doctrines held at the time on the subject of witchcraft. Mrs. Ann
Putnam "testifieth and saith, that, on the first day of June, 1692,
the[ii.281] apparition of Rebecca Nurse did again fall upon me, and
almost choke me; and she told me, that, now she was come out of prison,
she had power to afflict me, and that now she would afflict me all this
day long." The reference here is probably to the fact, that, on the 1st
of June, she with many other prisoners was transferred from the jail in
Boston to that in Salem; and that, "all that day long" being outside of
prison walls, she had greater power to afflict than when chained in a
cell. This was undoubtedly the received opinion, and it is curiously
illustrated in the foregoing passage.
The only breath of disparagement against the character of Goodwife
Nurse that can be found in any of the papers is in the following
deposition:—
"The Deposition of Sarah Houlton, relict of Benjamin Houlton, deceased,
who testifieth and saith, that, about this time three years, my dear
and loving husband, Benjamin Houlton, deceased, was as well as ever I
knew him in my life till one Saturday morning, that Rebecca Nurse, who
now stands charged for witchcraft, came to our house, and fell a
railing at him because our pigs got into her field. Though our pigs
were sufficiently yoked, and their fence was down in several places,
yet all we could say to her could no ways pacify her; but she continued
railing and scolding a great while together, calling to her son Benj.
Nurse to go and get a gun and kill our pigs, and let none of them go
out of the field, though my poor husband gave her never a misbeholding
word. And, within a short time after this, my poor husband going out
very early in the morning, as he[ii.282] was coming in again, he was
taken with a strange fit in the entry; being struck blind and stricken
down two or three times, so that, when he came to himself, he told me
he thought he should never have come into the house any more. And, all
summer after, he continued in a languishing condition, being much
pained at his stomach, and often struck blind: but, about a fortnight
before he died, he was taken with strange and violent fits, acting much
like to our poor bewitched persons when we thought they would have
died; and the doctor that was with him could not find what his
distemper was. And, the day before he died, he was very cheerly; but,
about midnight, he was again most violently seized upon with violent
fits, till the next night, about midnight, he departed this life by a
cruel death.
"_Jurat in Curia._"
In explanation of the import of this testimony, it is to be observed,
that the estate of Benjamin Houlton was contiguous to that of Francis
Nurse. They were separated by a fence, which, as in such cases, was
required for half its length to be kept in order by one party, the
remaining half by the other. What the exact facts were cannot be
ascertained, as we have the story of one side only. The widow Houlton
appears to have been a tender-hearted, and, for aught we know, good
woman. Some years afterwards, she was married, as his second wife, to
Benjamin Putnam,—a very respectable person, and, on the death of his
father Nathaniel, the head of that branch of the family. He was, for
many years, deacon of the church. But she was, it must be conceded, a
prejudiced witness; and[ii.283] her judgment for the time was wholly
beclouded by the prevalent superstitions. The garden had been, from the
days of Townsend Bishop, a choice portion of the Nurse estate. In all
farms, it was a most important and valuable item; and was generally
under the special care and management of the wife, daughters, and
younger lads of the husbandman. Rebecca Nurse was an efficient
helpmeet; contributing her whole share to the success of the great
enterprise of clearing the estate, as well as in bringing up and
educating a large family. It was, no doubt, very provoking to her, as
it would be to any one, to have vegetable and flower beds devastated by
the ravages of a neighbor's stray pigs. To what extent her "railing and
scolding" went, she was not allowed to contribute her statement, to
enable us to judge. The affair probably produced considerable gossip,
and seems to be alluded to in Nathaniel Putnam's certificate in behalf
of Rebecca Nurse. There is reason to believe that the widow Houlton was
one of the first to realize what great injustice had been done by her
and others to the good name of Rebecca Nurse.
Notwithstanding this evidence, so deeply were the jury impressed with
the eminent virtue and true Christian excellence of this venerable
woman, that, in spite of the clamors of the outside crowd, the
monstrous statements of accusing witnesses, and the strong leaning of
the Court against her, the jury brought in a verdict of "Not guilty."
