By the spring of 1680 some of the minister’s critics had a change of heart. At that time Nathaniel Putnam Sr. joined Thomas Putnam Sr., John Putnam, Thomas Fuller, and Joseph Hutchinson to deed meadow and upland lots to Bailey as well as part of the lot on which his house stood. Although an encouraging sign, the rest of the lot still belonged to the community. Bailey, who had acquired ownership of the parsonage, would later purchase the remaining land, which he rented out after he left the Village. For the time being, despite his concerns, he seems to have lingered, slowly collecting back pay.
The Village next approached George Burroughs to be their minister. Burroughs, also a Harvard graduate, was short, dark haired, and generally stronger than most expected. He had earlier taught school in Dedham (where he married his first wife, Hannah Fisher) and preached in Falmouth, Maine (until that town was burnt in King Philip’s War, at which point he and other survivors evacuated to Cushing’s Island in Casco Bay and lived on fish and berries until they were rescued). Since then he had been living in Salisbury, home of the Carr family. He and Hannah and at least two surviving children relocated to the Village and, without their own residence, boarded with John and Rebecca Putnam Sr., who thought the minister “a very sharp man to his wife.” The Burroughs even quarreled over George’s demand that Hannah sign “a written covenant . . . that she would never reveal his secrets” (as the Putnams would recall it), though what those secrets were remains unclear. How Burroughs got along with the Baileys, who were still living in the parsonage that might otherwise have been available to him, is another unanswered question.
By early 1681, when Ann gave birth in February to a son named Thomas, the Village asked Burroughs, not Bailey, to stay. Just off the road to Andover they also built a new parsonage, forty-two feet long by twenty feet wide, with two rooms in each of two floors, each with a hearth, plus a garret and a stone-walled cellar under the parlor. Mrs. Burroughs did not enjoy it for long, for she died that September. As he had not yet been paid, her husband had to borrow £7:1:10 from his former landlord for her funeral—a mortifying turn of events to be beholden to a man who did not trust him, especially as his lack of funds was due to the Village’s default on their previously agreed-upon obligations.
In December Burroughs nevertheless agreed to stay—on the condition that, if differences arose, “we engage on both sides to submit to council for a peaceable issue.” Salary was to be £60 a year and wood. The Village then voted to state that the ministerial house belonged to the Village, not to the minister. Burroughs was not settled permanently, however, nor did the Village have its own church yet.
Thomas and Ann still had to take their children to Salem town for baptism in its church, where Thomas was a member. Though Ann examined her soul, she did not yet feel reasonably certain that she was elect—saved—and worthy of full membership and the sacraments. Individuals, in the Calvinism that New England’s Puritans inherited, either were saved or were, ultimately, irrevocably damned. Effort could not change that reality—though it took effort to discern it—nor could mortals comprehend why the Almighty chose to operate in such an unfathomable, fearsome manner. Although a Christian should engage in good works, no one should presume it as evidence of divine favor or assume it possible to buy or bribe one’s way into Heaven.
The next year began with a dispute between the Village and neighboring Topsfield, for conflicting surveys had overlapped areas granted to different parties, none of whom would relinquish their claim to the contested land. The Putnam clan and their workmen faced off rival Topsfield men in distant woodlots, threatening each other with their axes in a decidedly un-Christian manner. Then, as winter ended, Ann’s father fell ill in Salisbury. Newbury physician John Dole attended with a series of neighbors and relatives, each taking turns to watch at the sickbed, a neighborly custom that offered the family sick-room help as well as prayer. “At his earnest and continual desire,” George Carr requested Reverend James and Mary Bailey to attend. (It is not clear if Ann was able to be present.) Father Carr, Bailey later said, “would not suffer myself nor wife to be absent from him,” requiring “daily and nightly attendance.”
