avoid the reproach of having been active in carrying on the delusion in
Salem and elsewhere, and, at the same time, to keep up such a degree of
credulity and superstition in the minds of the people as to render it
easy to plunge them into it again at the first favorable moment. In the
following passages, he endeavors to escape the odium that had been
connected with the prosecutions:—
"The world knows how many pages I have composed and published, and
particular gentlemen in the government know how many letters I have
written, to prevent the excessive credit of spectral accusations.
"In short, I do humbly but freely affirm it, that there is not a man
living in this world, who has been more desirous than the poor man I to
shelter my neighbors from the inconveniences of spectral outcries: yea,
I am very jealous I have done so much that way as to sin in what I have
done; such have been the cowardice and fearfulness whereunto my regard
unto the dissatisfaction of other people has precipitated me. I know a
man in the world, who has thought he has been able to convict some such
witches as ought to die; but his respect unto the public peace has
caused him rather to try whether he could not renew them by
repentance."
In his Life of Sir William Phips, he endeavors to take the credit to
himself of having doubted the propriety of the proceedings while they
were in progress. This work was published without his name, in order
that he might commend himself with more freedom. The advice given by
the ministers of Boston and the vicinity to the government has been
spoken of. Cotton Mather frequently took occasion to applaud and
magnify the merit of this production. In one of his writings, he speaks
of "the gracious words" it contained. In his Life of Phips, he thus
modestly takes the credit of its authorship to himself: it was "drawn
up, at their (the ministers') desire, by Mr. Mather the younger, as I
have been informed." And, in order the more effectually to give the
impression that he was rather opposed to the proceedings, he quotes
those portions of the paper which recommended caution and
circumspection, leaving out those other passages in which it was
vehemently urged to carry the proceedings on "speedily and vigorously."
This single circumstance is decisive of the disingenuity of Dr. Mather.
As it was the purpose of the government, in requesting the advice of
the ministers, to ascertain their opinion of the expediency of
continuing the prosecutions, it was a complete and deliberate
perversion and falsification of their answer to omit the passages which
encouraged the proceedings, and to record those only which recommended
caution and circumspection. The object of Mather in suppressing the
important parts of the document has, however, in some measure been
answered. As the "Magnalia," within which his Life of Phips is
embraced, is the usual and popular source of information and reference
respecting the topics of which it treats, the opinion has prevailed,
that the Boston ministers, especially "Mr. Mather the younger,"
endeavored to prevent the transactions connected with the trial and
execution of the supposed witches. Unfortunately, however, for the
reputation of Cotton Mather, Hutchinson has preserved the address of
the ministers entire: and it appears that they approved, applauded, and
stimulated the prosecutions; and that the people of Salem and the
surrounding country were the victims of a delusion, the principal
promoters of which have, to a great degree, been sheltered from
reproach by the dishonest artifice, which has now been exposed.
But, like other ambitious and grasping politicians, he was anxious to
have the support of all parties at the same time. After making court to
those who were dissatisfied with the prosecutions, he thus commends
himself to all who approved of them:—
"And why, after all my unwearied cares and pains to rescue the
miserable from the lions and bears of hell which had seized them, and
after all my studies to disappoint the devils in their designs to
confound my neighborhood, must I be driven to the necessity of an
apology? Truly, the hard representations wherewith some ill men have
reviled my conduct, and the countenance which other men have given to
these representations, oblige me to give mankind some account of my
behavior. No Christian can (I say none but evil-workers can) criminate
my visiting such of my poor flock as have at any time fallen under the
terrible and sensible molestations of evil angels. Let their
afflictions have been what they will, I could not have answered it unto
my glorious Lord, if I had withheld my just comforts and counsels from
them; and, if I have also, with some exactness, observed the methods of
the invisible world, when they have thus become observable, I have been
but a servant of mankind in doing so: yea, no less a person than the
venerable Baxter has more than once or twice, in the most public
manner, invited mankind to thank me for that service."
