After all the usual means had failed to check the symptoms of her
disease, the idea[ii.248] became prevalent that she was suffering under
an "evil hand." The husband, pursuant of the advice of friends, posted
down to Salem Village to ascertain from the afflicted girls who was
bewitching his wife. Two of them returned with him to Andover. Never
did a place receive such fatal visitors. The Grecian horse did not
bring greater consternation to ancient Ilium. Immediately after their
arrival, they succeeded in getting more than fifty of the inhabitants
into prison, several of whom were hanged. A perfect panic swept like a
hurricane over the place. The idea seized all minds, as Hutchinson
expresses it, that the only "way to prevent an accusation was to become
an accuser."—"The number of the afflicted increased every day, and the
number of the accused in proportion." In this state of things, such a
great accession being made to the ranks of the confessing witches, the
power of the delusion became irresistibly strengthened. Mr. Dudley
Bradstreet, the magistrate of the place, after having committed about
forty persons to jail, concluded he had done enough, and declined to
arrest any more. The consequence was that he and his wife were cried
out upon, and they had to fly for their lives. They accused his
brother, John Bradstreet, with having "afflicted" a dog. Bradstreet
escaped by flight. The dog was executed. The number of persons who had
publicly confessed that they had entered into a league with Satan, and
exercised the diabolical power thus acquired, to the injury, torment,
and death of innocent parties, pro[ii.249]duced a profound effect upon
the public mind. At the same time, the accusers had everywhere
increased in number, owing to the inflamed state of imagination
universally prevalent which ascribed all ailments or diseases to the
agency of witches, to a mere love of notoriety and a passion for
general sympathy, to a desire to be secure against the charge of
bewitching others, or to a malicious disposition to wreak vengeance
upon enemies. The prisons in Salem, Ipswich, Boston, and Cambridge,
were crowded. All the securities of society were dissolved. Every man's
life was at the mercy of every other man. Fear sat on every
countenance, terror and distress were in all hearts, silence pervaded
the streets; all who could, quit the country; business was at a stand;
a conviction sunk into the minds of men, that a dark and infernal
confederacy had got foot-hold in the land, threatening to overthrow and
extirpate religion and morality, and establish the kingdom of the
Prince of darkness in a country which had been dedicated, by the
prayers and tears and sufferings of its pious fathers, to the Church of
Christ and the service and worship of the true God. The feeling, dismal
and horrible indeed, became general, that the providence of God was
removed from them; that Satan was let loose, and he and his
confederates had free and unrestrained power to go to and fro,
torturing and destroying whomever he willed. We cannot, by any extent
of research or power of imagination, enter fully into the ideas of the
people of that day; and it is there[ii.250]fore absolutely impossible
to appreciate the awful condition of the community at the point of time
to which our narrative has led us.
In the midst of this state of things, the old colony of Massachusetts
was transformed into a royal province, and a new government organized.
Sir William Phips, the governor, arrived at Boston, with the new
charter, on the evening of the 14th of May. William Stoughton, of
Dorchester, superseded Thomas Danforth as deputy-governor. In the
Council, which took the place of the Assistants, most of the former
body were retained. Bartholomew Gedney had a few years before been
dropped from the board of Assistants. He was now placed in the Council
with John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, Samuel Appleton, and Robert Pike,
of this county. The new government did not interfere with the
proceedings in progress relating to the witchcraft prosecutions, at the
moment. Examinations and commitments went on as before; only the
magistrates, acting on those occasions, were re-enforced by Mr. Gedney,
who presided at their sessions. The affair had become so formidable,
and the public infatuation had reached such a point, that it was
difficult to determine what ought to be done. Sir William Phips, no
doubt, felt that it was beyond his depth, and yielded himself to the
views of the leading men of his council. Stoughton was in full sympathy
with Cotton Mather, whose interest had been used in procuring his
appointment over Danforth. Through him, Mather acquired, and held for
some time, great as[ii.251]cendency with the governor. It was concluded
best to appoint a special court of Oyer and Terminer for the witchcraft
trials. Stoughton, the deputy-governor, was commissioned as
chief-justice. Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill; Major John Richards
of Boston; Major Bartholomew Gedney of Salem; Mr. Wait Winthrop,
Captain Samuel Sewall, and Mr. Peter Sargent, all three of Boston,—were
made associate judges. Saltonstall early withdrew from the service; and
Jonathan Corwin, of Salem, succeeded to his place on the bench of the
special court. A majority of the judges were citizens of Boston.