Calef, and Hutchinson after him, describe the effect, and what
followed:[ii.284]—
"Immediately, all the accusers in the Court, and, suddenly after, all
the afflicted out of Court, made an hideous outcry; to the amazement,
not only of the spectators, but the Court also seemed strangely
surprised. One of the judges expressed himself not satisfied: another
of them, as he was going off the bench, said they would have her
indicted anew. The chief-justice said he would not impose on the jury,
but intimated as if they had not well considered one expression of the
prisoner when she was upon trial; viz., that when one Hobbs, who had
confessed herself to be a witch, was brought into Court to witness
against her, the prisoner, turning her head to her, said, 'What! do you
bring her? She is one of us;' or words to that effect. This, together
with the clamors of the accusers, induced the jury to go out again,
after their verdict, 'Not guilty.'"
The foreman of the jury, Thomas Fisk, made this statement on the 4th of
July, a few days after the trial:—
"After the honored Court had manifested their dissatisfaction of the
verdict, several of the jury declared themselves desirous to go out
again, and thereupon the Court gave leave; but, when we came to
consider the case, I could not tell how to take her words as an
evidence against her, till she had a further opportunity to put her
sense upon them, if she would take it. And then, going into Court, I
mentioned the words aforesaid, which by one of the Court were affirmed
to have been spoken by her, she being then at the bar, but made no
reply nor interpretation of them; whereupon these words were to me a
principal evidence against her." [ii.285]
Upon being informed of the use made of her words, the prisoner put in
the following declaration:—
"These presents do humbly show to the honored Court and jury, that I
being informed that the jury brought me in guilty upon my saying that
Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter were of our company; but I intended no
otherwise than as they were prisoners with us, and therefore did then,
and yet do, judge them not legal evidence against their
fellow-prisoners. And I being something hard of hearing and full of
grief, none informing me how the Court took up my words, and therefore
had no opportunity to declare what I intended when I said they were of
our company."
It was perfectly natural for her to have spoken of them as "of our
company," not only from the fact that they had long been crowded
together in the same jails, but as they had accompanied each other in
the transferrence from one jail to another, from time to time. A few
days before, a large party, of which she was one, had been brought from
Boston, spending the whole day together on the route. Sarah Good, John
Procter and wife, Susanna Martin, Bridget Bishop, and Alice Parker
happen to be mentioned as belonging to it. Calef further states:—
"After her condemnation, the governor saw cause to grant a reprieve,
which, when known (and some say immediately upon granting), the
accusers renewed their dismal outcries against her; insomuch that the
governor was by some Salem gentlemen prevailed with to recall the
reprieve, and she was executed with the rest.[ii.286]
"The testimonials of her Christian behavior, both in the course of her
life and at her death, and her extraordinary care in educating her
children, and setting them a good example, under the hands of so many,
are so numerous, that for brevity they are here omitted."
The extraordinary conduct of "the Salem gentlemen," in preventing the
intended exercise of executive discretion and clemency on this
occasion, is explained, it is probable, by the fact, stated by Neal in
his "History of New England," that there was an organized association
of private individuals, a committee of vigilance, in Salem, during the
continuance of the delusion, who had undertaken to ferret out and
prosecute all suspected persons. He says that many were arrested and
thrown into prison by their influence and interference. It is hardly to
be doubted, that the persons who busied themselves to prevent the
reprieve of Rebecca Nurse acted under the authority and by the
direction of this self-constituted body of inquisitors. The agency of
such unauthorized and irresponsible combinations is always of
questionable expediency. When acting in the same line with an excited
populace, they are extremely dangerous.
