In the Devil's Snare (30 page)

While Elizabeth Cary and Philip and Mary English were deciding to travel south, Sir William Phips was at last preparing to sail to the northeast. In his letter to London of July 21, he explained that he planned “landing Some Forces behind them [the Wabanakis], and [to] attaque them at the Same time by land.” His primary goal was to construct a new fort at Pemaquid in an attempt to reestablish a permanent Anglo-American presence on the northern Maine coast. In late July and early August, Phips delegated parts of his authority to Winthrop and Stoughton, making arrangements for civil and military governance in his absence. He also named a replacement for Thomas Newton, who resigned his post as attorney general after the completion of the court’s second session. The new prosecutor for the witchcraft trials (who would serve for the duration of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and under its successor body as well) was Anthony Checkley, another trained English lawyer, who had lived in Boston for nearly three decades.
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At the end of the month in Salem, Gedney, Hathorne, Corwin, and Higginson pursued the leads given them by the Foster-Laceys and the Carriers, ordering the arrest of Martha Emerson of Haverhill and her mother, Mary Toothaker of Billerica. They also issued warrants for three other women charged with afflicting Elizabeth Ballard and Timothy Swan, most notably Mary Tyler Post Bridges of Andover. Goody Bridges confessed, as did, at least partially and initially, Martha Emerson. She conceded, as her father, Roger Toothaker, had claimed months earlier, that she had kept “a womans urin: in a glass” as a form of countermagic. Martha also identified her aunt and namesake, Martha Carrier, as a fellow witch. Yet Martha Emerson “after ward” (it is not clear how soon) recanted this statement, declaring that “what she had said was in hopes to have favour: & now she could not Deny god: that had keept her from that sin: & after said though he slay me I will trust in him.”
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Questioned on July 30, Martha’s mother, Mary Allen Toothaker, offered a more complete confession that highlighted some of the complex links between the witchcraft crisis and the Second Indian War.
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“This May last,” she told the four Essex magistrates, “she was under great Discontentedness & troubled with feare about the Indians, & used often to dream of fighting with them.” After acknowledging that she had afflicted Swan and unnamed others, Goody Toothaker revealed that “the Devil appeared to her in the shape of a Tawny man and promised to keep her from the Indians and she should have happy dayes with her sone,” who had been wounded in the war. Asked if she had signed the devil’s book, she answered that “he brought something which she [took] to be a piece of burch bark and she made a mark with her finger by rubbing off the whit Scurff. And he promised if she would serve him she should be safe from the Indians.” Was she supposed to serve Satan? the magistrates asked. Yes, she replied; she was “to praise him with her whole heart, and twas to that appearance she prayed at all tymes for he said he was able to delyver her from the Indians And it was the feare of the Indians that put her upon it.”

Thus the devil, himself appearing in the shape of an Indian and bringing her (appropriately) a piece of birch bark for her “signature,” won Goody Toothaker’s allegiance by promising to protect her from the Wabanakis. Her covenant with the “tawny” Satan superficially appears paradoxical, but if the evil angel himself commanded the Indians, his visible-world counterparts and allies, the agreement made perfect sense. Certainly it did to her.

Twice, Goody Toothaker declared, she attended spectral assemblies in Salem Village, along with her sister, her nephews Richard and Andrew Carrier, the Foster-Laceys, Mary Bridges, Elizabeth Howe, and others. There, she heard “the Beating of a drum” and “the sound of a trumpet,” both necessary for the mustering of a malevolent witch militia to assault New England. “There was a minister a litle man whose name is Burroughs that preached at the Village meeting of witches,” where “they did talk of 305 witches in the country,” Mary revealed, confirming the numbers originally supplied by Ann Foster two weeks earlier. “Their discourse was about the pulling down the Kingdom of Christ and setting up the Kingdom of satan.” After “several afflicted persons” indicated that they saw “the black man” with her, she agreed that he was present at the examination. The magistrates also inquired about the “woman that stirred them up to afflict Swan [Mary Bradbury]” and about Martha Emerson’s involvement in witchcraft. Goody Toothaker agreed that an (unidentified) older woman was “most busie about [Swan] and encouraged the rest to afflict him,” but she resisted implicating her daughter. “She never knew her daughter to be in this condition before this summer,” Mary insisted, noting that Martha had once attended a gathering at the Village with her, but that she had not seen her sign the book there, although “a great many did.”

