JOSEPH HOULTON
JOHN WALCOTT
The Warrant
Warrant for Arrest of Martha Carrier, To the Constable of Andover
Salem May the 28th 1692
You are in theire Majesties names hereby required to apprehend and forthwith secure, and bring before us Martha Carrier, the wife of Thomas Carrier of Andover, on Tuesday next being the 31st day of this Instant month of May about ten of the clock in the forenoon or as soon as may be afterwards at the house of Lt. Nathaniel Ingersall in Salem Village who stands charged with having Committed Sundry acts of Witchcraft . . .
JOHN HATHORNE
JONATHAN CORWIN, ASSIST.
The Depositions
John Roger v. Martha Carrier
The deposition of John Roger of Billerica aged 51 yeares or thereabouts, saith, that about seven yeares since, Martha Carrier, being a nigh neighbor unto this deponent, and there happened some difference betwixt us. She gave forth several threatening words as she often used to do and in a short time after this deponent had two lusty sowes which frequented home daily that were lost. And this deponent found one of them dead on the night he was found at the Carriers house with both eares cut off and the other sow I never heard of to this day. . .
Samuel Preston v. Martha Carrier
Samuel Preston aged about 41 yeares, saith, that . . . I had some difference with Martha Carrier which also had happened severall times before and soon after I lost a cow in a strange manner being cast upon her back with her heels up in firm ground when she was very lusty, it being in June. And within about a month after this the said Martha and I had some difference again at which time she told me I had lost a cow lately and it should not be long before I should lose another which accordingly came to pass . . .
Benjamin Abbott v. Martha Carrier
The testimony of Benjamin Abbott aged about 31 yeares, saith, last March was twelve months, then having some land granted to me by the Towne of Andover near to Goodman Carrier’s land, and when this land came to be laid out Goodwife Carrier was very Angry, and said she would stick as Close to Benjamin Abbott as the bark stuck to the tree and that I should repent of it afore seven yeares came to an end and that Doctor Prescott could never cure me . . .
Allen Toothaker v. Martha Carrier
The deposition of Allen Toothaker aged about 22 yeares, saith, . . . about last March Richard Carrier and myself had some difference and said Richard pulled me downe by the hair of my head to the ground for to beat me. I desired him to let me rise, when I was up I went to strike at him, but I fell down flat upon my back to the ground and had not the power to stir hand nor foot. . . . One time she, Martha Carrier, clapped her hands at me and within a day or two I lost a three year old heffer, next a yearling, and then a cow. Then had we some little difference againe and I lost another yearling. And I know not of any naturall causes of the death of the abused Creatures, but have always feared it hath been the effect of my Aunt and her malice . . .
Phoebe Chandler v. Martha Carrier
The deposition of Phoebe Chandler aged 12 yeares, testifieth that about a fortnight before Martha Carrier was sent to Salem to be examined, upon the Sabbath day when the psalm was singing, said Martha Carrier took me, said deponent, by the shoulder and shaked me in the meeting house and asked me where I lived, but I made her no answer (not doubting but that she knew me, having lived some time the next door to my father’s house, on one side of the way). . . . And that day that said Martha Carrier was arrested my mother sent me to carry some beer to the folks who were at work in the lot and when I came within the fence there was a voice in the bushes (which I thought was Martha Carrier’s voice, which I know well) but saw nobody, and the voice asked me what I did there and whither I was going, which greatly frightened me . . .
CHAPTER SEVEN
May 1692–July 1692
THIS, THEN, WAS my mother’s trial.
Richard, who had been watching Mother’s arrest from the hayloft in the barn, followed the constable on foot the few miles north up Boston Way Road and then south along Salem Road at the meetinghouse juncture. It was not yet seven of the clock, but as they rolled over the common green, a small group gathered to stare at Mother as she passed by. No one spoke. Not one person called out with curses or warnings or even pleas of leniency for pity’s sake. And until they came to Miller’s Meadow, men and women stepped out of their homes or stopped working in the fields to watch and give testament to their neighbors that they had seen the witch of Andover.
The day was warm, and the constable, being a porous beefy man, drank often from his water skin, though he never once offered a drink to his prisoner. Richard had not thought to bring a water skin, and so when the cart crossed the little bridge over Mosquito Brook, he dipped his hat into the stream and ran to give Mother some water. John Ballard growled and showed Richard his fist and said that if he came close again to his prisoner, he would be tied hand over hand and thrown into the cart as well. Richard followed the cart the whole of the seventeen miles into the quiet, fearful streets of Salem Village.
Through Richard’s telling of the examination we heard only the scaffolding of events. Later, we would all see for ourselves the place where judgments were rendered. The Salem Village meetinghouse was squarely built on a raised stone foundation with narrow doors on three sides that had all been opened to allow the coming and going of the accused, their victims, their neighbors giving depositions, and the sundry curious citizens who came from towns and villages across Essex and Middlesex counties.