Jonathan Corwin had been associated with Hathorne in conducting the
examinations that have been described. He was a son of George Corwin,
who has been noticed in the account of Salem Village.
A shade of illegality rests upon the very existence of this special
court. There has always been a question whether the new charter gave to
the governor and council power to create it without the concurrence of
the House of Representatives. It has been held that such a court could
have no other lawful foundation than an act of the General Court.
Hutchinson was evidently of this opinion. This question was a very
serious one; for, as that considerate and able historian and eminent
judicial officer says, the tribunal that passed sentence in the
witchcraft prosecutions was "the most important court to the life of
the subject which was ever held in the province." The time required to
convene the popular branch of the[ii.252] government is itself, in all
cases, an element of safety. In this case, it would have carried the
country beyond the period of the delusion, and saved its annals from
their darkest and bloodiest page. The condition of things when he
arrived, had his counsellors been wise, would have led Sir William
Phips forthwith to issue writs of election of deputies, before taking
any action whatever. In a free republican government, the executive
department ought never to attempt to dispose of difficult matters of
vital importance without the joint deliberations and responsibility of
the representatives of the people.
So far as the composition of the court is considered, no objection can
be made. The justices were all members of the council, and belonged to
the highest order, not only of the magistracy, but of society
generally. They constituted as respectable a body of gentlemen as could
have been collected. Thomas Newton, of Boston, was commissioned to act
as attorney-general. The official title of marshal ceasing with the new
government, George Corwin was appointed sheriff of the county of Essex.
Herrick appears to have continued in the service as deputy. Sheriff
Corwin was twenty-six years of age. He was the grandson of the original
George Corwin, and the son of John. His mother was grand-daughter of
Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, and daughter of Governor Winthrop
of Connecticut. His wife was a daughter of Bartholomew Gedney; so that
it appears that two of the judges were his uncles, and one his[ii.253]
father-in-law. These personal connections may be borne in mind, as
affording ground to believe, that, in the discharge of his painful
duties, he did not act without advice and suggestions from the highest
quarter.
The court-house in which the trials were held stood in the middle of
what is now Washington Street, near where Lynde and Church Streets,
which did not then exist, now enter it, fronting towards Essex Street.
The building was also used as a town-house; Washington Street being,
for this reason, then called "Town-house Lane." Off against the
court-house, on the west side of the lane, was the house of the Rev.
Nicholas Noyes, on the site of the residence of the late Robert
Brookhouse. Opposite to it was the estate of Edward Bishop, which
fronted westerly on "Town-house Lane" a little over a hundred feet,
including the present Jeffrey Court, and extending a few feet beyond
the corner of the house of Dr. S.M. Cate, over a portion of Church
Street. Its depth, towards St. Peter Street, was about three hundred
and forty-five feet. Edward Bishop held this estate in the right of his
wife Bridget, the widow of Thomas Oliver who had died about 1679. Not
long after this marriage, Bishop removed to his farm at Royal Side. In
1685, the "old Oliver house" was either removed or rebuilt, and a new
one erected on the same premises, which was occupied by tenants in
1692. These items are given because they will help to illustrate the
narrative, and enable us to understand points of evidence in the
approaching trial. It is a curious[ii.254] circumstance, that the first
public victim of the prosecutions, Bridget Bishop, had been the nearest
neighbor and lived directly opposite, to the person who, more than any
other inhabitant of the town, was responsible for the blood that was
shed,—Nicholas Noyes. The jail, at that time, was on the western side
of Prison Lane, now St. Peter Street, north of the point where Federal
Street now enters it. The meeting-house stood on what has always been
the site of the First Church. The "Ship Tavern" was on ground the front
of which is occupied, at present, by "West's Block," nearly opposite
the head of Central Street. It had long been owned and kept by John
Gedney, Sr. Two of his sons, John and Bartholomew, had married Susanna
and Hannah Clarke. John died in 1685. His widow moved into the family
of her father-in-law; and, after his death in 1688, continued to keep
the house. In 1698 she was married to Deliverance Parkman, and died in
1728. The tavern, in 1692, was known as the "Widow Gedney's." The
estate had an extensive orchard in the rear, contiguous, along its
northern boundary, to the orchard of Bridget Bishop, which occupied
ground now covered by the Lyceum building, and one or two others to the
east of it.
