A WALK TO WITCH HILL.
"Do not the hist'ries of all ages
Relate miraculous presages,
Of strange turns in the world's affairs,
Foreseen by astrologers, soothsayers,
Chaldeans, learned genethliacs,
And some that have writ almanacs?"
_Hudibras._
In 1692 Salem may have contained four hundred houses. A few specimens of
this time now remain in odd corners--Rip Van Winkles or Wandering Jews
of old houses, that have outlived their day of usefulness, and would now
be at rest. Objects of scorn to the present generation, they have
silently endured the contemptuous flings of the passer-by, as well,
perchance, as the frowns and haughty stare of rows of plate-glass
windows along the street. As well put new wine in old bottles, as an old
house in a new dress; it is always an old house, despite the thin veneer
of miscalled improvements. The architect can do nothing with it to the
purpose; the carpenter can make nothing of it. There they are, with
occupants equally old-fashioned--of, yet not belonging to the present.
Some have stood so long in particular neighborhoods, have outlived so
many modern structures, as to become points of direction, like London
Stone or Charing-cross. The stranger's puzzled questioning is often met
with, "You know that old house in such a street?" And so the old house
helps us to find our way not alone to the past, but in the present.
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF HAWTHORNE.]
Undoubted among such specimens as will be met with in the neighborhood
of the wharves, or between Essex Street and the water-side, is the old
gambrel-roofed, portly-chimneyed house in which our "Wizard of the
North" first drew breath. It stands in Union Street, at the left as you
pass down. Many pilgrims loiter and ponder there over these words:
"SALEM, October 4th, Union Street [Family Mansion]."
[Illustration: SHATTUCK HOUSE.]
"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I used to sit
in days gone by. Here I have written many tales--many that have
been burned to ashes, many that doubtless deserved the same
fate. This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands
upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some
few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should
have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this
chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was
wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and
here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been
despondent. And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently
for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did
not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all--at
least, till I were in my grave."
[Illustration: ROOM IN WHICH HAWTHORNE WAS BORN.]
It is not my purpose to attempt a description of Salem, or of what is to
be seen there. Her merchants are princes. No doubt they were in
Josselyn's mind when he said some of the New Englanders were "damnable
rich." French writers of that day speak of her "_bourgeois entierement
riches_." Those substantial mansions of red brick, tree-shaded and
ivy-trellised, represent what Carlyle named the "noblesse of commerce,"
with money in its pocket.
Writing in 1685 upon the English invasions of Acadia, Sieur Bergier thus
characterizes Salem and Boston:
"The English who inhabit these two straggling boroughs (_bourgades_) are
for the greater part fugitives out of England, guilty of the death of
the late king (Charles Stuart), and accused of conspiring against the
reigning sovereign. The rest are corsairs and sea-robbers, who have
united themselves with the former in a sort of independent republic."
This is rather earlier than the date usually fixed for the planting of
democracy in America, but perhaps none too early. Endicott had then cut
the cross from the standard of England with his poniard; and Charles II.
had been humbled in the persons of his commissioners.
Let us walk on through Essex Street, unheeding the throng, unmindful of
the statelier buildings, until we approach an ancient landmark at the
corner of North Street. Its claims on our attention are twofold. It is
said to have been the dwelling of Roger Williams, for whom Southey, when
reminded that Wales had been more famous for mutton than great men,
avowed he had a sincere respect, yet it is even more celebrated as the
scene of examinations during the Reign of Terror in 1692.[142]
In appearance the original house might have been transplanted out of old
London. Its peaked gables, with pine-apples carved in wood surmounting
its latticed windows, and colossal chimney, put it unmistakably in the
age of ruffs, Spanish cloaks, and long rapiers. It has long been
divested of its antique English character, now appearing no more than a
reminiscence of its former self. However, from a recessed area at the
back its narrow casements and excrescent stairways are yet to be seen. A
massive frame, filled between with brick, plastered with clay, with the
help of its tower-like chimney, has stood immovable against the assaults
of time. Such houses, and their number is not large, represent the
original forest that stood on the site of ancient Salem.
[Illustration: THE OLD WITCH HOUSE.]
Jonathan Corwin, or Curwin, made a councilor under the new charter
granted by King William, was one of the judges before whom the
preliminary examinations were held, both here and at the Village.
Governor Corwin, of Ohio, is accounted a descendant, as was the author
of "The Scarlet Letter" of another witch-judge, John Hathorne. The
reader may imagine the novelist on his knees before the grave-stone of
his ancestor, striving to scrape the moss from its half-obliterated
characters.[143] Other examinations took place in Thomas Beadle's
tavern.
[Illustration: FRAGMENT OF EXAMINATION OF REBECCA NURSE,
In Handwriting of Rev. Samuel Parris.[144]]
Knowing the world believed in witchcraft, our horror at the atrocities
of '92 is moderated by the probability that nothing less than the
shedding of innocent blood could have annihilated the delusion. The king
believed in it, the governor and judges believed in it, and the most
sensible and learned gave ample credence to it. Queen Anne wrote a
letter to Phips that shows she admitted it as a thing unquestioned.[145]
The clergy, with singular unanimity, recognized it.
[Illustration: THOMAS BEADLE'S TAVERN, 1692.]
The revulsion that followed equaled the precipitation that had marked
the proceedings. One of the judges made public confession of his
error.[146] Officers of the court were persecuted until the day of their
death.