Because Mary Toothaker confessed to being a witch on July 30, she was in jail in Salem two days later on August 1, when a small party of Indians attacked her neighborhood in Billerica. All the occupants of two households near hers were killed. Had she been home, she too would probably have died. Upon hearing the news, she undoubtedly concluded that Satan had fulfilled his promise to “delyver her from the Indians.” Perhaps that was why she never retracted her confession.
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THE COURT’S THIRD SESSION (1)

In early August, Cotton Mather exclaimed to a relative, “Our good God is working of miracles.” After the execution of five witches who “impudently” proclaimed their innocence, he exulted, “our God miraculously sent in five Andover witches, who made a most ample, surprising, amazing confession of all their villainies, and declared the five newly executed to have been of their company.” Even more important, all had concurred on “Burroughs being their ringleader.” Since “other confessors . . . come in daily,” they could now look forward to “a prospect of a hopeful issue” of “this prodigious matter.”
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Whether the judges and jurors of the Court of Oyer and Terminer shared Mather’s optimism during that first week of August is unknown. He could speak theoretically, but they had to deal with the realities of grand-jury sessions and trials. During the court’s third session, which convened on Tuesday, August 2, and lasted four days, the grand jury issued indictments in four cases (two of which were also tried) and the petty jury or juries adjudicated six. The exact dates of four of the trials—those of John Willard, George Jacobs Sr., and John and Elizabeth Proctor—went unrecorded. Martha Carrier (who had been indicted on July 1) faced the judges on August 2 and 3, at the beginning of the session, and George Burroughs did so on August 5, at its end; the other cases fell in the middle. The grand jury heard testimony against Burroughs on August 3; against Mary Easty that day and the next; and against Jacobs and Martha Corey on the fourth. It indicted Goody Easty for bewitching Mercy Lewis and Betty Hubbard on May 23 during her second examination, and indicted Goody Corey for attacking the same two sufferers on March 21, during her examination. Both women then had to wait until September for their trials.
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Cotton Mather’s account of Martha Carrier’s prosecution, in which he memorably referred to her as “this Rampant Hag,” revealed that it followed the standard pattern. The bewitched orally described being tormented by her specter, and their adult supporters attested to the sufferings at Carrier’s examination on May 31. Indeed, Thomas Putnam and his cousin John Jr. swore that “had not the Honored Majestrats commanded hir to be bound [at that time] we ware redy to think she would quickly have kiled sum of them.” Hubbard and Walcott, those Carrier had been indicted for afflicting, both formally testified that she had tortured not only them but also Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam Jr. An Andover twelve-year-old, Phoebe Chandler, described recent torments she had endured, which she attributed to Martha Carrier and her son Richard. The very phenomena evident at Carrier’s examination, Mather reported, “were also now seen upon her Tryal,” and her alleged indifference to the sufferings of the afflicted also became an issue. In the courtroom, a witness recalled a relevant conversation with Goody Carrier the previous spring. Informed that her specter had been seen outside Ingersoll’s inn by a “maide” whose neck was “twisted . . . almost round,” she had replied callously, “it is no matter if hir nicke had ben quite of[f] if she sayd I was thiere.”
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Although neighbors and her nephew, Allen Toothaker, told tales of her malefice, statements by the Andover confessors seemed to carry the most weight at Carrier’s trial. Mather noted that Ann Foster and the two Laceys testified that they had attended witch meetings with her, one a diabolic sacrament and a second “Bodily,” not spectral. Although her sons Richard and Andrew had both implicated her, Mather indicated, “this Evidence was not produced . . . , inasmuch as there was other Evidence enough to proceed upon.” In the courtroom, Susannah Sheldon once again “had her hands Unaccountably ty’d together,” a feat which she said Martha Carrier’s specter had effected. How, or even whether, Martha Carrier tried to defend herself against such a varied onslaught is not recorded, and she must have been easily convicted.
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John Willard had been indicted in early June for bewitching four of the afflicted (Lewis, Putnam Jr., Williams, and Hubbard) at his May 18 examination. Significantly, however, the grand jury at the same time declined to charge him with the concurrent affliction of Sheldon, whose excessive antics and disturbing visions could well have called her credibility into question. Yet Ann Jr. was found believable despite her youth: she testified to both the grand and petty juries about her visions of Willard from late April through mid-May. Ann Carr Putnam probably reaffirmed her sworn statement of June 2 about the many ghosts who claimed that Willard had killed them. The clerk’s notations reveal that once again Samuel Parris, Thomas Putnam, and Nathaniel Ingersoll supported the young accusers in court. And Sarah Vibber swore to seeing Willard’s apparition torment Lewis and Walcott on May 17 as well as to her own sufferings at his hands.
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A significant proportion of the testimony pertained to Willard’s spectral attacks on his Wilkins relatives, especially his wife’s deceased second cousin, Daniel, and her ailing grandfather, Bray. The coroner’s jury, Parris, and Daniel’s relatives all concluded that the young man had died as a result of Willard’s malefice, and evidence to that effect was presented in court. Daniel’s father, for example, described how Ann Jr., Mercy, and Mary Walcott had seen Willard’s apparition assaulting Daniel. Other Wilkins family members, including Bray himself, also attested to the torments Willard had visited upon the older man. And there was more: witnesses described Willard’s physical abuse of his wife and the “strange” events (including “hideous noyse”) that appeared to follow when she voiced complaints about his treatment of her. They in addition attributed recent sufferings to his malefice. Rebecca Wilkins (Daniel’s sister) attested that the previous week “shee se John wilard seting in the Corner and hee said that hee wold afflick me that night and forthwith hee did afflick me”; Samuel Wilkins (cousin of Rebecca and Daniel) described a series of mysterious occurrences a month earlier that culminated in Willard’s appearance one night in his bedroom accompanied by other specters, warning that “they would cary me away before morning.”
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Confessors too contributed to Willard’s conviction. Richard Carrier, who on July 22 had named Willard as a participant in a Salem Village witch meeting and had accurately described him as “a black hared Man of a Midle Statture,” must have repeated that story in court. A list of witnesses prepared for the trial indicated that Margaret Jacobs and Sarah Churchwell appeared to describe how he “diswaded [them] from confession,” though whether spectrally or in person is not clear. Whatever defense Willard offered was not recorded.
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Also indicted earlier (on June 30) but tried at this session of the court were John and Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth was charged with tormenting Lewis and Walcott on April 11 during her examination, and John with afflicting Lewis at that same time. (The grand jury declined to indict him for afflicting Walcott, however; they must have found that evidence inadequate.) John was also indicted for torturing Warren on March 26, but no account of that spectral assault has survived. In general, the same witnesses appeared against both Proctors. The afflicted and their adult supporters repeated the usual stories of torment, and the witch-finding episode at James Holton’s house in late May was described at some length. The teenager Elizabeth Booth took an especially active role against her neighbors the Proctors, swearing to having been tortured by their apparitions and probably attesting orally to her detailed statement (sworn before the grand jury) listing the ghosts that had appeared to her on June 8 to accuse both Proctors of killing them.
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Confessors who had named the Proctors—Deliverance and Abigail Hobbs, Richard Carrier, and especially Mary Warren—would have recounted in court their stories of the couple’s attendance at witch meetings. Warren, guided by Checkley, most likely reiterated that John Proctor had brought her the devil’s book to sign and that his wife had given her poppets representing the afflicted. She surely described the occasion on which Elizabeth Proctor had called herself a “deacon” at a diabolic sacrament. In addition to such testimony, new allegations emerged at the trial. Elizabeth’s teenage nephew John DeRich (whose mother Mary had also been accused of witchcraft) charged that his aunt, uncle, and three of his cousins “did all afflict this deponent and do continually every day” and that they “would have him . . . to sett his hand to a Booke.”
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Against such an array of accusations the Proctors probably offered a defense centered on two petitions signed by acquaintances and on the arguments made in John Proctor’s earlier plea for help to the Boston clergymen.
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One of the petitions, with twenty signatures from both men and women, stated simply that the subscribers “never heard or understood that [the Proctors] were ever suspected to be guilty of the crime now charged apon them” and that they had led a “christian life in their famely and were ever ready to helpe such as stood in need.”

