relating to his wife did not come up to the mark required. It is also
highly probable, that, though incensed at her conduct at the time,
reflection had brought him to his senses; and that the circumstances of
her examination and commitment to prison produced a re-action in his
mind. If so, he would have been apt to express himself very freely. His
examination took place April 19th, in the meeting-house at the Village.
The girls acted their usual part, charging him, one by one, with having
afflicted them, and proving it on the spot by tortures and sufferings.
After they had severally got through, they all joined at once in their
demonstrations. The report made by Parris says, "All the afflicted were
seized now with fits, and troubled with pinches. Then the Court ordered
his hands to be tied." The magistrates lost all control of themselves,
and flew into a passion, exclaiming, "What! is it not enough to act
witchcraft at other times, but must you do it now, in face of
authority?" He seems to have been profoundly affected by the
marvellousness of the accusations, and the exhibition of what to him
was inexplicable in the sufferings of the girls; and all he could say
was, "I am a poor creature, and cannot help it."—"Upon the motion of
his head again, they had their heads and necks afflicted." The
magistrates, not having recovered their composure, continued to pour
their wrath upon him, "Why do you tell such wicked lies against
witnesses?"—"One of his hands was let go, and several were afflicted.
He held his head on one side,[ii.123] and then the heads of several of
the afflicted were held on one side. He drew in his cheeks, and the
cheeks of some of the afflicted were sucked in." Goody Bibber was on
hand, and played her accompaniment. She also uttered malignant charges
against him, and "was suddenly seized with a violent fit." One of
Bibber's statements was that he had called her husband "damned devilish
rogue." Through all this outrage, Corey was firm in asserting his
innocence. His language and manner were serious, and solemnized by a
sense of the helplessness of his situation and the wicked falsehoods
heaped upon him. His disagreement with his wife about the witchcraft
proceedings being well known, the accusers endeavored to make it out
that they had often quarrelled. But he insisted that the only
difference which had before existed between them was a conflict of
opinion on one point. In his family devotions, he used this expression,
"living to God and dying to sin." She "found fault" with the language,
and criticised it. He thought it was all right! The characteristic
spirit of the old man was roused most strikingly by one of the charges.
Bibber and others testified that Corey had said he had seen the Devil
in the shape of a black hog and was very much frightened. He could not
stand under the imputation of cowardice, and lost sight of every other
element in the accusation but that. The magistrate asked, "What did you
see in the cow-house? Why do you deny it?"—"I saw nothing but my
cattle."—"(Divers witnessed that he told[ii.124] them he was
frighted.)"—"Well, what do you say to these witnesses? What was it
frighted you?"—"I do not know that ever I spoke the word in my life."
But while his character retained its manliness, and his soul was truly
insensible to fear, he was very much oppressed and distressed by his
situation. The share he had, with two of his sons-in-law, in bringing
his wife into her awful condition, and in driving on the public
infatuation at the beginning, was more than he could endure to think
of, and he was charged with having meditated suicide. Perhaps he had
already formed the purpose afterwards carried into effect, and may have
dropped expressions, under that thought, which to others might appear
to indicate a design of self-destruction. He was accused of having said
that "he would make away with himself, and charge his death upon his
son." His sons-in-law, Crosby and Parker, were acting with the crowd
that were pursuing him to his death. Little did it enter the
imagination of any one then, that there was a method by which he could
"make away with himself," leaving the entire act of the destruction of
his life upon his persecutors, and the sin to be apportioned between
him and them by the All-wise and All-just.
Abigail Hobbs had been a reckless vagrant creature, wandering through
the woods at night like a half-deranged person; but she had wit enough
to see that there was safety in confession. She pretended to have
committed, by witchcraft, crimes enough to have[ii.125] hanged her a
dozen times. If she had stood to her confession, we should have heard
of her no more.
Bridget Bishop's examination filled the intervals of time while Mary
Warren was being carried out of the meeting-house to recover from her
fits. Both Parris and Ezekiel Cheever took minutes of it, from which
the substance is gathered as follows:—
On her coming in, the afflicted persons, at the same moment, severally
fell into fits, and were dreadfully tormented. Hathorne addressed her,
calling upon her to give an account of the witchcrafts she was
"conversant in." She replied, "I take all this people to witness that I
am clear." He then asked the children, "Hath this woman hurt you?" They
all cried out that she had. The magistrate continued, "You are here
accused by four or five: what do you say to it?"—"I never saw these
persons before, nor I never[A] was in this place before. I never did
hurt them in my life."
