―LATE PROCESS.―Put it into a crucible,

first breaking it into small fragments, bring it to a white heat for

five or six hours, until the metal will stand firm on a red-hot plate

of iron; then sprinkle it with a mixture of vinegar and sal ammoniac

(parts equal), when it is cold, put it again into the furnace, and keep

at a white heat for three days and three nights, the last three or four

hours adding a little pure lead to make it ductile; you now break it

once more into small fragments and replace it in the furnace, adding

to it little pills made of lime, saltpetre, and brimstone, and by this

means our mixture becomes incorporated into a pretty good silver.

* * * * *

TO CAUSE LETTERS, PAPERS, &c., TO DISAPPEAR.―Valivoni, an old

magician, of the time of Agrippa, says: “If you take uphorbium,

bdellium, gum armoniac, the roots of both hellebores, the loadstone,

and a little sulphur, and incorporate them altogether with the blood

of a hart, the blood of an elephant, and the blood of a black cat, and

sprinkle it near the papers to be removed, that it unseals them and

brings them to your presence, or just where you desire.”

* * * * *

TO STRIKE FEAR AND TERROR INTO THE HEART OF AN ENEMY.―Pythagoras says:

“That if a flame be put into the skull of a murderer, and the flame

of your enemy written therein, it will strike the person whose name

is so written with fear and trembling, and he will speedily seek your

forgiveness and become a steadfast friend.”

BY WHAT MEANS MAGICIANS AND NECROMANCERS CALL

FORTH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD.

It is manifest that the souls after death do as yet love their bodies

which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial, or

have left their bodies by violent death, and yet wander about their

carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, beings as it were, allured

by something that has an affinity with them, the means being known, by

which, in time past, they were joined to their bodies, they be called

forth and allured by the like vapors, liquors and certain artificial

lights, songs, sounds, &c., which move the imaginative and spiritual

harmony of the soul, and sacred invocations, &c.

Necromancy has its name because it works on the bodies of the dead, and

gives answers by apparitions of the dead, and subterraneous spirits,

alluring them into the carcasses of the dead by charms and infernal

invocations, and by deadly sacrifices and wicked oblations.

There are two kinds of necromancy: raising the carcasses, which is

not done without blood; the other in which the calling up of the

shadow only suffices. To conclude, it works all its experiments by the

carcasses of the slain, and their bones and members, and what is from

them.

* * * * *

THE MAGIC CRYSTAL is a ball of pure virgin glass, somewhat in the shape

of an egg; the method of using it, is to hold it in the palm of the

right hand, retain it there from eleven to twelve o’clock at night, in

a dark room, all the time concentrating your thoughts upon the object

you desire to see; about twelve o’clock, the crystal becomes quite

hot―now look steadily into it, and picture of scenes that appear are

transpiring with friends far distant; in fact, it is asserted that the

movements of any one can be known, whether husband, wife, lover or

friend.

THE CORRECT ACCOUNT

OF THE

SALEM WITCHES,

MASSACHUSETTS, U. S.

We now commence some detail of the witch persecution from 1645 to the

2d charter, 1692, there stood upon the statute book the old Cottonian

law of 1645, against witchcraft, a false recognition, by the highest

authority of the devil’s power to appear in the colony; nay, by strange

construction it was made an act of conjuration, a summons to come

forth, and which he was well pleased to obey. Within one year after

the statute recognition of witchcraft, in the jurisdiction, a case

occurred. It was in Springfield upon the Connecticut river, and in the

family of the Rev. Mr. Moxam. Two of his children betook themselves to

extreme oddities in speech and behavior, and it was readily supposed

they were bewitched, but there was no proof to fix the sorcery upon any

one, until three or four years afterwards, when an old woman of settled

witch reputation, upon close examination was said to have confessed her

guilt, and here the matter rested. The case of Mrs. Margaret Jones of

Charlestown was fatal. She was reputed a witch of such extraordinary

malignity, that her touch would produce blindness, sickness at the

stomach and violent pains, and in 1648 she was tried and executed. In

disgust and distress, her husband went on board a vessel to leave the

country, and then the vessel began to rock as if it would upset, and

so continued for twelve hours. Upon this the enemies of Jones procured

a warrant of arrest from the Governor and assistants, then sitting at

Boston; and when he was imprisoned, the vessel became quiet. There were

on board this vessel at the time as she lay in Charles River, eighty

horses, shipped for Barbadoes, and this was the witchcraft that rocked

the vessel; and as we hear no more of Jones, no doubt the assistants

saw the error and released him. In 1652, the year that old Massasoit

and the Rev. John Cotton died there was another case at Springfield.

Hugh Parsons was indicted for witchcraft. The jury found him guilty;

but the magistrates who tried the cause would not agree to it and under

a law of 1651, it was carried to the general court, where the man was

discharged.

The next, was the case of the widow Hibbins, whom Gov. Endicot and the

assistants hung for witchcraft May 27, 1656. Her husband was a rich

Boston merchant, and an assistant when the law against witchcraft was

passed, and thus he qualified his enemies in the devil’s name, to put a

halter about his wife’s neck. She was a haughty dame and was not, they

thought, sufficiently humbled by her husband’s great loss of property

in later life, and she came under church discipline and censure. But

this only inflamed her hot temper, and a witch prosecution could alone

reduce her to reason. At her trial it was proved, that having once

seen two persons in the street talking, she said she knew it was about

her, and unhappily she guessed right. This turned the case against

her, and she thus lost her life. At her trial they searched her body

for the devil’s mark as they did the Quaker maidens, Mary Fisher and

her friends in less than two months after; but none were found. Before

execution Mrs. Hibbons made her will, and therein begged her friends to

respect her body, and give it a Christian burial. But the whole colony

rang with her story. It was exceedingly alarming to the rulers that

Satan should presume so high as an assistant’s widow, and for more than

thirty years there were no witch executions here, although there were

many supposed cases of the offence.

In 1662 witchcraft passed over to Connecticut. In Hartford at that

time, there was imprisoned as a witch, a Mrs. Greensmith and the

peculiar art that was used to entrap and convict her deserves our

notice. In the same place there lived a girl whom they called Ann

Cole, and much admired for her beauty and ingenuity. She understood

the Dutch and French languages, rare attainments then, but which of

themselves would hardly excite suspicion to her prejudice, even in the

realm of blue laws. But she possessed in addition to these, the power

of ventriloquism in a high degree, and all combined, came very near to

her own undoing; indeed they quite undid old Mrs. Greensmith. Ann Cole

at first only amused herself with the little ones of her own family,

and when she practiced the deceptive art in the Dutch language, the

unearthly jargon seeming to came from no visible object, it afforded

her great amusement to see the terrified urchins gather round the very

cause of their alarm for protection. Success tempted her on, and she

began to amuse herself with her neighbors. When they came in and were

seated perhaps the chair would seem to compliment them with “how do

you do?” and if they started up in surprise, “pray keep your seat,”

would follow in a low coaxing tone; and then the house cat seated in

Ann’s lap would sing melodiously. But although the facetious maiden

never suffered these pastimes to pass without explanation, yet some

doubted, and eyed her with jealousy and circulated strange stories,

and before she had thought of consequences, rumor had declared her

a sort of Magdalene, and that her demons talked to each other, in a

strange variety of languages. These reports excited the attention of

two clergymen of the place and they obtained Miss Ann’s consent to

approach her so near when a conference of her spirits took place, as

to hear and write down the particulars; and herein commenced the only

veritable witchcraft of the case; for Ann Cole’s ventriloquism or the

listening ministers, feigned the supposed demons to converse with Mrs.

Greensmith as one in league with them to do mischief, a foul slander

in either case, and which cost the poor woman her life. The clergyman

then repaired to prison, they said the accused was much agitated upon

learning the discovery they had made, and by sharp interrogatories was

made to confess her familiarity with the devil. She had not signed his

book, or made a covenant with him, but at the then coming Christmas,

she was to be ready for a high frolic and then all was to have been

finished. Strange hymenials for a woman of seventy-five and the mother

of ten sons and daughters and abundance of grandchildren; and it does

not even appear that she was a widow. However the poor woman was hung

without scruple, or space for repentance, and without apparent pity for

her future state; or whether in her execution they were doing the devil

a good or ill service.

In October 1671 a demon, it was said entered into Elizabeth Knapp, an

unmarried girl of Groton, and he caused her alternately to weep and

laugh, and then in great agitation to call out money, money, like a

modern paper banker.―On the 17th of December following, this demon

began again to speak in the young woman and to utter horrid railings

against the minister of the town, but without harm to his character,

as the people would not believe him. He next made Elizabeth accuse

the minister’s wife as the cause of all her woes; but in this also

he obtained no credit; for the pious woman, after prayers with her

accuser made her confess the slander; and the devil had to shift his

quarters, for he can never do his business unless he can maintain some

reputation. In 1679 a demon probably the same infested a house in

Newbury. Sticks and stones were thrown at the family, by an invisible

hand: and a staff which hung against the wall, began to swing of its

own accord; and then leaped down and danced on the hearth, and when

they seized it to burn, it could hardly be held on the fire.―So a

dish, when the owner of the house was writing, leaped into the pail and

threw water on his work. At length the terrified family cried to God

for help; and then the demons were heard to say mournfully that they

had no more power, and soon departed.

In 1682 one Desborough of Hartford was possessed of a chest of clothes,

claimed by his neighbor, but which he would not give up. Soon after

many stones, and corn cobs, were thrown at him by an invisible hand.

They came in at the doors of the house, and through the windows and

sometimes even down the chimney. At length fires were set on his lands

which did him much damage. Whereupon he gave up the clothes and his

vexations ceased.

So about the same time, a Quaker at Portsmouth, withheld from an old

woman of his town, a lot of land which she claimed as her own; and

stones soon began to be thrown at his house by an invisible hand.

When they were picked up, it was said they were found hot, and smelt

of brimstone, by which it was readily known from whence they came.

Upon this the subdued and terrified Quaker settled with the woman

and his troubles ceased. Both these cases are recorded as examples

of witchcraft. Yet to us they seem to be those where claimants of

property, seek other remedies than courts of law. But among these

examples there is recorded one tale of horror. It appears that at

Hartford, and about the time of Ann Cole’s case, one Mary Johnson a

young girl in her minority, was indicted and tried by the supreme court

for familiarity with the devil! The jury returned her guilty; and that

mainly upon her alleged confessions. I will transcribe a portion of

Cotton Mather’s history of this case. “The girl said that her first

familiarity with the devil began in her discontent, and by her often

saying the devil take this and that, and sometimes wishing the devil

would do this or that for her, until at last the devil did appear and

tendered her what services might best content her. Then if her master

blamed her for not carrying out the ashes, the devil would come and

clear the hearth for her. So when she was sent to drive the hogs out of

the corn field, the devil would so chase and frighten them as to make

her laugh most merrily. She further confessed that she had murdered

a child and committed uncleanness with both men and devils;” and it

was for an illicit intercourse with the latter, that the Connecticut

govenor hung this young woman.

