Part 10

Parris then asked Mary Walcot if she had ever seen a white man. And she answered yes; often. Q.―What sort of man is he? A.―A fine, grave man, and when he comes he makes all the witches tremble, and he tells us when our fits will come on and when they will go off. This was supposed to be Jesus Christ come down to pity and to talk with bewitched children and save the charter churches. A horrid blasphemous fiction, but yet credited by the government of the colony before whom it was uttered. The justices then proceeded and said, Elizabeth Proctor, you understand, that you are here charged with sundry acts of witchcraft, what say you to it? I take God in heaven to be my witness, that I know no more of witchcraft than a child unborn. This woman was of excellent character, the mother of a fine family of children, all then dependent on her for nurture and protection. It is very difficult to account for her selection and accusation as a witch. Some accident, or that she was obnoxious to the Parris or Putnam family, who fabricated all the early accusations, must have been the cause. But when her unhappy husband saw his wife rudely seized like a felon in her once peaceful home, he resolved to accompany her to the examination; and his conjugal fidelity cost him his life.

Her examination began thus: Question.―Mary Walcot doth this woman hurt you?―Answer.―I never saw her to be hurt by her. Q.―Mary Lewis, does she hurt you? No answer. Q.―Ann Putnam, does she hurt you? She could not speak; and Abagail Williams thrust her hand into her own mouth lest she should speak. A pause, and almost a failure. John, said Mr. Parris, who hurts you? This is the woman, said the Indian, who came in her shift to me and choked me. And now the girls were ready to say she hurt them, and brought the devil’s book for them to sign, and the crafty Abagail, with affected simplicity and sincerity, said to Mrs. Proctor, did not you tell me that your maid had signed? Dear child, said Mrs. Proctor, it is not so; remember, dear child, that there is another judgment. Then Abagail and Ann seemed to have fits; by and by they cried out, look you, there is Proctor on the beam; and her husband, too; Proctor is a wizard! Proctor is a wizard! The man was confounded. There, said Ann, Proctor is going to take up Mrs. Pope’s feet; and her feet flew up; and now, said Abagail, he is going to Goody Bibber; and Bibber fell into a fit! The Deputy Governor and Council seemed surprised, and said to Proctor, you see the devil will deceive you, the poor children could see what you were about before the women were hurt. “Repent, for the devil is bringing you out.”

The Hon. Court then suffered some experiments to be tried on Mrs. Proctor. It was affirmed that the afflicted could not strike a witch; and Ann Putnam approached and attempted to strike Mrs. P. on the head with her fist, but as the blow descended her fist opened, and her fingers’ ends but lightly tapped the woman’s hood, and then Ann cried out with consummate art, they burn! they burn!―her fingers burned, and she fell upon the floor apparently overcome with pain. All were strongly moved by this incident, so wonderful and yet so sudden. Some fancied they saw a blue flame play around Mrs. Proctor, and others were quite sure they smelt brimstone. The Court then suddenly turned the experiments upon Proctor himself, and ordered him forthwith to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, without slip or hesitation, to show his innocence. It was a hard case in his present dismay, but he made the effort; and he did very well until he came to the petition “deliver us from all evil;” and this was adjudged to be a perversion of the Lord’s Prayer; for to be delivered from all evil was to be delivered from that under which he then suffered, and of course opposing the Divine decrees. But to be fair with him they put him upon the prayer again, but he had no better luck than at first. For when he came to “hallowed be Thy name,” he said “hollowed be Thy name.” Here they again stopped him and held that this was a depraving of the words. To make the name of the Deity hollow, said they, is to make it vain, light and void, and is blasphemy and cursing, rather than a prayer. In fine it was decided that they could not say it, and that he was a guilty man.

And thus the unfortunate Proctor, although he came before the magistrates a free and innocent citizen to console and sustain his afflicted and terrified wife, by a strange fatality was sent from their presence a prisoner charged with a capital offence, upon the exhibition of the foolery and malice I have named; and what is equally strange, his wife in the end by a mere accident was saved, but poor Proctor they hung.

On the 19th of April, only eight days after, the imposing witch inquisition before Judge Danforth and the council, Hathorn and Curwin called up for examination Giles Corey, the husband of Martha Corey, already committed. And thus the wrong done to the wife was soon visited upon the husband in wanton passion merely, and without shadow of truth or justice.

