Mary continued to act afflicted, however, for Nathaniel Putnam and Joseph Whipple made out a second complaint against Goodwives Elizabeth Fosdick of Malden and Elizabeth Paine of Charlestown for tormenting Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren of Salem Village. They presented the paper to Hathorne and Corwin in Salem on May 30, but for some reason the magistrates did not order arrest warrants yet for either of these suspects. The magistrates did, however, record statements the same day relating to the spectral activities of Bridget Bishop, including one from miller William Stacy.
Philip English’s specter was also reportedly active. Susanna Sheldon had stated on May 23 that his and other specters threatened to cut her throat or cut off her legs if she would not sign his book or if she told the magistrates that he had drowned John Rabson. When she resisted, Philip’s specter rushed away to Boston, vowing to kill several folk there and to try to kill the governor, “the gretes ininemy he had,” within six days “if he wos not tacken up [i.e., arrested].” But the real Philip English’s luck ran out, for the law finally found him in Boston on May 30 during a second search of the home of merchant George Hollard, one of his colleagues, where he had hidden all along.
Although the paperwork ordered the prisoner be committed to the marshall of Essex, that office had just been replaced by a sheriff when the government began to be reorganized. George Herrick was now a deputy sheriff under Sheriff George Corwin, Jonathan Corwin’s twenty-five-year-old nephew. It took a while for people to get used to the new terms and remember which to write on the official papers.
Sheriff Corwin’s duties with the newly established Court of Oyer and Terminer began with an order dated in Boston on May 30 and signed by Deputy Governor William Stoughton and Samuel Sewall. It ordered him “in their Majesties’ Names” to publicize the sitting of that court:
[U]pon Thursday next the Second of June next at Eight in the morning, for the tryal of all Crimes and Offences done and perpetrated within the sd County, Requiring all persons concerned as prosecutors or Evidences to give their attendance; And to Return Eighteen honest and lawfull men of yor Bailywick to Serve upon the Grand Enquest, and fforty Eight alike honest and lawfull men to Serve upon the Jury of Tryals at the said Court.
The witch trials had begun.
But first the local magistrates had to examine the latest batch of suspects in the Salem Village meeting house on Tuesday, the last day of May.
John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin brought Mary Warren to the Village along with the rest of their entourage to join Annie Putnam and the other afflicted witnesses: Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Hubbard, Elizabeth Booth, Sarah Bibber, and John Indian.
Although his name does not appear on the official documents of this day, a new magistrate, Bartholomew Gedney (father-in-law of George Corwin, the new county sheriff), was evidently present in addition to Hathorne and Corwin. Reverend Parris prepared to take notes as usual, and Stephen Sewall served as the new court clerk. Thomas Newton, the new king’s attorney, attended as an observer, for this was still a preliminary hearing. Once the trials began he would represent the government’s side of the cases as he had against old Goody Glover in Boston when Sir Edmund Andros was governor—the same Goody Glover who was found guilty of witchcraft and hanged. But for now he watched, as astonished by the goings-on as the other out-of-town gentlemen who came to observe. Reverend Nicholas Noyes of Salem was present and probably offered the opening prayer. Mrs. Ann Putnam was among the onlookers.
Captain John Alden, “Mariner,” lived in Boston when in port. Evidently his accusation caused some stir among the authorities, for he frequently served in the defense of Massachusetts, largely as a privateer. His recent expedition to ransom captives, including his own son, from the Baron de Sainte Castine in the Eastward territory had failed, however, and public opinion already thought him more interested in private trade than public defense. In fact, Marbleheaders had nearly rioted a few years earlier when he tried to remove that town’s cannon—as ordered—for colony use elsewhere.
The authorities had ignored other suspicions against the better sort before, apparently dismissing them as mistaken before anyone entered a formal complaint.
According to Alden’s own account of the matter, after “a company of poor distracted or possessed Creatures or Witches” accused him, the Salem magistrates “sent for” him on May 28, and he was “sent by Mr. Stoughton” to Salem, where he arrived May 31. Perhaps he traveled north from Boston with the group bringing Philip English, but as he still wore his sword, evidently he was not yet under arrest.
