Phips, and to the Honored Judge and Bench now sitting in Judicature in
Salem, and the Reverend Ministers, humbly showeth_, that, whereas your
poor and humble petitioner, being condemned to die, do humbly beg of
you to take it in your judicious and pious consideration, that your
poor and humble petitioner, knowing my own innocency, blessed be the
Lord for it! and seeing plainly the wiles and subtilty of my accusers
by myself, cannot but judge charitably of others that are going the
same way of myself, if the Lord steps not mightily in. I was confined a
whole month upon the same account that I am condemned[ii.328] now for,
and then cleared by the afflicted persons, as some of Your Honors know.
And in two days' time I was cried out upon them, and have been
confined, and now am condemned to die. The Lord above knows my
innocency then, and likewise does now, as at the great day will be
known to men and angels. I petition to Your Honors not for my own life,
for I know I must die, and my appointed time is set; but the Lord he
knows it is that, if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be
shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go
in. I question not but Your Honors do to the utmost of your powers in
the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches, and would not be
guilty of innocent blood for the world. But, by my own innocency, I
know you are in the wrong way. The Lord in his infinite mercy direct
you in this great work, if it be his blessed will that no more innocent
blood be shed! I would humbly beg of you, that Your Honors would be
pleased to examine these afflicted persons strictly, and keep them
apart some time, and likewise to try some of these confessing witches;
I being confident there is several of them, has belied themselves and
others, as will appear, if not in this world, I am sure in the world to
come, whither I am now agoing. I question not but you will see an
alteration of these things. They say myself and others having made a
league with the Devil, we cannot confess. I know, and the Lord knows,
as will ... appear, they belie me, and so I question not but they do
others. The Lord above, who is the Searcher of all hearts, knows, as I
shall answer it at the tribunal seat, that I know not the least thing
of witchcraft; therefore I cannot, I dare not, belie my own soul. I beg
Your Honors not to deny this my humble petition from a poor, dying,
innocent person. And I question not but the Lord will give a blessing
to your endeavors." [ii.329]
The parting interview of this admirable woman with her husband,
children, and friends, as she was about proceeding to the place of
execution, is said to have been a most solemn, affecting, and truly
sublime scene. Calef says that her farewell communications, on this
occasion, were reported, by persons who listened to them, to have been
"as serious, religious, distinct, and affectionate as could well be
expressed, drawing tears from the eyes of almost all present."
Ann Pudeator had been formerly the wife of a person named Greenslitt,
who left her with five children. Her subsequent husband, Jacob
Pudeator, died in 1682, and by will gave her his whole estate, after
the payment of legacies, of five pounds each, to her Greenslitt
children, who appear to have been living in 1692 at Casco Bay. These
provisions, as well as the expressions used by Pudeator, indicate that
he regarded her with affection and esteem. The following document is
all that we know else of her character particularly, except that she
was a kind neighbor, and ever prompt in offices of charity and
sympathy.
"_The Humble Petition of Ann Pudeator unto the Honored Judge and Bench
now sitting in Judicature in Salem, humbly showeth_, that, whereas your
poor and humble petitioner, being condemned to die, and knowing in my
own conscience, as I shall shortly answer it before the great God of
heaven, who is the Searcher and Knower of all hearts, that the evidence
of Jno. Best, Sr., and Jno. Best, Jr., and Samuel Pickworth, which was
given in against me in Court, were all of them altogether false and
untrue, and, besides the[ii.330] abovesaid Jno. Best hath been formerly
whipped and likewise is recorded for a liar. I would humbly beg of Your
Honors to take it into your judicious and pious consideration, that my
life may not be taken away by such false evidences and witnesses as
these be; likewise, the evidence given in against me by Sarah Churchill
and Mary Warren I am altogether ignorant of, and know nothing in the
least measure about it, nor nothing else concerning the crime of
witchcraft, for which I am condemned to die, as will be known to men
and angels at the great day of judgment. Begging and imploring your
prayers at the Throne of Grace in my behalf, and your poor and humble
petitioner shall for ever pray, as she is bound in duty, for Your
Honors' health and happiness in this life, and eternal felicity in the
world to come."