After her sentence the Rev. Mr. Stone of Hartford, visited her in

prison and as he verily thought was successful in turning her heart

towards the true God. So that when led out to execution she expressed

a humble hope in the mercies of redemption; and died much to the

satisfaction of those gathered round the gallows. In this black

transaction who does not see the full success of some vile seducer of

female virtue, in an apparent legalized destruction of his victim. Yet

it is called a case of lamentable witchcraft. So it was with those

who slew the innocent. In 1685 or 6 a book was published at Boston

with the approbation of the ministers and magistrates. It recited the

cases I have named with many others and contained various arguments

to fortify their credulity. The Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston, a man

of great influence in church and state was the author; though he at

the time withheld his name. He was then a young minister of about five

and twenty, the son of Mr. Increase Mather then president of Cambridge

college,―a position then of greater civil and church power than any

other in the land; he was also the grandson of the great John Cotton.

Mather’s opinions and turn of thought were in harmony with those who

then ruled in Massachusetts, and we thus consider him.

This book produced the notorious witch case of the Godwins, of which

he also published an account commencing thus. “Haec ipse miserima

vidi.” John Godwin was a Boston merchant, a character of the first

respectability, and he sat under the teachings of Mather himself. A

poor Irish woman called Glover, with her daughter lived near him. The

young Glover often served in Godwin’s family, and on a certain time

being accused by his eldest daughter of some little theft, she cast

back a denial and abuse for the accusation. The mother came up also and

defended her child, and her passion and wild Irish accent, so terified

the little Godwin that she was thrown into hystericks, and they were

kept up from day to day. Her case excited great commiseration in the

neighborhood and the physicians who were called in, being puzzled,

pronounced it a “preternatural visitation;” a very significant phrase,

by which all understood that the little maid was bewitched. Next her

little sister, and two brothers seeing what was going on, had fits

also and were afflicted by the invisibles. They declared they were

pinched and pricked by some one whom they knew not, and then at times

they would seem deaf, dumb and blind; and sometimes their mouths would

be forced wide open and then suddenly brought together with great

violence, to the great hazard of their tongues.

Stoughton and Dudley, both first charter rulers, were now also

supreme judges, lately commissioned by Sir Edmund; and these at the

solicitation of Mather and others, ventured to arraign and to try

Mistress Glover for witch practices on the Godwin family. But she

was a stranger to the language and too ignorant to understand legal

proceedings, and when asked to plead to her indictment, her answer

was unintelligible. The court then swore an interpreter, and he soon

confessed himself puzzled declaring that he believed some other witch,

or the devil himself had confounded her language, lest she should tell

tales. Then they searched Glover’s house and some rag babies were found

stuffed with goats hair. We must know that the woman was a Catholic and

sold toys.

When one of these images or puppets was brought into court, the witch

swiftly and oddly started up and seized it, and immediately one of

the children had a sad fit before the court and assembly. The judges

noted the fact, and repeated the experiment and with the same result,

as it was said, the children saw not when Glover laid her hand on the

baby images. In the end the court was satisfied that she used these

dolls mysteriously in her work of torment. She owned also that there

was one who was her prince, but did not say whether he were the pope

or the devil. It was suggested that she might be crazed; but a jury of

doctors returned, that she was compos mentis. She was finally sentenced

to death and executed in Boston; yet the afflicted children did not

recover but rather grew worse, or they improved by practice, for they

would now bark at each other like dogs and then they would purr like

cats. They would pretend to be in a red hot oven, and pant and sweat

accordingly; and then that they were cast into cold water and appeared

very chilly.

Sometimes the devil would bring Miss Godwin a horse, and then she had

all the graceful motions of an equestrian. One day she rode up stairs

into the minister’s study, where upon she cried out as if surprised,

“they are gone. God won’t let them come here;” and she was at once

cured, and sat reading the Bible and other good books for a long time.

But when she left the study the demons returned, with her horse,

and she frolicked as before.―This experiment of the charmed study,

was tried before many visitors and with the like success. Mather’s

experiments further satisfied him that Miss Godwin’s demons understood

Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but none of the Indian languages.

This tragedy also began in a minister’s family. The Rev. Samuel

Parris, was educated at Cambridge. He first engaged in trade, but

being unsuccessful he turned to the ministry and was settled at Salem

village. At the time now in view, his parish was in a high quarrel of

which his arts to obtain the fee instead of the improvement for life

only of the parsonage farm, was the cause. And whilst thus warm with

mutual malevolence, pastor and flock, the current notions of witchcraft

suddenly placed in their power the means of mutual revenge; and they

were at once fully delivered over to the effects of their own excited

wrath. A very mutual but terrible punishment. It was a horrid policy in

the charter government to ever use the devil to overawe the people.

A boundless power of evil, which a child, as well as a minister, or a

charter ruler, could set in motion; and then whoever could might lay

him. In the latter part of February, 1692, two children in the Parris

family, both about ten years old, Elizabeth his daughter, and Abagail

Williams his niece, began to behave in a strange manner; they would

creep under chairs, sit in uncommon attitudes and utter language which

none could understand; and as they were pitied and indulged; their

freaks increased until it was thought they were very like the Godwins,

and must be bewitched; and the physicians when called in confirmed the

opinion. Mr. Parris only increased their malady by holding a day of

solemn prayer at his house with the neighboring ministers.

But he had in his family two slaves, John and Tituba his wife. The

squaw was from New Spain, and once a subject of the old Montezumian

empire, and probably was imbued with some of its gloomy and

unfathomable superstitions. Her thoughts too seemed as busy as her

master’s, and she told him that although no witch herself, she once

served a mistress who was, and who taught her how to find them out; and

she would try upon the children without hurting them. Parris greedily

took with her scheme, and he saw her while she took rye meal and

kneaded a cake, which she salted in a peculiar manner, and which she

said, when baked in green cabbage leaves in the embers and eaten by

the two girls, would make them see their tormentors; and she continued

the experiment. But although both she and her master affected to act

and talk myteriously, yet the children as they crept about shrewdly

under the chairs, eyed the cookery with a very jealous interest, and

when they became conscious that the unsavory morsel was for their

mouths they grew restive; for no necromancy could satisfy them that

Tituba’s briny bread was like gingerbread, or anything good, and they

began to show a rational opposition. But Tituba said they must eat,

and Mr. Parris began to use authority. “I’ll smell on’t,” said little

Elizabeth, “now won’t that do? say yes, say yes, good Titty.” But she

shook her head. Bless me, said the father, how natural they seem; and

about the same time the slave pulled the rank cake from the embers,

and as the hot scent filled the room, Abagail cried out, there! there!

I see them, I see them as plain as day, and so do I, said little

Elizabeth. O how many! and there’s old Titt, too, she torments us, old

Titt torments us, said they both.

It was now all over with the Mexican. In vain she frowned and coaxed by

turns; or denied that the girls could see witch spectres by the smell

of her cake only. She discredited her own magic, and which they would

sustain for self-defense, and the more she labored thus, the more they

professed to be tormented, until Parris himself took their part and

threatened Tituba with punishment unless she confessed and disclosed

her confederate witches. And John, too, her husband, when he saw her

in distress meanly deserted her. He told master Parris that the girls

no doubt spoke the truth; that she had for a long time tormented him,

and was an old hand at it. But discouraged and deserted as she was,

her master’s whip alone, as she afterwards affirmed, brought her to

lie, and to confess that the devil engaged her to sign his book, and

to afflict the children. And thus was acquired the spectral vision by

the afflicted so much used and so fatally for the peace of the country,

as we shall hereafter see. Tituba was imprisoned and so continued,

until sold to pay her prison fees! And Mr. Parris fasted and prayed at

his house a whole day. His family now excited a general sympathy and

consideration, which others were willing to share. Their persecutions,

Satan being the author, were somewhat honorable, and Ann Putnam, an

older girl of the neighborhood, instigated by her mother no doubt,

pretended to be afflicted also. Thus fortified, they now complained

of Sarah Good and a Mrs. Osborn. It was supposed that the equivocal

character of these caused the accusation; and it was the more readily

credited. They were committed by two Salem magistrates the first week

in March. Of Osborn we hear no more; but Mrs. Good was finally executed.

It is almost incredible, and yet it is sober history, that a little

daughter of Sarah Good, five years old only, was accused by the

afflicted of tormenting them; and they showed what they pretended

were the prints of the child’s little teeth on their arms! The Salem

magistrates committed this mere infant for witchcraft, but as we hear

no more of her, she was probably liberated without further harm.

About this time there was a great fast at Salem, and another

proclaimed by the government throughout the colony, “that the Lord

would effectually rebuke Satan and save his people.” And the afflicted

accusers multiplied daily, and there was added to the number Ann

Putnam’s mother, goodwives, Pope, Bibber and Goodall, maidens, Mary

Walcott and Mary Lewis; also, Tituba’s husband John; he turning accuser

to save himself from being accused. About the same time a society was

formed in Salem for the detection of witches, and these procured the

accusation and commitment of many. This formidable band of accusers

now cried out against two aged females who were church members, by the

names of Corey and Nurse. Mrs. Nurse belonged to the church in Salem

under the Rev. Mr. Noyes, and Mrs. Corey was of Mr. Parris’ flock. This

was a dark business. It was supposed Parris instigated the accusation.

For when made he gave it publicity and strength; and on the following

Lord’s day he preached in his pulpit from this text: “Have I not chosen

twelve, and one of you is a devil.”

A Mrs. Cloyes, sister to Nurse, was at the meeting, and during the

furious and uncharitable sermon which followed her distress for her

sister’s life, which it much endangered, constrained her to leave the

meeting. A high wind closed the door suddenly after her, and it was

said that she showed temper; and on the following Monday an accusation

for witchcraft by the Parris family, and those under its control, went

after her, upon which she was carried before Hathorn and Currier for

examination. This charge, we know, must have been both malicious and

false, as it was sustained by perjury.

A further knowledge of the temper and insolence of those, in whose

power the lives and liberties of the citizens were now placed, may be

gathered from this incident. On the 9th of March a Mr. Lawson, minister

of Scituate, preached for Mr. Parris, it being the Sabbath day, and the

bewitched band were present. After the psalm had been sung, Abagail

Williams called out to him to stand up and name his text, and when

he did so, she said it was very long indeed. In the discourse, he

explained some point of doctrine at considerable length, when Mrs. Pope

said loudly, “now take up some other point, the people have had enough

of that.” In his improvement he made reference to doctrines which he

said he had established. “Pray,” said Abagail again, “what doctrines

do you mean?” And then Ann Putnam suddenly cried out, there! there! I

see a little yellow bird sitting on the minister’s cocked up hat; there

where it hangs on the peg in the pulpit. This was spectral vision;

nobody else saw it and it seemed to be considered that the devil thus

scoffed and jeered the congregation through the mouths of the afflicted.

The six commitments now made of the females―Tituba, Osborn, Good,

Corey, Nurse, and Sarah Good’s little daughter, were upon the assumed

authority of the two Salem magistrates alone, instigated by Parris.

On the 11th of April, Danforth the Deputy Governor, with the council

came down from Boston and sat formally with Hathorn and Curwin in

the place of power.―The Governor Bradstreet the old patentee, who

hung the Quakers, was now almost ninety; and ill qualified for the

new service. Many of the neighboring ministers were also present.

This terrible witch inquisition gave a sanction to the delusive and

malicious prosecutions, and sealed the doom of many innocent victims.

The inquisitors, the accused and a cloud of spectators, met in a large

meeting house, Mr. Samuel Parris being employed as clerk, and assuming

also a leading part in the production and examination of witnesses.

The Rev. Mr. Noyes of Salem, an enthuiast in witch hunting opened the

business with prayer. After which one of the accused begged that she

might go to prayer also; but Danforth told her, they had come there to

examine into her witchcrafts, and not to hear her pray! and she gave it

up. Mr. Parris then began business by calling up as a witness Tituba’s

husband John. That cunning treacherous slave knew well how to please

his master and save his own neck: and living in the Parris family he

knew also the views and wishes of those who now controlled the witch

accusations.

Question.―John; who hurt you? A.―Goody Proctor first, and then Goody

Cloyes. Q.―What did she do to you? A.―She (who?) brought the book to

me, and choked me. Q.―John, tell the truth now, who hurts you; have

you been hurt? A.―The first I saw was a gentlewoman.―(This was no

doubt, a dark hint at Mrs. Mary English, the wife of one of the first

merchants in Salem, and who was afterwards arrested and committed.)

This was the woman, who, when the constables were at the door to seize

and carry her to prison, called her little ones round her, gave them

her parting blessing and advice, prayed with them, and wept over them,

as she supposed for the last time, and then gave herself up quietly to

her fate. Q.―John, who did you see next? A.―Goody Cloyes. Q.―How

often did she torment you? A.―A good many times. Q.―Do the women

come to you mostly in the daytime or in the night? A.―They come most

in the daytime. Q.―John, do you know Cloyes and Proctor? A.―Yes,

there is Goody Cloyes. Upon this Mrs. Cloyes looked sharply at him and

said;―tell me when did I ever come to, or hurt thee? John.―(a little

abashed,) O, a great many times. O, said Cloyes you are a grievous

liar! Upon this Parris grew warm. Now, John, said he, tell us what did

this Cloyes do to you? A.―She did pinch me and bite me till the blood

came. She came and hurt me yesterday at meeting.

This was the woman whose only crime was leaving Mr. P.’s sermon. The

malice of the master, the perjury of the slave, and the despotism of

Danforth and his assistants were too hard for her. John, too, seems

to have had the spectral vision in a high degree, though he never

even smelt of his wife’s cake. He learnt it, no doubt, of the little

girls her pupils, as did Ann Putnam and others. Parris then called

Mary Walcot, and asked who hurt her. A.―Goody Cloyes. Q.―What did

she do? A.―She hurt me. Q.―Did she bring the book? A.―Yes. Q.―What

were you to do with it? A.―Sign it, and be well. Then she fell into

a fit, in affected horror at the devil’s book. Abagail Williams, who

so successfully outwitted Tituba in the matter of the salted cake, was

next called by her uncle Parris. Abagail, said he, did you, by your

spectral vision, once see a company near this meeting house eat and

drink? A.―Yes sir;―it was their witch sacrament. It was on the day of

the great fast. They had bread like raw flesh; and they had red drink,

which they said was our blood; and they had it twice that day. Q.―How

many were there? A.―About forty; they came together by the sound of a

trumpet. They had a minister who preached, and Goody Cloyes and Goody

Good were their deacons.

Mrs. Cloyes was of rather delicate health, and when she heard this

strange tissue of falsehood, so great was her surprise and terror,

that she sickened and asked for water, but as no one would assist her,

she fainted and fell upon the floor. Upon which Abagail cried out,

there, there, I see her spirit fly to her sister Nurse in prison for

council; and she was believed; and as soon as the woman revived, she

was forthwith imprisoned.

Parris then asked Mary Walcot if she had ever seen a white man. And she

answered yes; often. Q.―What sort of man is he? A.―A fine, grave man,

and when he comes he makes all the witches tremble, and he tells us

when our fits will come on and when they will go off. This was supposed

to be Jesus Christ come down to pity and to talk with bewitched

children and save the charter churches. A horrid blasphemous fiction,

but yet credited by the government of the colony before whom it was

uttered. The justices then proceeded and said, Elizabeth Proctor, you

understand, that you are here charged with sundry acts of witchcraft,

what say you to it? I take God in heaven to be my witness, that I know

no more of witchcraft than a child unborn. This woman was of excellent

character, the mother of a fine family of children, all then dependent

on her for nurture and protection. It is very difficult to account for

her selection and accusation as a witch. Some accident, or that she was

obnoxious to the Parris or Putnam family, who fabricated all the early

accusations, must have been the cause. But when her unhappy husband

saw his wife rudely seized like a felon in her once peaceful home, he

resolved to accompany her to the examination; and his conjugal fidelity

cost him his life.

Her examination began thus: Question.―Mary Walcot doth this woman hurt

you?―Answer.―I never saw her to be hurt by her. Q.―Mary Lewis, does

she hurt you? No answer. Q.―Ann Putnam, does she hurt you? She could

not speak; and Abagail Williams thrust her hand into her own mouth lest

she should speak. A pause, and almost a failure. John, said Mr. Parris,

who hurts you? This is the woman, said the Indian, who came in her

shift to me and choked me. And now the girls were ready to say she hurt

them, and brought the devil’s book for them to sign, and the crafty

Abagail, with affected simplicity and sincerity, said to Mrs. Proctor,

did not you tell me that your maid had signed? Dear child, said Mrs.

Proctor, it is not so; remember, dear child, that there is another

judgment. Then Abagail and Ann seemed to have fits; by and by they

cried out, look you, there is Proctor on the beam; and her husband,

too; Proctor is a wizard! Proctor is a wizard! The man was confounded.

There, said Ann, Proctor is going to take up Mrs. Pope’s feet; and

her feet flew up; and now, said Abagail, he is going to Goody Bibber;

and Bibber fell into a fit! The Deputy Governor and Council seemed

surprised, and said to Proctor, you see the devil will deceive you, the

poor children could see what you were about before the women were hurt.

“Repent, for the devil is bringing you out.”

The Hon. Court then suffered some experiments to be tried on Mrs.

Proctor. It was affirmed that the afflicted could not strike a witch;

and Ann Putnam approached and attempted to strike Mrs. P. on the head

with her fist, but as the blow descended her fist opened, and her

fingers’ ends but lightly tapped the woman’s hood, and then Ann cried

out with consummate art, they burn! they burn!―her fingers burned,

and she fell upon the floor apparently overcome with pain. All were

strongly moved by this incident, so wonderful and yet so sudden. Some

fancied they saw a blue flame play around Mrs. Proctor, and others were

quite sure they smelt brimstone. The Court then suddenly turned the

experiments upon Proctor himself, and ordered him forthwith to repeat

the Lord’s Prayer, without slip or hesitation, to show his innocence.

It was a hard case in his present dismay, but he made the effort; and

he did very well until he came to the petition “deliver us from all

evil;” and this was adjudged to be a perversion of the Lord’s Prayer;

for to be delivered from all evil was to be delivered from that under

which he then suffered, and of course opposing the Divine decrees. But

to be fair with him they put him upon the prayer again, but he had no

better luck than at first. For when he came to “hallowed be Thy name,”

he said “hollowed be Thy name.” Here they again stopped him and held

that this was a depraving of the words. To make the name of the Deity

hollow, said they, is to make it vain, light and void, and is blasphemy

and cursing, rather than a prayer. In fine it was decided that they

could not say it, and that he was a guilty man.

And thus the unfortunate Proctor, although he came before the

magistrates a free and innocent citizen to console and sustain his

afflicted and terrified wife, by a strange fatality was sent from their

presence a prisoner charged with a capital offence, upon the exhibition

of the foolery and malice I have named; and what is equally strange,

his wife in the end by a mere accident was saved, but poor Proctor they

hung.

On the 19th of April, only eight days after, the imposing witch

inquisition before Judge Danforth and the council, Hathorn and Curwin

called up for examination Giles Corey, the husband of Martha Corey,

already committed. And thus the wrong done to the wife was soon visited

upon the husband in wanton passion merely, and without shadow of truth

or justice.

They thus began with him: Giles Corey, you are now brought before

authority upon high suspicion of witchcraft, now tell us the truth

of the matter. I hope, said Giles, with the blessing of God I shall,

for I never had any hand in that matter in my life. Parris, who was

still clerk and chief manager, now said to the afflicted girls, which

of you have seen this man hurt you? I, said Abagail Williams; I, said

Ann Putnam; I, I, I, said the whole band but one. Hasn’t he hurt you,

too, said Parris coaxingly to Elizabeth Hubbard, but she attempting

to answer seemed to be taken with a fit. Have you never seen him hurt

you, said the same to Benjamin Gould. I have often seen Giles Corey and

been hurt after it, but cannot say he did it. All the girls also said

that he brought the devil’s book for them to subscribe. The justices

then said, Corey, you hear what these testify; why do you hurt them?

I never did hurt them. Then it is your spectre that hurts them, tell

us what you have done? I have done nothing to them. Have you never,

said Parris, entered into a compact with the devil? No, I never did.

(But he had then recently joined himself to the village church under

Mr. Parris.) What temptations have you had? I never had any. But what

frightened you in the cow-house, Giles Corey, said the court, tell us

that? Nothing, nothing. Why, here are three witnesses, who have heard

you to-day say, that you was frightened in the cow-house. I do not

remember it.

Note by Mr. Parris―“There was evidence by several that Corey said,

he would make away with himself and charge his death upon his son!”

And Goody Bibber also testified that he called her husband, a damned

devilish rogue; and other vile expressions were sworn to in open court.

The residue of Giles Corey’s fate was most hideous. From the date of

this fraudulent, perjured and senseless inquest, he lay helpless and

almost forgotten in prison for five months. There he was found on the

9th of the following September, and with many others brought before

the court of trials. But the jury seemed entirely under the court, and

as, of course, returned all guilty who put themselves on trial. Corey

noticed this, and when his turn came he refused to plead, saying it was

useless, and that they might do as they pleased with him. But the court

seemed resolved to signalize his obstinacy, in terror to all others,

and gave judgment against him of pem forte et dure for standing mute,

by virtue of which he was taken to prison, placed on his back, with his

arms and legs extended and fastened in that position. Heavy weights

were placed upon him, and to be allowed a quantity of poor bread and

the nearest standing water that could be found to the prison door, and

thus to remain until he died. His sufferings were horrible, and on the

17th of the month he was evidently in death’s agonies, his eyes seemed

bursting and his tongue swollen greatly out of his mouth. The marshall,

the agent of the people’s government, stood over him, and without

compassion, thrust back the dying man’s tongue with the point of his

staff! And this is the only instance of that horrible judgment, and its

execution in our Massachusetts history.

In the meantime Martha Corey, the wife of Giles, lay bound in the same

prison under sentence, and with eleven days only to prepare for death;

this is Mr. Parris’ account of the mission.

“We found her (Mrs. Corey) very obdurate, justifying ourselves

and condemning all who had done anything to her just discovery

and condemnation. Whereupon, after a little discourse, for her

imperiousness would not suffer much, and after prayer! which she was

willing to decline, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was

pronounced against her.” By which excommunication the woman was in form

consigned to the devil’s use forever. How could the Rev. gentleman

pray to God for a blessing on such a work in her prison; and what more

secular tyranny ever invented such exquisite cruelty towards a hapless

female. It first compassed her death, and then by clerical necromancy

sought to destroy her soul! But her courage arose above the necromancy.

She was sustained. She made no terms with her destroyers, or with

falseness or meanness. Even on the gallows ladder she had strength to

still proclaim her innocence in solemn prayer to God, and the gallows

rope swung her into eternity as acceptable to Him, as if she had died

in the bosom of her village church.

So wonderfully had witch accusations now multiplied, that Hathorn and

Curwin held regular sittings; and the bewitched band of the Parris

and Putnam family and others associated with them, were sure to find

them subjects. For the convenience of the accusers these sessions were

holden at Salem village, which had now become a point of great public

observation and terror. Thus on the 22d of April, they committed for

further proceedings William Hobbs and his wife, Mary Esty and Sara

Wild, all of Topsfield; also, Edward Bishop and his wife, and Philip

English and his wife, of Salem. And all these were taken on the

complaint of Thomas Putnam, who thus hunted and secured the victims for

his wife and daughter Ann with the Parris family to destroy.

We know the charges of witchcraft against these persons were fictitious

and foul; and ofttimes hidden causes led to their selection from the

mass of the citizens.

The first accusation of the Salem girls out of their own county was

that of Mrs. Cary of Charlestown. This, no doubt, like most others,

emanated from the neighborhood of the woman, the afflicted in Essex

being used as mere instruments to destroy her. It was a startling

movement, as the public recalled at once the fatal case of Margaret

Jones and the vessel rocked by horses. The account of Mr. Cary, her

husband, remains to this day, and being an eye-witness his record is

very interesting. About the 20th of May, the rumor reached him that his

wife had been named as a witch, at Salem village, and by the advice

of his friends he resolved to go down and present her, a stranger to

the afflicted, and see if they would recognize her. It was a dangerous

experiment and cost him dear.

On the 14th he arrived at the inn, as Hathorn and Curwin, with a great

crowd, were entering the meetinghouse for their daily work, and he

and his wife took a convenient stand where they might note all that

passed. A minister opened the business with prayer, and he saw that the

afflicted then present were two girls of about ten or eleven years,

and three others who appeared to be about eighteen. One of the younger

girls could discern most spectres, and talked most (this was the shrewd

Abagail Williams no doubt). When a prisoner was brought in, he or she

was placed at some distance from the justices, with the eyes fixed

directly on them, and the officers held each hand lest they should

pinch the afflicted. The girls were placed between the prisoner and the

magistrates, and if at any time the accused looked on them they were

sure to be struck down in fits, or they screamed out they were hurt.

Sometimes when they came out of their fits and stared round in peoples’

faces, the court would say they were struck dumb, and were then to go

and touch the prisoner at the bar, to be restored to speech. This they

would attempt with well dissembled hesitation, but would usually fall

down in a fit. They would then be taken up and carried to the prisoner,

that he might lay hands on them, and when this was done the justices

would say that they were well, though Cary observed, that he could see

no alteration, though he plainly saw that the justices understood the

matter, and the girls were well disciplined.

Whilst all this was passing, Cary and his wife stood in sight of the

afflicted, unnoticed, except a person came in the crowd and asked her

name, and it would seem that quite unguardly she gave it. Soon after

the examination broke up and Cary and his wife began to hope that their

experiment was successful. They then repaired to the tavern, where

they found the Indian John. They gave him some cider and he showed

them his witch scars, but to Cary they seemed to be of long standing,

and were more probably the work of his former Spanish master. John

was supposed to have been stolen and brought away by the bucaniers,

who then infested the American coast. Shortly the bewitched girls

came in and began their fits and to tumble about the floor, and the

company looked on in amazement and terror, no one knowing who might be

cried out upon. As soon as they spoke they cried out Cary! Cary! and

almost immediately, as if prepared, a warrant of arrest came from the

justices then sitting in the house ready to try her. Her accusers were

two girls, of whom she declared to the court, she had not the least

knowledge before that day. She, too, now had to stand with her hands

outstretched, like the others in the meeting house. Her husband begged

that he might hold one of her hands, but it was denied him. And so Mrs.

Cary stood condemned, her husband, at her request, wiped the sweat from

her face and the tears from her eyes. As the examination proceeded and

the girls testified as usual, she became faint and begged that she

might lean on her husband, but Hathorn replied sharply, that so long as

she had strength to torment those before them, she had strength enough

to stand. John now came in and fell upon the floor also, and pretended

to have a dumb fit. The justices then asked the girls who afflicted

him. They replied that it was she (the prisoner), and that they could

see that she now lay heavily upon him, though to all other eyes she was

standing up and her hands held out. Upon this Cary, in his distress,

said, that God would take vengeance on them for such conduct. But this

seemed to prejudice the justices, for without more words her mittimus

was written. No bail could be taken, and she was sent to Boston prison,

from thence she was removed to Campton prison, where they put irons

upon her of about eight pounds weight. And although her distress

brought a severe sickness yet the irons were not taken off.

When the final trials came on at Salem, Cary went down, but when he

saw the children’s spectre evidence admitted together with absurd and

malicious stories against peoples’ lives, he became satisfied that

there was but little chance for his wife’s life, and especially as all

his efforts and those of his friends could not procure her a trial in

Middlesex County. There was now only one remedy, and he embraced it.

With some secret assistance he rescued her from prison and fled to

Rhode Island, the common refuge of those persecuted in Massachusetts.

But they were pursued, and he passed on to New York. Here Gov. Fletcher

received them kindly, and sheltered them until the danger was passed.

A few days after this John Alden was brought before the Salem justices,

upon accusation of witchcraft. He was a man of great consideration in

the colony, being employed by the government to supply the fortress on

the coast with warlike stores and provisions. His own account of the

transaction has been perpetuated in the form of a deposition.

He states that he was arrested in Boston and sent down to Salem

village, and when all were in presence of the magistrates, the girls

were asked who of all the people in the room afflicted them; and one of

them pointed to another man then present by the name of Hill, but she

spake nothing. This girl had a man standing behind her to hold her up

when necessary; and Alden saw him stoop down and place his mouth to her

ear, and she cried out Alden! Alden! that it was Alden who afflicted

her. Hathorn then asked her if she had ever seen Alden, and she said

no, but the man near her said it was he. All were then ordered into

the street and a ring was formed, the children and the justices in the

centre; his accuser then cried out, pointing to him, “there stands

John Alden, a bold fellow, with his hat on before the judges; he sells

powder and shot to the French Indians.”

They bid Alden to look at the bewitched, and when he did they seemed to

be struck down. He then asked the court why they themselves were not

struck down also by his eyes. But no reason was given.

Alden spoke of God’s providence in suffering such creatures to accuse

innocent persons, but the Rev. Mr. Noyes, minister of Salem, answered

him, that God’s providence governed the world in peace, and with a long

discourse prevented his further difficult questions. Alden was then

committed to the prison in Boston, where he lay over three months, and

when the final trials came on he saw how many were executed, he also

made his escape and saved his life.

Deliverance Hobbs of Hopsfield, having been cried out upon and

imprisoned, seems to have framed her confession in the terms of the

accusation. She said she had, indeed, signed the devil’s book after

many threatenings and great torment from him and his emissaries;

and that so soon as she had done it, he used her spectre to afflict

persons. That whilst her spectre was so employed on a certain time,

one of the bewitched maids cried out, there stands Deliverance Hobbs,

strike her? Upon which the marshal, a man of courage, standng by, made

a pass at the spot pointed out, with his rapier, and the girl said

there! you have given her a small prick about the eye, and Deliverance

showed the wound to the justices, who seemed highly gratified to have

the maid’s outcry so well authenticated, and to learn that a wound

given to the spectre of a witch, would reach the original, although at

home and about her business.

After this, says Calef, it was quite common for the afflicted to

tell of the black man, or a spectre being on the table before the

magistrates; and then the by-standers would strike at the places with

their sticks and swords. Justice Curwin once broke his cane at this

exercise.

This penitent also confessed that she was at the great witch sacrament

at Salem village. That George Burroughs was there, that he called all

the witches together by the sound of a trumpet; that he preached to

them and urged them to pull down Christ’s kingdom and build up that

of Satan in its stead, and that Salem village should be destroyed,

beginning at Mr. Parris’ house. Among her confederates, Deliverance

accused old Candy, a negress, and who was thereupon brought before

Justice Hathorn. Candy said, he, you are a witch? Ans. Candy

witch!―no, no―Candy no witch in her country―Candy’s mother no witch;

Candy no witch Barbadoes―this country―mistress Hawks give Candy

witch―(indeed!) yes, this country mistress give Candy witch.

Well, Candy, said Hathorn, with unusual mildness, how do you hurt these

young folks, show us the poppets you do it with, Candy. Candy was

quite happy, and asked to go out of the room, and said she would show

all. When she returned she held in her hand two rags, with knots tied

in them. At sight of these Deliverance Hobbs, who had now joined the

afflicted band, went into a strong fit; and the other girls declared

they could now plainly see Goody Hawks, Candy and the devil, standing

together pinching the poppets, and then they (the afflicted) were

sorely pinched, though no one actually touched them, but it was done in

spectre. The Court then directed Candy to untie the knots, and when she

did so, Deliverance came out of her fit, and all were well. A bit of

rag was then put in the fire, and the girls cried out that they burned

dreadfully. To quench it they dipped it in some water, and Deliverance

started like a deer for the river, but was caught by a swift youth

before she plunged in.

The cunning Candy exulted in the efficacy of her charms, and all

beholders thought her mistress had practised upon her ignorance, and

Goody Hawks had to confess to save her life.

About this time commeced the Andover tragedy; where as Cotton Mather

says, was discovered the most horrid crew of witches that ever

disgraced a New England town The wife of Joseph Ballard of Andover

fell sick, and the town doctor finding her disease too stubborn for his

art, advised her husband that she was bewitched. This practice was too

common among the early Massachusetts physicians. The hint took with

Ballard; and he forthwith sent men and horses to Salem village, and to

the house of Mr. Parris, and brought to Andover old Tituba’s pupils

Abagail Williams and Mary Walcot. When these came into the sick woman’s

room, they said they could well enough see witch spectres hovering

round her bed and person, but not being acquainted with any Andover

people, they could not name the originals. Describe them says the

husband; and they did so in language sufficiently vague to embrace half

the women in the town;―and still fancy or malignity might select at

pleasure; and fancy or malignity did select at pleasure and that most

fatally, as the event will show.

