The Penguin Book of Witches (19 page)

In this examination, confessed witch Abigail Hobbs accused George Burroughs, the previous minister in Salem Village, of being a witch. After his time in Salem, Burroughs had moved to Falmouth, Maine, where Hobbs knew him when she was living there with her family. Abigail claimed that Burroughs had brought her puppets to stick with thorns, including a puppet of his wife, which was a reference to the image magic that appeared frequently in accounts of early modern English folk magic. This examination elucidates the fact that the Salem Villagers would have seen the presence of witches in their midst as part of an overarching attack on their godly settlement by the Devil, who was also responsible for the attacks on their settlements by Catholic Indians and French, and who was recruiting witches to Maine in league with the Wabanaki tribe.

With the naming of George Burroughs, a man and a respected minister, as a witch, we also begin to see the rapid ascent of the accusations up the social hierarchy.
1
By this time in the trials, the inquiry had expanded far beyond the normal confines of a North American (or even English) witch trial. The accusations were reaching people whose reputations would normally have made them immune to suspicion. They have also extended well beyond the confines of the village. Though Burroughs would have left a reputation behind him when he left Salem Village, it is his questionable reputation and involvement in the Maine violence that drew suspicion.

Hobbs Accuses George Burroughs
2

Abigail Hobbs’s Examination, 20 April 1692 in Salem Prison.

This examinant declares that Judah White, a Jersey maid that lived with Joseph Ingersoll at Casco but now lives at Boston, with whom this examinant was very well formerly acquainted, came to her yesterday in apparition, as she was g[scored out from “as”] together with Sarah Good, as this examinant was going to examination, and advised her to fly, and not to go to be examined. She told them that she would go. They charged her if she did go to examination not to confess anything. She said she would confess all that she knew. They told her also Goody Osburn was a witch. This Judah White came to her in fine clothes, in a sad
3
colored silk [illegible] mantel, with a topknot and a hood. She confesseth further that the Devil, in the shape of a man, came to her and would have her to afflict Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Abigail Williams, and brought their images with him in wood like them, and gave her thorns, and bid her prick them into those images, which she did accordingly into each of them one.
4
And then the Devil told her they were afflicted, which accordingly they were and cried out they were hurt by Abigail Hobbs. She confesseth she was at the great meeting in Mr. Parris’s pasture when they administered the sacrament, and did eat of the red bread and drink of the red wine at the same time.
5

Abigail Hobbs’s Examination at Salem Prison, May 12, 1692

[Q]:
Did Mr. Burroughs
6
bring you any of the poppets of his wife’s to stick pins into?

[A]:
I do not remember that he did.

[Q]:
Did he of any of his children or of the Eastward soldiers?
7

[A]:
No.

[Q]:
Have you known of any that have been killed by witchcraft?

[A]:
No. Nobody.

[Q]:
How came you to speak of Mr. Burroughs’s wife yesterday?

[A]:
I don’t know.

[Q]:
Is that true about Davis’s son of Casco? And of those of the village?

[A]:
Yes, it is true.

[Q]:
What service did he put you upon? And who are they you afflicted?

[A]:
I cannot tell who, neither do I know whether they died.

[Q]:
Were they stranger to you, that Burroughs would have you afflict?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
And were they afflicted accordingly?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
Can’t you name some of them?

[A]:
No. I cannot remember them.

[Q]:
Where did they live?

[A]:
At the Eastward.

[Q]:
Have any vessels been cast away by you?

[A]:
I do not know.

[Q]:
Have you consented to the afflicting of any other besides those of the village?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
Who were they?

[A]:
I cannot tell. But it was of such who lived at the fort side of the river about half a mile from the fort, toward Captain Bracketts.

[Q]:
What was the hurt you did to them by consent?

[A]:
I don’t know.

[Q]:
Was the[illegible] anything brought to y [torn] ke them?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
Did [scored out] Q. What did you stick into the [illegible]?

[A]:
Thorns.

[Q]:
[torn] of them die?

[A]:
Yes. [torn] of them was Mary.

[Q]:
[torn] Did you stick the thorns?

[A]:
I do not know.

[Q]:
Was it about [illegible] [torn]

[A]:
Yes, and I stuck it right in.

[Q]:
What provoked you? Had she displeased you?

[A]:
Yes, by some words she spoke of me.

[Q]:
Who brought the image to you?

[A]:
It was Mr. Burroughs.

[Q]:
How did he bring it to you?

[A]:
In his own person. Bodily.

[Q]:
Where did he bring it to you?

[A]:
Abroad a little way off from the house.

[Q]:
And what did he say to you then?

[A]:
He told me he was angry with that family.

[Q]:
How many years since was it?

[A]:
Before this Indian war.
8

[Q]:
How did you know Mr. Burroughs was a witch?

[A]:
I don’t know.

She owned again she had made two covenants with the Devil, first for two years, and after that for four years, and she confesseth herself to have been a witch these six years.

[Q]:
Did the maid complain of pain about the place you stuck the thorn in?

[A]:
Yes. But how long she lived I don’t know.

[Q]:
How do you know Burroughs was angry with Lawrence’s family?

[A]:
Because he told me so.

[Q]:
Where did any other live that you afflicted?

[A]:
Just by the other toward James Andrews’s, and they died also.

[Q]:
How many? Were they more than one?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
And who brought those poppets to you?

[A]:
Mr. Burroughs.

[Q]:
What did you stick into them?

[A]:
Pins, and he gave them to me.

[Q]:
Did you keep those poppets?

[A]:
No, he carried them away with him.

[Q]:
Was he there himself with you in bodily person?

[A]:
Yes, and so he was when he appeared to tempt me to set my hand to the book, he then appeared in person, and I felt his hand at the same time.

[Q]:
Were they men, women or children you killed?

[A]:
They were both boys and girls.

[Q]:
Were you angry with them yourself?

[A]:
Yes, though I don’t know why now.

[Q]:
Did you know Mr. Burroughs’s wife?

[A]:
Yes.

[Q]:
Did you know of any poppets pricked to kill her?

[A]:
No, I don’t.

[Q]:
Have you seen several witches at the Eastward?

[A]:
Yes. But I don’t know who they were.

Susannah Martin, a widow from Amesbury only a few years younger than Rebecca Nurse, had suffered a poor reputation as a witch for over two decades.
1
She mounted her own defense in theological terms, articulating the controversial belief that the Devil could appear in whatever shape he would like, including the shape of an innocent person. In her claim that “he that appeared in same shape as glorified saint can appear in anyone’s shape,” she spoke to some of the doubts that theologians were beginning to express as the course of the trials started to rapidly expand. “Glorified saint” in Martin’s telling refers to the Bible’s witch of Endor, who conjured an image meant to be the spirit of Samuel.
2
If Samuel could be represented by witchcraft, then certainly Susannah Martin could have been. Like Martha Cory, Susannah Martin also expressed contempt for the proceedings.

At Martin’s examination we learn that the makeup of the group of afflicted has started to shift. What began as a collection of young girls bolstered by the word of a few teenagers now included a number of adults, most notably John Indian, Tituba’s husband. His affliction undermines the fun, but unsound, theory that ergot poisoning caused the girls’ fits: as a grown man, he would not have had the same symptoms of convulsive ergotism as an adolescent girl.

Susannah Martin Defending Herself
3

The Examination of Susannah Martin, 2 May 1692

As soon as she came in many had fits.

[Q]:
Do you know this woman?

Abigail Williams saith,
It is Goody Martin. She hath hurt me often.

Others by fits were hindered from speaking.

Elizabeth Hubbard said she hath not been hurt by her.

John Indian said he hath not seen her.

Mercy Lewis pointed to her and fell into a little fit.

Ann Putman threw her glove in a fit at her.

The examinant laughed.

[Q]:
What do you laugh at?.

[A]:
Well I may at such folly.

[Q]:
Is this folly? The hurt of these persons?

[A]:
I never hurt man, woman, or child.

Mercy Lewis cried out,
She hath hurt me a great many times and pulls me down.

Then Martin laughed again.

Mary Walcott saith,
This woman hath hurt me a great many times.

Susannah Sheldon also accused her of afflicting her.

[Q]:
What do you say to this?

[A]:
I have no hand in witchcraft.

[Q]:
What did you do? Did not you give your consent?
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[A]:
No, never in my life.

[Q]:
What ails this people?

[A]:
I do not know.

[Q]:
But what do you think?

[A]:
I do not desire to spend my judgment upon it.

[Q]:
Do not you think they are bewitched?

[A]:
No, I do not think they are.

[Q]:
Tell me your thoughts about them.

[A]:
Why, my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they are another’s.

[Q]:
You said their master. Who do you think is their master?

[A]:
If they be dealing the black art, you may know as well as I.
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[Q]:
Well, what have you done toward this?

[A]:
Nothing.

[Q]:
Why it is you, or your appearance.

[A]:
I cannot help it.

[Q]:
That may be your master.

[A]:
I desire to lead myself according to the will of God [scored from “will”] word of God.

[Q]:
Is this according to God’s word?

[A]:
If I were such a person I would tell you the truth.

[Q]:
How comes your appearance just now to hurt these.

[A]:
How do I know?

[Q]:
Are not you willing to tell the truth?

[A]:
I cannot tell. He that appeared in same shape as glorified saint can appear in anyone’s shape.
6

[Q]:
Do you believe these do not say true?

[A]:
They may lie for aught I know.

[Q]:
May not you lie?

[A]:
I dare not tell a lie if it would save my life.
7

[Q]:
Then you will speak the truth.

[A]:
I have spoke nothing else. I would do them any good.

[Q]
: I do not think you have such affections for them, whom just now you insinuated had the Devil for their master.

Elizabeth Hubbard was afflicted and then the marshal who was by her said she pinched her hand.

Several of the afflicted cried out they [torn] her upon the beam.

[Q]:
Pray God discover you, if you be guilty.

[A]:
Amen. Amen. A false tongue will never make a guilty person.
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You have been a long time coming to the court today. You can come fast enough in the night,
said Mercy Lewis.
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No, sweetheart,
said the examinant.

And then Mercy Lewis and all, or many of the rest, were afflicted.

John Indian fell into a violent fit and said,
It was that woman, she bites, she bites
[and illegible] then she was biting her lips.

[Q]:
Have you not compassion for these afflicted?

[A]:
No, I have none.

Some cried out there was the black man with her, and Goody Bibber, who had not accused her before, confirmed it.

Abigail William upon trial could not come near her. Nor Goody Bibber. Nor Mary Walcott.
10

John Indian cried he would kill her if he came near her, but he [was?] flung down in his approach to her.

[Q]:
What is the reason these cannot come near you?

[A]:
I cannot tell. It may be the Devil bears me more malice than another.

[Q]:
Do not you see h[illegible] God evidently [torn] you?

[A]:
No, not a bit for that.

[Q]:
All the congregation think so.

[A]:
Let them think what they will.

[Q]:
What is the reason these cannot come near you?

[A]:
I do not know but they can if they will [illegible] else if you please, I will come to them.

[Q]:
What is the black man whispering to you?

[A]:
There was none whispered to me.