Abigail, the wife of Francis Faulkner, and daughter of the Rev. Francis
Dane, of Andover, who was among those sentenced on the 17th of
September, had been examined, on the 11th of August, by Hathorne,
Corwin, and Captain John Higginson, sitting as magistrates. Upon the
prisoner's being brought in, the afflicted fell down, and went into
fits, as usual. The magistrates asked the prisoner what she had to say.
She replied, "I know nothing of it." The girls then renewed their
performances, declaring that her shape was at that moment torturing
them. The magistrates asked her if she did not see their sufferings.
She answered, "Yes; but it is the Devil does it in my shape." Ann
Putnam said that her spectre had afflicted her a few days before,
pulling her off her horse.[ii.331] Upon the touch of her person, the
sufferings of the afflicted would cease for a time. The prisoner held a
handkerchief in her hand. The girls would screech out, declaring that,
as she pressed the handkerchief, they were dreadfully squeezed. She
threw the handkerchief on the table; and they said, "There are the
shapes of Daniel Eames and Captain Floyd [two persons then in prison on
the charge of witchcraft] sitting on her handkerchief." Mary Warren
enacted the part of being dragged against her will under the table by
an invisible hand, from whose grasp she was at once released, upon the
prisoner's being made to touch her. Notwithstanding all this, she
protested her innocence, and was remanded to jail. On the 30th, she was
brought out again. In the mean while, six had been executed. The usual
means were employed to break her down; but all that was gained was,
that she owned she had expressed her indignation at the conduct of the
afflicted, and was much excited against them "for bringing her kindred
out, and she did wish them ill: and, her spirit being raised, she did
pinch her hands together, and she knew not but that the Devil might
take that advantage; but it was the Devil, and not she, that afflicted
them." This was the only concession she would make; and they were
puzzled to determine whether it was a confession, or not,—it having
rather the appearance of clearing herself from all implication with the
Devil, and leaving him on their hands—at any rate, they concluded to
regard it in the latter sense; and she was[ii.332] duly convicted, and
sentenced to death. Sir William Phips ordered a reprieve; and, after
she had been thirteen weeks in prison, he directed her to be discharged
on the ground of insufficient evidence. This, I think, is the only
instance of a special pardon granted during the proceedings.
Samuel Wardwell, like most of the accused belonging to Andover, had
originally joined the crowd of the confessors; but he was too much of a
man to remain in that company. He took back his confession, and met his
death. While he was speaking to the people, at the gallows, declaring
his innocency, a puff of tobacco-smoke from the pipe of the
executioner, as Calef informs us, "coming in his face, interrupted his
discourse: those accusers said that the Devil did hinder him with
smoke." The wicked creatures followed their victims to the last with
their malignant outrages. The cart that carried the prisoners, on this
occasion, to the hill, "was for some time at a set: the afflicted and
others said that the Devil hindered it," &c.
The route by which they were conveyed from the jail, which was at the
north corner of Federal and St. Peter's Streets, to the gallows, must
have been a cruelly painful and fatiguing one, particularly to infirm
and delicate persons, as many of them were. It was through St. Peter's,
up the whole length of Essex, and thence probably along Boston Street,
far towards Aborn Street; for the hill could only be ascended from that
direction. It must have been a rough and jolting[ii.333] operation; and
it is not strange that the cart got "set." It seems that the prisoners
were carried in a single cart. It was a large one, provided probably
for the occasion; and it is not unlikely that the reason why some who
had been condemned were not executed, was that the cart could not hold
them all at once. They were executed, one in June, five in July, five
in August, and eight in September, with the intention, no doubt, by
taking them in instalments, to extend the acts of the tragedy, from
month to month, indefinitely.
It was necessary for the safety of the accusers and prosecutors to
prevent a revulsion of the public mind, or even the least diminution of
the popular violence against the supposed witches. As they all
protested their innocence to the moment of death, and exhibited a
remarkably Christian deportment throughout the dreadful scenes they
were called to encounter from their arrest to their execution, there
was reason to apprehend that the people would gradually be led to feel
a sympathy for them, if not to entertain doubts of their guilt. To
prevent this, and remove any impressions favorable to them that might
be made by the conduct and declarations of the convicts, the
prosecutors were on the alert. After the prisoners had been swung off,
on the 22d of September, "turning him to the bodies, Mr. Noyes said,
'What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging
there!'" It was the last time his eyes were regaled by such a sight.
