I bury my head under the pillow.
GOOD-BYE, SALEM
Mercy Lewis, 17
The house creaks farewell.
Gales blow up snow
as sand pebbles are moved
by the tides.
The gate bang, bangs
in the wind, sounds
as if it might fly off its hinges.
Morning cracks over the trees
orange and gold.
All my dresses on,
the blue atop the brown,
each step, I feel how heavy it be.
I grasp the envelope
addressed Aunt Mary Lewis Skilling Lewis
written by Father so many years back.
Pray she will take me in,
for there is no loyalty as strong as family.
The snow falls fresh this morning,
I track no ashes of the Invisible World.
In New Hampshire I start anew.
THE REAL GIRLS AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM
in order of appearance
MERCY LEWIS (age 17) In 1692 the real Mercy Lewis was indeed seventeen and did serve in Thomas Putnam’s home. Mercy legally accused fifty-four people of witchcraft and gave formal testimony at twelve public examinations or trials. After the crisis of 1692 Mercy moved to Greenland, New Hampshire, to live near her aunt. She bore a bastard child in 1695 and later married the presumed father of her child, Charles Allen. She and Charles then moved to Boston.
MARGARET WALCOTT (age 17) Margaret Walcott is based upon the real Mary Walcott. Mary was involved in sixty-nine legal complaints and testified twenty-eight times. She married Isaac Farrar in 1696 and bore him seven children. They raised their family in his hometown of Ashford, Connecticut.
ANN PUTNAM JR. (age 12) The real twelve-year-old Ann Putnam Jr. made fifty-three legal complaints and formally testified twenty-eight times. One of the last girls to end her accusations and testimony, Ann is recorded as having testified up until May 1693. Her parents died within two weeks of each other in 1699, and Ann was left to care for her seven siblings. When Ann joined the Village Church in 1706, she begged forgiveness and declared that Satan had deceived her into accusing people of witchcraft. Ann was the only accuser known to account for her actions in the crisis. Ann Putnam Jr. died unmarried in 1715.
BETTY PARRIS (age 8) The real Betty Parris signed only three legal complaints. She never testified. In March 1692, Reverend Parris moved his daughter to the home of his friend Stephen Sewall, in hopes that her torments might ease. Betty Parris married Benjamin Barron in 1710. She raised five children and died at age seventy-six.
ABIGAIL WILLIAMS (age 12) The real Abigail Williams lived with her uncle Reverend Parris during the crisis of 1692. She and Betty Parris, her cousin, were the first two afflicted girls. Abigail accused forty-one people of being witches and testified in seven cases. What became of the real Abigail Williams is not part of the historical record. It is surmised that she died unmarried.
ELIZABETH HUBBARD (age 17) The real “Betty” Hubbard formally accused forty-one people of witchcraft. She testified in thirty-two cases. After the crisis Betty moved to Gloucester, probably to live with one of Dr. Griggs’s married children. There she met and married John Bennett. Betty Hubbard’s death date is unknown.
SUSANNAH SHELDON (age 18) The real Susannah Sheldon signed twenty-four legal complaints but was recorded to have testified in only three cases. After her participation in the Salem trials, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island. But because Susannah was “a person of Evil fame,” the Providence town council warned her out of town. What happened to her after that is not certain, though it is likely that she went mad. It is believed that she died unmarried before 1697.
THE REAL PEOPLE THE GIRLS ACCUSE
in order of first mention in the book
TITUBA was a slave of Reverend Parris’s from Barbados. She was the first witch accused. It was thought that she taught the girls some folk magic. She also baked a “witch cake” using Betty’s and Abigail’s urine to test if the girls were bewitched. Baking the cake fortified the notion that Tituba was herself a witch. Upon examination Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft in elaborate detail. Her confession in many ways fueled the large-scale witch hunt. Tituba was not released from jail until May 1693 because prisoners had to pay for their imprisonment, and Reverend Parris would not settle her jail debt. Reverend Parris sold her to an unidentified person who paid her prison tab.