Dudley Bradstreet, son of the old patentee, was then the acting

magistrate in Andover, and he granted a warrant against a number of

women on this occasion and held the examination in the meeting house.

After prayers by the Rev. Mr. Barnard, minister of the town, the women

were brought in, and Abagail and Mary fell down in fits at the sight,

as in time past at Salem; and when the prisoners laid hands on them,

they rose up and said they were well. All the old experiments were

tried with the old success; and Bradstreet committed a number of his

towns-women to Salem prison, to answer there, and Abagail and Mary

returned home with increased credit. Yet Goody Ballard died soon after

of a fever; and Dudley Bradstreet repented of the step he had taken.

Some of these in their weakness were made to confess the wildest witch

pranks on record, and to implicate others as associates, by which more

than forty Andover women were ensnared by witch prosecutions and some

lost their lives.

Here follow some of the recorded confessions of these Andover witches,

long after drawn up, with death’s terrors before them. Ann Foster was

one of these. She had been brought to acknowledge, in Salem prison,

that she was a witch, and had attended a great witch sacrament at Salem

village; that she rode thither on a pole, behind Martha Carrier, high

through the air; that on their way the pole broke, and that she holding

fast by Martha, came to the ground and was sorely bruised by the fall,

but they mounted again and went on. Being asked what they eat, she

said they carried their bread and cheese in their pockets, and ate it

before the meeting began, sitting under a large tree, with the Andover

company, and they drank water from a brook near by.

On the 21st of July, Hathorn, Curwin, Gidney and Higginson, assistants,

sat upon her confession in public, and they began thus: Goody Foster,

you know we have spoken with you before; you have committed great

wickedness, but it seems that God will give you more favor than others,

since you relent, but you did not tell us all; your daughter has

confessed that she sat with you and Goody Carrier when you did ride

upon the pole? F.―I did not know. How long has your daughter been a

witch? F.―I have no knowledge of it―I cannot tell. Did you see her

at the witch meeting? F.―No. But you said she was there, and that you

stood off and did not partake; gve us a full account? F.―I know none

who were there but Goody Carrier. Were there not two companies in the

field? F.―I know no more. Here Mary Warren, one of the afflicted,

interposed a new lie, and said that Carrier’s spectre told her, that

Foster had made her daughter a witch! and the court then said to F.,

will you now confess you did so, about three years ago? F.―I know

no more about my daughter being a witch, than upon what day I shall

die. Are you willing that she should make a free confession? F.―Yes.

Will you confess? F.―Yes; if I knew anything more I would speak. The

magistrate now directed to have Goody Lacy, the daughter, called in,

and as she entered she began. O, mother, how do you do? O, mother, we

have left Christ and the devil hath got hold of us; O, how shall I get

rid of this evil one! I pray God to break my rocky heart that I may get

the victory this time. This witchcraft of the daughter was a surprise

upon Goody Foster, she came to the confession prepared to accuse

herself and Goody Carrier, but the danger of her child distressed and

confounded her, and when urged to speak she answered incoherently.

I did not see the devil, I was praying to the Lord. To what Lord,

said the court. F.―To God. To what God do witches pray? F.―I cannot

tell. The Lord help me! and she sat down overpowered, as the justice

concluded guilty of witchcraft, but in truth with her own fictions.

Lacy.―They were some of the higher powers; they were―Goody Lacy, said

the court, let your daughter come in; we will examine her a little, and

when Mary Lacy the younger, and granddaughter of Foster entered, she

stood before the magistrates with downcast looks, an interesting girl

of seventeen; yet at sight of her Mary Warren fell down in a violent

fit. Whereupon Hathorn said to Mary sternly, why dare you come here,

and bring the devil with you, to afflict these poor creatures; now

look upon these maids in a mild and friendly way, said he, and then she

turned upon the afflicted a look so kind and gentle that the bystanders

smiled in sympathy, and yet the bewitched band were struck down,―pity,

thought the beholders, that eyes so mild and blue should bear the

devil’s spite in them.

And now said Hathorn, do you confess yourself a witch,―she hung her

head―tears flowed down and she sobbed out,―ye-s, sir.

Well maiden, said the justice, you are accused of tormenting Goody

Ballard, how do you do it? I don’t know. How long have you been a

witch? Not above a week. Have you ever seen the devil? Yes sir. Did he

bid you worship him? Yes sir. And to afflict people? Yes sir. I see,

said Major Gidney, one of the magistrates, that you are in a fair way

to obtain mercy. Do you desire to be saved by Christ? Yes sir, I do.

Then said he, you must tell all you know.―The Lord help me so to do,

said Mary. I was in bed when the devil came to me; in bed! said the

Major―the devil came to your bed! how did he look? Like a great black

dog. O, very well, you may go on,―what did he say? He bade me, said

Mary, obey him and that I should want for nothing, and he promised

he would not betray me, but he’s an old liar. How long ago was this,

said Hathorn. About a year. Richard Carrier now comes often a’nights,

and has me to afflict people.―He’s a rogue, cried the Major, and is

making a very bad use of you! but where do you go? To Goody Ballard’s

sometimes, and my mother and grandmother and Richard Carrier and his

mother go there to.

Did you attend the great meeting at Salem village? Yes. Who went with

you? My mother, and grandmother and Goody Carrier rode upon a long

pole through the air; and I rode behind Richard Carrier upon another

pole! Did you see any men at the meeting? None but the devil. How did

he appear?―Like a black man with a high crowned hat on.―But did you

see no other man? Your mother and grandmother say they saw a minister

there. I believe I did see a minister. Was not Mr. Burroughs there? Yes

he was. Thus was she made, by leading questions to accuse an absent and

innocent minister of the gospel. These confessions in the end produced

a sentence of death against Goody Foster and the elder Mary Lacy; but

they were reprieved by Sir William Phipps and finally pardoned.

Mary Osgood, was one of the Andover witches accused by Abigail Williams

of afflicting Goody Ballard, and after long imprisonment she was

induced to give her confession in the form of a deposition; and she

stated ‘that about eleven years before as she one day walked in an

orchard near her house in great distress of mind, she attempted to

pray; at this moment what seemed a cat crossed her path, and by its

strange movements so fixed her attention that she ceased to pray. Soon

a strange influence came over her and she prayed again and as she

presumed to the devil for presently a black man appeared, and offered

her a large book to sign; she wrote her name in it and where her finger

touched the paper, it left a red spot. The apparrition told her that

she was his, and that he was her God, and that she must worship him!

and she believed she consented so to do.

Nine years after, the same personage appeared and carried her with

others, upon a pole through the air to Five-mile-pond, and there making

her renounce her former baptism, baptized her, amen, since which she

afflicted people, and frolicked with the devil upon Sabbath days, and

other holy festivals.

Hathorn, before whom this was also taken, always ready to hunt witches,

no sooner heard that Mrs. Osgood and the devil had company upon the

pole; than he asked her who they were. She replied they were Goody

Tyler, Mistress Baker, and Dea, Fry’s wife. These were then arrested,

and constrained to make further witch fictions to save their lives.

And thus was the business driven on. There were sceptics even at this

season of the delusion, who denied the validity of spectral evidence.

It appears, said they, that the devil can use the spectre of one person

to afflict another; why may he not take the spectre of an innocent

person in that business, and then as things now are, every man’s life

is at the mercy of the devil; for between him and the afflicted he is

sure to suffer. Hathorn on this occasion asked Mrs. Osgood whether the

devil, or his witches could use the shape of an innocent person to

afflict people.―She replied that it could not be; for said she, last

Monday night we witches had a meeting to afflict people, and Goody Dean

and myself tried to carry the shape of the Rev. Mr. Dean of Andover

between us to make it believed that he afflicted persons; but we could

not. And why could you not do it, said the justice. Because, said

Mrs. O., the Lord would not suffer so good a man, to be so used! This

answer saved the worthy minister, who had often been hinted at by the

bewitched. He was not a sound convert to witchcraft.

But on the 14th of May 1692, Sir William Phipps arrived with the

Provincial Charter, and immediately took upon himself the government.

On the second day of June five magistrates sat, and selected for trial

Bridget Bishop, the wife of Edward Bishop of Salem. This poor woman had

for many years been reputed a witch; and this by the accusations of one

Samuel Gray, and although on his death-bed he confessed his sorrow for

the wrong he had done her, yet the imputation still rested upon her,

and now enabled the afflicted, with their managers, to destroy her. And

above all, as an excrescence supposed to be a witch teat was found on

her body. To give currency and popularity to her execution a story was

fabricated, and most industriously circulated by the witchcraft party,

that as Bishop was led out to execution under a strong guard, she gave

a look at the then newly erected meeting house in Salem, so blasting

and spiteful, that an invisible demon forthwith entered in and tore

down a portion of the holy edifice. And this is from Cotton Mather’s

account of the Salem witch trials, drawn up for inspection, and by the

request of Sir William, himself. The commissioners then adjourned to

the 30th of June following.

Aside from the manifest fallacy of her supposed crime, and the

illegality of Sir William’s commission to try witches, the woman had

violated no existing law, statute or common. On the eighth of June,

and two or three days after her trial and condemnation, the general

court of the province was convened, and their only act was to revive

the whole colonial code laws including the old Cottonian laws against

witchcraft; and this upon the ground that the authority of these laws,

ceased with the first charter. The law then upon which Mrs. Bishop was

tried was a dead letter; it was revived, and in two days after she

was hung. A strange and startling mistake by men who had charge of

the lives and fortunes of the people. So difficult is the art of just

government.

No wonder then that Sir William, five days after this witch execution,

asked council of the leading ministers of the colony in form. And

the response drawn up by Cotton Mather is as follows: “The afflicted

state of our poor neighbors, now suffering by molestations from the

invisible world, we apprehend, is so deplorable that we think their

condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several

capacities. Yet we acknowledge with thankfulness the success, which

the merciful God has given to the sedulous endeavors of our honorable

rulers, to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed

in the country. We judge that in the prosecution of these, and all

such witchcrafts, there is need of exquisite caution, lest too much

credulity for things, resting only on the devil’s authority, should

enable him to get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant

of his devices. All things should be managed with exceeding tenderness

towards those complained of, especially if they be persons heretofore

of unblemished reputation. Nor is the circumstance of the accused

being represented by spectre to the afflicted a sufficient ground for

conviction; for it is an undoubted thing, that a demon may, by God’s

permission, appear for ill purposes in the shape of an innocent, yea

and a virtuous man.”

“We know not, however, but some remarkable affronts given to devils,

by our disbelieving their testimonies, may not put a period to the

progress of the dreadful calamity now among us in the accusation of so

many persons for witchcraft.”

But lastly say the ministers to Sir William: “We cannot but humbly

recommend unto the government the speedy and vigorous prosecutions

of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious to the laws of God and

the wholesome statutes of the English nation in the detection of

witchcraft.” This document was dated Boston, June 16th, 1692, and

signed by the principal ministers of the province, and unfortunately

for the country the government seemed to heed only the last clause of

the device, as will be seen hereafter.