There were no more executions on Witch Hill.[ii.334]
Three days before, a life had been taken by the officers of the law in
a manner so extraordinary, and marked by features so shocking, that
they find no parallel in the annals of America, and will continue to
arrest for ever the notice of mankind. The history and character of old
Giles Corey have been given in preceding parts of this work. The only
papers relating to him, on file as having been sworn to before the
Grand Jury, are a few brief depositions. If he had been put on trial,
we might have had more. Elizabeth Woodwell testifies, that "she saw
Giles Corey at meeting at Salem on a lecture-day, since he has been in
prison. He or his apparition came in, and sat in the middlemost seat of
the men's seats, by the post. This was the lecture-day before Bridget
Bishop was hanged. And I saw him come out with the rest of the people."
Mary Walcot, of course, swore to the same. And Mary Warren swore that
Corey was hostile to her and afflicted her, because he thought she
"caused her master (John Procter) to ask more for a piece of meadow
than he (Corey) was willing to give." She also charged him with
"afflicting of her" by his spectre while he was in prison, and
"described him in all his garments, both of hat, coat, and the color of
them,—with a cord about his waist and a white cap on his head, and in
chains." There is reason to believe, that, while in prison, he
experienced great distress of mind. Although he had been a rough
character in earlier life, and given occasion to much scandal by his
disregard of public opinion, he always exhibited symp[ii.335]toms of a
generous and sensitive nature. His foolish conduct in becoming so
passionately engaged in the witchcraft proceedings, at their earliest
stage, as to be incensed against his wife because she did not approve
of or believe in them, and which led him to utter sentiments and
expressions that had been used against her; and so far yielding to the
accusers as to allow them to get from him the deposition, which, while
it failed to satisfy their demands, it was shameful for him to have
been persuaded to give,—all these things, which after his own
apprehension and imprisonment he had leisure to ponder upon, preyed on
his mind. He saw the awful character of the delusion to which he had
lent himself; that it had brought his prayerful and excellent wife to
the sentence of death, which had already been executed upon many other
devout and worthy persons. He knew that he was innocent of the crime of
witchcraft, and was now satisfied that all others were. Besides his own
unfriendly course towards his wife, two of his four sons-in-law had
turned against her. One (Crosby) had testified, and another (Parker)
had allowed his name to be used, as an adverse witness. In view of all
this, Corey made up his mind, determined on his course, and stood to
that determination. He resolved to expiate his own folly by a fate that
would satisfy the demands of the sternest criticism upon his conduct;
proclaim his abhorrence of the prosecutions; and attest the strength of
his feelings towards those of his children who had been false, and
those who had been true, to his wife.[ii.336] He caused to be drawn up
what has been called a will, although it is in reality a deed, and was
duly recorded as such. Its phraseology is very strongly guarded, and
made to give it clear, full, and certain effect. It begins thus: "Know
ye, &c., that I, Giles Corey, lying under great trouble and affliction,
through which I am very weak in body, but in perfect memory,—knowing
not how soon I may depart this life; in consideration of which, and for
the fatherly love and affection which I have and do bear unto my
beloved son-in-law, William Cleeves, of the town of Beverly, and to my
son-in-law, John Moulton, of the town of Salem, as also for divers
other good causes and considerations me at the present especially
moving;" and proceeds to convey and confirm all his property—"lands,
meadow, housing, cattle, stock, movables and immovables, money,
apparel, ... and all other the aforesaid premises, with their
appurtenances"—to the said Cleeves and Moulton "for ever, freely and
quietly, without any manner of challenge, claim, or demand of me the
said Giles Corey, or of any other person or persons whatsoever for me
in my name, or by my cause, means, or procurement;" and, in the use of
all the language applicable to that end, he warrants and binds himself
to defend the aforesaid conveyance and grant to Cleeves and Moulton,
their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns for ever. The
document was properly signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
competent witnesses, whose several signatures are indorsed to that
effect. It was duly acknowledged[ii.337] before "Thomas Wade, Justice
of the Peace in Essex," and recorded forthwith. This transaction took
place in the jail at Ipswich.
