In 1867, just, one century after Hutchinson, Hon. Charles W. Upham, of
Salem, Mass., published an elaborate, polished, interesting and
instructive "History of Witchcraft and Salem Village." The connection of
two such topics as a local history and a general survey of witchcraft in
one work, was very appropriate and judicious in this case, because Salem
Village, which embraced the present town of Danvers and parts of other
towns adjacent, was the site of the most extensive and awful conflict
which men ever waged in avowed and direct contest with the devil on this
continent, if not in the world. By his course he enabled the reader to
comprehend what kind or quality of men, women, and children they were,
among whom that combat raged.
Upham's history of the _Village_ and its people is minute, exhaustive,
lucid, sprightly, and ornate. That work clearly shows that the people of
the Village possessed physical, mental, moral, and religious powers,
faculties, traits, trainings, and habits which must have given them
keenness of perception, logical acumen, both physical and moral stamina
and courage, and made them as difficult to delude or cow by novel
occurrences as any other people anywhere, either then, before that time,
or since. The same properties made them intelligent analyzers of their
creed, clear perceivers of its logical reaches, tenacious holders on to
what they believed, and fearless appliers of their faith. Holding, in
common with all Christendom, the deluded and deluding belief that
supermundane works required some human being "covenanted to the devil" for
their performance, this people was ready and able to apply that belief in
righteous fight. Such a people were not very likely to mistake the pranks
of their own children for things supermundane in origin. To suspect them
of such credulity or infatuation is to suspect and impeach the truth and
accuracy of the very history which makes them so clearly and fully known
to us.
The same faculties and acquirements which furnished so sprightly a history
of the Village, of course made their impress upon the pages devoted to
"_Witchcraft_." And results might have been as pleasing there as in more
external history, had not omission to see and assign spirit causes where
spirit effects existed, forced the author to assume that heavy, effective
cannon balls came forth from pop-guns, because he had not himself seen
cannon in arsenals himself had not visited, and would take nobody's word
for it that such had been available.
For his own sake we are prone to wish that our personal friend had
recognized that subsequent to the time of his early manhood, when he
delivered and published Lectures upon Witchcraft, and pondered upon its
producing agents and causes, phenomena, like the marvelous ones of former
days, had been transpiring in great abundance all over our land, and that
no less a man than Dr. Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, the correspondent and
peer of Faraday, Silliman, and others of that class, had, by rigid and
exact processes of physical science, actually _demonstrated_ that some
occult force, moved by an intelligence that could and did understand and
comply with verbal requests, repeatedly lifted and lowered the arms of
scale-beams, and made bodies weigh more or weigh less than their normal
weight, at his mental request. The same had been done by Dr. Luther V.
Bell and a band of press reporters in 1857. Such forces, if taken into
account by this historian, would have required a reconstruction and vast
modifications of his long-cherished theory of explanation, and have called
for an immense expenditure of labor and thought.
Ease and retention of long-cherished notions are seductive to man. It was
easier for the historian to ignore the discovery that natural laws or
forces had always permitted unseen agents to come among us, whose workings
the human brain had long, but unsatisfactorily, been laboring to trace to
adequate causes,--easier to continue to assume that insufficient causes,
lackered in glowing rhetoric, might answer a while longer,--easier to
still hug the dream that little girls and young misses, mainly guileless
and docile in all their previous days, could and did, without professional
instruction and of a sudden, become proficients in the production of
complicated schemes and feats rivaling and even surpassing the most
astonishing ones of highest legerdemain, of jugglery, and of histrionic
art combined,--easier to fancy that these girls rebelled against and set
at defiance parental, medical, ministerial, and friendly authority, acted
like brutes and villains, turned all things upside down with a vengeance,
in the midst of a community clear headed and not easily befooled,--yes, it
was easier to retain all these _outre_ suppositions than to set aside a
pet theory and reconstruct history in conformity with requirements of
discoveries which _others_ had made in advance of this historian, and by
the use of which he could have furnished a truly philosophical and
satisfactory solution of all the marvels of ancient witchcraft.
Infatuation still lingers on the earth, blinding many bright eyes.
We are hardly sorry that our friend ignored the actual and competent
authors--indeed, we are nearly glad that he did so; for his course
resulted in presentation of many important portions of New England
witchcraft in very lucid, intelligible, and attractive combination, helped
a vast many people to perception of the proximate nature and extent of
strange things done here of old, and enabled the common mind to make
pretty fair estimate of the nature of such forces as were needful to any
agents who should perform such wonders.
We cheerfully acknowledge great personal indebtedness to that author for
such an exhibition of this subject as shows its mighty influence over
sagacious, strong, calm, good, and able men who were living witnesses and
actors in its scenes; and shows also that common sense will instinctively
feel that the acts imputed to a few illiterate girls and misses were
beyond the powers which nature by her usual and well-known processes ever
bestowed upon them. Philosophy, science, and common sense demand causes
adequate to produce whatever effects are ascribed to them. Histories of
witchcraft have not met these demands. Previous failure in that respect
prompts this effort to present agents whose powers may have been equal to
the works performed in witchcraft scenes.
The work in hand will necessitate a close grappling with many of our
friend's opinions and processes. But our grip, however firm, will never be
made in unkindness toward or want of respect for him; the object will be
to disclose mistakes, to rescue our forefathers and their children in the
seventeenth century out from under damaging, groundless, needless,
gratuitous imputation of fatuity to the elders, and devilish ingenuity to
the younger ones, and to permit the present and future ages to look back
upon them with respect and sympathy.
That author is still living, and long may he live in comfort and
usefulness. His biography is not written; a brief outline of him, solely
from this moment's recollections is here given. Not less that fifty years
ago, we knew him as a student at Harvard,--afterward, for many years, as a
respected and successful clergyman at Salem,--still later, in political
office, especially as member of Congress,--and for many of the more recent
years, as a student and author at home. He has commanded and retains our
high respect.
The scholar, rhetorician, statistician, fictionist, and dramatist, all
blend harmoniously in him, give an uncommon charm to his "History of Salem
Village," and render it a work which bespeaks wide and abiding interest
with the public. It is no essential part of the philosopher's specific
labors to discover or test new agents, forces, or facts. His dealings
mostly are with facts known and admitted. Till one concedes the fact of
spirit action upon persons and things in earth life, he cannot
philosophically admit that spirit forces were ever employed in the
production of any phenomenon, but must regard all as purely material or
within the scope of ordinary human faculties. Therefore we can, perhaps,
with propriety regard our friend as also a philosopher; but must add, that
he either lacked knowledge of or ignored the agents and forces that
produced many witchcraft phenomena which he attempted to elucidate, and
many others of the same character which he failed to adduce from the
earlier records; which agents and forces must be allowed their actual and
full connection with their own effects before philosophy can furnish just,
clear, and satisfactory solutions of their source and nature.