SARAH GOOD and her daughter were reduced to begging. Sarah was surly and therefore long considered a witch. She was one of the first three witches accused. She was hanged July 19, 1692.
SARAH OSBORNE, one of the first three witches accused, married Robert Prince, an in-law of Thomas Putnam, in 1662. After Prince died, Sarah Osborne “lived in sin” with her indentured servant, Alexander Osborne, and then married him in 1677. She then tried to disinherit the two sons she had with Prince (who were the cousins of Thomas Putnam). At the time of her accusal, Sarah was ailing and senile. She died in prison on May 10, 1692.
ELIZABETH PROCTOR (in the book REBECCA PROCTOR) was also easily accepted as a witch because her grandmother Goody Burt had been accused of witchcraft thirty years before Elizabeth. Her husband, John, held a license to sell liquor from their home, but Elizabeth often was the one to serve it. Her husband tried to defend her in court during examination and was a vocal opponent of the witch hunt. He became accused of witchcraft. Ruth Warren, whose real name was Mary Warren, was their servant. The court pronounced Elizabeth guilty, but she begged for a reprieve as she was pregnant. The court granted her request and spared her the noose. Her husband was not so fortunate.
REBECCA NURSE was seventy-one, ailing, and partially deaf at the time of her accusal. Rebecca Nurse had eight children, and the Nurse family was established as one of the prosperous families with over three hundred acres of land by 1692. She was known for her piety and was a full member of the Salem Town church. Her husband formed part of the Anti-Reverend Parris committee, and he had been in a land dispute with Nathaniel Putnam in the 1670s. The witchcraft accusation against Rebecca Nurse aroused more protest than that against any other witchcraft victim. She was hanged on July 19, 1692.
MARTHA COREY was publicly skeptical about the existence of witches in Salem Village. The fourth person accused, Martha was the first Salem Village church member accused. Though she became pious, her reputation was tainted because she had given birth to an illegitimate child, a mulatto. Her husband was Giles Corey. She was hanged September 22, 1692.
MARY WARREN (in the book RUTH WARREN) was John and Elizabeth Proctor’s maid. When she became afflicted, John whipped her until she claimed she no longer saw witches. She tacked her recantation onto the meetinghouse door. Mary was then accused of witchcraft and at her examination she broke into fit, again deciding to be one of the afflicted girls. She implicated both John and Elizabeth, among a long list of other known “witches” while in jail. Mary Warren was released but returned to a household of five children and no master or mistress. The sheriff had seized all of the Proctors’ belongings because an accused witch’s estate always became forfeit.
SARAH CLOYSE was a sister of Rebecca Nurse and the sister-in-law of Mercy Lewis’s paternal aunt. She was a member of the Salem Village church. Skeptical about the witch accusations and angered over the imprisonment of Rebecca, she marched out of the meetinghouse in protest of the sermon “Christ Knows How Many Devils There Are in His Churches, and Who They Are.” After questioning the girls and then fainting during her formal examination in April 1692, Sarah Cloyse was assigned to the larger Boston jail. Rebecca Nurse was hanged on July 19, 1692, and Sarah and Mary Easty (Charlotte Easty in the book), the two surviving sisters, petitioned the court to hear evidence both for and against the accused. They petitioned for a fair trial. The petition, though beautifully written, impacted nothing. It did not spare Mary Easty the noose. Fortunately for Sarah, her case never went to court. She was released from jail in January
1693.
BRIDGET BISHOP had been accused of witchcraft twelve years earlier. She lived in Salem Town and was known to the girls only by reputation. Rumored to have bewitched to death children and her first husband, she was the first witch to hang, on June 10, 1692.
DELIVERANCE HOBBS, at her examination, confessed to signing the Devil’s book. She later tried to deny her confession, and the girls once again became afflicted by her. Deliverance wound up implicating Bridget Bishop in order to save herself.