Carr had no will and knew he was no longer able to make one. According to various watchers, he managed to state a few wishes, but this was hardly a substitute for a legal document. He desired that his brother Richard should continue to live in the household and that his son James should carry on the family business and have Carr’s Island. James was also to be responsible for his “distempered” brother John and was told to be fair to “your sister Mary, be sure do not wrong her, she has been a good girl to me.”
Dole, the physician, thought that “sometimes he seemed to be rational,” but Carr was seldom compos mentis during his illness. “He was,” Dole would say, “not capable to settle his estate, but desired of his children to agree amongst themselves.” By the time George Carr died on April 4, 1682, Bailey felt worn out from attending his father-in-law’s sickbed.
After the funeral (costing £17:4:0) the widow, her sons, and sons-in-law met at Carr’s house with a committee of appraisers—all local men—to discuss the valuation of the estate. The widowed Elizabeth, with sons George and James, presented to the court a list of £40:5:0 worth of the estate’s outstanding debts to various parties along with an inventory of Carr’s possessions, totaling £1,100—household goods, furniture, weapons, tools, lumber, and livestock as well as odd sums of money, debts due and debts owed, the ferry, and a long list of scattered meadows and pastures. “Some things, like sea instruments . . . were not appraised,” they noted. (The Indian named James was not listed either.) The court ordered that £180 apiece be given to the widow, the eldest son George, and son James (for his “several years service” in his father’s business) as well as £90 apiece to the younger sons and the daughters.
Ordinarily, a widow would be granted a third of the estate (more than she might expect under other governments), whereas the rest would be divided among the children, with eldest son receiving double portions. Elizabeth had other ideas.
Perhaps the Carr enterprises would not be economically viable if they were divided in the traditional manner. Perhaps Elizabeth, George, and James had been doing all the work of carrying on the family business. Perhaps she was not fond of her sons-in-law. In any case, she and the two sons found another set of appraisers—not local this time—and produced a second untotaled inventory. (This one noted that one of Carr’s horses was “in the hands of Thomas Putnam.”) Debts owed by the estate now included £23:1:0 due to “Mr. James Bailey upon the account of the portion of Mary his wife which they had received” and £20:8:6 “paid to Thomas Putnam and Ann his wife on account of his wife’s portion.”
The sons-in-law and William Carr protested, and the matter went to court at Salem in June. Under a doctor’s care from the rigors of attending his father-in-law and unable to perform “my necessary employment in order to the recovery of my health,” Bailey penned a lengthy petition protesting the second inventory, stating that it was “suddenly obtained in the absence of some of the persons concerned,” including himself, that it undervalued the estate, and that it omitted some things entirely. He had so far seen “little or nothing” of his wife’s marriage portion, even though “my father Carr” was always especially fond of Mary and had said on his very deathbed that “she should not be wronged.” But now, “by reason of the endeavors of some to get the estate into their own hands,” it seemed she would be cheated of her rightful due. In his view “mother Carr” had shown “too much partiality to the case, viz. against the daughters in striving to get the estate (to the great damage of the daughters) settled upon the sons.”
Widow Carr countered with her own petition that detailed her understanding of her late husband’s wishes. George, William, and Richard were married, with families of their own. Having “been careful of his father’s business and dutiful to him,” living with and working for him even after he came of age, James was to have the Island and was to care fo
r John, who was “crazed or distempered in his head these seven years and is not capable to govern himself.” Her brother-in-law Richard Carr, who had long lived with them, was now “ancient and cannot provide for himself.” Her husband had wanted his brother to have £10 or £11 a year, but the court would have to decide just how the estate could afford that. For herself, she wished to continue living in this household and for James to manage her part of the estate. She desired the magistrates “to leave something of the estate to be at my dispose at my decease among my children, for I did bring to my husband in that which was good estate to the value of two hundred pounds”—her marriage portion. As for the daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah had been raised as their uncle and aunt’s children, who provided for them well (for instance, a £500 dowry to Elizabeth when she married Woodmancy). She could not see how the late Elizabeth’s son John Woodmancy had any rights to George Carr’s estate. (This countered her kinsman James Oliver’s testimony that Carr had indeed promised that his grandson would inherit his mother’s portion.) Her daughter Mary Bailey had received £23:1:0, whereas £20:8:6 went to “Ann the youngest, the wife of Thomas Putnam.”
