The Penguin Book of Witches (18 page)

This warrant was the first that did not directly issue from the authorities in Salem Village. Rachel Clinton had actually suffered a bad reputation for decades.
1
She had an unfortunate marriage and was disinherited, plummeting from the top of society to the bottom, and at this point lived in Ipswich. Thus, the accusation of Rachel, who, on the one hand, was a usual suspect as far as witches were concerned but on the other hand was outside the power struggles of Salem Village, marked a crucial turning point in the transition of the Salem panic from small-scale community battle to large-scale outbreak. With this warrant, the Salem panic began to extend into the rest of Essex County.

Warrant Against Rachel Clinton
2

To the constable of Ipswich

Whereas there is complaint exhibited to the honored court now Const[illegible] holden at Ipswich in behalf of Their Majesties against Rachel, formerly the wife of Laurence Clinton of Ipswich, on grounded suspicion of witchcraft and whereas recognizance is entered for prosecution.

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You are hereby required in Their Majesties’ names forthwith or s[illegible] soon as may be to apprehend, seize, and bring before the honored court to be holden at Ipswich the said Rachel Clinton on the next morrow[scored out] morning at eight a clock in order to an orderly examination and conviction and hereof fail not at your peril and for so doing this shall be your warrant of which you are to make a true return as the law directs.

Ipswich, March 29th, 1692, Curiam Thomas Wade, clerk, to the constable of Ipswich

You are hereby required in Their Majesties’ names to summons, warn, and require to appear at the court to be holden at Ipswich on the morrow morning. Namely, Mary Fuller Senior and Mary Fuller Junior and Alexander Thomson Junior and Richard Fits and Doctor John Brigham and Thomas Manning and Nathaniel Burnham, all of Ipswich, and Thomas Knowlton Junior and Mary Thorne to give in their several evidences before the court to clear up the grounds of suspicion of Rachel Clinton’s being a witch and hereof fail not at your peril but make a true return under your hand as the law directs.

Curiam Thomas Wade, clerk

[verso]

I have served this Sp[scored out] warrant or read it to Rachel Clinton this morning and seized her body and left her in the hands of Samuel Ordway here in the courthouse against your honors shall call for her.

And I have read the several warrants, one the other side written this morning. Save only Richard Fits and Mary Thorne. And Richard Fits I could not find and Mary Thorne is not well, as witness, my hand, Joseph Fuller, constable of Ipswich, dated this 29th March, 1691/2.

Warrant against Rachel Clinton returned.
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Rachel Clinton was without question an angry woman. In this deposition, we learn that Clinton had been forced into begging to sustain herself after her husband abandoned her. Clinton went to the house of John Rogers, who was out of town in Boston, and over the protests of the maid, began to peek around the house looking for milk and meat. The maid asked Thomas Knowlton to assist in removing Rachel from Rogers’s house. As he did this, Clinton denounced him, calling him “hellhound” and “whoremasterly rogue” and a “limb of the Devil.”

This account is incredibly vibrant, exposing how dangerous it was to be an angry woman in the early modern period, especially at the fringes of society. Rachel Clinton’s frustrations at being without food led to her being accused of witchcraft.

Knowlton’s Deposition
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[Torn]he deposition of Thomas Knowlton, aged 50 years, saith that about 3 weeks ago that Mr. John Rogers and his wife were gone to Bosto[torn] That Rachel, the wife of Laron Clinton that is now suspected to be a witch, went to Mr. Rogers’s house and told Mr. Rogers’s maid that she must have some meat and milk and the said Rachel went into seve[torn]al rooms of the said house, as Mr. Rogers’s maid told me and then sent for me, this deponent, to get her away out of the hous[torn] And when I came into the house there was Rachel Clinton and when she sa[illegible]we me come in she, the said Rachel, went away scoldi[torn]
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and railing. Calling of me, the said Thomas, hellhound and whoremasterly rogue and said I was a limb of the Devil and she said[torn] she had rather see the Devil than see me, the said Thomas. And that Samuel Aires and Thomas Smith, tailor, can testify to the same languages that Rachel used or called the said Knowlton. And after this the said Rachel took up a stone and threw it toward me and it fell short three or four yards from me, said Knowlton, a[torn] so came rolling to me and just touched the toe of my shoe[torn] And presently my great toe was in a great rage as if the nail were held up by a pair of pinchers up by the roots.

And further the said Thomas Knowlton testifieth and saith that about 3 months ago that my daughter Mary Ded [torn][illegible]e and cried out in a dreadful manner that she was p[torn]
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of her side with pins as she thought. Being asked who pric[torn] her, she said she could not tell and when she was out of her fits, I, this deponent, asked her whether she gave Rach[torn]
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any pins and she said she gave Rachel about seven and after this she had one fit more of being pricked and then there came into our house Cornelius Kent and John Best, a[torn] saw Mary Knowlton in a solemn condition, crying as if she would be pricked to death and then said Kent and Best and my son Thomas went over and threatened said Rachel that if ever she pricked said Mary Knowlton again they would knock out her brains and ever since my girl hath been well.