Mother was lifted down from the cart and brought into the meetinghouse, her hands still tied, and though Richard tried to enter, he was warned by the constable to stay in the yard and not to interfere with the judges. Richard stood at the back of the press of people, but as his height was well above six feet, he had a clear field to the inquiry. As soon as she was taken in, the judges motioned to the constable, and he led her forward to stand facing the three men whose names were well known in Salem and beyond: Bartholomew Gedney, John Hathorne, and Jonathan Corwin. John Ballard signed the warrant receipt, took the rope from Mother’s hands, tipped down the brim of his hat to the judges, and left her in the charge of the court.
Standing to her left, separated by some men and women in chains, were Aunt Mary and Margaret. Mother tried to speak to them but she was cautioned to silence. In the pews at the front, a group of young women and girls sat hanging on one another’s shoulders, talking quietly, and looking keenly at the gathering of the accused. Whenever the judges called before them one of the prisoners, the girls would pitch forward or scream or fall to the floor and roll about like a serpent shedding its skin. Richard said that Mother stared steadfastly at the judges and ignored the girls as one would ignore the tantrums of a hobbled child.
Finally the name Martha Carrier was called, and Richard said that one of the girls, named Abigail Williams, immediately stood up and pointed, not at Mother but at Aunt Mary. As soon as Mother stepped forward, she quickly realized her error and changed the direction of her pointing, like a weather vane in a shifting wind. Then the other girls whipped themselves into frenzy, and it was several minutes before there was enough quiet for the judge to speak. One of the judges faced the accusers and asked the pointing girl, “Abigail Williams, who hurts you?”
And Abigail answered, raking her nails down her face, “Goody Carrier of Andover.”
Then the judge turned to another girl and asked, “Elizabeth Hubbard, who hurts you?”
And Elizabeth, clasping her arms around her stomach, said, “Goody Carrier.”
Turning to yet another girl, he asked, “Susannah Sheldon, who hurts you?”
And Susannah responded, turning to the onlookers as though she would enlist their help in fighting her tormentor, “Goody Carrier. She bites me and pinches me and tells me she would cut my throat if I did not sign her book.”
There was another great outcry, this time among the general witnesses, who said to one another, “The Devil’s boo
k . . . she asked them to sign the Devil’s book. . .” At that moment a girl named Mary jumped up, crying that Mother had brought the Devil’s book to her as well and tormented her while she slept. The judges waited patiently for the room to settle and then they pointed their eyes at Mother. The chief judge then asked Mother, “What do you say to this you are charged with?”
Mother’s voice sounded loud and clear through to the back of the room, “I have not done it.”
Then one of the girls leapt up, pointing to a place on the wall behind the judges, and screamed, “She looks upon the Black Man,” and another girl squealed out that a pin had been stuck into her thigh. The shortest of the three judges asked Mother, his eyes searching anxiously over his shoulder, “What black man is this?”
And Mother responded, “I know none,” but her voice was all but drowned out by the crying of the two girls. “He’s there, he’s there, I see him whispering into her ear. . .” And “See how I am pricked again.”
Mother crossed her arms over her chest but continued to ignore the writhing girls, and the chief judge asked yet again, “What black man did you see?”
And here Mother answered coolly, “I saw no black man but your own presence.” Out of the momentary quiet came a soft, sniggering laugh from the back of the room. The chief judge blinked his eyes a few times as though peering into a bright light and frowned as he pointed to the girls. “Can you look upon these and not knock them down?”
“They will dissemble if I look upon them,” she answered, but the judge stabbed his finger again at the girls, and when Mother turned her head to them, they fell to the ground, shrieking and clawing at themselves and moaning as though they were being drawn and quartered. Now the judges had caught a chill from the winds of hysteria, and the third judge, who had all this time been silent, stood up and said, “You see you look upon them and they fall down.”
Mother stepped closer to the judges and said loudly to be heard over the din, “It is false. The Devil is a liar. I looked upon none since I came into the room but you.”
Then the girl named Susannah seemed to go into a trance, her body rigid and trembling from some soul sickness and she pointed to the rafters and cried, “I wonder that you could murder thirteen persons.” The other girls looked to the rafters and pointed and began crawling over one another to hide themselves under the pews and called out, “Look, there are the thirteen ghosts. . . . See how they point at Goody Carrier. . . . She has killed thirteen at Andover . . . .” The men and women who had gathered inside the meetinghouse all looked to the rafters and swayed as one body outward towards the doors. Richard heard one woman standing close to him turn to another and say, “It’s true. She killed thirteen people with the smallpox last winter. I have heard she brought it with her from Billerica. It is much talked about.”
Mother walked a few forceful steps towards the girls and so stunned were they by her advances that they for a moment fell silent. She turned and faced the judges, saying, “It is a shameful thing that you should mind these young girls that are out of their wits.”
The girls howled with renewed vigor, saying, “Do you not see them? The ghosts.” The judges shifted anxiously in their seats and moved their chairs about as people will do sitting under a tree, avoiding the droppings of birds. Some of the men pushed their way out of the meetinghouse in terror for their lives, and women grew weak and had to be held up in the pews. Hands pointed upwards to the shadows that lingered in the crossbeams, and heads swiveled about on necks made stiff with fear, and even Richard was moved to search the rafters for ghostly traces. The short judge asked Mother, almost pleadingly, “Do you not see them?”