In other passages, he thus continues to stimulate and encourage the
advocates of the prosecutions:—
"Wherefore, instead of all apish shouts and jeers at histories which
have such undoubted confirmation as that no man that has breeding
enough to regard the common laws of human society will offer to doubt
of them, it becomes us rather to adore the goodness of God, who does
not permit such things every day to befall us all, as he sometimes did
permit to befall some few of our miserable neighbors.
"And it is a very glorious thing that I have now to mention: The devils
have, with most horrid operations, broke in upon our neighborhood; and
God has at such a rate overruled all the fury and malice of those
devils, that all the afflicted have not only been delivered, but, I
hope, also savingly brought home unto God; and the reputation of no one
good person in the world has been damaged, but, instead thereof, the
souls of many, especially of the rising generation, have been thereby
awakened unto some acquaintance with religion. Our young people, who
belonged unto the praying-meetings, of both sexes, apart, would
ordinarily spend whole nights, by whole weeks together, in prayers and
psalms upon these occasions, in which devotions the devils could get
nothing but, like fools, a scourge for their own backs: and some scores
of other young people, who were strangers to real piety, were now
struck with the lively demonstrations of hell evidently set forth
before their eyes, when they saw persons cruelly frighted, wounded and
starved by devils, and scalded with burning brimstone, and yet so
preserved in this tortured state, as that, at the end of one month's
wretchedness, they were as able still to undergo another; so that, of
these also, it might now be said, 'Behold, they pray.' In the whole,
the Devil got just nothing, but God got praises, Christ got subjects,
the Holy Spirit got temples, the church got additions, and the souls of
men got everlasting benefits. I am not so vain as to say that any
wisdom or virtue of mine did contribute unto this good order of things;
but I am so just as to say, I did not hinder this good."
I cannot, indeed, resist the conviction, that, notwithstanding all his
attempts to appear dissatisfied, after they had become unpopular, with
the occurrences in the Salem trials, he looked upon them with secret
pleasure, and would have been glad to have had them repeated in Boston.
[F] The following is a statement of the loss inflicted upon the estate
of George Jacobs, Sr. The property of the son was utterly destroyed.
"_An Account of what was seized and taken away from my Father's Estate,
George Jacobs, Sr., late of Salem, deceased, by Sheriff Corwin and his
Assistants in the year 1692._
"When my said father was executed, and I was forced to fly out of the
country, to my great damage and distress of my family, my wife and
daughter imprisoned,—viz., my wife eleven months, and my daughter seven
months in prison,—it cost them twelve pounds money to the officers,
besides other charges.
Five cows, fair large cattle, £3 per cow £ 15 00 0 Eight
loads of English hay taken out of the
barn, 35_s_. per load
14
00
0 A parcel of apples that made 24 barrels cider
to halves; viz., 12 barrels cider, 8_s_. per barrel
4
16
0 Sixty bushels of Indian corn, 2_s_. 6_d_. per bushel
7 10 0 A mare 2 0 0 Two good feather
beds, and furniture, rugs,
blankets, sheets, bolsters and pillows
10
0
0 Two brass kettles, cost 6 0 0 Money,
12_s_.; a large gold thumb ring, 20_s_.
1 12 0 Five swine 3 15 0 A
quantity of pewter which I cannot exactly
know the worth, perhaps
3
0
0
— 67 — 13 — 0 Besides abundance of small things, meat
in the house,
fowls, chairs, and other things took clear
away _
above_
12
0
0
— 79 == — 13 == — 0 ==
"George Jacobs."
When Edward Bishop and his wife Sarah were arrested, household goods
which were valued by the sheriff himself at ten pounds,—he refusing
that sum for their restitution,—six cows, twenty-four swine, forty-six
sheep, were taken from his farm. The imprisonment of himself and wife
(prior to their escape) aggregated thirty-seven weeks. Ten shillings a
week for board, and other charges and prison fees amounting to five
pounds, were assessed upon his estate, and taken by distraint. A family
of twelve children was left without any to direct or care for them, and
the product of the farm for that year wholly cut off.
