sold his house there in 1659. The contract with a carpenter for
building his farmhouse is preserved. It was stipulated to be erected
"where he shall appoint." While the carpenter was getting out the
materials, he selected and bought the farm, on which he lived ever
afterwards. The house was to be "twenty feet in length, fifteen in
breadth, and eight feet stud." Nothing strikes us more, as strange and
unaccountable, than the small size of houses in those days. One would
have thought, that, where wood was so plenty and near at hand, and land
of no account, they would have built larger houses. In a letter, dated
Nov. 16, 1646, from Governor Winthrop to his son John, of Connecticut,
he gives an account "of a tempest (than which I never observed a
greater);" and mentions that the roof of "Lady Moody's house, at
Salem," with all of the chimney above it, was blown off in two parts,
and "carried six or eight rods. Ten persons lay under it, and knew not
of it till they arose in the morning." The house had a flat roof, was
of one story, and nine feet in height! Lady Deborah Moody was a person
of high position, a connection of Sir Henry Vane, and a[i.184] woman of
property. She bought Mr. Humphreys' great plantation. But, like
Townsend Bishop, she was dealt with, and compelled to quit the colony,
on account of her doubts about infant baptism. Winthrop calls her a
"wise and anciently religious woman." She went to Long Island, where
her influence was so important, that Governor Stuyvesant consulted her
in his administration, and conceded to her the nomination of
magistrates. It seems very strange that such a lady should have had a
house only nine feet high. The early houses were built either as
temporary structures or with a view to enlargement. Perhaps Lady Moody
intended to add a story to hers. They were low-studded for warmth. The
farm-houses generally were designed to be increased in length, when
convenience required. The chimney was very large, placed at one end,
and so constructed, that, on the extension of the building, fire-places
could be opened into it on the new end. A building of twenty feet was
prepared to become one of forty feet in width or length, as the case
might be; and then the chimney would be in the middle of it.
As has been intimated, Corey was in bad repute. Either he was a lawless
man, or much misunderstood. I am inclined to the latter opinion. He
belonged to that class of persons, instances of which we occasionally
meet, who care little about the opinions or the talk of others. On one
occasion, he was going into town with a cartload of wood. He met
Anthony Needham, in company with John Procter whose house[i.185] he had
just passed. Procter accosted him thus: "How now, Giles, wilt thou
never leave thy old trade? Thou hast got some of my wood here upon thy
cart." Corey answered, "True, I did take two or three sticks to lay
behind the cart to ease the oxen, because they bore too hard." This
shows the free way in which Procter bantered with Corey, and the slight
account the latter made of it. But the thing before long got to be too
serious to be trifled with. It became the fashion to charge all sorts
of offences against Corey; and, whatever any one lost or mislaid, he
was considered as having abstracted it. The gossip against him was
quite unrestrained, and created a bitter and angry feeling in the
neighborhood. In the winter of 1676, a man named Goodell, who had been
working on Corey's farm, was carried home to his friends by Corey's
wife, in a feeble state of health, and died soon after. It was
whispered about, and before long openly asserted, that he had come to
his death in consequence of having been violently beaten by Corey, who
was accordingly arrested and brought to trial for killing the man.
There was a great excitement against him. He probably had punished the
man severely for some alleged misconduct; and it was charged that the
castigation had been so unmerciful and excessive as to have broken down
his constitution and caused his death. There was conflicting evidence
going to show that the man had been beaten, for some misconduct, after
he had returned to his family. It was a circumstance in favor of Corey,
that his wife[i.186] had taken the invalid to his home; and there was
no evidence of any ill feeling between her and the sick man during a
stop they made at Procter's house on their way. The death, too, it was
supposed by some, might have resulted from ordinary disease, and not
from whipping, either at Corey's or at home. The result was, that,
notwithstanding the prejudice against Corey, he was discharged on
paying a fine; showing that the Court did not consider it a very
serious offence. We shall hear of this affair again.
