In the Devil's Snare (56 page)

John Usher to Massachusetts Governor and Council, 5 September 1692, CO 5/857, f 6. See the council minutes, CO 5/785, f 96.

Mary Swayne Marshall’s complaint against the three Reading women does not survive, but she was mentioned in all their examinations. For Frost, see
SWP
2:345;
York Deeds
7:21; and
GDMNH,
q.v. “Frost, Charles.” For Dicer:
SWP
2:651; Swan, “Bedevilment of Cape Ann,”
EIHC
117 (1981): 166–67; and
GDMNH,
q.v. “Dicer, William.” See also
SWP
2:641.

Prince’s 5 September examination is published in Trask, ed.,
Devil hath
been raised,
160. The two Reading women who did not confess were Jane Lilly (related by marriage to Elizabeth Proctor) and Mary Dustin Colson, whose mother, sister, and daughter had already been named as witches. For Lilly and Colson, see
SWP
2:539–40; Taylor, ibid., 3:741–42. At the examinations of Lilly and Colson, Mary Warren, three Booths, Susannah Post, and Sarah Churchwell were all afflicted. At Taylor’s, the afflicted were Mary Marshall, Hannah and Susannah Post, Mary Lacey Jr., and Mary Warren. Two of the three Booth women were named Elizabeth—a single woman and her sister-in-law; the third was Alice, also unmarried. See also the 7 September examination of the Andover widower Henry Salter,
SWP
3:723–24, with a somewhat different list of afflicted. On the Reading residents, see Robinson,
Salem Witchcraft,
332–35.

The Salem magistrates ordered the arrest of two Salem Town residents (Hannah Carroll and Sarah Cole) on 10 September (
SWP
1:245); the detention of a Gloucester woman (Joan Penney) on 20 September (ibid., 2:641); and the seizure of another Sarah Cole (of Lynn, sister-in-law of the eponymous Salem woman) on 3 October (ibid., 1:226). Other than the final Andover cases to be discussed below, those and the three Gloucester women (Mary Rowe, Rebecca Dike, and Esther Elwell) accused by Betty Hubbard and others in early November constitute the last formal complaints in 1692. For the three November cases, see ibid., 1:305–306; and Betty Hubbard, deposition, 8 November 1692, Miscellaneous Manuscripts Bound, MHS. Calef, in
MWIW,
in
WDNE
3:53–54, gives a brief account of these late accusations.

SWP
3:971 (undated). The only extant examination record for this group is that of Mistress Osgood (ibid., 2:615–16). Some historians have placed the touch test in July, near the outset of the Andover phase of the crisis, but it involved women accused in September, and the date of Osgood’s examination on 8 September (when coupled with other accounts) places the touch test on the day before.

Ibid., 3:777–78. Mary Tyler’s first name is here erroneously given as “Martha,” the name of one of her young daughters, who was also arrested about a week later and questioned in a group consisting largely of other children (ibid., 2:335). See Robinson,
Salem Witchcraft,
306–308. For a contemporary account charging that in Andover prominent husbands persuaded their wives to confess, see “Brattle Letter,” in Burr,
Narratives,
180–81.

Calef,
MWIW,
in
WDNE
3:52–53. Calef does not give the timing of these events, but they must have occurred some time around mid-September. Neither the name of the “worthy Gentleman” nor the details of the lawsuit he reputedly filed have ever been uncovered.

On Andover in the wars, see Bailey,
Historical Sketches of Andover,
168–80. The town was attacked in the Second Indian War, but after 1692.

Quotations: Jeremy Belknap, ed., “Recantation of Confessors of Witchcraft,”
MHS Colls
13 (1815): 222; Petition of Andover Inhabitants, n.d. [c. January 1692/3],
SWP
2:618. Another account of a conversation with the confessors described similar motivations but added as a consideration their knowledge that “all, without confession were suddainly put to Death.” (Thomas Maule,
Truth
Held Forth and Maintained . . .
[n.p., 1695], 189). See, on the importance of consensus, Mary Beth Norton,
Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the
Forming of American Society
(New York, 1996), 200–201, 217–22, 235–36, 241–42. Even if towns were racked by conflict, they valued consensus and aimed to achieve it. But without local mechanisms for dispute resolution, Salem Village could not aspire to that goal. The only potentially helpful institution in the Village would have been the church, but, as has been seen, it instead contributed to the dissension. Elizabeth Reis examines the possible religious motivations for the Andover women’s confessions; see Reis,
Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan
New England (Ithaca, N.Y., 1997), esp. chapter 4.

CO 5/924, ff 58–59.