At a meeting of the afflicted children and others, some one declared
that Bridget Bishop was present "in her shape" or apparition, and,
pointing to a particular spot, said, "There, there she is!" Young
Jonathan Walcot, exasperated by his sister's sufferings, struck at the
spot with his sword; whereupon Mary cried out, "You have hit her, you
have torn her coat, and I heard it tear." This story had been brought
to Hathorne's ears; and abruptly, as if to take her off her
guard,[ii.126] he said, "Is not your coat cut?" She answered, "No."
They then examined the coat, and found what they regarded as having
been "cut or torn two ways." It was probably the fashion in which the
garment was made; for she was in the habit of dressing more
artistically than the women of the Village. At any rate, it did not
appear like a direct cut of a sword; but Jonathan got over the
difficulty by saying that "the sword that he struck at Goody Bishop was
not naked, but was within the scabbard." This explained the whole
matter, so that Cheever says, in his report, that "the rent may very
probably be the very same that Mary Walcot did tell that she had in her
coat, by Jonathan's striking at her appearance"! Parris says, with more
caution, more indeed than was usual with him, "Upon some search in the
Court, a rent, that seems to answer what was alleged, was found."
Hathorne, having heard the scandals they had circulated against her,
proceeded: "They say you bewitched your first husband to death."—"If it
please Your Worship, I know nothing of it."—"What do you say of these
murders you are charged with?"—"I hope I am not guilty of murder." As
she said this, she turned up her eyes, probably to give solemnity to
her declaration. At the opening of the examination, she looked round
upon the people, and called them to witness her innocence. She had
found out by this time, that no justice could be expected from them;
and feeling, with Rebecca Nurse on a recent similar occasion, "I have
got nobody to look to but[ii.127] God," she turned her eyes heavenward.
Instantly, the eyeballs of all the girls were rolled up in their
sockets, and fixed. The effect was awful, and still more increased as
they went, after a moment or two, into dreadful torments. Hathorne
could no longer contain himself, but broke out, "Do you not see how
they are tormented? You are acting witchcraft before us! What do you
say to this? Why have you not a heart to confess the truth?" She calmly
replied, "I am innocent. I know nothing of it. I am no witch. I know
not what a witch is." The "afflicted children" charged her with having
tried to persuade them to sign the Devil's book. As she had never
before seen one of them, she was indignant at this barefaced falsehood,
and, as Cheever says, "shook her head" in her resentment; which, as he
further says, put them all into great torments. Parris represents that
in every motion of her head they were tortured. Marshal Herrick, as
usual, put in his oar, and volunteered charges against her. She bore
herself well through the shocking scene, and did not shrink, at its
close, from expressing her unbelief of the whole thing: "I do not know
whether there be any witches or no." When she was removed from the
place of examination, the accusers all had fits, and broke forth in
outcries of agony. After being taken out, one of the constables in
charge of her asked her if she was not troubled to see the afflicted
persons so tormented; and she replied, "No." In answer to further
questions, she indicated that she could not[ii.128] tell what to think
of them, and did not concern herself about them at all.
Giles Corey, Bridget Bishop, Abigail Hobbs, together with Mary Warren,
were duly committed to prison.
Two days after, April 21, warrants were issued "against William Hobbs,
husbandman, and Deliverance his wife; Nehemiah Abbot, Jr., weaver; Mary
Easty, the wife of Isaac Easty; and Sarah Wilds, the wife of John
Wilds,—all of the town of Topsfield, or Ipswich; and Edward Bishop,
husbandman, and Sarah his wife, of Salem Village; and Mary Black, a
negro of Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam's, of Salem Village also; and Mary
English, the wife of Philip English, merchant in Salem." All of them
were to be delivered to the magistrates for examination at the house of
Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersoll, at about ten o'clock the next morning,
in Salem Village; and were brought in accordingly.
What the papers on file enable us to glean of these nine persons is
substantially as follows: William Hobbs was about fifty years of age,
and one of the earliest settlers of the Village, although his residence
was on the territory afterwards included in Topsfield. His daughter
Abigail, of whom I have just spoken, appears from all the accounts to
have acted at this stage of the transaction a most wicked part, ready
to do all the mischief in her power, and allowing herself to be used to
any extent to fasten the imputation of witchcraft upon others. Several
persons testified that, long before, she had boasted that[ii.129] she
was not afraid of any thing, "for she had sold herself body and soul to
the Old Boy;" one witness testified, that, "some time last winter, I
was discoursing with Abigail Hobbs about her wicked carriages and
disobedience to her father and mother, and she told me she did not care
what anybody said to her, for she had seen the Devil, and had made a
covenant or bargain with him;" another, Margaret Knight, testified,
that, about a year before, "Abigail Hobbs and her mother were at my
father's house, and Abigail Hobbs said to me, 'Margaret, are you
baptized?' And I said, 'Yes.' Then said she, 'My mother is not
baptized, but I will baptize her;' and immediately took water, and
sprinkled in her mother's face, and said she did baptize her 'in the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.'"