In the year 1678, there was a suit at law between Corey and a man named
John Gloyd, a laborer on his farm, on a question of wages. The case
was, by agreement of the parties, passed out of court into the hands of
arbitrators mutually chosen. John Procter was one of the arbitrators,
and, as it would seem, chosen as the friend of Gloyd: Nathaniel Putnam
and Edmund Bridges were the others; one of them chosen by Corey, and
the other mutually agreed upon. They brought in their award. Its
precise character is not stated; but the circumstances indicate that it
was favorable to Gloyd. The conduct of Corey on this occasion shows,
that, though a rough man perhaps, and liable, from his peculiar ways,
to be harshly spoken of, he had, after all, a generous, forgiving, and
genial nature. Nathaniel Putnam and Edmund Bridges state, that, when
they brought in their award, "it was greatly to the satisfaction of the
parties concerned; and Giles Corey did manifest as much satisfaction,
and gave as many thanks to every one of us, as[i.187] ever we heard;
and Goodman Corey did manifest, to our observation, as much
satisfaction to John Procter as he did to the rest of the arbitrators."
Captain Moore, being by when the award was brought in, says, "I did see
and take notice of the abundance of love manifested from Corey to
Procter, and from Procter to Corey: for they drank wine together; and
Procter paid for part, and Corey for part."
This remarkable overflow of affection between these two men is rendered
interesting, not merely by the collisions into which, before and after,
their impulsive and imprudent natures brought them, but by the part
they were destined to enact in an impending tragedy, which was to bring
them to a fearful end in a manner and on a scene that will arrest the
notice of all ages, and attest to their strong characters and heroic
spirit. The passage has a unique interest, and is worthy of a painter.
It happened unfortunately, that, a few days after the loving embraces
of these hardy men, Procter's house took fire. According to their
habit, some of the neighbors at once started the idea, that Corey had
set fire to it because of the award of the arbitrators, of whom Procter
was one. Under the excitement of the conflagration, with his usual
rashness, and forgetting the pledges of reconciliation that had just
passed between them, Procter fell in with the accusation, and Corey was
brought to trial. It appeared, in evidence, that John Phelps and Thomas
Fuller, who lived on the western borders of the village, near
Ipswich[i.188] River, coming along the road towards Procter's Corner
about two hours before daylight, on the way probably to Salem market,
saw his roof on fire, gave the alarm, and stopped to help put it out.
Thomas Gould and Thomas Flint thought it must be the work of an
incendiary, or of "an evil hand," as they expressed it, from the place
where it took and the hour when it occurred. On the other hand, it was
testified by James Poland and Caleb and Jane Moore, that they heard
John Procter say that his boy carried a lamp and set the fire by
accident. This was said by him, probably before the idea of Corey's
agency in the matter had been put into his head. The prisoner proved an
_alibi_ by the most conclusive evidence, which is so curious, as giving
an insight of a farmer's life at that time, and of Corey's domestic
condition, that it may well be inserted.
Abraham Walcot testifies, that, "Tuesday night last was a week, I
lodged at Giles Corey's house, which night John Procter's house was
damaged by fire; and Giles Corey went to bed before nine o'clock, and
rose about sunrise again, and could not have gone out of the house but
I should have heard him; and it must have been impossible that he
should have gone to Procter's house that night; for he cannot in a long
time go afoot, and, for his horse-kind, they were all in the woods. And
further testifieth, that said Corey came home very weary from work, and
went to bed the rather." His wife testified that he was in bed from
nine o'clock until sunrise.[i.189]
John Parker, one of Corey's four sons-in-law, testified as follows: "I
being at work with my father, Goodman Corey, the day Goodman Procter's
house was on fire. I going home with my father the night before, he
complained that he was very weary, and said he would go to bed. I did,
on our way going, ask him whether or no he would eat his supper: my
father answered me again, no, he could not eat any thing that night;
and so went to bed, and so I left him abed. And, the next morning, my
father came to me about sun-rising, and asked me to go with Abraham
Walcot to fetch a load of hay; and my father said he would try whether
or not he could cart up a load of peas. I do also testify that he had
no horse-kind near at home at that time."