There were taken from the estate of Samuel Wardwell, who was executed,
five cows, a heifer and yearling, a horse, nine hogs, eight loads of
hay, six acres of standing corn, and a set of carpenters' tools. From
the estate of Dorcas Hoar, a widow, there were taken two cows, an ox
and mare, four pigs, bed, bed-curtains and bedding, and other household
stuff.
Persons apprehended were made to pay all charges of every kind for
their maintenance, fuel, clothes, expenses of transportation from jail
to jail, and inexorable court and prison fees. The usual fee to the
clerk of the courts was £1. 17_s._ 5_d._, sometimes more; sometimes,
although very rarely, a little less. He must have received a large
amount of money in the aggregate that year. The prisoners were charged
for every paper that was drawn up. If a reprieve was obtained, there
was a fee. When discharged, there was a fee. The expenses of the
executions, even hangmen's fees, were levied on the families of the
sufferers. Abraham Foster, whose mother died in prison, to get her body
for burial, had to pay £2. 10_s._
When the value of money at that time is considered, and we bear in mind
that most of the persons apprehended were farmers, who have but little
cash on hand, and that these charges were levied on their stock, crops,
and furniture in their absence, and in the unrestrained exercise of
arbitrary will, by the sheriff or constables, we can judge how utterly
ruinous the operation must have been.
[G] Love's Labour's Lost, act v., sc. 1.
[H] There are several other depositions in these cases, that may
perhaps be explained under the head of nightmare. The following are
specimens; that, for instance, of Robert Downer, of Salisbury, who
testifies and says,—
"That, several years ago, Susanna Martin, the then wife of George
Martin, being brought to court for a witch, the said Downer, having
some words with her, this deponent, among other things, told her he
believed that she was a witch, by what was said or witnessed against
her; at which she, seeming not well affected, said that a, or some,
she-devil would fetch him away shortly, at which this deponent was not
much moved; but at night, as he lay in his bed in his own house, alone,
there came at his window the likeness of a cat, and by and by came up
to his bed, took fast hold of his throat, and lay hard upon him a
considerable while, and was like to throttle him. At length, he minded
what Susanna Martin threatened him with the day before. He strove what
he could, and said, 'Avoid, thou she-devil, in the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost!' and then it let him go, and jumped
down upon the floor, and went out at the window again."
Susanna Martin, by the boldness and severity of her language, in
defending herself against the charge of witchcraft, had evidently, for
a long time, rendered herself an object of dread, and seems to have
disturbed the dreams of the superstitious throughout the neighborhood.
For instance, Jarvis Ring, of Salisbury, made oath as follows:—
"That, about seven or eight years ago, he had been several times
afflicted, in the night-time, by some body or some thing coming up upon
him when he was in bed, and did sorely afflict him by lying upon him;
and he could neither move nor speak while it was upon him, but
sometimes made a kind of noise that folks did hear him and come up to
him; and, as soon as anybody came, it would be gone. This it did for a
long time, both then and since, but he did never see anybody clearly;
but one time, in the night, it came upon me as at other times, and I
did then see the person of Susanna Martin, of Amesbury. I, this
deponent, did perfectly see her; and she came to this deponent, and
took him by the hand, and bit him by the finger by force, and then came
and lay upon him awhile, as formerly, and after a while went away. The
print of the bite is yet to be seen on the little finger of his right
hand; for it was hard to heal. He further saith, that several times he
was asleep when it came; but, at that time, he was as fairly awaked as
ever he was, and plainly saw her shape, and felt her teeth, as
aforesaid."