She was arrested, and brought to the Village, on the 19th of April. The
next day, she began her operations by declaring that "Judah White, a
Jersey maid" that lived with Joseph Ingersoll at Casco, "but now lives
at Boston," appeared to her "in apparition" the day before, and advised
her to "fly, and not to go to be examined," but, if she did go, "not to
confess any thing:" she described the dress of this "apparition,"—she
"came to her in fine clothes, in a sad-colored silk mantle, with a
top-knot and a hood."—"She confesseth further, that the Devil in the
shape of a man came to her," and charged her to afflict the girls;
bringing images made of wood in their likeness with thorns for her to
prick into the images, which she[ii.130] did: whereupon the girls cried
out that they were hurt by her. She further confessed, that, "she was
at the great meeting in Mr. Parris's pasture, when they administered
the sacrament, and did eat of the red bread and drink of the red wine,
at the same time." This confession established her credibility at once;
and, the next day, the warrants were issued for the nine persons above
mentioned, against whom they had secured in her an effective witness.
She had resided for some time at Casco Bay; and we shall soon see how
matters began in a few days to work in that direction. There are two
indictments against this Abigail Hobbs: one charging her with having
made a covenant with "the Evil Spirit, the Devil," at Casco Bay, in
1688; the other with having exercised the arts of witchcraft upon the
afflicted girls, at Salem Village, in 1692.
When her unhappy father was brought to examination, he found that his
daughter was playing into the hands of the accusers; and that his wife,
overwhelmed by the horrors of the situation, although for a time
protesting her innocence and lamenting that she had been the mother of
such a daughter, had broken down and confessed, saying whatever might
be put in her mouth by the magistrates, the girls, or the crowd. Under
these circumstances, he was brought forward for examination. Parris
took minutes of it. It is to be regretted, that the paper is much
dilapidated, and portions of the lines wholly lost. What is left shows
that the mind of William Hobbs rose superior[ii.131] to the terrors and
powers arrayed against it. The magistrate commenced proceedings by
inquiring of the girls, pointing to the prisoner, "Hath this man hurt
you?" Several of them answered "Yes." Goody Bibber, who seems generally
to have been a very zealous volunteer backer of the girls, on this
occasion, for a wonder, answered "No." The magistrate, addressing the
prisoner, "What say you? Are you guilty or not?"—Answer: "I can speak
in the presence of God safely, as I must look to give account another
day, that I am as clear as a new-born babe."—"Clear of what?"—"Of
witchcraft."—"Have you never hurt these?"—"No." Abigail Williams cried
out that he "was going to Mercy Lewis!" Whereupon Mercy was seized with
a fit. Then Abigail cried out again, "He is coming to Mary Walcot!" and
Mary went into her fit. The magistrate, in consternation, appealed to
him: "How can you be clear," when your appearance is thus seen
producing such effects before our eyes? Then the children went into
fits all together, and "hallooed" at the top of their voices, and
"shouted greatly." The magistrate then brought up the confession of his
wife against him, and expostulated with him for not confessing; the
afflicted, in the mean while, bringing the whole machinery of their
convulsions, shrieks, and uproar to bear against him: but he calmly,
and in brief terms, denied it.