A quorum of Sir William’s commissioners again sat at Salem on the 30th

of June, for the trial of witches; Lieut. Gov. Stoughton, and Messrs.

Winthrop, Sewall, and Gidney being present, and on that day they

commenced the trial of Susanna Martin of Amesbury.

She was a woman of uncommon ingenuity and enterprise; and was now a

widow, with the care of a considerable estate, and a large family

thrown upon her. She, like Bishop, had long been reputed a witch, and

an unsuccessful attempt had once been made to convict her. Mather in

his account of her case, drawn up by order of the government, declares,

“that she was one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures

in the world,” and the court treated her with great severity. But she

repelled all false charges with invincible spirit; as will be seen by

the following dialogue which took place at her primary examination, and

which was now detailed in evidence against her.

Justice.―Pray Goody Martin, what ails these young people? Martin.―I

don’t know. J.―But what do you think ails them? M.―I do not desire

to think upon the subject. J.―Do you not think they are bewitched?

M.―No, I do not think they are. J.―Tell us your thoughts about them

then. M.―My thoughts are my own when they are in; but when they are

out they are another’s―their master! J.―Their master! Who do you

think is their master? M.―If they be dealing in witchcraft, Sir, you

may know as well as I. J.―Well, mistress Martin, what have you done

towards these girls? M.―I have done nothing at all. J.―Why it is

either you or your spectre. M.―I cannot help what my spectre does.

J.―It is either you or your master. How comes it that your spectre

should hurt these people? M.―How do I know how it comes? Samuel was

a glorified saint; but he that appeared to Saul, in Samuel’s shape

may now appear in any one’s shape. A very pertinent reply and puzzled

the justice. Martin was indicted for witchcraft and sorceries upon

the body of Mary Walcott on the second day of May, 1692, and also for

divers other acts of witchcraft before and after that time, without

specification of time or place. John Allen testified, that the widow

Martin once requested him to cart some staves for her, but he refused

because his cattle were weak and poor; at which she was displeased and

said he would be sorry for it; and before he could reach home his oxen

tired and fell down. This was supposed to be by witchcraft, though

Allen said the oxen were too weak to draw staves. After this he turned

them upon Salisbury beach to fatten, but they became so wild that no

one could approach them, and when it was attempted to drive them home

they ran furiously into the sea and were drowned. Another witness

purchased a cow of Martin’s son; she opposed the bargain, and soon the

animal became furious and unmanageable. And these were considered cases

of witchcraft.

Bernard Peach testified, that once being in bed on a Sabbath night, the

widow Martin came into his room through the window, and seizing him,

drew up his body into a heap and she then lay upon him about two hours,

but at last after a severe struggle he got two of her fingers between

his teeth and bit them until she cried out with the pain and vanished.

At another time when she was after him he struck her or her spectre

with his quarter-staff and it was reported that she was wounded on the

head. So it was sworn that she once travelled from Amesbury to Newbury

on a rainy day without wetting even the soles of her feet, and boasted

that she scorned to be drabbed. It was concluded in court that the

devil helped her on.

But the most wonderful story told on this occasion was that of Joseph

Ring; the man seems to have been a good fiddler, whom the old charter

witches and demons selected for their peculiar use and amusement. He

testified that for two years past he had been strangely carried about

through the air to witch revels and dances; that for a long time they

had kept him dumb, but since they began to be prosecuted he had in a

measure recovered his speech. His knowledge of them and their power

over him, began thus:

As he sat in his house one day, a stranger of suspicious mien applied

to him to give music to a company of dancers on a certain evening; and

whilst the timid and distrustful fiddler hesitated, the proffer of a

large sum of money by the stranger, and which he too readily accepted,

induced him to make the desired promise and immediately the man

vanished so suddenly that Ring was exceedingly startled and repented of

what he had done; but it was too late. At the appointed hour he found

a horse, well caparisoned, standing at his door; he took the hint, but

no sooner had he mounted into the saddle, than the animal leaped into

the air and pushed forward with a velocity which deprived him of all

consciousness of time or distance and almost of existence itself. He

next found himself in front of a splendid building, with lights from

every part streaming out upon night’s darkness, but from whence issued

no sound of mirth or festivity. Presently Goodman Ring was introduced

into a spacious hall, he screwed up his fiddle, began to play, and then

the dancing began in good earnest. At once a preternatural influence

came over him, and he was amazed at the power of his own instrument,

which seemed to fill that ample hall to its very roof, and to inspire

dancing which he now plainly saw was superhuman. It was here that he

saw the widow Martin, the prisoner at the bar, swinging and dancing

among the revellers, like a nimble maiden of eighteen; and he was

willing to swear to her identity.

When the dancing ceased, the personage who first engaged him came with

a book for him to sign, and an ink horn containing something like

blood. But the fiddler refused his name, and casting his eyes downward

he saw that cloven foot which had been the terror of all New England

for half a century, and in his distress he called upon God for help. At

once a horrid hysteric laugh burst upon his ears, and then suddenly all

was darkness, and he found himself in the crotch of a great pine tree,

cold and comfortless, in a lonely plain, and the stars of midnight

winking down upon him. He descended as well as he could, wandered about

in the woods until morning light, and then found his way home; but he

could never again find that pine tree that made the witch palace.

From that time forth the witches and demons had power over him and used

him as they pleased. And Mather says “that whenever he was brought unto

their hellish meetings, and showed any disobedience one of the first

thing they did unto him was, to give him a knock on the back, whereupon

he was ever as if bound with chains, incapable of stirring out of the

place till they should release him.”

After this strange testimony was in, the court asked Martin what she

had to say for herself. She replied that she had always led a virtuous

and holy life, that she knew nothing of the crime whereof she was

accused, and she protested against the proceedings and the evidence

against her. Yet the jury soon returned a verdict of guilty, and the

court pronounced sentence of death. On the following day Elizabeth Howe

was tried. The evidence against her was very similar to that against

Martin. She was of Ipswich, and first became noted as a witch by an

abortive attempt to join the church in that place, which led to an

investigation of her character, and brought out her witchcrafts. This

woman it was thought had a burning witch bridle, which tortured any

horse that wore it to efforts beyond its strength; it would also turn

to a horse any man or beast on whom it was placed. Isaac Cammins swore

that he had a very spirited mare, which he believed Howe used freely

in her witch frolics. The mare grew sick and weak without apparent

cause, and upon examination she seemed bruised and lamed as if rapidly

ridden over rocks and rough places, and the marks of the burning witch

bridle were visible upon her; nay, she was found so sulphurious that,

the owner passing near her one night in the stable with his lantern,

she took fire, and emitted a blue brimstone blaze, fine as a knitting

needle, and which singed her own hair and endangered the barn. The

beast died soon after in strange spasms. It further appeared by the

confessing witches that Goody Howe was one of those who had been

baptized by the devil at Newbury Falls, and before which baptism he

made them all kneel down by the river’s brink and worship him.

Elizabeth Howe was indicted for witchcraft upon Mary Walcott and Mary

Lewis; the jury returned her guilty and the court sentenced her to

death.

At this same session were also tried Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse and

Sarah Wilde, and found guilty.

On the 19th of July these five were executed. At the gallows Noyes

urged Sarah Good to confess, and told her she was a witch and she knew

it; to which she replied: “Sir, you are a liar; I am no more a witch

than you are a wizard, and if you take my life God will give you blood

to drink.”

Stoughton and his associates were now the terror and scourge of the

country. On the fifth of August they sat at Salem. Six unresisting and

helpless females they had already hung without law or crime; and whose

terror-stricken kindred dare not raise even a murmur of discontent.

Indeed so subdued appeared the public mind, that they now adventured

upon the trial of the Rev. George Burroughs, the only gospel teacher

ever hung for witchcraft in this or any other Christian country. He had

formerly been the settled minister of Salem village, and now an avowed

infidel in the current notions of witchcraft. The Rev. Mr. Lawson, also

once a teacher in the same place, was more pliant, and wrote a book

flattering to the afflicted and their managers; had Burrows followed

his example he might have escaped hanging.

Warily indeed did the prosecutors cast their entanglements about

this devoted man. We first see a fictitious witch sacrament, with

appropriate deacons;―next a clergyman, black-haired, short and

thick set, with the devil to administer. All knew that this aimed at

Burroughs. Then eight confessing witches affirmed that so great was his

fidelity and zeal, that he was to be a king in Satan’s kingdom about

to be established in Massachusetts. They multiplied his indictments

to four; for afflicting those four bloody impostors, Mary Walcott,

Elizabeth Hobart, Mary Lewis and Ann Putnam. And he stood before

a prejudiced court and jury without hope of justice, or even of

compassion.

The afflicted began their evidence with fits and outcries. They said

Burroughs bit them, and showed what they alleged were the prints of his

teeth on their flesh; and Ann Putnam said that even now his spectre

presented her the devil’s book, boasting that he was above the ordinary

rank of witches. Again they were cast into convulsions and could not

proceed. Stoughton asked Burroughs, who he thought hindered those

witnesses from testifying. He replied, perhaps it was the devil. “How

comes the devil,” said his Honor, “so loth to have any testimony borne

against you?” A foul response, but in keeping with his general conduct.

One of the afflicted declared that she was once in a trance, and that

Burroughs carried her into a very high mountain and showed her all the

kingdoms of the earth, and said that he would give her all these, if

she would write her name in his book. She did not bid him get behind

her, but told him that the kingdoms were not his to give, and refused

to sign. This was a girl of eleven years, how could she distinguish

between a trance and a dream? Yet her story went as evidence into the

case.

Burrougs had been twice married, and it was reported that he had

ill-treated his wives. But he asked the court very pertinently how this

could go to sustain an indictment for afflicting Mary Walcott and for

which he was then on trial. But the witnesses were not checked, and

they testified that they had seen the apparition of two women, who said

they were Burrough’s wives; and that he had caused their deaths; and

that the Judges must be told of it; and that they did not know (strange

language for ghosts) but they should appear in court at the trial.

Presently Abagail Williams cried out in great apparent horror that the

ghosts of those two wives had just now come in and were standing before

Burrougs and crying for vengeance upon him. Yet Burroughs declared he

saw them not, nor were the sound of their voices heard by the court or

jury. At this the prisoner was said to be much appalled. No doubt he

was so, at the depravity of the witnesses and their evidence.

But the girls went yet further, and affirmed that the spectre of

Burroughs had often threatened to kill them, as he had many others

who refused to obey him; and he named among his murdered victims Mrs.

Lawson and her daughter Ann. The story was credited, as they presumed

he might well entertain hatred towards the virtuous wife and daughter

of a man like Deodat Lawson, his predecessor at Salem village. And it

was now called to mind, says Mather, that the peculiar circumstances

of their deaths, excited suspicion of witchcraft; yet no one then

suspected from whence it came.