Bridget Bishop, though she was accused a few months after Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba Indian, was the first person executed. She was accused of the murder of her first husband by witchcraft and of spectrally coming into the bedchamber of Marshal Herrick. The account of her entry into his bedchamber illustrates the sexual threat embodied by witches, particularly the threat that they posed to male authority.

Bridget Bishop was also an example of the spread of the accusations outside the main purview of the small community of Salem Village. She was a woman of dubious character, living in Salem Town, who was not personally acquainted with any of the afflicted girls, nor did she have a stake in any of the ongoing conflict between the various factions in Salem Village. Instead, she was a woman who had been tried as a witch once before and who had stoked the suspicion of her neighbors for years.
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The use of conventional courtroom arguments, like proof by negation (“if you don’t know what a witch is, how do you know that you are not a witch?”), illustrates that the existence of witchcraft was treated in the court system like any other common felony. Witchcraft was a real enough phenomenon in the colonial New England intellectual world that it could be argued as any other criminal act.

The Examination of Bridget Bishop
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The Examination of Bridget Bishop at Salem Village 19 April, 1692

by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, esquires

As soon as she came near all fell into fits.

[Q]:
Bridget Bishop, you are now brought before authority to give account of what witchcrafts you are conversant in.

[A]:
I take all this people
(turning her head and eyes about)
to witness that I am clear.

[Q]:
Hath this woman hurt you
(speaking to the afflicted)
?

A[illegible]g Hubb[?]d[scored out] Elizabeth Hubbard, Ann Putnam, Abigail Williams, and Mercy Lewis affirmed she had hurt them.

[Q]:
You are here accused by 4 or 5 for hurting them. What do you say to it?

[A]:
I never saw these persons before; nor I never was in this place before.

Mary Walcott says that her brother Jonathan stroke her appearance and she saw that ha[scored out] he had tore her coat in striking, and she heard it tear.

Upon sea[scored out] some search in the court, a rent that seems to answer what was alleged was found.

[Q]:
They say you bewitched your first husband to death.
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[A]:
If it please your worship, I know nothing of it.

She shake her head and the afflicted were tortured.

The like again upon the motion of her head.

Sam. Braybrook affirmed that she told him today that she had been accounted a witch these 10 years, but she was no witch. The Devil cannot hurt her.

[A]:
I am no witch.

[Q]:
Why if you have not wrote in the book, yet tell me how far you have gone? Have you not to do with familiar spirits?

[A]:
I have no familiarity with the Devil.

[Q]:
How is it, then, that your appearance doth hurt these?

[A]:
I am innocent.

[Q]:
Why you seem to act witchcraft before us, but the motion of your body, which has in[scored out] seems to have influence upon the afflicted.

[A]:
I know nothing of it. I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.

[Q]:
How do you know then that you are not a witch? And yet not know what a witch is? [scored out from “and yet”]

[A]:
I do not understand [scored out] know what you say.

[Q]:
How can you know you are no witch, and yet not know what a witch is?
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[A]:
I am clear: if I were any such person you should know it.

[Q]:
You may threaten, but you can do no more than you are permitted.

[A]:
I am innocent of a witch.

[Q]:
What do you say of those murders you are charged with?

[A]:
I hope I am not guilty of murder.

Then she turned up her eyes and they [scored out] the eyes of the afflicted were turned up.

[Q]:
It may be you do not know that any have confessed today, who have been examined before you, that they are witches.

[A]:
No, I know nothing of it.

John Hutchinson and John Hewes in open court affirmed that they had told her.
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[Q]:
Why look you, you are taken now in a flat lie.

[A]:
I did not hear them.

Note Sam. Gold saith that after this examination he asked said Bridget Bishop if she were not troubled to see the afflicted persons so tormented, said Bishop answered no, she was not troubled for them. Then he asked her whether she thought they were bewitched. She said she could not tell what to think about them. Will Good and John Buxton Junior was by and he supposeth they heard her also.

Salem Village, April the 19th, 1692, Mr. Samuel Parris being desired to take into writing the examination of Bridget Bishop, hath delivered it as aforesaid. And upon hearing the same, and seeing what we did then see, together wit[torn] the charge of the afflicted persons th[torn] present, we committed said Bridg[torn] Oliver.

John Hathorne.

Giles Cory, husband of accused witch Martha Cory, is one of the most notorious Salem witches because he was not only a man, but a man who was crushed to death between stones rather than hanged. With his case, we can see the spreading of the accusations not only across class lines, but also within families. Cory died because he refused to enter a plea, and the punishment of “peine forte et dure,” or “pain long and difficult,” was imposed in an attempt to compel him to plead.
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Giles Cory, however, was no gentle and retiring soul. In 1675 he had kicked a servant to death, a crime which had largely gone forgotten in his community, but which reasserted itself in the public memory once Ann Putnam began to report seeing him in her spectral visitations.
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Even choosing the death that would come from being pressed to death required a certain stoniness of character. Robert Calef, writing his later skeptical account of the Salem trials, reported that the pressure on his body was so great that his “Tongue being prest out of his Mouth, the Sheriff with his Cane forced it in again, when he was dying.”
3

The Examination of Giles Cory
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The examination of Giles Cory, at a court at Salem Village, held by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, esquires, April 19, 1692.

