Six Women of Salem

by Marilynne K. Roach

  “The Return of Several Ministers” took note of the serious sufferings of the afflicted and the prudence of the magistrates who had to cope with the complicated matter. Principally it warned against accepting spectral evidence, which was, after all, “received only upon the Devil’s Authority.” Thus, blind acceptance would “be a Door opened for a long Train of miserable Consequences.” They recommended Perkins and the other standard English law books, and they rejected the use of folk tests (like the touch test) as too easily “abused by the Devil’s Legerdemains.” Most of all they warned that “it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a Demon may, by God’s Permission, appear even to ill purposes, in the Shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous Man.” Ignoring spectral evidence could end the whole “dreadful Calamity.” The court should employ “the speedy and vigorous Prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious” by using “the Laws of God”—that is, no folk methods—“and the wholesome statutes of the English nation.”

  Justice Nathaniel Saltonstall, “very much dissatisfyed with the proceedings of it,” resigned from the Court of Oyer and Terminer at some point, presumably before the next sitting but possibly later.

  If Francis and any of the rest of Rebecca’s family still attended services in Salem Village, they found no comfort in Reverend Parris’s prayers and sermons. If Parris mentioned concern for the suffering, he meant the supposed afflicted. If he mentioned the accused, it was clear that he believed they were guilty. Samuel and Mary Nurse went to the Sabbath meeting occasionally, but she avoided the communion services that he sometimes attended.

  People in the village still spoke of Rebecca’s specter. On June 18 Jonathan Putnam was taken “very ill,” as Reverend Parris noted when he wrote a statement about the incident. The family summoned Mercy Lewis to check what specters might be at work, and the girl, though she was for a time entranced and unable to speak, at last “said she saw Goody Nurse & Goody Carrier holding said Jonathans head.”

  With reports like that still circulating, knowing that Rebecca’s trial fast approached and remembering all too well what had happened to Bridget Bishop, the Nurse family put their hope in God’s mercy and in their own efforts to gather names and statements on her behalf. How much mercy the court might have was yet to be seen.

  Ann Putnam, meanwhile, likely found Bridget’s hanging a blessing—one witch gone—and worried about that Bradbury woman who gave her kin so much trouble, who was still at large, her specter still reported to be active.

  On June 28 the grand jury considered the case of Sarah Good. Someone wrote a list of witnesses, both the presently afflicted, like Annie Putnam, as well as others who had had strange encounters with Good or her specter in the past. One of the names is “Tittube indian,” written somewhat indented from the rest. She could have spoken about the spectral torments of February and March, the events she had described at her own March 1 hearing and subsequent confessions. Whether Tituba was actually called to testify or what she actually said is, unfortunately, unknown. Sarah Good was indicted on at least three counts: for tormenting Sarah Bibber beginning May 2 and for tormenting Elizabeth Hubbard and Annie Putnam on March 1.

  The court also dealt with a flurry of depositions, mainly against Sarah Good but also one for Elizabeth How from her husband as well as a petition from Rebecca Nurse herself.

  To the Honourd Court of Oryn and Terminer now sitting In Salem this 28 of June Ano 1692

  The humble petission of Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village

  Humbley Sheweth

  That whareas sum Women did sarch Yor Petissionr At Salem as I did then Conceive for sum supernaturall Marke, And then one of the sd Women which is Known to be, the Moaste Antient skillfull prudent person of them all as to Any such Concerne did Express hir selfe to be of A contrary opinion from the Rest And did then Declare, that shee saw Nothing In or Aboute yor Honors poare pettissioner But what might Arise from A naturall Cause And I then Rendered the said persons a sufficient Knowne Reason as to my selfe of the Moveing Cause Thereof which was by Exceeding Weaknesses decending partly from an overture of Nature And difficult Exigences that hath Befallen me In the Times of my Travells And therefore Yor pettissionr Humbley prayes That yor Honours would be pleased to Admitt of sum other Women to Enquire Into this Great Concerne, those that are Moast Grave wise and skillfull Namely Ms Higginson senr Ms Buckstone Ms Woodbery two of them Being Midwives Ms Porter Together with such others, as may be Choasen on that Account Before I am Brought to my triall All which I hoape yor Honours will take Into yor prudent Consideration And find it Requisite Soe to doe for my Life Lyes Now In yor Hands under God And Being Conscious of My owne Innocency I Humbley Begg that I may have Liberty to manifest it to the wourld partly by the Meanes Abovesaid

  And Yor Poare pettissior shall Evermore

  pray as In duty Bound &c

  Rebecca Nurse

  Someone else wrote the paper, but Rebecca inked her mark below her name. However, there is no indication that the court ordered this second examination before her trial on the following day.