GILES COREY, prosperous eighty-year-old farmer and husband to Martha Corey, had a reputation for aggression. He was brought to court in 1675 for beating a manservant to death. Giles testified against his own wife at her examination and then soon was accused himself. He would not enter a plea and stood mute at his trial. He was sentenced to peine forte et dure; heavy stones would press him into entering a plea or crush him to death. He died September 19, 1692.
REVEREND GEORGE BURROUGHS was considered by the accusers to be the Grand Conjurer, the leader of the witches. According to the girls, he oversaw meetings that all the witches attended in the pasture beside the meetinghouse. He was the Salem Village minister from 1680 to 1683, and then returned to Maine after having disagreements with Thomas Putnam and his allies. Mercy Lewis served in his house up north when she was eight years old and recently orphaned. She witnessed him abuse two wives and probably was also abused by him. Reverend Burroughs was brought back to Salem Village as a prisoner. On August 19, 1692, the date of his execution, he recited the Lord’s Prayer without a mistake just before he was hanged, a feat thought to be impossible for a witch. The crowd screamed and feared that an innocent man was being put to death. But Reverend Cotton Mather, who was often a strong opponent of the witch trials, convinced everyone at Gallows Hill that George Burroughs was indeed a wizard and as such deserved to hang.
NEHEMIAH ABBOTT was a Topsfield weaver in his midtwenties whose specter Ann Jr. declares to have seen. But after a formal examination and Mercy’s decisive declaration that “it is not the man,” Ann recanted her public statements, and Nehemiah Abbott was let go free without serving any jail time and without being sentenced. This was the only time in the witchcraft trials that has been recorded where someone was brought to formal sentencing but the accusers publicly disagreed and then released the accused as innocent.
JOHN WILLARD tended Ann Putnam Sr. when she was a child. Ann Putnam Jr. first saw Willard’s specter whip her sister Sarah to death. Sarah died as an infant in 1689. Willard then sought prayer and counsel with some of his family, the Wilkinses, but after he visited them old Bray Wilkins could not urinate and suffered tremendous pain. Seventeen-year-old Daniel fell ill and died. John Willard was blamed for these incidents, and the girls’ spectral sight confirmed the families’ assumptions. Willard anticipated his arrest and fled. He was captured in Groton on May 16, 1692. John Willard was hanged August 19, 1692.
JOHN ALDEN had ties to Maine and the frontier wars. He was a wealthy mariner from a prominent family that came over on the Mayflower and was a member of the Boston Church. The famous quote about John Alden, generally attributed to Ann Putnam Jr. but in the book attributed to Mercy Lewis was, “There stands Alden, 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 squaws and has Indian papooses.” And there was indeed testimonial evidence by those who knew Alden from the frontier wars that this “gossip” was true. Because John Alden had enough money, he paid off his jailers and escaped. By the time he was recovered, the witch trials were over, and the court cleared Alden by proclamation.
JOHN PROCTOR was the husband of Elizabeth Proctor (Rebecca Proctor in the book). Native to Ipswich, he moved to Salem Village in his thirties and prospered not only as a farmer but also as a tavern keeper and entrepreneur. John spoke loudly against the witch hunt from its inception. He whipped his maid Mary Warren (Ruth Warren in the book) into recanting her spectral sight. John and his wife were both accused of witchcraft in the spring of 1692, she first. John Proctor was hanged at Gallows Hill August 19, 1692.
MARY EASTY (in the book CHARLOTTE EASTY) was a sister to both Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Cloyse, and apparently the most intelligent and pious of the lot. Formal complaints that she was indeed a witch were issued against Easty on April 21, 1692; and she was sentenced to join her sisters in the Boston jail. On May 18, 1692, an unprecedented event occurred: she was released from jail for three days, but when the girls suffered most terrible fits, Mary Easty was returned to incarceration. Mary wrote an eloquent petition after she was sentenced to die, not to spare her own life, but so that the others yet accused might receive more just and equitable trials. Mary Easty was hanged September 22, 1692.