The Court was opened at Salem in the first week of June, 1692. In the
mean time, the attorney-general, to prepare for the management of the
cases, came to Salem. He addressed the following letter to Isaac
Addington, Secretary of the province:[ii.255]—
"Salem, 31st May, 1692.
"Worthy Sir,—I have herewith sent you the names of the prisoners that
are desired to be transmitted by _habeas corpus_; and have presumed to
send you a copy thereof, being more, as I presume, accustomed to that
practice than yourself, and beg pardon if I have infringed upon you
therein. I fear we shall not this week try all that we have sent for;
by reason the trials will be tedious, and the afflicted persons cannot
readily give their testimonies, being struck dumb and senseless, for a
season, at the name of the accused. I have been all this day at the
Village, with the gentlemen of the council, at the examination of the
persons, where I have beheld strange things, scarce credible but to the
spectators, and too tedious here to relate; and, amongst the rest,
Captain Alden and Mr. English have their _mittimus_. I must say,
according to the present appearances of things, they are as deeply
concerned as the rest; for the afflicted spare no person of what
quality soever, neither conceal their crimes, though never so heinous.
We pray that Tituba the Indian, and Mrs. Thacher's maid, may be
transferred as evidence, but desire they may not come amongst the
prisoners but rather by themselves; with the records in the Court of
Assistants, 1679, against Bridget Oliver, and the records relating to
the first persons committed, left in Mr. Webb's hands by the order of
the council. I pray pardon that I cannot now further enlarge; and, with
my cordial service, only add that I am, sir, your most humble servant,
signature
[ii.256]
Hutchinson says that there was no colony or province law against
witchcraft in force when the trials began; and that the proceedings
were under an act of James the First, passed in 1603. By that act,
persons convicted were to be sentenced to "the pains and penalties of
death as felons." By the colonial law, conviction of capital crimes did
not incapacitate the party affected from disposing of property. In this
and other respects, there were points of difference, which caused some
inconvenience in carrying out the practice of the mother-country; and
the attorney-general had to supply the want of experience in the local
officers.
It may here be mentioned, that no record of the doings of this special
court are now to be found, and our only information respecting them is
obtained in brief and imperfect statements of writers of the time.
Perhaps Hutchinson had the use of the records. He gives the dates of
the several sessions of the courts, and of the conviction and execution
of the prisoners. Some of the depositions sworn to in court are on
file, but without giving in many instances the date when thus offered
in the trials. In some cases, they state when they were laid before the
grand jury. Only a small part of them are preserved. The matter they
contain was, to a considerable extent, brought forward at the
preliminary examinations, and has been already adduced. In the
following account of the trials, some further use will be made of these
depositions.
Bridget Bishop was the only person tried at the first session of the
Court. She was brought through[ii.257] Prison Lane, up Essex Street, by
the First Church, into Town-house Lane, to the Court-house. Cotton
Mather says,—
"There was one strange thing with which the court was newly
entertained. As this woman was under a guard, passing by the great and
spacious meeting-house, she gave a look towards the house; and
immediately a demon, invisibly entering the meeting-house, tore down a
part of it: so that, though there was no person to be seen there, yet
the people, at the noise, running in, found a board, which was strongly
fastened with several nails, transported into another quarter of the
house."
It is probable that the streets were thronged by crowds eager to get a
sight of the prisoner; and that the doors, fences, and house-tops were
occupied. Some, perhaps, got into the meeting-house; and, in clambering
up to the windows, a board may have been put in requisition, and left
misplaced. Incredible almost as it is, this circumstance seems, from
Mather's language,—"the court was entertained,"—to have been brought in
evidence at the trial, and regarded as weighty and conclusive proof of
Bridget's guilt.