“If I do speak, you will not believe me,” said Mother, and it was then that Richard knew there would be only one ending.
The girls shouted at her with one voice, “You do see them. . . . You do. . .”
Mother pointed at them forcefully as any judge and said, “You lie. I am wronged.” The fits grew and bubbled over and became so violent that the chief judge called forward the Salem sheriff for the touch test.
The sheriff held out Mother’s arm, and the girl named Mercy Lewis came forward and was immediately made calm by touching it. Then the judges ordered that Mother be tied hand and foot, and as she was being bound with a stout rope, the girl named Mary told the judges that Goody Carrier had revealed to her in dreams she had been a witch these forty years. At these last words Mother cried out as she was being dragged away, “A neat trick that, as I would have been only two years old upon becoming a witch. Do you suppose I rode then upon my rattle?”
Once she was removed from the court, the girls became calm and peaceful until the next man or woman was brought forward for examination. Richard saw the sheriff put Mother in another cart and turn south for the Salem Town jail. She lay on the rough boards, as there was no straw beneath her, but when Richard tried following the cart, she shook her head and there was nothing left for him to do but walk back to Andover. He returned to the house before supper and after telling us of what he’d seen, we sat without speaking through the slanting light of dusk. Before the light had left the sky completely, I walked out of the house, and though Father called to me, I did not answer but ran as fast as I could to Chandler’s Inn. I had thought to scorch their smokehouse, or cut off all of Phoebe Chandler’s hair as she lay sleeping, but I had no burning taper and nothing sharp to cut with. But as I approached the yard, I saw three men finishing their work on a small outbuilding, and in the distance walking towards them, carrying buckets of food and beer, was Phoebe Chandler.
I quickly crossed the road and, hidden in full by the evening shadows, slipped into a stand of stunted pines that circled behind the inn on three sides. I waited for the men to finish their supper and, after packing away their tools, they parted company, leaving Phoebe to gather up the remnants of food and drink. I believe I could have walked up and tread on her toes and she would never have seen me because of her weak sight and because the moon was still empty in the night sky. But I stayed concealed in the trees and called out to her, making my voice low and threatening, “Girl, what are you doing there?” So startled was she that she shrieked and did not so much drop the buckets as fling them away. She stood twisting and turning about, looking for a body to put to the voice. And when she finally bent to pick up the scattered plates and bowls, I called out again. “Girl, whither go you?” She screamed again and, gathering what she could, ran for the inn.
Chasing her through the shadows, I made my breath harsh and ragged as though some desperate and hungering wolf were at her heels, and stopped only when she threw herself against the kitchen door. I watched her struggle mindlessly to push the door open, forgetting in her frenzy that the door was hinged to swing outward. I stood and laughed silently as she pounded and screamed and begged to be let in. Finally her mother, standing on the inside and fearing impending murder, flung wide the door and in so doing knocked Phoebe, with no little force, to the ground. She screamed and cried into her mother’s bulky breast, gibbering that some ghoulish force had hunted her through the yard. In the beginning, the walk home brought feelings of satisfied vengeance. But, like a frightened mule treading over my heels, my dark, disheartened feelings soon overwhelmed me. Throwing Phoebe Chandler down a well would not have brought Mother back from prison and no childish pranks would change the opinion of the courts.
It was full-on night before I returned home, but no one had gone to bed, and though Father looked long at me, he did not ask questions. There were some dried bits of bread and meat still on the table but I had no strength left to clear it properly and so let it lie. I picked up Hannah and took her to bed with me, grateful for once to have her arms wrapped tightly and possessively about my neck. I lay for hours without sleeping, the images of Mother’s inquest growing more grotesque and threatening as the hours passed. I thought of all she had said to me the night before and wondered how soon it would be before they came for the rest of us. I thought of Mother’s book and the bloody
deeds recorded within and the testimony of the girls saying Mother had told them to sign the Devil’s book. All through the night I fell in and out of sleep and burned as if with a fever and wondered if the red book buried under the elm was filling the air with the scent of burning hemp and sulfur.
AND SO WE passed into June, and as the seed was in the ground, it was decided that Richard and Father would by turns make the daily walk to Salem to bring food to Mother while she awaited her trial. We could not risk further injury to the horse on such a journey and it was just as well for, truth be told, Father with his bounding stride could walk faster than any horse at a walk. In the space of a day, it was twelve miles there and back again, taking the shorter, southerly route through Falls Woods. On occasion Robert Russell lent us his horse and we could carry by cart enough food to feed Mother as well as those prisoners who had no family to provide for them. Once a week Father brought Mother a clean shift for the soiled one she had worn for seven days, and salve for her skin, swelling and chafing under her irons. The first week when Father brought back the dirty linen, it was crawling with lice and crusted at the edge with her own, or someone else’s, waste. She had had her monthly courses and there was a large rust-brown shadow where she had bled onto her shift. I boiled it twice in lye to kill all the vermin and cried enough salt into the pot to bleach it white, but it would not come clean again. I folded it in such a way as to hide the stain and tucked lavender into the folds so that she would have the scent of something wholesome within the walls of her prison.
The Heretic's Daughter Page 17