[Q]:
Giles Cory, you are brought before authority upon high suspicion of sundry acts of witchcraft; now tell us the truth in this matter.

[A]:
I hope through the goodness of God I shall, for that matter I never had no hand in, in my life.

[Q]:
Which of you have seen this man hurt you?

Mary Wolcott, Mercy Lewis, Ann Putman Jr., and Abigail Williams affirmed he had hurt them.

[Q]:
Hath he hurt you too?
Speaking to Elizabeth Hubbard.

She going to answer was prevented by a fit.

[Q]:
Benjamin Gold, hath he hurt you?

[Gold]:
I have seen him several times, and been hurt after it, but cannot affirm that it was he.

[Q]:
Hath he brought the book to any of you?

Mary Wolcott and Abigail Williams and others affirmed that he brought the book to them.

[Q]:
Giles Cory, they accuse you, or your appearance, of hurting them and bringing the book to them. What do you say? Why do you hurt them? Tell us the truth.

[A]:
I never did hurt them.

[Q]:
It is your appearance hurts them, they charge you; tell us what you have done.

[A]:
I have done nothing to damage them.

[Q]:
Have you never entered into contract with the Devil?

[A]:
I never did.

[Q]:
What temptations have you had?

[A]:
I never had temptations in my life.

[Q]:
What, have you done it without temptations?
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[Q]:
What was the reason
(said Goodwife Bibber)
that you were frighted in the cow-house?
And then the questioner was suddenly seized with a violent fit.

Samuel Braybrook, Goodman Bibber, and his daughter testified that he had told them this morning that he was frighted in the cow-house.

Cory denied it.

[Q]:
This was not your appearance but your person, and you told them so this morning. Why do you deny it? What did you see in the cow-house?

[A]:
I never saw nothing but my cattle.

Diverse witnessed that he told them he was frighted.

[Q]:
Well, what do you say to these witnesses? What was it frighted you?

[A]:
I do not know that ever I spoke the word in my life.

[Q]:
Tell the truth. What was it frighted you?

[A]:
I do not know anything that frighted me.

All the afflicted were seized now with fits and troubled with pinches. Then the court ordered his hands to be tied.

[Q]:
What, is it not enough to act witchcraft at other times, but must you do it now in the face of authority?

[A]:
I am a poor creature, and cannot help it.

Upon the motion of his head again, they had their heads and necks afflicted.

[Q]:
Why do you tell such wicked lies against witnesses, that heard you speak after this manner, this very morning?

[A]:
I never saw anything but a black hog.

[Q]:
You said that you were stopped once in prayer. What stopped you?

[A]:
I cannot tell. My wife came toward me and found fault with me for saying living to God and dying to sin.

[Q]:
What was it frighted you in the barn?

[A]:
I know nothing frighted me there.

[Q]:
Why, here are three witnesses that heard you say so today.

[A]:
I do not remember it.

Thomas Gold testified that he heard him say that he knew enough against his wife that would do her business.
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[Q]:
What was that you knew against your wife?

[A]:
Why that of living to God, and dying to sin.

The marshal and Bibber’s daughter confirmed the same, that he said he could say that that would do his wife’s business.

[A]:
I have said what I can say to that.

[Q]:
What was that about your ox?

[A]:
I thought he was hipt.
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[Q]:
What ointment was that your wife had when she was seized? You said it was ointment she made by Major Gidney’s direction.

He denied it, and said she had it of Goody Bibber, or from her direction.

Goody Bibber said it is not like that ointment.

[Q]:
You said you knew, upon your own acknowledgment, that she had it of Major Gidney.

He denied it.

[Q]:
Did not you say, when you went to the ferry with your wife, you would not go over to Boston now, for you should come yourself the next week?

[A]:
I would not go over, because I had not money.

The marshal testified he said as before.

One of his hands was let go, and several were afflicted.

He held his head on one side, and then the heads of several of the afflicted were held on one side. He drew in his cheeks, and the cheeks of some of the afflicted were sucked in.

John Bibber and his wife gave in testimony concerning some temptations he had to make away with himself.
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[Q]:
How doth this agree with what you said, that you had no temptations?

[A]:
I meant temptations to witchcraft.

[Q]:
If you can give way to self-murder, that will make way to temptation to witchcraft.

Note. There was witness by several that he said he would make away with himself, and charge his death upon his son.

Goody Bibber testified that the said Cory called said Bibber’s husband damned, devilish rogue.

Other vile expressions testified in open court by several others.

Salem Village, April 19, 1692

Mr. Samuel Parris being desired to take in writing the examination of Giles Cory, delivered it in, and upon hearing the same, and seeing what we did see at the time of his examination, together with the charge of the afflicted persons against him, we committed him to Their Majesties’ jail.

John Hathorne