There is no more disgraceful record in the judicial annals of the
country, than that which relates the trial of this excellent woman. The
wave of popular fury made a clear breach over the judgment-seat. The
loud and malignant outcry of an infatuated mob, inside and outside of
the Court-house, instead of being yielded to, ought to have been, not
only sternly rebuked, but[ii.287] visited with prompt and exemplary
punishment. The judges were not only overcome and intimidated from the
faithful discharge of their sacred duty by a clamoring crowd, but they
played into their hands. Hutchinson justly remarks, that their conduct
was in violation of that rule to execute "law and justice in mercy,"
which ought always to be written on their hearts. "In a capital case,
the Court often refuses a verdict of 'Guilty;' but rarely, if ever,
sends a jury out again upon one of 'Not guilty.'" The statement made by
the foreman of the jury, with the subsequent explanation of the
prisoner, taken in connection with the ground on which the
chief-justice sent the jury out again after rendering their verdict of
"Not guilty," made it the duty of the Court and the executive to give
to her the benefit of that verdict.
At the trial of her mother, Sarah Nurse—aged twenty-eight years or
thereabouts—offered this piece of testimony: that, "being in the Court,
this 29th of June, 1692, I saw Goodwife Bibber pull pins out of her
clothes, and held them between her fingers, and clasped her hands round
her knee; and then she cried out, and said, Goody Nurse pinched her."
In all these trials, Mercy Lewis was a principal witness and actor; yet
we find, among the papers, testimony from the most respectable and
reliable persons, that she was not to be trusted. There was also
testimony which ought to have broken the force of the depositions of
Ann Putnam and her mother. Four days after the examination and
commitment of Rebecca Nurse, John[ii.288] Tarbell and Samuel Nurse went
to the house of Thomas Putnam to find out in what way their mother had
been made the object of such shocking accusations. They were men whose
credibility was never brought in question. Their declarations, on this
occasion, were not disputed, and, if not true, might have been
overthrown; for there were many witnesses of the facts they stated.
Tarbell swore as follows: "Upon discourse of many things, I asked
whether the girl that was afflicted did first speak of Goody Nurse,
before others mentioned her to her. They said she told them she saw the
apparition of a pale-faced woman that sat in her grandmother's seat,
but did not know her name. Then I replied and said, 'But who was it
that told her that it was Goody Nurse?' Mercy Lewis said it was Goody
Putnam that said it was Goody Nurse. Goody Putnam said that it was
Mercy Lewis that told her. Thus they turned it upon one another,
saying, 'It was you,' and 'It was you that told her.'" Samuel Nurse
testified to the same.
There was another piece of evidence, which, though brought against
Rebecca Nurse, bears harder, as we read it now, upon Ann Putnam than
any one else, and makes it more difficult to palliate her conduct on
the supposition of partial insanity. It is, all along, one of the
obscure problems of our subject to determine how far delusion may have
been accompanied by fraud and imposture. Edward Putnam testified, that
"Ann Putnam, Jr., was bitten by Rebecca Nurse, as she said, about two
of the clock of the day" after Rebecca[ii.289] Nurse had been committed
to jail, and while she was several miles distant, in Salem; and the
said Nurse also struck said Ann Putnam with her spectral chain, leaving
a mark, "being in a kind of a round ring, and three streaks across the
ring: she had six blows with a chain in the space of half an hour; and
she had one remarkable one, with six streaks across her arm." Edward
Putnam swears, "I saw the mark, both of bite and chains." The Court, no
doubt, were solemnly impressed by this amazing evidence; but it is hard
to avoid the conclusion that Ann Putnam was guilty of elaborate
falsehood and a studied trick.
In the trials at this session, one of the "afflicted children" cried
out against the Rev. Samuel Willard, of the Old South Church, in
Boston. "She was sent out of Court, and it was told about that she was
mistaken in the person." There was surely evidence enough against the
honesty and credibility of the accusers to leave the judges without
excuse, and justly meriting perpetual condemnation for not paying heed
to it.