The sons-in-law—Thomas Putnam, James Bailey, and Thomas Baker—petitioned again in October, proposing as a conciliatory gesture, among other matters, “that our honored mother shall enjoy the Island and ferry during her natural life.” They also offered to purchase the Amesbury ferry from George Carr Jr. at more than the appraised value and asked that the rest of the estate be proportionately divided so “that everyone may know his part.” The Carrs did relinquish one of the horses to count toward Mary’s inheritance, for Bailey rode it on a journey “southward” to negotiate with the Killingworth, Connecticut community about being their minister. The horse that Thomas Putnam had was no doubt considered part of Ann’s portion. The estate’s papers included several lists of differing amounts due to each party.
Although the first set of appraisers insisted that the widow and the two favored sons refused to show them all of the Carr estate, the court took the widow’s side: the Carr enterprises remained with Elizabeth, George, and James.
(The same June court session also annulled Ralph and Katherine Ellenwood’s marriage due to his “insuffiency.” Katherine declared that she “would rather die than live with this man,” whereas Ralph was reported to have blamed his problem on the presence of witches in the neighborhood.)
Perhaps forewarned by the contentious Carr probate, Thomas Putnam Sr. wrote a will of his own in February 1683, “being ancient and sensible of the declining of old age, and weakness, and symptoms of mortality daily attending upon me.”
Meanwhile, as Burroughs’s opponents circulated angry letters that led to slander suits and grievance committees, Ann gave birth to a daughter on May 29, 1683. Despite family resentments over the Carr estate, she named the child Elizabeth—her mother’s name. The Putnams, however, evidently never cared for Burroughs and likely showed no disappointment when he departed for Maine along with other returning refugees. After four Sabbaths bereft of a minister, several complained of the abandonment. Burroughs did return to the Village in June, but he did so only to collect his back pay and then settle the debt with John Putnam Sr. for his late wife’s funeral. Part of the belated pay was to cover what was owed, but even so, Putnam had Burroughs arrested for debt. Other men posted a bond for his release, and the suit was dropped when the Village voted to pay Burroughs £15, though the embarrassing affair continued to gall him.
The Village next asked Deodat Lawson to preach, offering him £60 a year, but no wood. By April they added thirty cords of wood and reduced his pay to £40, then once again changed this sum to £60 with no wood. This indecisiveness and arbitrary fluctuation would prove to be a lasting thorn for all the Village ministers.
By now Ann’s sister Mary was far away in Connecticut, where Bailey was minister of Killingworth. (Her brother Richard would visit them there and marry a local girl before returning to Salisbury with his bride.) Ann’s mother, having seen the problems of dying intestate, made a will of her own in March 1684, but she likely kept the details of it to herself and the witnesses. In July 1685 Ann gave birth to another son and named him Ebenezer.
In January 1686 Thomas Putnam Sr., now over seventy, formally deeded his eldest son, Thomas, the homestead and several parcels of land that he was already using (reserving the right to cut wood on the property during his lifetime). Two days later Thomas added a codicil to his will and died by springtime. Once the older sons and sons-in-law learned the particulars of the will, more trouble erupted: the lion’s share, as they saw it, went to the youngest son, Joseph, not to the eldest, as was customary. Ann’s husband, Thomas, petitioned Joseph Dudley, then president of the Council of New England, asking that probate be delayed until he could speak his piece. The matter went before the council in July, with Daniel Wycom acting as attorney for Mary Putnam, widow and executrix. The will’s witnesses, Israel Porter and John Leach, verified that Thomas Sr. had indeed signed the document. The sons and sons-in-law petitioned for the eldest brother, Thomas, to serve as executor instead and “bring in a true inventory . . . so that each of us may have the proportion of our deceased father’s estate which by the law of God and man humbly belongs unto us.” This was “the cry of the fatherless and motherless,” for the will, as they saw it, “was occasioned to be made as it is by our mother-in-law [i.e., stepmother], by which instrument . . . we shall be extremely wronged.”