One or two points in the evidence adduced against her, in addition to
those mentioned heretofore, deserve consideration. The position taken,
at her trial, by the Rev. John Hale of Beverly demands criticism. The
charge of witchcraft had been made against her on more than one
occasion before; particularly about the year 1687, when she resided
near the bounds of Beverly, at Royal Side. A woman in the
neighbor[ii.258]hood, subject to fits of insanity, had, while passing
into one of them, brought the accusation against her; but, on the
return of her reason, solemnly recanted, and deeply lamented the
aspersion. In a violent recurrence of her malady, this woman committed
suicide. Mr. Hale had examined the case at the time, and exonerated
Bridget Bishop, who was a communicant in his church, from the charge
made against her by the unhappy lunatic. He was satisfied, as he
states, that "Sister Bishop" was innocent, and in no way deserved to be
ill thought of. He hoped "better of said Goody Bishop at that time."
Without any pretence of new evidence touching the facts of the case, he
came into court in 1692, and related them, to the effect and with the
intent to make them bear against her. He described the appearance of
the throat of the woman, after death, as follows:—
"As to the wounds she died of, I observed three deadly ones; a piece of
her windpipe cut out, and another wound above that through the windpipe
and gullet, and the vein they call jugular. So that I then judged and
still do apprehend it impossible for her, with so short a pair of
scissors, to mangle herself so without some extraordinary work of the
Devil or witchcraft."
If this was his impression at the time, it is strange that he did not
then say so. But there is no appearance of any criminal proceedings
having been had, by the grand jury or otherwise, against "Sister
Bishop" on the occasion. On the contrary, Mr. Hale seems to have
acquiesced in the opinion, that the derangement of[ii.259] the woman
was aggravated, if not caused, by her being overmuch given to searching
and pondering upon the dark passages and mysterious imagery of
prophecy. The truth, in all probability, is, that Mr. Hale's suspicion
was an after-thought. The effect produced upon his mental condition by
the statements and actings of the "afflicted children" in 1692 was
unconsciously transferred to 1687. The delusion, in which he was then
fully participating, led him to put a different interpretation upon the
suicidal wounds and horrible end of the wretched maniac, five or six
years before.
A piece of evidence, which illustrates the state of opinion at that
time, relating to our subject, given in this case, is worthy of notice.
Samuel Shattuck was a hatter and dyer. His house was on the south side
of Essex Street, opposite the western entrance to the grounds of the
North Church. Before her removal to the village, Bridget Bishop was in
the habit of calling at Shattuck's to have articles of dress dyed. He
states that she treated him and his family politely and kindly; or, as
he characterized her deportment after his mind had become jaundiced
against her, "in a smooth and flattering manner." He tells his story in
a deposition written by him, and signed and sworn to in Court by
himself and wife, June 2, 1692. It is as follows:—
"Our eldest child, who promised as much health and understanding, both
by countenance and actions, as any other children of his years, was
taken in a very drooping[ii.260] condition; and, as she came oftener to
the house, he grew worse and worse. As he would be standing at the
door, would fall out, and bruise his face upon a great step-stone, as
if he had been thrust out by an invisible hand; oftentimes falling, and
hitting his face against the sides of the house, bruising his face in a
very miserable manner.... This child taken in a terrible fit, his mouth
and eyes drawn aside, and gasped in such a manner as if he was upon the
point of death. After this, he grew worse in his fits, and, out of
them, would be almost always crying. That, for many months, he would be
crying till nature's strength was spent, and then would fall asleep,
and then awake, and fall to crying and moaning; and that his very
countenance did bespeak compassion. And at length, we perceived his
understanding decayed: so that we feared (as it has since proved) that
he would be quite bereft of his wits; for, ever since, he has been
stupefied and void of reason, his fits still following of him. After he
had been in this kind of sickness some time, he has gone into the
garden, and has got upon a board of an inch thick, which lay flat upon
the ground, and we have called him; he would come to the edge of the
board, and hold out his hand, and make as if he would come, but could
not till he was helped off the board.... My wife has offered him a cake
and money to come to her; and he has held out his hand, and reached
after it, but could not come till he had been helped off the board, by
which I judge some enchantment kept him on.... Ever since, this child
hath been followed with grievous fits, as if he would never recover
more; his head and eyes drawn aside so as if they would never come to
rights more; lying as if he were, in a manner, dead; falling anywhere,
either into fire or water, if he be not constantly looked to; and,
generally, in such an uneasy,[ii.261] restless frame, almost always
running to and fro, acting so strange that I cannot judge otherwise but
that he is bewitched: and, by these circumstances, do believe that the
aforesaid Bridget Oliver—now called Bishop—is the cause of it: and it
has been the judgment of doctors, such as lived here and foreigners,
that he is under an evil hand of witchcraft."