The case of Rebecca Nurse proves that a verdict could not have been
obtained against a person of her character charged with witchcraft in
this county, had not the most extraordinary efforts been made by the
prosecuting officer, aided by the whole influence of the Court and
provincial authorities. The odium of the proceedings at the trials and
at the executions cannot fairly be laid upon Salem, or the people of
this vicinity.[ii.290]
But nothing can extenuate the infamy that must for ever rest upon the
names of certain parties to the proceedings. Not to attempt here to
measure the guilt of the accusing witnesses, it may be mentioned that
it was the deliberate conviction of the family of Rebecca Nurse, that
Mr. Parris, more than all other persons, was responsible for her
execution; whether by his officious activity in driving on the
prosecution, or in preventing her reprieve, cannot be known. Of the
prominent part taken by Mr. Noyes in the cruel treatment of this woman,
there is no room for doubt. The records of the First Church in Salem
are darkened by the following entry:—
"1692, July 3.—After sacrament, the elders propounded to the
church,—and it was, by an unanimous vote, consented to,—that our sister
Nurse, being a convicted witch by the Court, and condemned to die,
should be excommunicated; which was accordingly done in the afternoon,
she being present."
The scene presented on this occasion must have been truly impressive at
the time, as it is shocking to us in the retrospect. The action of the
church, at the close of the morning service, of course became
universally known; and the "great and spacious meeting-house" was
thronged by a crowd that filled every nook and corner of its floor,
galleries, and windows. The sheriff and his subordinates brought in the
prisoner, manacled, and the chains clanking from her aged form. She was
placed in the broad aisle. Mr.[ii.291] Higginson and Mr. Noyes—the
elders, as the clergy were then called—were in the pulpit. The two
ruling elders—who were lay officers—and the two deacons were in their
proper seats, directly below and in front of the pulpit. Mr. Noyes
pronounced the dread sentence, which, for such a crime, was then
believed to be not merely an expulsion from the church on earth, but an
exclusion from the church in heaven. It was meant to be understood as
an eternal doom. As it had been proved, in his estimation, beyond a
question, that she had given her soul to the Devil, he delivered her
over to the great adversary of God and man.
From the dismal cell, which, for but a few days longer, was to hold her
body, he proclaimed the transferrence of her soul to—
"A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible;
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end,
As far removed from God, and light of heaven,
As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole."
Language and imagery, exhausting the resources of the divine genius of
the greatest of poets, fail to give expression to what was felt to be
the import of this fearful sentence. It sunk the recipient of it below
the reach of human sympathy. She was regarded, by that blinded
multitude, with a horror that cast out pity, and was full of hate. But
in our view now, and, as we believe, in the view of God and angels
then, she[ii.292] occupied an infinite height above her persecutors.
Her mind was serenely fixed upon higher scenes, and filled with a peace
which the world could not take away, or its cruel wrongs disturb. She
went back to her prison walls, and then to the scaffold, with a pious
and humble faith which has not failed to be recorded among men, as it
has been rewarded where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest.
Calef, as already quoted, gives the impression produced by her demeanor
at her death. Hutchinson expresses in the following words the judgment
of history and the sense of all coming times:—
"Mr. Noyes, the minister of Salem, a zealous prosecutor, excommunicated
the poor old woman, and delivered her to Satan, to whom he supposed she
had formally given herself up many years before; but her life and
conversation had been such, that the remembrance thereof, in a short
time after, wiped off all the reproach occasioned by the civil or
ecclesiastical sentence against her."
It is impossible to close the story of the lot assigned to this good
woman by an inscrutable Providence, without again contemplating it in a
condensed recapitulation. In her old age, experiencing a full share of
all the delicate infirmities which the instincts of humanity require to
be treated with careful and reverent tenderness, she was ruthlessly
snatched from the bosom of a loving family reared by her pious fidelity
in all Christian graces, from the side of the devoted companion of her
long life, from a home that was endeared[ii.293] by every grateful
association and comfort; immured in the most wretched and crowded
jails; kept loaded with irons and bound with cords for months; insulted
and maligned at the preliminary examinations; outraged in her person by
rough and unfeeling handling and scrutiny; and in her rights, by the
most flagrant and detestable judicial oppression, by which the benefit
of a verdict, given in her favor, had been torn away; carried to the
meeting-house to receive the sentence of excommunication in a manner
devised to harrow her most sacred sentiments; and finally carted
through the streets by a route every foot of which must have been
distressing to her infirm and enfeebled frame; made to ascend a rough
and rocky path to the place of execution, and there consigned to the
hangman. Surely, there has seldom been a harder fate.