Barnard Peach made oath substantially as follows:—
"That about six or seven years past, being in bed on a Lord's-day
night, he heard a scrambling at the window, and saw Susanna Martin come
in at the window, and jump down upon the floor. She was in her hood and
scarf, and the same dress that she was in before, at meeting the same
day. Being come in, she was coming up towards this deponent's face, but
turned back to his feet, and took hold of them, and drew up his body
into a heap, and lay upon him about an hour and a half or two hours, in
all which time this deponent could not stir nor speak; but, feeling
himself beginning to be loosened or lightened, and he beginning to
strive, he put out his hand among the clothes, and took hold of her
hand, and brought it up to his mouth, and bit three of the fingers (as
he judges) to the breaking of the bones; which done, the said Martin
went out of the chamber, down the stairs, and out of the door. The
deponent further declared, that, on another Lord's-day night, while
sleeping on the hay in a barn, about midnight the said Susanna Martin
and another came out of the shop into the barn, and one of them said,
'Here he is,' and then came towards this deponent. He, having a
quarter-staff, made a blow at them; but the roof of the barn prevented
it, and they went away: but this deponent followed them, and, as they
were going towards the window, made another blow at them, and struck
them both down; but away they went out at the shop-window, and this
deponent saw no more of them. And the rumor went, that the said Martin
had a broken head at that time; but the deponent cannot speak to that
upon his own knowledge."
Any one who has had the misfortune to be subject to nightmare will find
the elements of his own experience very much resembling the
descriptions given by Kembal, Downer, Ring, and Peach. The terrors to
which superstition, credulity, and ignorance subjected their minds; the
frightful tales of witchcraft and apparitions to which they were
accustomed to listen; and the contagious fears of the neighborhood in
reference to Susanna Martin, taken in connection with a disordered
digestion, an overloaded stomach, and a hard bed, or a strange
lodging-place,—are wholly sufficient to account for all the phenomena
to which they testified.
[I] The facts and considerations in reference to the authorship of the
letter to Jonathan Corwin may be summarily stated as follows:—
The letter is signed "R.P." Under these initials is written, "Robert
Pain," in a different hand, and, as the ink as well as the chirography
shows, at a somewhat later date. R.P. are blotted over, but with ink of
such lighter hue that the original letters are clearly discernible
under it. A Robert Paine graduated at Harvard College, in 1656. But he
was probably the foreman of the grand jury that brought in all the
indictments in the witchcraft trials; and therefore could not, from the
declarations in the letter itself, have been its author. The only other
person of that name at the time, of whom we have knowledge, was his
father, who seems, by the evidence we have, to have died in 1693. (That
date is given in the Harvard Triennial for the death of Robert Paine,
the graduate; but erroneously, I think, as signatures to documents, and
conveyances of property subsequently, can hardly be ascribed to any
other person.) Robert Paine, the father, from the earliest settlement
of Ipswich, had been one of the leading men of the town, apparently of
larger property than any other, often its deputy in the General Court,
and, for a great length of time, ruling elder of the church. "Elder
Pain," or Penn, as the name was often spelled, enjoyed the friendship
of John Norton, and all the ministers far and near; and religious
meetings were often held at his house. We know nothing to justify us in
saying that he could not have been the author of this paper; but we
also know nothing, except the appearance of his name upon it, to impute
it to him.
The document is dated from "Salisbury." So far as we know, Elder Paine
always lived in Ipswich; although, having property in the upper county,
he may have often been, and possibly in his last years resided, there.
It is, it is true, a strong circumstance, that his name is written,
although by a late hand, under the initials. It shows that the person
who wrote it thought that "R.P." meant Robert Paine; but any one
conversant especially with the antiquities of Ipswich, or this part of
the county, might naturally fall into such a mistake. The authorship of
documents was often erroneously ascribed. The words "Robert Pain" were,
probably, not on the paper when the indorsement was made, "A letter to
my grandfather," &c. Elder Robert Paine, if living in 1692, was
ninety-one years of age. The document under consideration, if composed
by him, is truly a marvellous production,—an intellectual phenomenon
not easily to be paralleled.