  On Wednesday, June 29, the grand jury indicted Elizabeth How and Susannah Martin—Annie Putnam witnessed against both of these suspects—while Thomas Putnam swore to his testimony against Goody Martin. The Court of Oyer and Terminer tried three witchcraft cases this day: Sarah Good, Susannah Martin, and Rebecca Nurse.

  King’s Attorney Thomas Newton listed the evidence offered against Sarah Good, beginning with “Titabe’s Confession & Examinacon agt her selfe & Sarah Good abstracted”—so perhaps Tituba was not present in court today nor had been the day before with the grand jury if an abstract from the hearing notes was sufficient. Newton summarized the supposed events of February 28 when Good and the other spectral witches invaded the parsonage “& stopped her Eares in prayer time” as they tried to make Tituba hurt the children. Failing this, “Good with others are very strong & pull her with them to Mr putnams & make her hurt the Children.” She also described Good’s familiars: a cat, a yellow bird, and “a thing all over hairy.”

  (Newton’s note that “Sarah Good appeared like a wolfe to Hubbard going to proctors & saw it sent by Good to Hubbard” does not clarify whether Tituba said she saw Good send the wolf or whether Elizabeth Hubbard said this. Newton also noted, “Dorothy Goods Charge ag[ains]t her mother Sarah Good That she had three birds one black, one yellow & that these birds hurt the Children & afflicted persons.” This deposition is otherwise lost, but Dorothy, still in Boston jail, was not present to testify.)

  The “confessions” of Deliverance and Abigail Hobbs that described Good’s activities at the witch sacraments were introduced with these women presumably in court, as they would be during Rebecca Nurse’s trial. Perhaps Mary Warren was also brought in to recount her jailhouse apparitions, for under “Mary Warrens Confession,” Newton wrote, “That Sarah Good is a Witch & brought her the booke to signe to wch she did.” The last four words were crossed out as if Mary had insisted that, though threatened, she had not signed. However, neither Mary Warren nor Tituba’s name appears in the list of witnesses to the three indictments.

  Most of the other testimony against Good came from various folk, including several relatives who had suffered livestock losses after refusing to let her move in with them.

  Robert Calef later recounted an incident from this trial that was not preserved in the official papers. On recovering from a fit, “one of the afflicted” accused Sarah Good of “stabing her in the breast with a Knife”—breaking the blade in the process. A fragment of knife blade was indeed found in her clothing, the discovery of which caused a stir in one part of the audience. A young man was allowed to come forward to show “a Shaft and part of the Blade” to the court.

  The justices could see clearly that the accuser’s fragment exactly fit the young man’s broken blade. The day before, he explained, he had happened to snap his own knife in two and “cast away the upper part, this afflicted person being then present.”

  This developmen
t must have given Sarah Good a flicker of hope and confounded the accusers. The Nurse family would have reacted very differently from Thomas and Ann Putnam—for a brief time at least. (As the young man did not say he had actually seen the afflicted person take the fragment, perhaps the justices preferred to imagine that a witch might have spirited away the piece of blade to use against her accuser.) The court dismissed the young man, then, turning to the accuser, merely warned her “not to tell lyes”—perhaps uncertain whether she had lied or not—and allowed her to continue as a witness. The Putnams could relax at this, whereas Sarah Good and the Nurse family were plunged back into too-familiar dread.

  Who was this afflicted person? A badly torn statement from William and Rachel Bradford and William Rayment Jr. questioned Mercy Lewis’s honesty by recounting events within the previous two and a half years when Mercy lived in the Bradford household.

