In a long course of years, Mr. Upham, and after him his sons, have
searched out all documents they could hear of. When they had reason to
believe that any transcription of papers was inaccurate--that gaps had
been conjecturally filled up, that dates had been mistaken, or that
papers had been transposed, they never rested till they had got hold of
the originals, thinking the bad spelling, the rude grammar, and strange
dialect of the least cultivated country people less objectionable than
the unauthorized amendments of transcribers. Mr. Upham says he has
resorted to the originals throughout. Then there were the parish books
and church records, to which was committed in early days very much
in the life of individuals which would now be considered a matter of
private concern, and scarcely fit for comment by next-door neighbors.
The primitive local maps and the coast-survey chart, with the markings
of original grants to settlers, and of bridges, mills, meeting-houses,
private dwellings, forest roads, and farm boundaries, have been
preserved. Between these and deeds of conveyance it has been possible to
construct a map of the district, which not only restores the external
scene to the mind's eye, but casts a strong and fearful light--as we
shall see presently--on the origin and course of the troubles of 1692.
Mr. Upham and his sons have minutely examined the territory--tracing the
old stone walls and the streams, fixing the gates, measuring distances,
even verifying points of view, till the surrounding scenery has become
as complete as could be desired. Between the church books and the parish
and court records, the character, repute, ways, and manners of every
conspicuous resident can be ascertained; and it may be said that nothing
out of the common way happened to any man, woman, or child within the
district which could remain unknown at this day, if any one wished to
make it out. Mr. Upham has wished to make out the real story of the
Witch Tragedy; and he has done it in such a way that his readers will
doubtless agree that no more accurate piece of history has ever been
written than the annals of this New England township.
For such a work, however, something more is required than the most
minute delineation of the outward conditions of men and society; and in
this higher department of his task Mr. Upham is above all anxious to
obtain and dispense true light. The second part of his work treats of
what may be called the spiritual scenery of the time. He exhibits the
superstition of that age, when the belief in Satanic agency was the
governing idea of religious life, and the most engrossing and pervading
interest known to the Puritans of every country. Of the young and
ignorant in the new settlement beyond the seas his researches have led
him to write thus: