At some point this day Constable John Putnam informed the witnesses against Rebecca Nurse to report to the court by eight o’clock the following day, Thursday, June 2: Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott, Susanna Shelden, Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam Jr., and Ann Putnam Sr. Constable Putnam also warned Abigail Williams, Mary Walcott, Susanna Shelden, Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam Jr., and Nathaniel Putnam to appear in court as witnesses against John Willard at nine o’clock the same morning—but not Elizabeth Hubbard or Mrs. Ann Putnam, for all that she thought he had killed her infant daughter.
Ghosts continued to accost Ann Putnam, as fierce as the witch specters. Two dead neighbors from Will’s Hill, Lydia Wilkins and Samuel Fuller, materialized at her bedside the morning of June 2. John Willard had killed them, they told her with savage desperation, aided by Martha Corey and William Hobbs. If she would not tell Mr. Hathorne about this, they would tear her to pieces and appear in the courtroom themselves, they told her. Their murders must be made known. “I knew [them] when they were living & it was Exactly thier resemblance & Shape,” Ann told Thomas, who recorded this incident as well. The specter of John Willard appeared also to brag of those and other murders, for he had killed seven children in the Village, including “this deponents Child. Sarah 6 weeks old.”
One after another the inhabitants of the Invisible World invaded the visible world, terrifying and vengeful. But she had to be brave—as brave as her daughter. She had to go on.
Some hours into the morning of June 2, their first full day back in Salem, five of the women were examined for witch-marks (presumably apart from the male prisoners). Nine local matrons and a male surgeon looked them over, hunting for what might be the Devil’s marking of his own, something normally hidden under clothing: Bridget Bishop, Sarah Good, Susannah Martin (none of whom would have submitted meekly to this), Alice Parker, Rebecca Nurse, and Elizabeth Procter.
The jury of women gingerly or more roughly fingered the subjects to determine by sight and touch what imperfection—a mole, a scar, a wart—might be natural or might be an old wound where a devil branded a convert to mark possession, just as farmers notched their cattle’s ears in patterns of ownership, or might be a sore spot where an imp familiar had suckled bloody nourishment, drawing life and strength from the witch-host in Hellish parody of mother’s milk. Such matters were obscure, and the interpretations of such marks subject to debate.
They observed that Susannah Martin’s breasts were “very full; the Nibbs [nipples] fresh & starting,” odd for an older woman—though not so odd for an uncovered woman if the room were cold. The midwives would have discovered the more ordinary fact that Goody Procter was with child. They especially noticed that she, along with Nurse and Bishop, had, as the surgeon John Barton wrote, “a preternaturall Excresence of flesh between the pudendum and Anus much like to tetts [teats] & not usuall in women, & much unlike to the other three that hath been searched by us.” Later Court Clerk Stephen Sewall, added that these excrescences “were in all the three women neer the same place.”
Her excrescence, Rebecca Nurse explained, was due to difficult childbirth episodes. The eldest matron, a well-known midwife agreed that the imperfections looked natural, but none of the other women on the jury agreed. The prisoners pulled their clothes back together, and the surgeon went off to examine John Procter and Giles Corey with a jury of men, where they found nothing unusual.
Bridget Bishop, meanwhile, was taken from the prison to face the Grand Jury. Where her husband, daughter, or son-in-law were is open to question. Had anyone visited her in jail? Had anyone brought her a change of clean clothes? Was there anyone who did not believe her to be guilty?
Flanked by guards with staffs of office, preceded by the sheriff, they left the jail and passed through the gate to the lane. Onlookers would not have skipped this opportunity to gawk. The route to the court must have been lined with people, both locals and out-of-towners. From the lane they turned into the main street, making their way past the staring crowd, past the Ship Tavern—she had had trouble with those neighbors before—toward the town square by the pump and the meeting house. It was supposed to be under repair, but the workmen were absent, probably neglecting their job for the prospect of her trial’s entertainment. Bridget glanced toward that large building as they approached, just as something inside it made a great bang. The procession paused while men were sent into the meeting house to see what had happened. A board studded with nails, they reported back, had fallen from its place—just when the prisoner had looked in that direction—and the board was not particularly near where it had been originally, as if it had been thrown by some invisible presence rather than just come loose and dropped. This left the guards and crowd wondering if some entity had come to rescue one of its own.
But no rescue came, and Bridget was urged around the corner and up the rise to the town house. Two stories high plus a garret, the brick building stood in the middle of the street with Bridget’s home to the right and Reverend Nicholas Noyes’s to the left. Salem stored firefighting equipment in the town house attic, and the local grammar school occupied ground level. (If school was in session, there would be little concentration today. Translating the Latin of Caesar’s Gallic Wars could not be as gripping as eavesdropping on the war between God and Satan upstairs.) Town meetings and selectmen meetings ordinarily gathered upstairs, as did the Quarterly Court. Now the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened there to try the multitude of witch cases. Bridget’s would be the first.
While Bridget was being transferred from the jail, Chief Justice William Stoughton administered “in open Court” the oaths of office to Thomas Newton as their Majesties’ attorney general, who promised to “act truly and faithfully on their Majesties behalf, as to Law and Justice doth appertain, without any favour or Affection,” and to Stephen Sewall to perform the duties of clerk of the court.
The eighteen grand jury members also needed to take their oaths, for this body would consider all the cases and determine which of them ought to proceed to the trial jury or be dismissed. Unfortunately, their names are lost except for that of the foreman, John Ruck, a Salem town merchant and brother of Reverend Burroughs’s late second wife.
Stoughton presumably withdrew after the oaths, for judges did not preside at grand jury sessions, and the officers fetched Bridget Bishop to face the jurors, the attorney general, and her accusers. There may not have been a general audience for this part of the proceedings. Without the judges or onlookers, the grand jury hearings were evidently somewhat more subdued than the hearings had been or the petty jury trials would be.
Various witnesses, if they had not already done so, swore before John Hathorne that their written statements were true. Attorney General Newton had collected the written accounts and the examination notes from Bridget’s hearing in order to decide just what evidences he would present to the grand jury and which alleged victims to name in the indictments.
Once Bridget was brought up the staircase to the packed courtroom—all eyes on her, a wave of whispers at her appearance—Newton produced five indictments, of which four remain, for Bridget’s supposed torments against Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Ann Putnam Jr. He had prewritten forms ready, a Latin heading dating the document in the fourth year of William and Mary’s reign (1692) and phrased in standard legal language, handwritten with blanks left for the names of accused, victim, dates, and other specifics. On number five, for Annie Putnam, Newton wrote in the spaces as follows (here in italics):
Anno Regni Regis et Reginæ Willim et
Mariæ nunc Angliæ &tc Quarto:
Essex ss
The Jurors for our Sovereigne Lord & Lady the King & Queen prsents that Bridgett Bishop alis Olliver the wife of Edward Bishop of Salem in the County of Essex Sawyer the Nyneteenth Day of April in the ffourth Year of the Reigne of our Sovereigne Lord & Lady William and Mary By the Grace of God of England Scottland ffrance & Ireland King & Queen Defendrs of the ffaith &tc and di
vers other Dayes & times as well before as after certaine Detestable Artes called Witchcrafts & Sorceries, Wickedly and felloniously hath used Practised & Exercised at and within the Towneship of Salem, aforesd in upon and agt one Ann puttnam of Salem Village in the County aforesd singlewoman by which said wicked Arts the said Ann puttnam the sd Nyneteenth Day of April in the ffourth Year abovesd and divers other Dayes & times as well before as after was & is hurt, tortured, Afflicted Pined Consumed wasted & Tormented agt the Peace of our said Sovereigne Lord & Lady the King and Queen and against the forme of the Statute in that Case made & Provided.
Below this Newton wrote the names of the witnesses to this charge, listing the same five afflicted people on all the other indictments—Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Hubbard—all of whom had reported seeing the specters torment each other. There were also the names of three nonafflicted observers who had been present at Bridget’s hearing to see the reactions of the five and hear them name the accused—Samuel Parris, Nathaniel Ingersoll, and Thomas Putnam. These men did not claim to have seen the specters.
Back in April Elizabeth Hubbard had said that Goody Oliver (Bridget) had appeared to her wearing only a shift, but most of that paper accused Mary Warren, so it may not have been used against Bridget.
Susanna Sheldon made two rambling statements, one back in mid-May when she seemed to have been targeted by every witch in the region. Bridget’s specter tormented her with the book, in company with Giles Corey, Philip and Mary English, and the Devil as a “blak man with a hicrouned hatt” whom the witches worshiped on their knees. The whole crew of them suckled their familiars, even the men. Bridget’s imp was “a streked snake [that came] creeping over her shoulder and crep into her bosom.” Both Bridget and the Devil told Susanna that Bridget had been a witch for twenty years. Susanna was not asked to swear to any of this, so it was probably set aside.
Susanna’s statement, dictated to Thomas Putnam on this same day, involved the ghosts of Thomas Green’s dead infant twins, who accused Bridget’s specter of murdering them, “seting them into fits wherof they dyed.” As dramatic as it was, this statement also was not sworn.
Mary Warren’s statement, written down by Thomas Newton, seemed more believable—that Bridget’s specter had tormented Mary back on April 19 after Bridget was jailed in Salem. Mary swore to the truth of this in front of John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin this day, but the statement appears not to have been used against Bridget.
Instead, Newton presented eight or nine depositions from people other than the usual afflicted witnesses: Bridget’s neighbors who had suspected her for years, who knew all about the earlier charge against her even though that case had been dismissed. Bridget had to stand and listen to their stories being read—the strange lights, the dying babies, the sick children, the imp, the poppets, and on and on, with the deponents swearing to the truth of their statements. None of the incidents related to the five individuals named in the indictments as her supposed victims. The grand jury listened to all this, deliberated, and decided there was enough suspicion to put her case to trial. Thomas Newton wrote at the bottom of each indictment: billa vera (Latin for a true bill), and below that came the signature: “John Rucke fforeman in the name of the Rest.”
So now Bridget’s case would proceed to the trial jury before the Oyer and Terminer judges. Time between the grand and trial juries might take days or months, but in Bridget’s case all occurred on the same day. (How much time she had between the courts is unclear, or whether she faced her jury trial before four o’clock, when she and the five other women were searched again for witch-marks by the same committee of women as before.)
Records for all of the summer’s trials are missing. What happened during any of them can be partially reconstructed from standard English court procedure; the surviving depositions; and a summary of how matters went from a critical letter written the following October by Thomas Brattle, a wealthy gentleman and treasurer of Harvard College. In addition, Cotton Mather, asked to compose the official account of the witch trials, provided with copies of the court papers, and, most likely, told anecdotes by Stoughton and the Boston judges, described Bridget’s trial and four others in his Wonders of the Invisible World.
Once again Bridget was led into the courtroom, this time to face the bench of five or more judges: William Stoughton, Samuel Sewall, and Bartholomew Gedney plus at least two others, probably John Richards of Boston and Nathaniel Saltonstall of Ipswich.
The defendant could challenge selected jurors before she was sworn in, but whether Bridget did so, for all that she could be outspoken, is not recorded. She had no legal council to speak for her, as this was not yet British custom in any criminal case. The justices were to advise if necessary.
The clerk read the indictments, and Bridget, after being asked how she pled to the charges, replied, “Not guilty.” Asked how she would be tried, she gave the traditional response that allowed the court to proceed: “By God and by my country.” Bridget certainly knew her own innocence, and God knew the truth of things. The court was another matter.