Once in the Village meeting house, he regarded the afflicted with contempt. “Wenches . . . ,” he later wrote about the girls—Mary Warren and Annie Putnam among them—”who plaid their juggling tricks, falling down, crying out, and staring in Peoples Faces.” One of the girls pointed wordlessly at another military man, Captain Hill, when the magistrate asked her who hurt her. The officer standing behind the girl had to tell her which man was Alden. She had never seen the man in the flesh, she explained, but her hesitation made the magistrates order defendant and witnesses out of the dim building into the light of day for a better view. This had happened before with Nathaniel Abbott, who had been released, so Alden may have felt encouraged.
The afflicted circled Alden in the road outside the meeting house, and the same girl—again, not named—pointed at him. “[T]here stands Aldin, a bold fellow with his Hat on before the Judges, he sells Powder and Shot to the Indians and French, and lies with the Indian Squaes, and has Indian Papooses.”
At this point Alden was taken into custody, his sword confiscated because the afflicted said his specter menaced them with it. Thomas Newton then wrote out the arrest warrant for Alden, which Hathorne and Corwin signed. Both Annie Putnam and Mary Warren were listed among his supposed victims.
The magistrates set Alden’s case aside for a time while they questioned Elizabeth How of Topsfield. Although her neighbors suspected her of bewitching one of their children to death, the afflicted girls made the greatest impression against her. Annie Putnam and Mary Warren were stuck with pins. They fell at her glance, beginning with Mary Warren, and recovered, though with some difficulty, at her touch. They appeared repelled when they tried to get near the woman and claimed that her specter stepped from her body to belabor them. John Indian and others said her specter bit them.
“I am not able to give account of it,” Goody How protested. “I cannot tell, I know not what it is.”
But one of her neighbors had seen her specter in the company of Bridget Bishop’s specter: “goode ollever of Sallam that hurt william stace of Sallam the millar.”
Martha Carrier from Andover was more defiant. She had endured neighborhood suspicions for years, especially after a smallpox outbreak that killed several of her relatives. When Susanna Sheldon said, “[S]he looks upon the black man”—meaning the Devil—Annie Putnam agreed, and Mary Warren cried that something pricked her.
“What black man did you see?” one of the magistrates asked.
Goody Carrier shot back: “I saw no black man but your own presence.” (Black hair ran in both the Hathorne and Corwin families.)
Asked if she could look at the accusers and not knock them down, she said, “They will dissemble if I look upon them.” The screaming and flailing continued to escalate, with pins again pricking Mary Warren. Goody Carrier held to her innocence and insisted she did not see the reported ghosts of her supposed murder victims flocking throughout the room. “It is a shamefull thing,” she lectured the magistrates, “that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits.”
The afflicted fell in such severe seizures that the court not only held her for trial but also carried her out bound hand and foot. At this the afflicted relaxed, able to resume their duties.
Most of the afflicted went into a frenzy at the sight of Wilmot Read, a long-suspected Marblehead woman, and had to be carried to her for touch-test relief, even John Indian.
During t
he examination, according to Parris’s notes, Annie said that although she had often seen the woman’s specter hurting the others, it had never hurt her before. Parris’s notes did not mention Mary Warren at all, who would later state that, although she believed the woman was a witch, Goody Read had never hurt her.
“I cannot tell,” said Goody Read when the magistrates asked what she thought ailed the afflicted if she were not the cause. “I cannot tell.” The most she could say to their relentless questions was, “my opinion is they are in a sad condition.”
