[7] No writer on this subject seems hitherto to have given the name
of the person who suffered at Dorchester. Mr. John Hale, in _Modest
Inquiry_, 1697, p. 17, thus alludes to the matter: “Another that
suffered on that account sometime after was a Dorchester woman. And
upon the day of her execution Mr. Thompson [Wm. Tompson], minister of
Brantry and J. P. her former minister took pains with her to bring her
to repentance. And she utterly denyed her guilt of witchcraft, for she
had when a single woman played the harlot, and being with child, used
means to destroy the fruit of her body to conceal her sin and shame;
and although she did not effect it, yet she was a murderer in the
sight of God for her endeavors, and shewed great penitency for that
sin; but owned nothing of the crime laid to her charge.” Mr. Drake in
his _Annals of Witchcraft_, and the _History of Dorchester_, make no
mention of this case.
I think I have found a clue to the name of this Dorchester woman.
Increase Mather, in his _Remarkable Providences_, 1684, gave some of
the cases of witchcraft which had occurred in New-England. He sent
a copy of this book to his brother Nathaniel, a minister in Dublin.
In a letter, dated Dec. 31, 1684, Nathaniel Mather acknowledged the
receipt of the book, and says: “Why did you not put in the story of
Mrs. Hibbins witchcrafts and the discovery thereof; and also of H.
Lake’s wife, of Dorchester, whom as I have heard the Devil drew in by
appearing to her in the likeness, and acting the part of a child of
hers then lately dead on whom her heart was much set; as also another
of a girl in Connecticut, who was judged to die a real convert,
though she died for the same crime?—stories, as I have heard them as
remarkable for some circumstances as most I have read.” (Mather Papers,
_Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. xxxviii. p. 58.) Mr. Mather probably heard
these stories before he went abroad. The precise date of his departure
does not appear. It was, however, before March 23, 1650-51, when he
writes from London. There was a Henry Lake residing in Dorchester in
1678, who, with his children, was named as the residuary legatees in
the will of Thomas Lake, a prominent citizen of the town, who died
Oct. 27, 1678 (_History of Dorchester_, p. 125). Mr. Savage (_Geneal.
Dict._) says there was a Henry Lake, currier, in Salem, in 1649, “who
may have been the Henry Lake of Dorchester”; but he makes no mention of
his wife being executed for witchcraft.
The details of the case as related by Mr. Mather are quite unlike those
related by Mr. Hale. One or both of the statements must be incorrect.
The error I think must be in that of Mr. Hale. Mr. Mather was a
resident of Dorchester, and a graduate of the college in 1647. He gives
the name of the person accused, and was so situated as to be familiar
with all the incidents. Mr. Hale was a resident of Charlestown, and in
1650 was but fourteen years of age. He did not know the name of the
person, and gives the same incidents to a Springfield case. He says, p.
19: “There was another executed of Boston anno 1656 [Mrs. Hibbins] for
that crime; and two or three of Springfield, one of which confessed,
and said the occasion of her familiarity with Satan was this: She had
lost a child, and was exceedingly discontented at it, and longed _Oh
that she might see her child again!_ And at last the Devil in likeness
of her child came to her bed-side and talked with her, and asked to
come into the bed to her that night and several nights after, and so
entered into covenant with Satan and became a witch. This was the only
confessor in those times in this government.” If any person, other than
Mary Parsons, was executed at Springfield for witchcraft, no details
have come down to us. Increase Mather probably omitted to mention the
cases of Mrs. Hibbins and Mrs. Lake, with which he must have been
familiar, in deference to the feelings of their friends then living.