The circle of accusing girls seems to have been a receptacle, into
which all the scandal, gossip, and[ii.132] defamation of the
surrounding country was emptied. Some one had told them that William
Hobbs was not a regular attendant at meeting. They passed it on to the
magistrate, and he put this question to the accused: "When were you at
any public religious meeting?" He replied, "Not a pretty while."—"Why
so?"—"Because I was not well: I had a distemper that none knows." The
magistrate said, "Can you act witchcraft here, and, by casting your
eyes, turn folks into fits?"—"You may judge your pleasure. My soul is
clear."—"Do you not see you hurt these by your look?"—"No: I do not
know it." After another display of awful sufferings, caused, as they
protested, by the mere look of Hobbs, the magistrate, with triumphant
confidence, again put it home to him, "Can you now deny it?" He
answered, "I can deny it to my dying day." The magistrate inquired of
him for what reason he withdrew from the room whenever the Scriptures
were read in his family. He plumply denied it. Nathaniel Ingersoll and
Thomas Haynes testified that his daughter had told them so. The
confessions of his wife and daughter were over and over again brought
up against him, but to no effect. "Who do you worship?" said the
magistrate. "I hope I worship God only."—"Where?"—"In my heart." The
examination failed to confound or embarrass him in the least. He could
not be drawn into the expression of any of the feelings which the
conduct of his graceless and depraved daughter or his weak and wretched
wife must have[ii.133] excited. He quietly protested that he knew
nothing about witchcraft; and, towards the close, with solemn
earnestness of utterance, declared that his innocence was known to the
"great God in heaven."
He was committed for trial. All that the documents in existence inform
us further, in relation to William Hobbs, is that he remained in prison
until the 14th of the next December, when two of his neighbors, John
Nichols and Joseph Towne, in some way succeeded in getting him bailed
out; they giving bonds in the sum of two hundred pounds for his
appearance at the sessions of the Court the next month. But it was not,
even then, thought wholly safe to have him come in; and the fine was
incurred. He appeared at the term in May, the fine was remitted, and he
discharged by proclamation. On the 26th of March, 1714, he gave
evidence in a case of commonage rights. He was then seventy-two years
of age. Of his wife and daughter, I shall again have occasion to speak.
For all that is known of the case of Nehemiah Abbot, we are indebted to
Hutchinson, who had Parris's minutes of the examination before him.
Hutchinson says, that, of "near an hundred" whose examinations he had
seen, he was the only one who, having been brought before the
magistrates, was finally dismissed by them. Perhaps even this case was
not an exception: for a document on file shows that a person named
Abbot of the same locality was subsequently arrested and imprisoned;
but unfortunately[ii.134] the Christian name has been obliterated, or
from some cause is wanting. It seems, from Hutchinson's minutes, that
he protested his innocence in manly and firm declarations. Mary Walcot
testified that she had seen his shape. Ann Putnam cried out that she
saw him "upon the beam." The magistrates told him that his guilt was
certainly proved, and that, if he would find mercy of God, he must
confess. "I speak before God," he answered, "that I am clear from this
accusation."—"What, in all respects?"—"Yes, in all respects." The girls
were struck with dumbness; and Ann Putnam, re-affirming that he was the
man that hurt her, "was taken with a fit." Mary Walcot began to waver
in her confidence, and Mercy Lewis said, "It is not the man." This
unprecedented variance in the testimony of the girls brought matters to
a stand; and he was sent out for a time, while others were examined:—
"When he was brought in again, by reason of much people, and many in
the windows, so that the accusers could not have a clear view of him,
he was ordered to be abroad, and the accusers to go forth to him, and
view him in the light, which they did in the presence of the
magistrates and many others, discoursed quietly with him, one and all
acquitting him; but yet said he was like that man, but he had not the
wen they saw in his apparition. Note, he was a hilly-faced man, and
stood shaded by reason of his own hair; so that for a time he seemed to
some bystanders and observers to be considerably like the person the
afflicted did describe." [ii.135]
Such is Parris's statement, as quoted by Hutchinson. What was the real
cause or motive of this discrepancy among the witnesses does not
appear. The facts, that at first they went into fits in beholding him,
were all struck dumb for a while, and Ann Putnam saw him on the beam,
were likely to have an unfavorable effect upon the minds of the people,
and threatened to explode the delusion. But Ann, with a quickness of
wit that never failed to meet any emergency, when Mercy Lewis said it
was not the man, cried out in a fit, "Did you put a mist before my
eyes?" She conveyed the idea that the power of Satan blinded her, and
caused her to mistake the man. This answered the purpose; and, although
Abbot got clear, for the time at least, all were more than ever
convinced that the Evil One, in misleading Ann, had shown his hand on
the occasion.
The examination of Sarah Wildes had no peculiar features. The afflicted
children and Goody Bibber saw her apparition sitting on the beam while
she was bodily present at the bar, and went through their usual fits
and evolutions. She maintained her innocence with dignity and firmness;
and the magistrate, prejudging the case against her, rebuked her
obstinacy in not confessing, in his accustomed manner.