It was further testified that Burroughs, notwithstanding his holy

orders, hated prayer and the ordinances of religion. His zeal only

burned in the devil’s cause. The confessing witches also attributed

their seduction to his wiles; he led them on to witch meetings, or

to sorceries, by the promise of fine clothes and other unhallowed

pleasures; he brought the poppets, or rag babies to them for afflicting

people, and taught them where to stick the pins the most effectually;

he even exhorted them to bewitch all Salem village, but with caution

to prevent discovery; and now, they affirmed, for their penitence and

confessions, Burroughs and the devils tortured them continually.

After Burroughs was hung, these confessors recanted, and confessed

again the utter falsehood of all they had said respecting him. But they

could not quicken the dead, or heal the wounds of bereaved friends, nor

soften the hearts of such men as Stoughton, Mather, Parris, and the

like.

The evidence was then turned to show that Burroughs was endowed with

preternatural strength. He had been known to hold out in one hand,

by the breech, a gun of seven feet barrel as if it had been a pocket

pistol, and then to reverse it, and sticking his forefinger in the

muzzle, to hold it out at arm’s length that way. So he would carry a

full barrel of cider or molasses without staggering. But he offered

to show that whatever he did in this way was to try his strength with

an Indian who did the like, and even more than he could. But they who

gave the testimony, says Mather, saw no Indian and it was at once

concluded it must have been the devil, as Ann Putnam said he often

appeared like an Indian! How did this testimony refute Burroughs? Did

the witnesses see the devil in the shape of an Indian at the time? One

Ruck, a brother-in-law to Burroughs testified to his preternatural

walking. On a certain occasion a party in his company went to a distant

field to gather strawberries. When they returned, a thunder shower was

advancing, and all but the prisoner rode upon horses and at a quick

pace; yet he suddenly slipped out of sight, and to their astonishment

was at the house, with his basket of strawberries, before them. But he

offered to show that another man was with him and walked as fast as he

did, but Stoughton and his associates concluded that this pretended

companion must have been the devil also and would not hear the evidence.

After this manner was the unfortunate man overwhelmed with false and

absurd testimony, and the prejudice of those who held his life at will;

and it was sneeringly said that he used many twistings and evasions to

get off, but without effect; for the jury without hesitation returned a

verdict of guilty, and the court pronounced his death sentence.

At his execution Mather and other ministers took care to be present.

Burroughs, with the rest, was carted through the streets of Salem on

his way to the gallows. Being on the ladder and the rope about his

neck, in solemn and decided tones he proclaimed his innocence before

the multitude. He then made his dying prayer with a deliberation and

fervency that won the admiration of all present, and drew tears from

many eyes. In conclusion he pronounced the Lord’s prayer without

hesitancy, and the “amen” served the hangman for his death signal,

and he was swung off. After it was over a strong murmur of discontent

ran through the crowd, a popular uproar was feared, and a rescue of

the other prisoners; but Mather, as he sat on his horse in the midst,

addressed the people to dissuade them from violence. Burroughs, he

said, should not be regarded as a minister after his league with the

devil; and both his prayers and address, however earnest, were still

deceptive, for the devil himself, he continued, when he will, can

assume the guise of an angel of light.

At the same time, and to assist Mather, a story was circulated in the

assembly that the bewitched girls could plainly see the black man

standing near Burroughs, and assisting him in this his last effort.

After this the executions went on in peace. At this session also was

tried and condemned old Martha Carrier. She was regarded as one of the

most decided and active witches in the country. This was the woman,

of whom it was repeatedly testified, that the devil had promised her

that she should be Queen of Hell; an elevation to which her enemies

readily awarded her a title. Her true character was untiring industry,

ceaseless vigilance and extraordinary exactitude in the discharge of

all duties, and so she never sought excuses for remissness or neglect

she would grant none to others, and as a majority of the world are ever

on the other side, she first became the terror and then the hatred of

her delinquent neighbors. In spite to her family, it was said that she

ruled her husband, and that Goodman Carrier would never stick to any

bargain of goods or chattels, lands or tenement, unsanctioned by her.

Her children too she kept in strange obedience to her will; but her’s

was a well-ordered and a thrifty household. Yet they called her a witch

until the foul stain became deep and fixed.

Mather declares that when the poor tortured witnesses were brought

forward against her in court every one expected their death on the very

spot. Her malignant look would strike them down, and then her touch,

her eyes being averted, would raise them up; and when they could speak,

and testified that her shape had twisted their necks almost round; she

said that they were miserable wretches and no matter if their necks had

been quite twisted off.

She was indicted for afflicting Mary Walcott and Elizabeth Hubbard; and

to make sure of her they terrified and tortured two of her own sons

into confession, by tying them neck and heels together, until they said

she was a witch, and had also given them over to the devil, and they

particularized the time and place.

So old Goody Foster, and her daughter and granddaughter, the two Lacys,

were brought up again to renew the old story of the witch sacrament,

and riding on a pole; a recital of which wonderful adventure deeply

interested Stoughton and his associates. Even in open court during the

trial Susanna Shelden’s hands were tied so inexplicably with a wheel

band, which they were obliged to cut, like the Gordian knot.

Most of the testimony on her trial, was similar to that given in

against Bishop, How, and Martin; being of various injuries to the

cattle and health of the people of Andover. But to every accusation she

opposed a decided denial; threats could not weaken her, nor promises

seduce her resolution to abide by the truth. Invitations to repent,

confess and be saved and which others accepted so readily, she treated

with contempt; her conscience was too sensitive for such falsehood

and her courage remained unshaken through all the terrors of a public

prosecution, trial and execution.

And who will deny to Martha Carrier’s name a place among those of

recorded martyrs for the love of truth.

The boldness and even ultraism of the Andover witcher in covenanting

with the devil, and renouncing infant baptism, and receiving an adult

baptism at his hands by plunging in rivers and ponds, (a hit by the

standing order at the Anabaptists,) and in riding on poles with him,

startled and terrified the country. Some of these practices were

peculiar to that company, and brought out by spectral discoveries of

Abagail Williams and other pupils of old Tituba. Under this excitement

the General Court met at Boston in October, 1695, and then passed a law

of death against those who should feed, consult, employ or covenant

with no evil or wicked spirit.

John Proctor and his wife, with John Willard, were also tried at the

August session of the commissioners.

Willard had for some time been used by the prosecutors as a witch

hunter, and to bring in the victims for examination; a most odious and

unpopular office. But the many cases of individual and family distress

and despair, which he daily witnessed in this employment, at last so

excited his compassion, that he refused to act. Immediately upon which,

and to punish signally the supposed affront and rebellion, he was

cried out upon as being himself in league and covenant with the devil,

and well knowing his danger he at once turned and fled northwardly into

the wilderness towards Canada. But swift runners were sent on foot in

the same direction who soon came up with him. And it was given out by

his enemies, that the bewitched girls at Salem were conscious of the

exact moment of his arrest, though many miles distant; and that one of

them cried out in open court, “now Willard is taken!” which proved to

be correct. He was brought back, and hung in terror to all offenders

against the then dominant bloody influences.

Proctor and his wife were those whose primary examination of the 11th

of April has been already detailed. Some of the same magistrates who

then advised their commitment, now sat on their final trial, and they

found no favor. Both were returned guilty by the jury and both received

sentence of death from the commissioners, and with only ten days space

to prepare for eternity.

Goody Proctor turned out to be in delicate health and circumstances,

and her execution was deferred until the fury of persecution was past,

and she was saved.

But for Proctor himself, although he became ensnared by his conjugal

fidelity, there was no commiseration or hope; and as death nearly

approached, he showed more fear than any of his suffering companions.

Indeed, in all these terrors it was notorious that females suffered

with the most patience and fortitude.

His letter to five of the principal clergymen in and about Boston

shows their supposed influence with the government, and in the witch

prosecutions.

It was written in prison a little before his trial, and is addressed

Messrs. Mather, Allen, Moody, Willard and Bailey.

Up to his last moments, Proctor begged hard for his life, or for only a

little space to prepare, or for repentance, often saying he was not fit

to die; but all to no purpose.

After he went up the ladder he begged Mr. Noyes, his own pastor, to

pray with him; but he refused, because Proctor would not confess

himself guilty of witchcraft, and thus give the strongest possible

sanction to the bloody measures then in progress. As he was at last

forcibly pushed off, begging for his life and protesting that he was an

innocent man.

On the 9th and 17th of September the witch commissioners sat and

sentenced to death fifteen more; and on the 22nd of the same month,

eighth of these, viz.: Martha Corey already mentioned, Mary Easty,

of Topfield, Alice Parker and Ann Pudater of Salem, Margaret Scott of

Rawley, Mary Parker and Samuel Wardwell of Andover, and William Reed

of Marblehead, were hung; and as the cart with these ascended witch

hill to the place of execution, it proceeded with difficulty, and at

last came to a stand; whereupon the afflicted declared that the devil

himself blocked the wheels. Why should he hinder a witch execution? It

was doctrine then, that at their death, he had the immediate possession

of their souls.

It was on this occasion that the Rev. Mr. Noyes, turning to the eight

bodies hanging on the tree, said aloud to the by-standers, “how sad it

is to see those eight fire brands of hell, hanging there!”

Wardwell was one of those who had confessed himself guilty of

witchcraft; but afterwards denied his confession. When he was on trial

his former confession, and the spectre evidence of the afflicted, were

given in against him, and this was all the evidence.

Calef says that at his execution, whilst addressing the people and

protesting his innocence, the hangman smoked tobacco, and the smoke

blowing in his face interrupted his discourse; but the accusers said

that it was the devil who smoked him.

Here it seems according to the afflicted, the devil did not wish his

man to escape; contrary to his allged conduct in the cases of Burroughs

and Proctor.

Mrs. Mary Easty, hung on this occasion, was also the sister of Rebecca

Nurse, and no doubt but that her connection with that ill-fated woman

who was herself a victim to sisterly love, was the cause of her

persecution and death. The three sisters were noted for their mutual

love. Her’s was a hard case and excited great public commiseration.

It was hoped that her spotless character and example would prove too

strong on her trial, for the fictions and fits of the afflicted and

their partizans. But they employed a jury of eight women, and a doctor

to search her body for the devil’s marks, and an excresence was found

which was pronounced to be a witch teat; and it turned the case against

her.

Shortly before her execution, she called her husband, children and

friends about her in prison, and gave them her last farewell, with such

affectionate and pious exhortation, as drew tears from the eyes of

all present. She also sent to the court the following petition, which

presents a vivid picture of her case, and of the unhallowed times on

which she had fallen.

“To the Honorable Judge and Bench, now sitting in Salem, and

the Rev. Ministers; This petition humbly sheweth; That

whereas your poor petitioner being condemned to die, doth

humbly beg of you to take into your judicious and pious

consideration, that your poor and humble petitioner knowing

my own innocency (blessed be the Lord for it) and seeing

plainly the subtility and wiles of my accusers towards

myself, cannot but judge charitably of others, who are going

the same way to death with me, if the Lord step not mightily

in.