  Perhaps this was Susanna Sheldon, if she is the deponent whose name was given as Joanna Childen, who had claimed back on June 2 that she had seen the ghost of Sarah Good’s dead infant, who had accused her own mother of murdering her and called Sarah a witch. Good’s specter in turn said she had killed the child “becaus that she Could not atend it” and that “she did give it to the divell.” This accusation was not used at the trial, so Sarah Good was spared this painful charge at least, though the Sheldon girl would testify against other defendants.

  In addition, even more people expressed their low opinion of Sarah Bibber’s honesty—neighbors and people who had had the misfortune to have hired Goodman John Bibber and his wife as live-in help: Joseph Fowler, Thomas and Mary Jacobs of Ipswich, Richard Walker, John and Lydia Porter. All agreed the woman was an idle, “double tongued,” malicious, lying gossip, “a woman of an unruly turbulent spirit” who “would have strange fitts when shee was crost.” The Nurse family would collect a sheaf of statements against Bibber, if they had not already done so.

  Meanwhile, the jury found Sarah Good guilty as charged.

  Susannah Martin, a combative widow, having faced the grand jury this same day, also faced the trial jury. The documents in her case include statements from the afflicted (written out for them by Thomas Putnam), including Annie Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Sarah Bibber about her spectral torments during Martin’s hearing and at other times; statements from Reverend Parris, Nathaniel Ingersoll, and Thomas Putnam concerning what they saw the afflicted do and say at certain times; and statements from various neighbors in Amesbury who had had unfortunate encounters with her. Evidently Goody Martin spoke her mind in vivid terms during the proceedings, but this only helped convince the court that she was, as Cotton Mather relayed the opinion, “one of the most Impudent, Scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world.” Susannah Martin was also found guilty.

  During one of the day’s trials, according to Robert Calef, one of the afflicted “cried out publickly of Mr. Willard Minister in Boston as afflicting of her.” Reverend Samuel Willard, minister of the Second Church where Samuel Sewall was a member, had criticized the court’s methods. The justices, however, knew Willard and trusted his character enough to assume the accuser had confused the name. John Willard was, after all, under arrest for suspected witchcraft and murder by witchcraft. The court sent her from the room, and word went around that “she was mistaken in the person.” Again, Calef did not name the accuser.

  As the grand jury had accepted four indictments against Rebecca Nurse—for afflicting Annie Putnam, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Abigail Williams—her family had been busy gathering materials to refute these specific charges and to discredit the other accusers.

  Rebecca’s son and son-in-law, Samuel Nurse and John Tarbell respectively, told how, shortly after her arrest, they had questioned the Putnam women and found that Annie had not been at all sure of the specter’s identity until either her mother or the maid named it and how then Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis each said that the other had first made the identification. At the very least this showed uncertainty.

  Potter James Kettle recalled a Sabbath in May when he visited Dr. Griggs’s house and spoke with Elizabeth Hubbard. “I found her to speack severall untruthes in denying the sabath day and saying she had nat ben to meting that day but had onely bean up to James houlltons. this I can testifie to if called.” However, Kettle had also deposed that when he had been at Dr. Griggs’s house on May 10 he had witnessed Elizabeth “in severall Fitts,” during which “she Cried & held her apron before her face saying that she would not se them”—“Them” being Kettle’s two dead children, according to Elizabeth, killed by Sarah Bishop—“& they were by her description much as they were when they ware put in to there Coffins to be buried.” The bereaved father must have had second thoughts about Elizabeth’s trustworthiness.

  Similarly, Joseph Hutchinson of Salem Village described how, when Abigail Williams told him about an encounter with the Devil, “I asked her if shee wos not afraid to see the devell.” She replied that at first she had been afraid and had tried to flee, “but now shee wos not afraid but Could talke with him as well as shee Could with mee.” To him, this attitude implied too great a familiarity with the Fiend.

  William and Rachel Bradford along with William Rayment Jr. submitted a statement about Mercy Lewis’s lack of honesty, which may have been intended to defend Rebecca Nurse. Unfortunately, today the paper is badly torn.

  Robert Moulton Sr. wrote that while watching the ailing Susanna Sheldon he heard her contradict her own claims about spectral goings-on. He signed his statement, witnessed by Samuel Nurse and Joseph Trumball.

  If Susanna Sheldon was the same person as the accuser whose name was written as Joanna Childen, her account of Goodman Harwood’s ghost claiming Rebecca Nurse had killed him was not used in court.