CHAPTER EIGHT ALL SORTS OF OBJECTIONS

This paragraph and the next two are drawn from Pike to Corwin, 9 August 1692, as printed in Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (Boston, 1867), 2:538–40. Cf. Daniel G. Payne, “Defending against the Indefensible: Spectral Evidence at the Salem Witchcraft Trials,”
EIHC
129 (1993): 62–83, for a modern critique of the ways spectral evidence was used by the justices, in which the reasoning differs from Pike’s.

This paragraph and the next two are based on Pike’s undated essay, enclosed with his letter to Corwin of 9 August, and printed in Upham,
Salem Witchcraft,
2:540–44.

Mather to Foster, 17 August 1692, in Kenneth Silverman, ed.,
Selected Letters
of Cotton Mather
(Baton Rouge, La., 1971), 41–43. Foster also apparently asked Mather for his opinion of possible changes in the way accused witches were treated, especially those with only spectral accusations against them; the minister responded with some specific ideas, such as transporting them out of the colony rather than convicting and hanging them.

SWP
1:140, 66.

Mather to Stoughton, 2 September 1692, in Silverman, ed.,
Selected Letters,
43–44. See Mather,
WIW,
in
WDNE
1:5, for Stoughton’s endorsement. Cf. Perry Miller,
The New England Mind: From Colony to Province
(Cambridge, Mass. 1953), chapter 13, for an interpretation of Mather’s work on
Wonders
that differs considerably from mine.

Council minutes, 5 September 1692, CO 5/785, f 96;
SWP
3:869–70. The only judges who attended the 5 September council meeting were Samuel Sewall and Peter Sergeant. Stoughton was probably already in Salem. On Fort William Henry, see Mather,
DL,
in Lincoln,
Narratives,
240–41; and Thomas Church,
The
History of Philip’s War . . . Also, of the French and Indian Wars, at the Eastward . . . ,
ed. Samuel G. Drake (Exeter, N.H., 1839), 210–14.

Bernard Rosenthal,
Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
(New York, 1993), chapter 8, considers these same trials.

See
SWP
2:395–97, 402 for the testimony of the afflicted (Ann Jr., Hubbard, Walcott, Vibber) and the Putnams; and ibid., 393–94, 397–403, for the statements by the Beverly residents (quotations 401, 397). On Hale and Hoar’s past relationship: Barbara Ritter Dailey, “ ‘Where Thieves Break Through and Steal’: John Hale versus Dorcas Hoar, 1672–1692,”
EIHC
128 (1992): 255–69. Possibly significant is the fact that neither Susannah Sheldon nor Abigail Williams (though their torments on May 2 were described by the others) testified in this or any other case during the September court session—nor, for that matter, did either evidently appear in any prosecution after August, including the ones in January and May 1693. See appendix 3 for details.

SWP
1:260–65; 2:423, 529, 603–605; 3:793, 801.

Descriptions of Lewis: ibid., 1:294–95, 300–301 (quotation, 300); maleficium: ibid., 1:301–302; jailers’ statements: ibid., 1:293–94; defense petition: ibid., 1:302–303. Her sister, Sarah Towne Bridges Cloyce, joined in signing the petition, but she was never tried, being released from custody in January after the grand jury failed to indict her (see ibid., 1:221–23).

Indictments: ibid., 2:624–26; depositions by the afflicted (Vibber, Walcott, Hubbard, Putnam Jr., Warren): ibid., 2:626–28; maleficium: 2:626, 632–36 (the last three depositions are erroneously printed in the records of Mary Parker, but are about Alice Parker). Her specter, it was said, had also attacked Lewis and Churchwell; Abigail Hobbs confirmed some of these attacks.

Indictment: ibid., 3:704–705; testimony, 705–709 (quotations 708–710). Those who testified against her: Warren, Churchwell, Hubbard, Putnam Jr., Walcott, and Vibber.

See ibid., 1:115–16, 121, 123, 125–28, for indictments and grand-jury testimony. Other indictments have possibly been lost.

This paragraph and the next are based largely on ibid., 1:122–25 (quotations 124–25). I am descended from the marriage of Rebecca Wheelwright Maverick and William Bradbury in March 1671/2; they are my eighth great-grandparents. For the confessions naming Mary Bradbury, see ibid., 1:198, 2:514, 526–27, 529; 3:769.

Ibid., 1:121, 119–20, 116–17. Robert Pike’s daughter Sarah’s first husband had been a now-dead Bradbury son, so Pike and Bradbury were in-laws.

Ibid., 1:241–45. Some time after 12 September but almost certainly before 19 September Alice Booth and her sister-in-law swore that Giles and another fifty witches had participated in a devil’s sacrament at the home of the widow Alice Booth Shaflin (see ibid., 1:245).