No account has come down of the examinations of Edward Bishop, or Sarah
his wife. He was the third of that name, probably the son of the
"Sawyer." His wife Sarah was a daughter of William Wildes of Ipswich,
and, it would seem, a sister of John[ii.136] Wildes, the examination of
whose wife has just been mentioned. Some of the evidence indicates that
she was a niece of Rebecca Nurse. They all belonged to that class of
persons who, under the general appellation of "the Topsfield men," had
been in such frequent collision with the people of the Village. Edward
Bishop was forty-four years of age, and his wife forty-one. They had a
family, at the time of their imprisonment, of twelve children. Sarah
Bishop had been dismissed from the church at the Village, and
recommended to that at Topsfield, May 25, 1690. They had land in
Topsfield, as well as in the Village, and were more intimately
connected in social relations with the former than the latter place.
They effected their escape from prison, and survived the storm. Mary,
the wife of Philip English, was committed to prison. We have no record
of her examination.
Mary Black, the negro woman, belonged to Nathaniel Putnam, but lived in
the family of his son Benjamin. Her examination shows that she was an
ignorant but an innocent person. She knew nothing about the matter, and
had no idea what it all meant. To the questions with which the
magistrate pressed her, her answers were, "I do not know," "I cannot
tell." The only fact brought out against her besides the actings of the
girls was this: "Her master saith a man sat down upon the form with her
about a twelvemonth ago." Parris, in his minutes, gives this piece of
evidence, but does not enlighten us as to its import. The magistrate
asked her, "What did the man[ii.137] say to you?" Her answer was: "He
said nothing." This is all they got out of her; and it is all the light
we have on the mysterious fact, that a man was once seated, at some
time within twelve months, on the same form or bench with poor Mary
Black. The magistrate asked the girls, "Doth this negro hurt you?" They
said "Yes."—"Why do you hurt them?"—"I did not hurt them." This
question was put to her, "Do you prick sticks?" perhaps the meaning
was, Do you prick the afflicted children with sticks? The simple
creature evidently did not know what they were driving at, and
answered, "No: I pin my neckcloth." The examiner asked her, "Will you
take out the pin, and pin it again?" She did so, and several of the
afflicted cried out that they were pricked. Mary Walcot was pricked in
the arm till the blood came, Abigail Williams was pricked in the
stomach, and Mercy Lewis was pricked in the foot. It is probable, that,
in this case, the girls, as they often appear to have done, provided
themselves by concert beforehand with pins ready to be stuck into the
assigned parts of their bodies, and managed to get the queer and
unusual question put. The whole thing has the appearance of being
pre-arranged; and it answered the purpose, filling the crowd with
amazement, and excluding all possible doubt from the minds of the
magistrates. Mary was committed to prison, where she remained until
discharged, in May, 1693, by proclamation from the governor.
Mary Easty, wife of Isaac Easty, and sister of Re[ii.138]becca Nurse
and Sarah Cloyse, was about fifty-eight years of age, and the mother of
seven children. Her husband owned and lived upon a large and valuable
farm, which not many years since was the property and country residence
of the late Hon. B.W. Crowninshield, and is now in the possession of
Thomas Pierce, Esq. Her examination was accompanied by the usual
circumstances. The girls had fits, and were speechless at times: the
magistrate expostulated with her for not confessing her guilt, which he
regarded as demonstrated, beyond a question, by the sufferings of the
afflicted. "Would you have me accuse myself?"—"How far," he continued,
"have you complied with Satan?"—"Sir, I never complied, but prayed
against him all my days. What would you have me do?"—"Confess, if you
be guilty."—"I will say it, if it was my last time, I am clear of this
sin." The magistrate, apparently affected by her manner and bearing,
inquired of the girls, "Are you certain this is the woman?" They all
went into fits; and presently Ann Putnam, coming to herself, said "that
was the woman, it was like her, and she told me her name." The accused
clasped her hands together, and Mercy Lewis's hands were clenched; she
separated her hands, and Mercy's were released; she inclined her head,
and the girls screamed out, "Put up her head; for, while her head is
bowed, the necks of these are broken." The magistrate again asked, "Is
this the woman?" They made signs that they could not speak; but
afterwards Ann Putnam and others[ii.139] cried out: "O Goody Easty,
Goody Easty, you are the woman, you are the woman!"—"What do you say to
this?"—"Why, God will know."—"Nay, God knows now."—"I know he
does."—"What did you think of the actions of others before your sisters
came out? did you think it was witchcraft?"—"I cannot tell."—"Why do
you not think it is witchcraft?"—"It is an evil spirit; but whether it
be witchcraft I do not know." She was committed to prison.