However, the council let the document stand as it was.
The will detailed the approximately 150-acre farms that Thomas Sr. had already given to sons Thomas and Edward. All the sons were to share the ten acres in swampy Blind Hole Meadow. The 120-acre farm was to go to “Mary, my beloved wife, and to my son Joseph Putnam, born by her, my said wife.” They were each to own one half, keep it in good repair, and on Mary’s death the whole would pass to Joseph, who, meanwhile, would get all the farm tools (his mother would have half the use of them), “plow gear and cart, . . . mill stone and cider mill.” He also specified that a house his wife had purchased from her first husband’s family before she married Putnam was to remain hers for life; after her demise Thomas and Joseph were to divide it equally down the middle.
To the four children of his deceased daughter Ann Trask he willed £10 apiece on their coming of age at twenty-one. He had evidently promised the other daughters, Deliverance, Elizabeth, and Prudence, £100 each in household goods and “current pay,” some of which they had already received in household items. Bond servant Joseph Stacey was to inherit eleven acres of upland and swamp once he served his allotted time.
Widow Mary Putnam was to receive £50 in plate and other goods (but not coins) that she could will as she wished to Thomas’s children at her own decease. She and Joseph were to be executors jointly—an unusual stipulation, as Joseph was still only sixteen—and the boy would fully inherit at the age of just eighteen, not twenty-one, as was normal.
The codicil adjusted the sums due to the daughters and bestowed to sons Thomas and Edward a certain orchard in the event they lost another parcel to the Topsfield men in the ongoing boundary dispute.
The Topsfield dispute did in fact continue, as did the Village argument over whether or not to settle Lawson permanently as its minister. By February 1687 Salem town once again had to mediate, advising a year’s cooling-off period. The mediators, Reverends John Higginson and Nicholas Noyes along with Magistrates Bartholomew Gedney and William Brown Jr., commented on the factions’ contentious and un-Christian behavior. Such “settled prejudice and resolved animosity . . . have a tendency to make such a gap as we fear . . . will let out peace and order and let in confusion and every evil work.” This too fell on deaf ears.
Instead, Lawson accepted a temporary (paying) post as chaplain in one of Sir Edmund Andros’s frontier campaigns. Some in the Village criticized him for deserting his flock, though the flock had probably been slow in paying him. In his absence his wife and baby daughter sickened and d
ied, so now Lawson had even less incentive to return to Salem Village.
Meanwhile, by the spring of 1687 Thomas, who wrote a fine, clear hand, finished the task of transcribing the Village records into a new volume, the old being full of crossings-out and marginal notes. The committee to oversee the copy, which had voted to omit certain “grievous” or “unprofitable” entries, paid him forty shillings.
In September Ann gave birth to another daughter, naming her Deliverance.
By the following June a new minister, Samuel Parris, and his family had been invited to the Village. This candidate seemed more acceptable to the Putnams and to enough of the others, even if they harbored silent doubts. In an October meeting the voters agreed to the choice, and with no heed to their earlier problem with Bailey over the first parsonage, they voted to give Parris “our ministry house and barn and two acres of land next adjoining to the house” if he “take office upon him amongst us and live and die in the work of ministry amongst us.”
None of the earlier candidates had been ordained as permanent minister, even though the ideal situation was for a minister to remain with a particular flock. Ordination was not automatically bestowed at the completion of studies but was instead considered a reciprocal arrangement, almost a spiritual marriage, marking the occasion when a candidate joined in union with a particular church.
Six Women of Salem Page 7