Her body was probably thrown with the rest into a hole in the crevices
of the rock, and covered hastily and thinly over by the executioners.
It has been the constant tradition of the family, that, in some way, it
was recovered; and the spot is pointed out in the burial-place
belonging to the estate, where her ashes rest by the side of her
husband, and in the midst of her children. It is certain, that, at
least, one other body was thus exhumed, and taken to its own proper
place of burial. From the known character of Francis Nurse and his sons
and sons-in-law, we may be sure that what others could do they did not
suffer to remain undone. It is left to the imagination to present the
details of the sad and secret enterprise. In the[ii.294] darkness of
midnight, they found and identified the body, and bore it tenderly in
their arms along the silent roads and by-ways, across fields and over
fences, to the old home, where it was received by the assembled family,
mourned over, and cared for; and, during that or the ensuing night,
deposited, with tears and prayers, in their own consecrated grounds.
Her descendants of successive generations owned and reverently guarded
the spot. They own and guard it to-day. The interesting reminiscences
connected with the early history of the Nurse house have been alluded
to. It has witnessed an extraordinary variety of the conditions of
domestic vicissitude. Scenes rising before the mind in contemplative
retrospection, while gazing upon it, present the extremest contrasts of
human experience. On the evening of the 25th of October, 1678, Mary and
Elizabeth Nurse were married. Such an occurrence was undoubtedly the
occasion of the highest joy and gladness in a happy household. The old
mansion shone in light, and echoed voices of cheer. How altered its
aspect! What darkness and silence brooded over and within it, while
those same daughters waited, watched, and listened, through the solemn
hours of that night of woe and horror, for the coming of their father,
husbands, and brothers, bearing to the home, from which she had been so
cruelly torn, the remains of their slaughtered mother!
The subsequent history of the house presents a circumstance of singular
interest in connection with[ii.295] our story. All the members of the
three branches of the Putnam family, with the exception of Joseph, seem
to have been carried away by the witchcraft delusion, in its early
stages, and were more or less active in pushing on the prosecutions. We
have seen how fierce was the maniac testimony of Mrs. Ann Putnam and
her daughter against Rebecca Nurse. The lapse of time, by a Providence
that wonderfully works its ends, has repaired the breaches made by
folly and wrong. The descendants of the numerous family of Mrs. Ann
Putnam have disappeared from the scene: none of them bearing the name
are in the village. The descendants of Deacon Edward Putnam have also
scattered in emigration to other places. Nathaniel and John, the heads
of the other two branches of the family, although involved in the
witchcraft delusion, each signed papers in favor of Rebecca Nurse;
their descendants, as well as those of Joseph, are still numerous in
the village, hold their old position of respectability and influence,
and many of them occupy the lands of their ancestors. Stephen, the
grandson of Nathaniel, married Miriam, the grand-daughter of John.
Their son Phinehas, in 1784, bought the Nurse homestead from Benjamin
Nurse, the great-grandson of Rebecca. Orin Putnam, the great-grandson
of Phinehas, to whom the estate descends, married in 1836 the daughter
of Allen Nurse, a direct descendant of Rebecca, and placed her at the
head of her old ancestral homestead. The children of that marriage,
with their father and grandfather, constitute the family[ii.296] that
dwell in and own the venerable mansion. This singular restoration,
suggesting such pleasing sentiments, adds another to the remarkable
elements of interest belonging to the history of the Townsend-Bishop
House.
The descendants of Francis and Rebecca Nurse are numerous, and have
honorably perpetuated the name. Among them may be mentioned the Rev.
Peter Nurse, a graduate of Harvard College in 1802, for some years
librarian of that institution, an excellent scholar, and long
universally respected as a clergyman; and Amos Nurse, a graduate of the
same college in 1812,—an eminent physician connected with the medical
faculty of Bowdoin College, a man of distinguished talent and influence
in public affairs, and senator in Congress from the State of Maine.