Captain Alden was more forthright when he was marched back into the meeting house and made to stand on a chair so the witnesses could have a better look at him. Why, he demanded, did they think he would come all the way to Salem Village to hurt people he did not even know? Herrick, meanwhile, held Alden’s hand still to prevent any further pinching of the afflicted with magical gestures. When Magistrate Bartholomew Gedney, an old friend and fellow merchant, urged him to confess, Alden replied that confession to these false accusations would only gratify the Devil. He dared anyone to bring any real proof against him. Gedney said that, as Alden later remembered, “he had known Aldin many Years, and had been at Sea with him, and always look’d upon him to be an honest Man, but now he did see cause to alter his judgment.”
The court told Alden to look at his accusers, at which the afflicted fell at his glance. Alden turned to look meaningfully at Gedney and asked why he did not fall over, but Gedney did not answer. Instead the magistrates ordered the afflicted to be carried to Alden for his touch. In exasperation, Alden wondered why Providence allowed “these Creatures to accuse Innocent persons.”
Reverend Noyes interrupted him, to lecture, with no little sarcasm, on Alden’s reference to the Almighty, who governed the world in peace and order, in contrast to the uproar and disorder surrounding Alden. When he could get a word in, Alden snapped to Gedney that there was “a lying Spiritt” in the girls. “I can assure you that there is not a word of truth in all these say of me.”
Deputy Marshall Jacob Manning brought Philip English, who had been passed from the custody of one county to another, before the magistrates. Unfortunately notes for his questioning are lost. Known for his temper, Philip was presumably no more cooperative than was fellow mariner-merchant Alden. Like Alden, he probably called his accusers liars. But like Willard, he had fled and been captured, and the magistrates saw his avoidance of the law as an admission of guilt.
This day other prisoners also facing the court and the noisy afflicted witnesses included Mary Toothaker, wife of jailed folk healer Roger Toothaker, and their nine-year-old daughter, Margaret; Captain John Flood, a militia leader even less successful than Alden; and William Procter, the seventeen-year-old son of John and Elizabeth Procter. Constable John Putnam had brought in the Procter boy.
According to Thomas Putnam’s list of those afflicted as of May 28, William Procter’s specter had tormented Mary Walcott and Susanna Sheldon “& others of Salem Village.” Precisely what Mary Warren, herself still suspected by the other girls, did and said during William’s questioning is, unfortunately, lost, as is how William felt toward her and who among his brothers might have dared be in the audience. Although their household had not been without conflict before, they must have been united in resenting her for helping to rupture the family so thoroughly.
The surviving paperwork indicates that William’s specter tormented Mary Warren and Elizabeth Hubbard, who most distrusted Mary, presumably during questioning. William refused to confess, and the court then took the unusual move of tying him neck and heels, a military punishment that drew the prisoner’s head down toward his bound feet. As John Procter would write,
My Son William Procter, when he was examin’d, because he would not confess that he was Guilty, when he was Innocent, they tyed him Neck and Heels till the Blood gushed out at his Nose, and would have kept him so 24 Hours, if one more Merciful then the rest, had not taken pity on him, and caused him to be unbound.
All of those questioned were held for trial, including an Arthur Abbott, who lived “in a by place” near Major Appleton’s farm on the border area of Ipswich, Topsfield, and Wenham. Though “Complained of by Many,” his sparse case notes suggest that he, like Mary Esty, would be set free in the near future. Unlike her but like Nehemiah Abbot (no relation), he would apparently remain free.
Before the magistrates left the Village Mrs. Ann Putnam submitted a deposition that Thomas had written out for her. In it she related how Rebecca Nurse’s specter began to torture her from March 18 onward. Martha Corey’s specter was just as bad, nearly tearing Ann to pieces, attacking with “dreadfull tortors and hellish temtations,” urging her to sign her soul away “in a litle Red book” with “a black pen.” But the tortures Nurse inflicted “no toungu can Express.” On March 22, when Nurse had appeared in her shift, “she threatened to tare my soule out of my body blasphemously denying the blessed God and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to save my soule.” Ann was also tormented on March 24, especially during Rebecca’s examination, so “dreadfully tortored . . . that The Honoured Majestraits gave my Husband leave to cary me out of the meeting house,” allowing her to recover. And that had ended the specters’ power to hurt her.
Just having to talk about it again was distressing. As a court official read her words back to her prior to her swearing to them, she became overcome and convulsed—right in front of the magistrates, in front of her daughter. It was Nurse’s vengeful specter attacking her—Nurse, her great enemy. Yes, said Annie. It was Goody Nurse, and Goody Cloyce and Corey too—all attacking her mother.
Samuel Parris, having taken most of the day’s examination notes, added to Ann’s deposition. She had not been troubled since Goody Nurse’s hearing “untill this 31 May 1692 at the same moment that I was hearing my Evidence read by the honoured Magistrates to take my Oath I was again re-assaulted & tortured by my before mentioned Tormentor Rebekah Nurse.”
Francis Nurse, however, was busy gathering signatures on a petition verifying Rebecca’s good character. In part it stated, “Acording to our observation her Life and conversation was Acording to hur profestion [of Christianity] and we never had Any cause or grounds to suspect her of Any such thing as she is nowe Acused of.”
Thirty-nine neighbors signed, with Israel and Elizabeth Porter (Hathorne’s sister), who had visited in March, among the first. Eight Putnams signed, including John and Rebecca Putnam, whose baby had died mysteriously. Daniel Andrews, another of the March visitors, had also signed, but he had already fled some weeks before after being accused himself, so how useful the document would be was in question.
The other prisoners from Salem in Boston’s jail would resent Tituba for her confession—Tituba, the catalyst, whose lies had helped get the rest of them in so much trouble. Did any of them empathize with her impossibly difficult situation? Or did they keep their distance, marking out territory in the big common room? Some were chained down and had no choice. Perhaps Tituba associated with the other nonwhite woman in that place, with Grace, a slave under a death sentence for infanticide. In the long, endlessly boring days and sleepless nights Tituba and Grace might have shared stories of their past lives. If so, Tituba would have learned how Grace, working in Boston as the property of the province’s treasurer, had born a child—alone, in winter—dragging herself to the backyard privy for privacy. Then, once rid of the burden, she jammed the infant headfirst down the privy hole. That was where someone had found the tiny body. Grace was arrested for murder, tried and convicted. Yet with no charter and the government in limbo, she could not be executed. The local government would not presume so far until they knew what England expected of them. So Grace languished in the Boston prison for years, she and Elizabeth Emerson, a young unmarried white woman from Ipswich who had born twins who were later found dead, sewn in a sack and buried in her parents’ garden. Elizabeth told the authorities that they were born dead, but something about the bodies suggested otherwise. She too was found
guilty of murder and awaited execution. Now that the government was being re-formed—enough for the courts to try the witchcraft cases—death sentences could be brought against Elizabeth and Grace as well.
The court records do not indicate whether Grace had conceived the child from a consensual act or from rape, nor did it say if she killed the infant as an unwelcome reminder of the rapist who had sired it or killed the child to free it from a life of slavery and humiliation. Perhaps Tituba learned.
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More and more suspected witches have been sent from Salem to Boston’s jail. Tituba is surprised that so many respectable women are among them—or at least women whom neighbors had once regarded as respectable. Even church members and those women of wealth and prestige were here alongside poverty-stricken Sarah Good. Mistress English has servants who bring changes of clean linen. Others, like Goodwives Nurse, Esty, and How have devoted families who make the long journey to visit. It takes the horses more than half a day to cover the distance from Salem to Boston. Others must hope for the sparse help of strangers.
A few brave folk venture to visit, usually armed with spiritual comforts instead of the practical necessities so desperately needed. Others send a servant to do so, a more convenient way to store up credit in Heaven.
At the least it breaks the monotony to watch them. Tituba notices Sarah Good begging a bit of tobacco from a nervous hired girl who is trying not to look any of the suspects in the eye. Clearly she does not want to be there.
Sarah, already more on edge than usual since the death of her infant, raises her voice to repeat the request, but doing so makes it sound like an order.
Six Women of Salem Page 25