His whole property being thus securely conveyed to his faithful
sons-in-law, and placed beyond the reach of his own weakness or change
of purpose, Corey resolved on a course that would surely try to the
utmost the power of human endurance and firmness. He knew, that, if
brought to trial, his death was certain. He did not know but that
conviction and execution, through the attainder connected with it,
might invalidate all attempts of his to convey his property. But it was
certain, that, if he should not be brought to trial and conviction, his
deed would stand, and nothing could break it, or defeat its effect. He
accordingly made up his mind not to be tried. When called into court to
answer to the indictment found by the Grand Jury, he did not plead
"Guilty," or "Not guilty," but stood mute. How often he was called
forth, we are not informed; but nothing could shake him. No power on
earth could unseal his lips.
He knew that he could have no trial that would deserve the name. To
have pleaded "Not guilty" would have made him, by his own act, a party
to the proceeding, and have been, by implication, an assent to putting
his case to the decision of a blind, maddened, and utterly perverted
tribunal. He would not, by any act or utterance of his, leave his case
with "the country" represented by a jury that embodied the passions of
the deluded and infatuated multitude[ii.338] around him. He knew that
the gates of justice were closed, and that truth had fled from the
scene. He would have no part nor lot in the matter; refused to
recognize the court, made no response to its questions, and was dumb in
its presence. He stands alone in the resolute defiance of his attitude.
He knew the penalty of suffering and agony he would have to pay; but he
freely and fearlessly encountered it. All that was needed to carry his
point was an unconquerable firmness, and he had it. He rendered it
impossible to bring him to trial; and thereby, in spite of the power
and wrath of the whole country and its authorities, retained his right
to dispose of his property; and bore his testimony against the
wickedness and folly of the hour in tones that reached the whole world,
and will resound through all the ages.
When Corey took this ground, the Court found itself in a position of no
little difficulty, and was probably at a loss what to do. No
information has come to us of the details of the proceedings. If the
usages in England on such occasions were adopted, the prisoner was
three times brought before the Court, and called to plead; the
consequences of persisting in standing mute being solemnly announced to
him at each time. If he remained obdurate, the sentence of _peine forte
et dure_ was passed upon him; and, remanded to prison, he was put into
a low and dark apartment. He would there be laid on his back on the
bare floor, naked for the most part. A weight of iron would be placed
upon him, not quite enough to crush him. He[ii.339] would have no
sustenance, save only, on the first day, three morsels of the worst
bread; and, on the second day, three draughts of standing water that
should be nearest to the prison door: and, in this situation, such
would be alternately his daily diet till he died, or till he answered.
The object of this terrible punishment was to induce the prisoner to
plead to the indictment; upon doing which, he would be brought to trial
in the ordinary way. The motive that led prisoners to stand mute in
England is stated to have been, most generally, to save their property
from confiscation. The practice of putting weights upon them, and
gradually increasing them, was to force them, by the slowly increasing
torture, to yield.
How far the English practice was imitated in the case of Corey will
remain for ever among the dread secrets of his prison-house. The
tradition is, that the last act in the tragedy was in an open field
near the jail, somewhere between Howard-street Burial Ground and Brown
Street. It is said that Corey urged the executioners to increase the
weight which was crushing him, that he told them it was of no use to
expect him to yield, that there could be but one way of ending the
matter, and that they might as well pile on the rocks. Calef says,
that, as his body yielded to the pressure, his tongue protruded from
his mouth, and an official forced it back with his cane. Some persons
now living remember a popular superstition, lingering in the minds of
some of the more ignorant class, that Corey's ghost haunted the grounds
where this barbar[ii.340]ous deed was done; and that boys, as they
sported in the vicinity, were in the habit of singing a ditty beginning
thus:—
"'More weight! more weight!'
Giles Corey he cried."
For a person of more than eighty-one years of age, this must be allowed
to have been a marvellous exhibition of prowess; illustrating, as
strongly as any thing in human history, the power of a resolute will
over the utmost pain and agony of body, and demonstrating that Giles
Corey was a man of heroic nerve, and of a spirit that could not be
subdued.
It produced a deep effect, as it was feared that it would. The bearing
of all the sufferers at all the stages of the proceedings, and at their
execution, had told in their favor; but the course of Giles Corey
profoundly affected the public mind. This must have been noticed by the
managers of the prosecutions; and they felt that some extraordinary
expedient was necessary to renew, and render more intense than ever,
the general infatuation. From the very beginning, there had been great
skill and adroitness in arranging the order of incidents, and supplying
the requisite excitements at the right moments and the right points.