The second, more elaborate, directly addressed the crucial question of whether God permitted Satan “to personate, Dissemble, & therby abuse Inocants.” The thirty-one male signers indicated that they thought such an outcome might “be A Method within the Seveerer But Just Transaction of the Infinite Majestie of God.” Admitting that they could not “Go into Gods pavillions Cloathed with Cloudes of Darknesse Round About,” so they could not know why God had allowed this terrible judgment to happen to the Proctors, they nevertheless asserted that “as to what we have ever seen, or heard of them—upon our Consciences we Judge them Innocent of the crime objected.” The court disregarded such contentions and convicted both Proctors, but Elizabeth pleaded that she was pregnant, which led to her being temporarily reprieved.

The case of George Jacobs Sr. was considered by the grand jury on August 4 and probably by the petty jury that same day. The grand jury issued a true bill against him for afflicting Walcott on May 11, but rejected a companion indictment for bewitching Lewis. Hubbard, Walcott, Putnam Jr., and the confessors Warren and Churchwell all swore at the trial that Jacobs’s specter had tormented them and that they had seen him attack others as well. John DeRich described how Jacobs’s apparition had “Knockt me downe with his stafe” and had tried to drown him because “I would not Sett mi hand to his boocke.” Sarah Vibber’s testimony must have caused a sensation; she attested under oath that “she Saw him this George Jacobs at the Gallows when Goody Olliver [Bishop] was executed & the black man help him up.” Jacobs’s own granddaughter Margaret, another confessor, accused him of being a witch, testimony supported by Joseph Flint’s recollection of his May 11 conversation with the old man about Margaret’s confession. Finally, the marshal, George Herrick, and a men’s jury reported on examinations of George Jacobs’s body. They had located what seemed to be witch’s teats, because he could not feel any sensation when they inserted pins through the suspect spots. Again, the jury rendered a guilty verdict.
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