Once Bridget had pled, the afflicted witnesses were brought in. If they had been at all restrained during the grand jury session, now they acted as tormented as usual. To the justices, jurors, and the audience of observers, as Mather reported it, “There was little Occasion to prove the Witchcraft, it being Evident and Notorious to all Beholders.” The question was: How to prove the defendant was responsible for it?
“[T]he first thing used, was the Testimony of the Bewitched,” according to Mather. Several spoke of the spectral attacks that left them bitten, pinched, and choked; others reported specters which pestered them to sign the witches’ book and threatened them if they refused. One of the afflicted told how the defendant’s specter snatched her from her spinning wheel and hauled her to the river and nearly drowned her, how it bragged of other folk already killed, how the ghosts of those murder victims materialized to the afflicted and called for vengeance. While Bridget herself thought her accusers were liars or, at best, the Devil’s dupes, the court found the actions of the afflicted convincing and were impressed by tales of her alleged victims’ ghosts crying, “You Murdered us!”
(Much of this testimony that Mather included obviously refers to Susanna Sheldon’s statements, though the documents have no notation that she had sworn to them. Perhaps she spoke in court—the court heard viva voce testimony as well as written—or perhaps the clerk sent Mather copies of all the paperwork and Mather only assumed it had all been used in the actual trial. In any case the judges must have been aware of the stories circulating about the Bishop specter.)
Nevertheless, as impressive as the reports of specters and ghosts seemed, the court had to be cautious as to their value. The reports were suspicious, but were they true? A charge of any crime required two credible witnesses to the same act or a confession with supporting evidence.
The judges had consulted standard English works: Richard Bernard’s Guide to Grand Jurymen . . . in Cases of Witchcraft (1627), John Gaule’s Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts (1646), and William Perkins’s Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (1608).
These three sources drew a distinction between evidence that was suspicious and evidence that proved a point. As Perkins put it, matters of suspicion “give occasion to Examine, yet they are no sufficient Causes of Convicton.” One purpose of all three works was to eliminate “irregular” methods of detecting witches—folk methods and torture.
Swimming a suspected witch or assuming a witch could not weep was mere superstition. It was suspicious, however, if a person had a longstanding reputation of being a witch, shared kinship or friendship with a known witch (for the craft could be taught), cursed others (especially if a death or other misfortune followed), had an odd mark possibly made by the Devil, identified another suspect as a fellow witch, and so on.
The best evidence was a full and free confession with some corrobo
rating proof, for, according to Gaule, “Confessions without Fact may be meer Delusion, and Fact without Confession may be a meer Accident,” or testimony from two credible witnesses to the same act.
But cases involving evil magic left few clues, as with most poisons, and allowed for more circumstantial evidence. Most of the testimony in cases of supposed witchcraft concerned suspicious activity. Most of the witnesses corroborating the cause of various afflictions were themselves afflicted. Others who had observed an afflicted person’s torments swore to that person’s reactions and statements but did not claim to have seen or experienced what the supposed victim claimed.
The justices had sheaves of notes and depositions from the afflicted and from neighbors, notes from Bridget’s April 19 hearing in Salem Village, and paperwork from the 1680 case that had jailed her but was eventually dismissed. Now she listened to it all over again, all the gossiping fears the neighbors had worked themselves into, all the suspicions that ought to have been settled and explained years beforehand.
She stood at the bar, weighted down by iron shackles until her legs ached while the clerk read the notes and depositions and her neighbors stood under oath and related incidents she found preposterous—things that had happened years ago, incidents from the other day.
Deliverance Hobbs, no longer denying her recantation, testified as a repentant witch and appeared tormented by Bridget’s specter in court. She said that Bridget threatened her with the book and whipped her with iron rods to make her deny her earlier confession and that Bridget partook of the diabolical sacrament at the great witch-meeting in Salem Village.
The other afflicted witnesses, meanwhile, convulsed as they had before, appearing to be knocked down if she only looked at them, as if her eyes gave a spectral blow. The court made Bridget revive them with a touch, noting that only her touch worked.
Six Women of Salem Page 27