Some persons—it can only be conjectured who—had, all along, been behind
the scenes, giving direction and materials to the open actors. This
unseen power was in the village; and the movements it devised generally
proceeded from Thomas Putnam's house, or the parsonage. It was on hand
to meet the contingency[ii.341] created by Corey's having actually
carried out to the last his resolution to meet a form of death that
would, if any thing could, cause a re-action in the public mind; and
the following stratagem was contrived to turn the manner of his death
into the means of more than ever blinding and infatuating the people.
It was the last and one of the most artful strokes of policy by the
prosecutors. On the day after the death of Corey, and two days before
the execution of his wife, Mary Easty, and the six others, Judge
Sewall, then in Salem, received a letter from Thomas Putnam to this
effect:—
"Last night, my daughter Ann was grievously tormented by witches,
threatening that she should be pressed to death before Giles Corey;
but, through the goodness of a gracious God, she had at last a little
respite. Whereupon there appeared unto her (she said) a man in a
winding-sheet, who told her that Giles Corey had murdered him by
pressing him to death with his feet; but that the Devil there appeared
unto him, and covenanted with him, and promised him that he should not
be hanged. The apparition said God hardened his heart, that he should
not hearken to the advice of the Court, and so die an easy death;
because, as it said, it must be done to him as he has done to me. The
apparition also said that Giles Corey was carried to the Court for
this, and that the jury had found the murder; and that her father knew
the man, and the thing was done before she was born."
Cotton Mather represented this vision, made to Ann Putnam, as proof
positive of a divine communication to her, because, as he says, she
could not have received[ii.342] her information from a human source, as
everybody had forgotten the affair long ago; and that she never could
have heard of it, happening, as it did, before she was born. Bringing
up this old matter to meet the effect produced by Corey's death was
indeed a skilful move; and it answered its purpose probably to a
considerable extent. The man whom Corey was thus charged with having
murdered seventeen years before died in a manner causing some gossip at
the time; and a coroner's jury found that he had been "bruised to
death, having clodders of blood about the heart." Bringing the affair
back to the public mind, with the story of Ann Putnam's vision, was
well calculated to meet and check any sympathy that might threaten to
arise in favor of Corey. But the trick, however ingenious, will not
stand the test of scrutiny. Mather's statement that everybody had
forgotten the transaction, and that Ann could only have known of it
supernaturally, is wholly untenable; for it was precisely one of those
things that are never forgotten in a country village: it had always
been kept alive as a part of the gossip of the neighborhood in
connection with Corey; and her own father, as is unwittingly
acknowledged, knew the man, and all about it. Of course, the girl had
heard of it from him and others. The industry that had ransacked the
traditions and collected the scandal of the whole country, far and
near, for stories that were brought in evidence against all the
prisoners, had not failed to pick up this choice bit against Corey. The
only reason why it had not[ii.343] before been brought out was because
he had not been on trial. The man who died with "clodders of blood
about his heart," seventeen years before, was an unfortunate and
worthless person, who had incurred punishment for his misconduct while
a servant on Corey's farm, and afterwards at the hands of his own
family: and he does not appear to have mended his morals upon passing
into the spiritual world; for the statement of his ghost to Ann Putnam,
that the jury had found Corey guilty of murder, and that the Court was
hindered by some enchantment from proceeding against him, is disproved
by the record which is—as has been mentioned in the First Part, vol. i.
p. 185—that the man was carried back to his house by Corey's wife, and
died there some time after; and the Court did no more than fine Corey
for the punishment he had inflicted upon him while in his service, and
which the evidence showed was repeated by his parents after his return
to his own family.
Thomas Putnam's letter and Ann's vision were the last things of the
kind that occurred. The delusion was approaching its close, and the
people were beginning to be restored to their senses.
When it became known that Corey's resolution was likely to hold out,
and that no torments or cruelties of any kind could subdue his firm and
invincible spirit, Mr. Noyes hurried a special meeting of his church on
a week-day, and had the satisfaction of dealing the same awful doom
upon him as upon Rebecca Nurse. The entry in the record of the First
Church is as follows:[ii.344]—
"Sept. 18, G. Corey was excommunicated: the cause of it was, that he
being accused and indicted for the sin of witchcraft, he refused to
plead, and so incurred the sentence and penalty of _pain fort dure_;
being undoubtedly either guilty of the sin of witchcraft, or of
throwing himself upon sudden and certain death, if he were otherwise
innocent."