There is one hard, inflexible character, that was never known to have
relented. William Stoughton, lieutenant-governor, presided at these
trials. It is related that once, on hearing of a reprieve granted some
of the condemned, he left the bench, exclaiming, "We were in a way to
have cleared the land of these. Who is it obstructs the course of
justice I know not. The Lord be merciful to the country."
This pudding-faced, sanctimonious, yet merciless judge had listened to
the heart-broken appeals of the victims, raising their manacled hands to
heaven for that justice denied them upon earth. "I have got nobody to
look to but God." "There is another judgment, dear child." "The Lord
will not suffer it." Others as passionately reproached their accusers,
but all were confounded, because all were believers in the fact of
witchcraft.[147]
Whether Witch Hill be the first or last place visited, it is there Salem
witchcraft culminates. There is seen, in approaching by the railway from
Boston, a bleak and rocky eminence bestrown with a little soil. Houses
of the poorer sort straggle up its eastern acclivity, while the south
and west faces remain as formed by nature, abrupt and precipitous. The
hill is one of a range stretching away northward in a broken line toward
the Merrimac. On the summit is a tolerably level area of several acres.
Not a tree was growing on it when I was there. The bleak winds sweep
over it without hinderance.
On the 19th of July, 1692, an unusual stir might have been observed in
Salem. We may suppose the town excited beyond any thing that had been
known in its history. The condemned witches, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes,
Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, and Rebecca Nurse, are to be hanged on
Gallows Hill.
The narrow lane in which the common jail is situated is thronged with
knots of men and women, wearing gloomy, awe-struck faces, conversing in
under-tones. Before the jail door are musketeers of the train-band,
armed and watchful. The crowd gives way on the approach of a cart that
stops in front of the prison door, which is now wide opened. On one side
stands the jailer, with ponderous keys hanging at his girdle; on the
other is the sheriff, grasping his staff of office. The guard clears a
passage, and then the sheriff's voice is heard calling upon the
condemned to come forth.
There are five of them, all women. They look pale, haggard, despairing.
At sight of them a murmur ripples through the crowd, succeeded by solemn
stillness. As they mount the cart with weak and tottering steps--for
some are old and feeble and gray-haired--audible sobs are heard among
the by-standers. Men's lips are compressed and teeth clenched as they
look on with white faces. All is ready. The guard surrounds the cart, as
if a rescue were feared. It takes a score of strong men, armed to the
teeth, to conduct five helpless women to death!
I suppose there were outcries, hootings, and imprecations, as is the
rabble's wont. If so, I believe they were borne with the resignation and
heroism that make woman the superior of man in supreme moments. At last
the cavalcade is grouped around the place of execution. The gallows and
the fatal ladder are there, grotesque yet horrible. To each of those
five women they meant martyrdom, and nothing less.
The provost-marshal commands silence while he reads the warrant. This
formality ended, he replaces it in his belt. Expectation is intense as
the condemned are seen to take leave of each other, like people who have
done with this world. Then a shiver, like an electric spark, runs
through the multitude as the hangman seizes them, pinions and blindfolds
them, and, in the name of King William and Queen Mary, hangs them by the
neck until dead.
Being leagued with Satan, they were denied the consolations of religion
vouchsafed to pirates, murderers, and like malefactors. Poor old Rebecca
Nurse had been led, heavily ironed, up the broad aisle of Salem Church
to be thrust out of its communion. At the scaffold Rev. Mr. Noyes, of
Salem, insulted the last moments of Sarah Good. "You are a witch, and
you know it," said this servant of Christ. She turned upon him fiercely,
"You lie, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to
drink."[148] That few of the martyrs chose to buy their lives with a
lie has ennobled their memories for all time. It is written: "If I would
but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I might be knighted."
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF FIRST CHURCH.[149]]
Other executions took place in August and September, swelling the number
of victims hanged to nineteen. Giles Corey was, by the old English law,
pressed to death for standing mute when told to plead.
John Adams mentions a visit to this hill in 1766, then called Witchcraft
Hill. Somebody, he says, within a few years had planted a number of
locust-trees over the graves. In 1793 Dr. Morse notes that the graves
might still be traced. I felt no regret at their total disappearance.
Would that the bloody chapter might as easily disappear from history!
FOOTNOTES:
[142] Considerable changes were necessary so long ago as 1674-'75, when
it became the property of Jonathan Corwin, of witchcraft notoriety. In
1745, and again about 1772, it underwent other repairs, leaving it as
now seen.
[143] A scene from life in the old Copp's Hill burial-ground at Boston.
[144] In the library of Harvard College is a book having the name of
Parris on the fly-leaf.
[145] She approved Governor Phips's conduct, but advised the utmost
moderation and circumspection in all proceedings for
witchcraft.--"Manuscript Files."
[146] Samuel Sewall, afterward chief-justice of the Supreme Court of the
province.
[147] Some of the pins said to have been thrust by witches into the
bodies of their victims are still preserved in Salem.
[148] This incident appears in Hawthorne's "Seven Gables." The tradition
is that Noyes was choked with blood--dying by a hemorrhage.
[149] The frame of the old First Church of Salem has been preserved. It
is now standing in the rear of Plummer Hall, a depository of olden
relics.
[Illustration: IRESON'S HOUSE, OAKUM BAY, MARBLEHEAD].