  As none of the papers in favor of Rebecca Nurse were sworn, they do not indicate how or even if the court considered them. Testimony against her came from the afflicted, people who verified the actions and words of the afflicted, as well as neighbor Sarah Holton, who was convinced that Rebecca had had something to do with her husband Benjamin’s illness and death after a particularly bitter argument with Rebecca over Holton pigs damaging Nurse crops.

  Nathaniel and Hannah Ingersoll said that although Benjamin Holton “died a most violent death” from “fittes like to our poor bewicthed parsons,” at the time “we hade no suspition of wicthcraft. amongst us.” Even though Thomas Putnam wrote the statement for them, the words offer some ambiguity as to cause of death.

  John Putnam Jr. and his wife, Hannah, definitely blamed Rebecca for the “cruell and violent death” of their infant back in April. However, John Putnam Sr. and Rebecca Putnam, testified that although their daughter Rebecca Shepard and son-in-law John Fuller had died “a most violent death . . . wee did Judg then that thay both diead of a malignant fever and had no suspiction of wichcraft of aney nether Can wee acues the prisner at the bar of aney such thing.”

  Francis Nurse had persuaded Thomas Putnam’s uncle Nathaniel Putnam Sr. to testify on Rebecca’s behalf. Although the document is torn, Nathaniel was clear that “what i have observed of her human frailtys excepted; her life & conversation hath been according to her proffession [of Christainity] & she hath brought up a great family of children & educated them well . . . i have known her differ with her neighbors but i never knew nor heard of any that did accuse of what she is now charged with.”

  Not all of the testimony was written down, and some of the statements against Rebecca lay in the “confessions” of those who had succumbed to pressure and incriminated themselves, describing Rebecca among their fellow witches.

  Facing judges and jurors, Rebecca Nurse pleaded not guilty. Her hearing, however, was not strong. She had heard or heard about the accusations before. She knew that certain neighbors had spoken for her and that many had signed the petition attesting to her good Christian behavior. She could see the afflicted writhing and contorting even when the words reaching her were muffled. She stood at the bar, exposed and tired as peo
ple came and went—clerks, officers, witnesses for and against her.

  Though she did not notice, from the audience her daughter-in-law Sarah glimpsed the Bibber woman palm some pins from her clothing and then clutch her own knee and cry out that Rebecca’s specter had stuck her.

  Another group entered the chamber under guard—fellow suspect Deliverance Hobbs and her stepdaughter Abigail Hobbs, that strange girl who ran about the woods at all hours. Why were the guards bringing in other prisoners?

  “What?” asked Rebecca. “[D]o these persons give in Evidence against me now?” She asked, stating they “were of our Company.”

  But the Hobbs women spoke, going on, as far as Rebecca could hear, about the great witch meeting.

  The jury withdrew and waiting began. Eventually the men returned to the courtroom, and Foreman Thomas Fisk stood to deliver the verdict. Not guilty, he said, and as Rebecca’s kindred felt the exhilarating relief at that good news, all of the afflicted in the courtroom shrieked, the startling noise soon followed by more screams from the other afflicted witnesses outside, with the “hideous out-cry” amazing not only the audience but the court officers as well.

  So even though she was declared not guilty, Rebecca was not dismissed. Court recessed, with the justices, exiting, in conversation. Clearly many interpreted the painful reaction of the afflicted to have been spectrally induced, however self-defeating it would have been for Rebecca to take such revenge on her accusers at such a time. Then again, it may have been supposed, the devils she allegedly dealt with had their own agenda and had not released their hold on the woman. Some of the judges thought they might indict Goody Nurse on this latest evidence of torture.

  When court resumed, Chief Justice Stoughton informed the jury that although he would not try to “impose” upon them, they might consider the defendant’s comment about one of the Hobbs women—a self-confessed witch—as “one of us.” The jury, confused and in doubt after the hair-raising shrieks, asked if they might reconsider the verdict. Stoughton agreed, and the jury withdrew again—and again the courtroom waited, tense with apprehension and dread. Rebecca and her family prayed that the jury would be sensible, the afflicted wondered if they would be charged as liars or as tools of the devils, and Thomas and Ann Putnam were aghast that the court might release a witch to rove among them (and Thomas was concerned for his own credibility in the matter).