The facts in reference to Robert Pike, of Salisbury, as they bear upon
the question of the authorship of the document, are these: He was
seventy-six years of age in 1692, and had always resided in
"Salisbury." The letter and argument are both in the handwriting of
Captain Thomas Bradbury, Recorder of old Norfolk County. On this point,
there can be no question. Bradbury and Pike had been fellow-townsmen
for more than half a century, connected by all the ties of neighborhood
and family intermarriage, and jointly or alternately had borne all the
civic and military honors the people could bestow. The document was
prepared and delivered to the judge while Mrs. Bradbury was in prison,
and just one month before her trial. Pike, as has been shown (p. 226),
was deeply interested in her behalf. The original signature ("R.P.")
has the marked characteristics of the same initial letters as found in
innumerable autographs of his, on file or record. There are
interlineations, beyond question in Pike's handwriting. These facts
demonstrate that both Pike and Bradbury were concerned in producing the
document.
The history of Robert Pike proves that he was a man of great ability,
had a turn of mind towards logical exercises, and was, from early life,
conversant with disputations. Nearly fifty years before, he argued in
town-meeting against the propriety, in view of civil and ecclesiastical
law, of certain acts of the General Court. They arraigned,
disfranchised, and otherwise punished him for his "litigiousness:" but
the weight of his character soon compelled them to restore his
political rights; and the people of Salisbury, the very next year, sent
him among them as their deputy, and continued him from time to time in
that capacity. At a subsequent period, he was the leader and spokesman
of a party in a controversy about some ecclesiastical affairs,
involving apparently certain nice questions of theology, which created
a great stir through the country. The contest reached so high a point,
that the church at Salisbury excommunicated him; but the public voice
demanded a council of churches, which assembled in September, 1676, and
re-instated Major Pike condemning his excommunication, "finding it not
justifiable upon divers grounds." On this occasion, as before, the
General Court frowned upon and denounced him; but the people came again
to his rescue, sending him at the next election into the House of
Deputies, and kept him there until raised to the Upper House as an
Assistant. He was in the practice of conducting causes in the courts,
and was long a local magistrate and one of the county judges.
He does not appear to have been present at any of the trials or
examinations of 1692; but his official position as Assistant caused
many depositions taken in his neighborhood to be acknowledged and sworn
before him. While entertaining the prevalent views about diabolical
agency, he always disapproved of the proceedings of the Court in the
particulars to which the arguments of the communication to Jonathan
Corwin apply,—the "spectre evidence,"—and the statements and actings of
"the afflicted children." There are indications that sometimes he saw
through the folly of the stories told by persons whose depositions he
was called to attest. One John Pressy was circulating a wonderful tale
about an encounter he had with the spectre of Susanna Martin. Pike sent
for him, and took his deposition. Pressy averred, that, one evening,
coming from Amesbury Ferry, he fell in with the shape of Martin in the
form of a body of light, which "seemed to be about the bigness of a
half-bushel." After much dodging and manœuvring, and being lost and
bewildered, wandering to and fro, tumbling into holes,—where, as the
deposition states, no "such pitts" were known to exist,—and other
misadventures, he came to blows with the light, and had several brushes
with it, striking it with his stick. At one time, "he thinks he gave
her at least forty blows." He finally succeeded in finding "his own
house: but, being then seized with fear, could not speak till his wife
spoke to him at the door, and was in such a condition that the family
was afraid of him; which story being carried to the town the next day,
it was, upon inquiry, understood, that said Goodwife Martin was in such
a miserable case and in such pain that they swabbed her body, as was
reported." He concludes his deposition by saying, that Major Pike
"seemed to be troubled that this deponent had not told him of it in
season that she might have been viewed to have seen what her ail was."
The affair had happened "about twenty-four years ago." Probably neither
Pressy nor the Court appreciated the keenness of the major's expression
of regret. It broke the bubble of the deposition. The whole story was
the product of a benighted imagination, disordered by fear, filled with
inebriate vagaries, exaggerated in nightmare, and resting upon wild and
empty rumors. Robert Pike's course, in the case of Mrs. Bradbury,
harmonizes with the supposition that he was Corwin's correspondent.
Materials may be brought to light that will change the evidence on the
point. It may be found that Elder Paine died before 1692: that would
dispose of the question. It may appear that he was living in Salisbury
at the time, and acted with Pike and Bradbury, they giving to the paper
the authority of his venerable name and years. But all that is now
known, constrains me to the conclusion stated in the text.