John Gloyd, the hired man, with whom he had the lawsuit that had been
settled a day or two before by arbitrators, testified, in corroboration
of Parker, and to show that the latter could not have had any thing to
do with the fire, that he slept in the same room with said Parker that
night, and that he came to bed between nine and ten o'clock in the
evening, and never rose until the break of day. Gloyd's wife testified
to the same effect. There turned out to be no evidence against Corey
whatever, but abundant proof of his innocence. The hard-working,
"weary" old man was triumphantly acquitted. He thought, however, from
this high-handed and utterly groundless attempt to wrong and ruin him,
and from calumnious general statements that had been made against him
in the[i.190] course of the trial, that it was time to put a stop to
the malignant and mischievous slanders which had been current in the
neighborhood. He instituted prosecutions of Procter and others for
defamation, and recovered against them all. After this, we hear no more
of him until he experienced religion and was received into the First
Church. Whether he and Procter became reconciled again is not known.
Probably they did; for they seem to have had points of attraction, and
each of them traits of kind-heartedness and generosity, under a rather
rough exterior. The manner in which they bore themselves in their last
hours is a matter of history, and stamps them both with true manliness.
The incidents which have now been related, and the peculiar traits of
this man, are perhaps sufficient to account for the fact, that he was
spoken of as a person of "a scandalous" life. He had afforded food for
scandal; and it is not surprising, that, in a rural community, where
but few topics for talk occur beyond the village boundaries, all should
have participated, more or less, in criticising his ways, and that the
various difficulties into which he had been drawn, and the charges
against him, should have made him the object of much prejudice. His
wife Martha was also a noticeable character. She was a professor of
religion, a member of the village church, and found her chief happiness
in attendance upon public worship and in private devotions. Much of her
time—indeed, all that she could rescue from the labors of the
household[i.191]—was spent in prayer. She was a woman of spirit and
pluck, as we shall see.
Another notability of the village was Bridget Bishop. In 1666—then the
widow Wasselbe—she was married to Thomas Oliver. After his death, she
became the wife of Edward Bishop, who is spoken of as a "sawyer." This
term did not describe the same occupation then to which it is almost
wholly applied now. Firewood, in those days, was not, as a general
thing, sawed, but chopped. The sawyer got out boards and joists, beams,
and timber of all kinds, from logs; and before mills were constructed,
or where they were not conveniently accessible, it was an indispensable
employment, and held a high rank among the departments of useful
industry. It was in constant requisition in shipyards. It was a manly
form of labor, requiring a considerable outlay of apparatus, and
developing finely the whole muscular organization. The implement
employed, beside the ordinary tools, such as wedges, beetles, the
broad-axe, chains, and crowbar, was a strong steel cutting-plate, of
great breadth, with large teeth, highly polished and thoroughly
wrought, some eight or ten feet in length, with a double handle,
crossing the plate at each end at a right angle. It was worked by two
men, and called a "pit-saw," because sometimes the man at the lower
handle stood in a deep pit, dug for the purpose, and called a
"saw-pit." But, among the early settlers, the usual method was to make
a frame of strong timbers. The log to be sawed was raised by slings, or
slid up an inclined plane, and[i.192] placed upon cross-beams. Above
it, a scaffolding was made on which one man stood; the other stood on
the ground below. They each held the saw by both hands, and worked in
unison. The log was pushed along by handspikes as they reached the
cross-timbers, and wedges were used to keep the cleft open, that the
saw might work free. So important was this business considered, that,
from time to time, the General Court regulated by law the rates of pay
to the sawyer. If a farmer had suitable woodlands, he provided in many
cases a saw-frame or saw-pit of his own, got out his logs, and worked
them into boards or square timber for sale. This was a profitable
business.
Edward Bishop had resided, for some seven years previous to the
witchcraft delusion, within the limits of Salem, near the Beverly line.