SAMUEL WARDWELL was a forty-nine-year-old carpenter from New Hampshire who confessed that he had become “discontented” and had “foolishly” become involved with fortune-telling and the “black man” (the Devil). Interestingly, Samuel had been integral in convincing other people to confess during their examinations. Samuel recanted his confession to the grand jury, but they believed his initial statements and sentenced him to die. He was hanged September 22, 1692.
IN THE END, nineteen people were hanged (fourteen women and five men). One man was pressed to death. Three women and several infants died in jail, and more than 144 people had legal action brought against them.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The idea to write a book about the Salem witch trials was offered to me by a friend. I went online and off to the library to see if I could find something intriguing, something I could invest in or relate to about the project. What struck me immediately in the research was the idea that the teen girls of Salem Village managed to become the most powerful people in town during the 1692 witch trials. Especially since the girls found power through madness and wrongdoing, I was hooked right then and knew I wanted to write their story. History revealed a story of group dynamics within the larger community and, I imagined, within the girl clique itself. The tale that unfolded seemed so timeless and incredibly relevant today. Here was a story of the pitfalls of peer pressure, gossip and girl group dynamics that led to false empowerment.
The greatest mystery of the Salem witch trials is what motivated the girls to name people witches. As far as we know today, no precise answer was ever given. The girls were silenced, not allowed to explain themselves, a sort of ultimate disempowerment. Wicked Girls provides fictional backstories for and gives fictional voices to some of the real girls whose testimony named people witches and ultimately led to nineteen hangings in 1692.
The afflicted girls’ “bewitchment” was what the Village elders interpreted the girls’ fits as being. Their afflictions just as easily could have been declared religious fervor, and in fact similar youth behavior in the eighteenth century led to the Great Revival. It is hard to imagine today, but people believed in witches much as they believed in God and Satan. Times were hard, and many families were losing fathers, sons, uncles, mothers, daughters, babies and livestock to war, Indian raids, famine and illness. Settlers in the late seventeenth century needed an explanation for this suffering and loss, and witches doing Satan’s bidding seemed logical and reasonable to the Puritans. But this still did not fully explain why the girls accused more than 220 people (and a great number of them folk whom the girls themselves had never met) of being witches.
Many theories exist about the girls’ actions. Some of the medical theories include that the girls suffered from a psychological hysteria, a sort of post-traumatic stress disorder in response to Indian attacks and nearly two decades of the frontier war; that the girls had a mental breakdown as a result of watching their families slaughtered by Indian attacks and war. Another theory is that they contracted convulsive ergotism caused by eating fungus-infected rye bread. In other words, they ate old bread and it made them “high” and caused them to see visions. This theory is not widely accepted. A final medical theory is that they caught an epidemic of bird-borne encephalitis letharg
ic, a sort of flu that made them hysterical. Many historians are inclined to believe that the cause for the girls’ behavior was not biological and feel that their motivation was jealousy, spite and a need for attention—that the girls were simply acting. A more sociopolitical explanation for their behavior is that those affiliated with Salem Town in general, the new bourgeois (and specifically those related to the Porter family), fell into conflict with the landed gentry in Salem Village headed by the Putnam family. A number of issues dealing with land, inheritance and the reverend selected for Salem Village created a sort of feud between the two major families settled in the Village. However, whatever the theory, almost all the historians seem to agree that it is likely that the first fits of Betty and Abigail were not intentional.
Wicked Girls combines some of these theories, but the basic premise I fictionally represent is that the accusers “faked” their affliction and knew what they were doing. Girls had no voice in a Puritan society, and that lack of power may have constricted them to the point of hysteria. Life was very hard, and any opportunity for relief from daily burdens would be tempting. This book also tries to incorporate some of the socioeconomic reasoning and the ways in which war contributed to the girls’ behavior. It should be noted that not all accusers were girls. Many adult men and women accused their neighbors of being witches. Oftentimes the people accused would confess to being witches, which may seem ridiculous. But that was because, although a confession locked a “witch” in jail, without exception it spared her/him the hangman’s noose. Confessions obviously strengthened the girls’ accusations and spurred on the hunt.
Wicked Girls Page 19