[J] As an illustration of the oblivion that had settled over the
details of the transactions and characters connected with the
witchcraft prosecutions, it may be mentioned, that when, thirty-five
years ago, I prepared the work entitled 'Lectures on Witchcraft;
comprising a History of the Delusion in 1692,' although professional
engagements prevented my making the elaborate exploration that has now
been given to the subject, I extended the investigation over the
ordinary fields of research, and took particular pains to obtain
information brought down by tradition, gleaned all that could be
gathered from the memories of old persons then living of what they had
heard from their predecessors, and sought for every thing that local
antiquaries and genealogists could contribute. I find, by the methods
of inquiry adopted in the preparation of the present work, how
inadequate and meagre was the knowledge then possessed. Most of the
persons accused and executed, like Giles Corey, his wife Martha, and
Bridget Bishop, were supposed to have been of humble, if not mean
condition, of vagrant habits, and more or less despicable repute. By
following the threads placed in my hands, in the files of the
county-offices of Registry of Deeds and Wills, and documents connected
with trials at law, and by a collation of conveyances and the
administration of estates, I find that Corey, however eccentric or open
to criticism in some features of character and passages of his life,
was a large landholder, and a man of singular force and acuteness of
intellect; while his wife had an intelligence in advance of her times,
and was a woman of eminent piety. The same is found to have been the
case with most of those who suffered.
The reader may judge of my surprise in now discovering, that, while
writing the "Lectures on Witchcraft," I was owning and occupying a part
of the estate of Bridget Bishop, if not actually living in her house.
The hard, impenetrable, all but petrified oak frame seems to argue that
it dates back as far as when she rebuilt and renewed the original
structure. Little, however, did I suspect, while delivering those
lectures in the Lyceum Hall, that we were assembled on the site of her
orchard, the scene of the preternatural and diabolical feats charged
upon her by the testimony of Louder and others. Her estate was one of
the most eligible and valuable in the old town, with a front, as has
been mentioned, of a hundred feet on Washington Street, and extending
along Church Street more than half the distance to St. Peter's Street.
At the same time, her husband seems to have had a house in the village,
near the head of Bass River. It is truly remarkable, that the locality
of the property and residence of a person of her position, and who led
the way among the victims of such an awful tragedy, should have become
wholly obliterated from memory and tradition, in a community of such
intelligence, consisting, in so large a degree, of old families,
tracing themselves back to the earliest generations, and among whom the
innumerable descendants of her seven great-grandchildren have continued
to this day. It can only be accounted for by the considerations
mentioned in the text. Tradition was stifled by horror and shame. What
all desired to forget was forgotten. The only recourse was in oblivion;
and all, sufferers and actors alike, found shelter under it.
[K] The looseness and inaccuracy of persons in reference to their own
ages, in early times, is quite observable. In depositions, they speak
of themselves as "about" so many years, or as of so many years "or
thereabouts." A variance on this point is often found in the statements
of the same person at different times. Neither are records always to be
relied upon as to precision. In the record-book of the village church,
Mr. Parris enters the age of Mrs. Ann Putnam, at the date of her
admission, June 4, 1691, as "Ann: ætat: 27." But an "Account of the
Early Settlers of Salisbury," in the "New-England Historical and
Genealogical Register," vol. vii. p. 314, gives the date of her birth
"15, 4, 1661." Her age is stated above according to this last
authority; and, if correct, she was not so young, at the time of her
marriage, as intimated (vol. i. p. 253), but seventeen years five
months and ten days. It is difficult, however, to conceive how Parris,
who was careful about such matters, and undoubtedly had his information
from her own lips, could have been so far out of the way. Her brother,
William Carr, in 1692, deposed that he was then forty-one years of age
or thereabouts; whereas, the "Account of the Early Settlers of
Salisbury," just referred to, gives the date of his birth "15, 1,
1648." It is indeed singular, that two members of a family of their
standing should have been under an error as to their own age; one to an
extent of almost, the other of some months more than, three years.