His wife Bridget was a singular character, not easily described. She
kept a house of refreshment for travellers, and a shovel-board for the
entertainment of her guests, and generally seems to have countenanced
amusements and gayeties to an extent that exposed her to some scandal.
She is described as wearing "a black cap and a black hat, and a red
paragon bodice," bordered and looped with different colors. This would
appear to have been rather a showy costume for the times. Her freedom
from the austerity of Puritan manners, and disregard of conventional
decorum in her conversation and conduct, brought her into disrepute;
and the tongue of gossip was generally loosened against her. She was
charged with witchcraft, and actually[i.193] brought to trial on the
charge, in 1680, but was acquitted; the popular mind not being quite
ripe for such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She
still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free
and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or
the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of
entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes,
however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch,
in a manner that made it to be felt that it was best to let her alone.
A man called one day at the house of Samuel Shattuck, where there was a
sick child. He was a stranger to the inmates of the family, and
evidently had come to the place to make trouble for Bridget Bishop. He
pretended great pity for the child, and said, among other things, in an
oracular way, "We are all born, some to one thing, and some to
another." The mother asked him what he thought her poor, suffering
child was born to. He replied, "He is born to be bewitched, and is
bewitched: you have a neighbor, that lives not far off, who is a
witch." The good woman does not appear to have entertained any
suspicion of the kind; but the man insisted on the truth of what he had
affirmed. He succeeded in exciting her feelings on the subject, and, by
vague insinuations and general descriptions of the witch, led her mind
to fix upon Bridget Bishop. He said he should go and see her, and that
he could bring her out as the afflicter of her child. She consented to
let another[i.194] of her boys go with him, and show the way. They
proceeded to the house, and knocked at the door. Bridget opened it, and
asked what he would have: he said a pot of cider. There was something
in the manner of the man which satisfied her that he had come with
mischievous intent. She ordered him off, seized a spade that happened
to be near, drove him out of her porch, and chased him from her
premises. When he and the boy got back, they bore marks of the bad luck
of the adventure. Such things had perhaps happened before, and it was
found that whoever provoked her resentment was very likely to come off
second best from the encounter; yet Bridget was a member of Mr. Hale's
Church in Beverly, and retained her standing in full fellowship there.
It must have been thought, by the pastor and members of that church,
that no charge seriously affecting her moral or Christian character was
justly imputable to her.
The traveller of to-day, in passing over Crane-river Bridge,
approaching the present village of "The Plains," near the eastern end
of the Townsend Bishop or Nurse farm, will notice a roadway by the side
of the bridge descending through the brook and going up to rejoin the
main road on the other side. Such turnouts are frequent by the side of
bridges over small streams. They are refreshing and useful, cooling the
feet and cleansing the fetlocks of horses, and washing the wheels of
carriages. One afternoon, Edward Bishop, with his wife behind him on a
pillion, was riding home from Salem. Two women, mounted in[i.195] the
same way, joined them; and they chatted together pleasantly as their
horses ambled along. When they came to the bridge, Bishop, probably
merely for the fun of the thing, dashed down into the brook, instead of
going over the bridge, to the great consternation and against the
vehement remonstrances of his wife, who berated him soundly for his
reckless disregard of her safety. They got through without accident;
and the four jogged on together until the Bishops turned up to their
house, and the other two kept on to their home in Beverly. But all the
way from the bridge, until they parted company, Bishop was finding
great fault with his wife, saying that he should not have been sorry if
any mishap had occurred. She did not say much after her first fright
and resentment were over; but he kept on talking very freely about her,
and using some pretty hard language. This affair, which perhaps is not
without a parallel in the occasional experiences of married life, was,
with other things of an equally trivial and irrelevant character,
brought to bear fatally against her at her trial on the charge of
witchcraft, between seven and eight years afterward.