The means used to give this direction to the suspicions of Shattuck and
his wife are described in the notice of Bridget Bishop, in the First
Part of this work.
Shattuck was a son of the sturdy Quaker of that name who, thirty years
before, had given the government of the colony so much trouble, and
seems to have inherited some of his notions. In his deposition, he
mentions, as corroborative proof of Bridget Bishop's being a witch,
that she used to bring to his dye-house "sundry pieces of lace," of
shapes and dimensions entirely outside of his conceptions of what could
be needed in the wardrobe, or for the toilet, of a plain and honest
woman. He evidently regarded fashionable and vain apparel as a snare
and sign of the Devil.
The imaginations of several persons in Shattuck's immediate
neighborhood seem to have been wrought up to a high point against
Bridget Bishop. John Cook lived on the south side of the street,
directly opposite the eastern entrance to the grounds of the North
Church, on its present site. John Bly's house was on a lot contiguous
to the rear of Cook's, fronting on Summer Street. One of Cook's sons
(John), aged eighteen, testified, that,[ii.262]—
"About five or six years ago, one morning about sun-rising, as I was in
bed, before I rose, I saw Goodwife Bishop, _alias_ Oliver, stand in the
chamber by the window: and she looked on me and grinned on me, and
presently struck me on the side of the head, which did very much hurt
me; and then I saw her go out under the end window at a little crevice,
about so big as I could thrust my hand into. I saw her again the same
day,—which was the sabbath-day,—about noon, walk across the room; and
having, at the time, an apple in my hand, it flew out of my hand into
my mother's lap, who sat six or eight foot distance from me, and then
she disappeared: and, though my mother and several others were in the
same room, yet they affirmed they saw her not."
Bly and his wife Rebecca had a difficulty with Bishop in reference to
payment for a hog they had bought of her. The following is from their
testimony at her trial. After stating that she came to their house and
quarrelled with them about it, they go on to say that the animal—
"was taken with strange fits, jumping up, and knocking her head against
the fence, and seemed blind and deaf, and would not eat, neither let
her pigs suck, but foamed at the mouth; which Goody Henderson, hearing
of, said she believed she was overlooked, and that they had their
cattle ill in such a manner at the Eastward, when they lived there, and
used to cure them by giving of them red ochre and milk, which we also
gave the sow. Quickly after eating of which, she grew better; and then,
for the space of near two hours together, she, getting into the street,
did set off, jumping and running between the house of said deponents
and said Bishop's, as if[ii.263] she were stark mad, and, after that,
was well again: and we did then apprehend or judge, and do still, that
said Bishop had bewitched said sow."
William Stacey testified, that, as he was "agoing to mill," meeting
Bishop in the street, some conversation passed between them, and that,—
"being gone about six rods from her, the said Bishop, with a small load
in his cart, suddenly the off-wheel slumped or sunk down into a hole
upon plain ground; that this deponent was forced to get one to help him
get the wheel out. Afterwards, this deponent went back to look for said
hole where his wheel sunk in, but could not find any hole."
Stacey further deposed, that, on another occasion, he—
"met the said Bishop by Isaac Stearns's brick-kiln. After he had passed
by her, this deponent's horse stood still with a small load going up
the hill; so that, the horse striving to draw, all his gears and
tackling flew in pieces, and the cart fell down."
These mishaps and marvels occurred in Summer Street, near the foot of
Chestnut Street, where the ground was then much lower than it is now.
Stacey was ascending the street, on his way through High Street to his
father's mill, at the South River.
Stacey concluded his testimony as follows:—
"This deponent hath met with several other of her pranks at several
times, which would take up a great time to tell of.
"This deponent doth verily believe that the said Bridget Bishop was
instrumental to his daughter Priscilla's death.[ii.264] About two years
ago, the child was a likely, thriving child; and suddenly screeched
out, and so continued, in an unusual manner, for about a fortnight, and
so died in that lamentable manner."
Many of the extraordinary "pranks," charged upon Bridget Bishop, had
their scene near to her dwelling-house. John Louder, a servant of John
Gedney, Sr., some years before, had a controversy with her about her
fowls, "that used to come into our orchard or garden." He swore as
follows:—