Ibid., 2:413–17 (Hobbs); 2:497 (Fox petition); 2:494–95 (Jacobs indictments). Jacobs was tried and acquitted on the sole indictment in early January (ibid., 3:904–905).

James F. Cooper and Kenneth P. Minkema, eds., The Sermon Notebook of
Samuel Parris, 1689–1694
(Boston, 1993), 199–206 passim.

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds.,
Salem-Village Witchcraft
(1972; reprint, Boston, 1993), 280.

David Jeffries to [John Usher], 16 September 1692, Jeffries Family Papers, vol. 3, f 68, MHS. Mistress Bradbury herself escaped from jail later in the year, probably in December. See
SWP
3:980–81. Some historians have said that Alden went home to Duxbury in the former Plymouth Colony, but he was in New York in early October; see Jacob Melijn to Johannes Kerfbijl, 5 October 1962, Jacob Melijn Letterbook, AAS (in Dutch, trans. by Evan Haefeli).

Testimony and indictments for Foster:
SWP
2:341–42, 344, and MS Am. 52, BPL (not printed in
SWP
); testimony and indictments for Lacey:
SWP
2:515–17; Wardwell recantation, testimony, and indictments: ibid., 3:784–86. Similarly, Sarah Churchwell declared that when she tried to recant, Nicholas Noyes would not believe her (ibid., 1:212).

Wardwell: Calef,
MWIW,
in
WDNE
3:46; Mather, “A Brand Pluck’d out of the Burning,” in Burr,
Narratives,
281–82. Although Calef did not acknowledge it, other testimony revealed that Wardwell had told fortunes. Several Andover witnesses described how Samuel both accurately predicted the future and knew past secrets (
SWP
3:787–88). Mather said that a person executed for witchcraft at Salem described the presence of the French and Indians at the witch meetings in a confession; Samuel Wardwell was the only confessor executed, so if Mather was correct, it must have been he. Ann Foster died in prison in November; Mary Lacey Sr. was reprieved in the spring. Mary Jr. was tried on two indictments, covenanting with the devil and afflicting Timothy Swan, and acquitted on 13 January 1692/3. On these points, see ibid., 3:930–31, 992, 1001.

SWP
1:328–33. See also the Barker confessions: ibid., 1:59, 68–69. Goody Faulkner’s young daughters confessed and, like Dorcas Good, named their mother as a witch, as did a number of other young people who testified before the grand jury in her case (ibid., 2:335).

Buckley: ibid., 1:145–50, 3:905–906; Witheridge: ibid., 3:857–58, 3:908–909. (Buckley was charged with afflicting Putnam Jr. and Walcott; Witheridge, with afflicting Hubbard and Vibber. Again, some indictments could be missing.) Parker: ibid., 2:633–34 (see also ibid., 1:75–76); she was indicted for bewitching Sarah Phelps and one Hannah Bigsby (of Andover, wife of Daniel), but the grand jury replied “ignoramus” to the request that she be indicted for harming Martha Sprague (see ibid., 2:629–31). Reed: ibid., 3:715–18 (she was indicted for bewitching Hubbard, but the grand jury declined to indict her for afflicting Elizabeth Booth; see ibid., 3:712). Scott: ibid., 3:727–28; Richard Trask, ed., “The Devil hath been
raised ”: A Documentary History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Outbreak of March
1692,
rev. ed. (Danvers, Mass., 1997), 161–64. Scott was indicted for bewitching two Rowley women in late July and early August.

M. Halsey Thomas, ed.,
The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729
(New York, 1973), 1:295. “Letter of Thomas Brattle, F.R.S., 1692,” in Burr, Narratives, 185, gives the expected date of the next meeting of the court as the first Tuesday in November. David C. Brown, “The Case of Giles Corey,” EIHC 121 (1985): 282–99, offers a detailed examination of this incident, unique in the annals of colonial legal practice. There was an alternative to the
peine forte et dure.
When Jacob Milborne, the Leisler rebel, refused to enter a plea before a Court of Oyer and Terminer in New York in 1691, the court simply entered a plea of guilty and hanged him. See Thomas Newton to William Blathwayt, 8 April 1691, vol. 8, fol. 2, William Blathwayt Papers, CW.

SWP
2:246. The man Corey killed was the stepson of Margaret Goodale, one of the people afflicted in the Village in March. See Sewall’s comment on Putnam’s letter, in Thomas, ed.,
Sewall Diary
1:295.

Calef,
MWIW,
in
WDNE
3:45. Calef misdated Corey’s death, placing it on Friday the 16th, but Sewall’s diary entries for 19 and 20 September make it clear that Corey died on Monday, 19 September, as does Putnam’s letter to Sewall, which states that Ann Jr.’s vision occurred on a Sunday night (
SWP
2:246).