I can find no evidence against the moral character of this woman. One
person, at least, who participated largely in getting up accusations
against her, acknowledged, in a death-bed repentance, the wrong she had
done. Mr. Hale, the minister of the Beverly congregation, states, in a
deposition, that a certain woman, "being in full communion in our
church, came to me to desire that Goodwife Bishop, her neighbor, wife
of[i.196] Edward Bishop, Jr., might not be permitted to receive the
Lord's Supper in our church till she had given her satisfaction for
some offences that were against her; namely, because the said Bishop
did entertain people in her house at unseasonable hours in the night,
to keep drinking and playing at shovel-board, whereby discord did arise
in other families, and young people were in danger to be corrupted;
that she knew these things, and had once gone into the house, and,
finding some at shovel-board, had taken the pieces they played with and
thrown them into the fire, and had reproved the said Bishop for
promoting such disorders, but received no satisfaction from her about
it." According to Mr. Hale's statement, the night after this complaint
was brought to him, the woman was found to be distracted. "She
continuing some time distracted, we sought the Lord by fasting and
prayer." After a while, the woman recovered her senses, and, as Mr.
Hale says he understood, expressed a suspicion "that she had been
bewitched by Bishop's wife." He declares that he did not, at the time,
countenance the idea, "hoping better of Goody Bishop." He says further,
that he "inquired of Margaret King, who kept at or near the house,"
what she had observed concerning the woman who had been distracted.
"She told me that she was much given to reading and searching the
prophecies of Scripture." At length the woman appeared to have entirely
recovered, went to Goody Bishop, gave satisfaction for what she had
said and done against her, and they became[i.197] friends again. Mr.
Hale goes on to say, "I was oft praying with and counselling of her
before her death." She earnestly desired that "Edward Bishop might be
sent for, that she might make friends with him. I asked her if she had
wronged Edward Bishop. She said, not that she knew of, unless it were
in taking his shovel-board pieces, when people were at play with them,
and throwing them into the fire; and, if she did evil in it, she was
very sorry for it, and desired he would be friends with her, or forgive
her. This was the very day before she died." That night her distemper
returned, and, in a paroxysm of insanity, she destroyed herself.
It is evident, from his own account, that Mr. Hale did not then fall in
with, or countenance at all, any unfavorable impressions against
Bridget Bishop; and that the poor diseased woman, when entirely free
from her malady, repented bitterly of what she had done and said of
Goodman Bishop and his wife, and heartily desired their forgiveness. So
far as the facts stated by Mr. Hale of his own knowledge go, they prove
that Bridget Bishop was the victim of gross misrepresentation. Five
years afterwards, as we shall see, Mr. Hale gave a very different
version of the affair, and one which it is extremely difficult to
reconcile with his own former deliberate convictions at the time when
the circumstances occurred.
As it is my object to bring before you every thing that may help to
explain the particular occurrences embraced in the account I am to give
of the witchcraft[i.198] prosecutions, two other persons must be
mentioned before concluding this branch of my subject,—George Jacobs,
Sr., and his son George Jacobs, Jr. They each had given offence to some
persons, and suffered that sort of notoriety which led to the selection
of victims, although both were persons of respectability. The father
owned and had lived for about a half-century on a farm in North Fields,
on the banks of Endicott River, a little to the eastward of the bridge
at the iron-foundery. He was a person of good estate and an estimable
man; but it was his misfortune to have an impulsive nature and quick
passions. In June, 1677, he was prosecuted and fined for striking a man
who had incensed him. George Jacobs, Jr., his only son, at a court held
Nov. 7, 1674, was prosecuted, "found blamable, and ordered to pay costs
of court." His offence and defence are embraced in his deposition on
the occasion.
"George Jacobs's Answer to Nathaniel Putnam's Complaint.—That I did
follow some horses in our enclosure on the Royal Side, where they were
trespassing upon us; that the end of my following them was to take
them; but, rather than they would be taken, they took the water, and I
did follow them no further; but straightway they turned ashore, and I
did run to take them as they came out of the water, but could not: and
I can truly take my oath that since that time I did never follow any
horses or mares; and I hope my own oath will clear me."