“I was confined a whole month, on accusation of witchcraft,

and then cleared by the afflicted persons, as some of your

Honors know, and in two days time I was cried out upon by

them again, and have been since confined, and now am

condemned to die. The Lord above knows my innocence, and it

will be known at the great day by men and angels. I petition

to your Honors, not for my own life, for I know I must die,

and my appointed time is set. I question not but your Honors

do to the utmost of your powers in the discovery and

detecting of witches, and would not for the world be guilty

of innocent blood; but by my own innocency I know you are in

the wrong way. May the Lord in mercy, direct you in this

great work.

“I would humbly beg that your Honors would be pleased to

examine some of those confessing witches; I being confident

that there are some of them who have belied themselves and

others, as will appear, if not in this world, I am sure it

will in the world to come, whither I am going.

“They say that myself and others have made a league with the

devil; we cannot confess. The Lord knows they belie me, as I

question not they do others; the Lord alone who is the

searcher of all hearts knows, as I shall answer at his

judgment seat, that I know not the least thing of

witchcraft, therefore I cannot, I durst not, belie my own

soul.

“I beg your Honors not to deny this my humble petition, from

a poor dying innocent person, and I question not but the

Lord will give a blessing to your endeavors.

“MARY EASTY.”

This touching and modest declaration Mary Easty sealed with her blood.

Her husband, Captain Isaac Easty, was a soldier, and then stood in arms

against the French and Indians, and to defend the country and the same

power which forced away his wife from her once happy home and family,

and without regard to her known piety and virtue, carted her up Witch

Hill and hung her on the limb of a tree.

Of the other persons hung on the 22d of September 1692, few particulars

have come down to us, either in history or by tradition. It was the

last execution and its atrocity manifestly weakened the authority of

Phipps’ bloody witch court, and the credit of the Parris afflicted

band. It swelled the number of victims to twenty, nineteen of whom

had now been hung on that fatal gallows-tree, in after ages an object

of peculiar superstitious dread; and their bodies, unhonored even by

funeral decencies, though not unwept by private affection, were cast

with public ignominy into untimely graves about its roots. But the tree

withered, as was supposed, thunder-smitten, and stood for years with

leafless, outstretched branches and shattered trunk, until burned to

the ground by the descendants in the third and fourth generation of

those who suffered on it. In superstitious minds tempests and torrents

could not wash away the blood from the unhallowed hill whereon it grew,

and the soil was cursed and barren of all wholesome vegetation.

But all were not executed who were tried and sentenced. Besides

Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Falkner of Andover was saved by her delicate

family condition. At her trial the court took the confession of her

little daughter, ten years old, against her. But Dorcas Hoar of

Beverly, Rebecca Eams of Boxford, Abigail Hobbs of Topsfield, Mary

Bradbury of Salisbury, and Ann Foster and Mary Lacy of Andover, all

flattered their persecutors by a confession of the charges against

them, and thus escaped death.

This whole slaughter of the innocent under the similitude of legal

forms, was the work of little more than three short months. A sudden

bereavement, indeed, of near and loved friends. When, however, a lawful

court was established, this sham tribunal, happily for the country,

came to an end. And it is some consolation to know that it was entirely

discontinued with the regular jurisprudence of the country.

The last witch trials ever holden in Massachusetts were those five at

Ipswich about the middle of May, 1693, and to which I have already

referred.

By this time the spectre evidence, or the devil’s testimony through

the mouths of the afflicted, had become so unpopular that none of

the judges dared to sustain it, and the juries also disregarded it;

and from this time forth it was manifest that there could be no more

convictions for alleged witchcrafts.

And thus public opinion, operating through the jury and the only

part of the government at that time through which it could operate,

in effect annulled the bloody witch law, passed by false agents of

the people, against common justice and in favor of the then ruling

political interests and influences; or the old charter church and state

aristocracy. And history rarely reveals to us a more bloody despotism.

And shall it not stand forever as a warning against any interference

by a people’s self-government with the religion or business of the

community?

* * * * *

Early in the year of 1727 the last witch-fire was kindled with which

the air of bonnie Scotland was polluted. Two poor Highland women,

a mother and daughter, were brought before Captain David Ross of

Littledean, deputy-sheriff of Sutherland, charged with witchcraft and

consorting with the devil. The mother was accused of having used her

daughter as her “horse and hattock,” causing her to be shod by the

devil, so that she was ever after lame in both hands and feet. The

fact being satisfactorily proved, and Captain David Ross being well

assured of the same, the poor old woman was put into a tar-barrel and

burned at Dornoch in the bright month of June. “And it is said that

after being brought out to execution, the weather proving very severe,

she sat composedly warming herself by the fire prepared to consume

her, while the other instruments of death were getting ready.” The

daughter escaped. Afterward she married and had a son who was as lame

as herself, and in the same manner; though it does not appear that he

was ever shod by the devil and witch-ridden. “And this son,” says Sir

Walter Scott, in 1830 “was living so lately as to receive the charity

of the present Marchioness of Stafford, Countess of Sutherland in her

own right.”

This then, is the last execution for witchcraft in Scotland; and

in June, 1736, the Acts Anents Witchcraft were formerly repealed.

Henceforth to the dread of the timid, and the anger of the pious, the

English Parliament distinctly opposed the express Law of God: “Thou

shalt not suffer a witch to live;” and declared the text upon which so

much critical absurdity had been talked, and in support of which so

much innocent blood had been shed, vain, superstitious, impossible and

contrary to that human reason which is the highest Law of God hitherto

revealed unto men. But if Parliament could stay executions it could not

remove beliefs nor give rationality in place of folly.

Not more than sixty years ago an old woman named Elizabeth M’Whirter

was “scratched” by one Eaglesham in the parish of Colmonel, Ayrshire,

because his son had fallen sick, and the neighbors said he was

bewitched. Poor old Bessie M’Whirter was forced over the hills to the

young man’s house, a distance of three miles, and there made to kneel

by his bedside and repeat the Lord’s Prayer.

* * * * *

In offering this collection of witch stories to the public, I do not

profess to have exhausted the subject, or to have made so complete a

summary as I might have done, had I the space, but I do not think that

I have left much untold.

Neither have I attempted to enter into the philosophy of the subject.

It is far too wide and deep to be discussed in a few hasty words; and

to sift such evidence as is left us―to determine what was fraud,

what self-deception, what disease and what the exaggeration of the

narrator―would have swelled my book into a more important and bulky

work than I intended or wished. As a general rule, I think we may

apply all four conditions to every case reported; in what proportion,

each reader must judge for himself. Those who believe in direct and

personal intercourse between the spirit-world and man will probably

accept every account with the unquestioning belief of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries; those who have faith in the uniform operations

of nature, will hold chiefly to the doctrine of fraud; those who have

seen much of disease and that strange condition called “mesmerism,”

or “sensitiveness,” will detect the presence of nervous derangement,

mixed up with a vast amount of conscious deception, which the credulity

and ignorance of the time rendered easy to practice; and those who

have been accustomed to sift evidence and examine witnesses will be

dissatisfied with the loose statements and wild distortion of every

instance on record.

The whole world was overrun with witches. From every town came crowds

of those lost and damned souls; from every hovel peered out the cursing

witch, or cried aloud for help the stricken victim. These poor and old

and wretched beings, on whose heads lighted the wrath of a world, and

against whom every idle lad or moping maid had a stone to fling at

will, were held capable of all but omnipotence. They could destroy the

babe in the womb and make the “mother of many children childless among

women;” they could kill with a look and disable with a curse; bring

storms or sunshine as they listed; by their “witch-ropes,” artfully

woven, draw to themselves all the profit of their neighbor’s barns and

breweries; yet ever remain poor and miserable, glad to beg a mouthful

of meat or a can of sour milk from the hands of those whom they could

ruin by half a dozen muttered words. They could take on themselves what

shapes they would, and transport themselves whither they would. No bolt

nor bar could keep them out; no distance by land or sea was too great

for them to accomplish; a straw―a broomstick―the serviceable imp ever

at hand―was enough for them; and with a pot of magic ointment, and a

charm of spoken gibberish, they might visit the king on his throne or

the lady in her bower, to do what ill was in their hearts against them

or to gather to themselves what gain and store they would. Yet with all

this power the superstitious world saw nothing doubtful or illogical in

the fact of their own exceeding poverty, and never stayed to think that

if witches and wizards could transport themselves through the air to

any distance they chose, they would be but slippery holding in prison,

and not very likely to remain there for the pleasure of being tortured

and burned at the end. But neither reason nor logic had anything to do

with the matter. The whole thing rested on fear, and that practical

atheism of fear, which denies the power of God and the wholesome beauty

of Nature, to exalt in their stead the supremacy of the devil.

This belief in the devil’s material presence and power over men was

the dark chain that bound them all. Even the boldest opponent of the

Witchcraft Delusion dared not fling it off. The bravest man, the

freest thinker, could not clear his mind of this terrible bugbear,

this phantasm of human fear and ignorance, this ghastly lie and morbid

delusion, or abandon the slavish belief in Satan for the glad freedom

of God and Nature.

Superstition dies hard; or rather, so far as we have yet gone, it does

not die at all, but only changes its form and removes its locality. If

educated people do not now believe in witches and Satanic compacts,

as in the ignorant old times of which these stories treat, they do

still believe in other things which are as much against reason and as

incapable of proof. And perhaps it may give some cause to think that

assertion does not necessarily include truth, and that skepticism may

be at times a wiser attitude of mind than credulity, when they remember

that the best brains in the world were once firmly convinced of the

truth of Possession and the diabolical art of witchcraft, and realize

how many innocent men and women were murdered on the strength of these

beliefs and to vindicate the honor and glory of God. So long as one

shred of superstition remains in the world, by which human charity is

sacrificed to an unprovable faith, so long will it be necessary to

insist on the dead errors of the past as a gauge for the living follies

of the present.

But the snake is scotched, not killed. So far are we in advance of the

men of the ruder past, inasmuch as our superstitions, though quite as

silly, are less cruel than theirs, and hurt no one but ourselves. Yet

still we have our wizards and witches lurking round area gates and

prowling through the lanes and yards of the remoter country districts;

still we have our mediums, who call up the dead from their graves to

talk to us more trivial nonsense than ever they talked while living,

and who reconcile us with humanity by showing us how infinitely

inferior is spirituality; still we have the unknown mapped out in

clear lines sharp and firm; and still the impossible is asserted as

existing, and men are ready to give their lives in attestation of what

contravenes every law of reason and of nature; still we are not content

to watch and wait and collect and fathom before deciding, but for every

new group of facts or appearances must at once draw up a code of laws

and reasons, and prove, to a mathematical certainty, the properties

of a chimera, and the divine life and beauty of a lie. Even the mere

vulgar belief in witchcraft remains among the lower classes. And indeed

so long as conviction without examination, and belief without proof,

pass as the righteous operations of faith, so long will superstition

and credulity reign supreme over the mind, and the functions of

critical reason be abandoned and foresworn. And as it seems to me that

credulity is a less desirable frame of mind than skepticism, I have set

forth this collection of witch stories as landmarks of the excesses

to which a blind belief may hurry and impel humanity, and perhaps as

some slight aids to that much misused common sense which the holders of

impossible theories generally consider it well to tread under foot, and

loftily ignore.