They thus began with him: Giles Corey, you are now brought before authority upon high suspicion of witchcraft, now tell us the truth of the matter. I hope, said Giles, with the blessing of God I shall, for I never had any hand in that matter in my life. Parris, who was still clerk and chief manager, now said to the afflicted girls, which of you have seen this man hurt you? I, said Abagail Williams; I, said Ann Putnam; I, I, I, said the whole band but one. Hasn’t he hurt you, too, said Parris coaxingly to Elizabeth Hubbard, but she attempting to answer seemed to be taken with a fit. Have you never seen him hurt you, said the same to Benjamin Gould. I have often seen Giles Corey and been hurt after it, but cannot say he did it. All the girls also said that he brought the devil’s book for them to subscribe. The justices then said, Corey, you hear what these testify; why do you hurt them? I never did hurt them. Then it is your spectre that hurts them, tell us what you have done? I have done nothing to them. Have you never, said Parris, entered into a compact with the devil? No, I never did. (But he had then recently joined himself to the village church under Mr. Parris.) What temptations have you had? I never had any. But what frightened you in the cow-house, Giles Corey, said the court, tell us that? Nothing, nothing. Why, here are three witnesses, who have heard you to-day say, that you was frightened in the cow-house. I do not remember it.

Note by Mr. Parris―“There was evidence by several that Corey said, he would make away with himself and charge his death upon his son!” And Goody Bibber also testified that he called her husband, a damned devilish rogue; and other vile expressions were sworn to in open court.

The residue of Giles Corey’s fate was most hideous. From the date of this fraudulent, perjured and senseless inquest, he lay helpless and almost forgotten in prison for five months. There he was found on the 9th of the following September, and with many others brought before the court of trials. But the jury seemed entirely under the court, and as, of course, returned all guilty who put themselves on trial. Corey noticed this, and when his turn came he refused to plead, saying it was useless, and that they might do as they pleased with him. But the court seemed resolved to signalize his obstinacy, in terror to all others, and gave judgment against him of pem forte et dure for standing mute, by virtue of which he was taken to prison, placed on his back, with his arms and legs extended and fastened in that position. Heavy weights were placed upon him, and to be allowed a quantity of poor bread and the nearest standing water that could be found to the prison door, and thus to remain until he died. His sufferings were horrible, and on the 17th of the month he was evidently in death’s agonies, his eyes seemed bursting and his tongue swollen greatly out of his mouth. The marshall, the agent of the people’s government, stood over him, and without compassion, thrust back the dying man’s tongue with the point of his staff! And this is the only instance of that horrible judgment, and its execution in our Massachusetts history.

In the meantime Martha Corey, the wife of Giles, lay bound in the same prison under sentence, and with eleven days only to prepare for death; this is Mr. Parris’ account of the mission.

“We found her (Mrs. Corey) very obdurate, justifying ourselves and condemning all who had done anything to her just discovery and condemnation. Whereupon, after a little discourse, for her imperiousness would not suffer much, and after prayer! which she was willing to decline, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was pronounced against her.” By which excommunication the woman was in form consigned to the devil’s use forever. How could the Rev. gentleman pray to God for a blessing on such a work in her prison; and what more secular tyranny ever invented such exquisite cruelty towards a hapless female. It first compassed her death, and then by clerical necromancy sought to destroy her soul! But her courage arose above the necromancy. She was sustained. She made no terms with her destroyers, or with falseness or meanness. Even on the gallows ladder she had strength to still proclaim her innocence in solemn prayer to God, and the gallows rope swung her into eternity as acceptable to Him, as if she had died in the bosom of her village church.

So wonderfully had witch accusations now multiplied, that Hathorn and Curwin held regular sittings; and the bewitched band of the Parris and Putnam family and others associated with them, were sure to find them subjects. For the convenience of the accusers these sessions were holden at Salem village, which had now become a point of great public observation and terror. Thus on the 22d of April, they committed for further proceedings William Hobbs and his wife, Mary Esty and Sara Wild, all of Topsfield; also, Edward Bishop and his wife, and Philip English and his wife, of Salem. And all these were taken on the complaint of Thomas Putnam, who thus hunted and secured the victims for his wife and daughter Ann with the Parris family to destroy.

We know the charges of witchcraft against these persons were fictitious and foul; and ofttimes hidden causes led to their selection from the mass of the citizens.

The first accusation of the Salem girls out of their own county was that of Mrs. Cary of Charlestown. This, no doubt, like most others, emanated from the neighborhood of the woman, the afflicted in Essex being used as mere instruments to destroy her. It was a startling movement, as the public recalled at once the fatal case of Margaret Jones and the vessel rocked by horses. The account of Mr. Cary, her husband, remains to this day, and being an eye-witness his record is very interesting. About the 20th of May, the rumor reached him that his wife had been named as a witch, at Salem village, and by the advice of his friends he resolved to go down and present her, a stranger to the afflicted, and see if they would recognize her. It was a dangerous experiment and cost him dear.

On the 14th he arrived at the inn, as Hathorn and Curwin, with a great crowd, were entering the meetinghouse for their daily work, and he and his wife took a convenient stand where they might note all that passed. A minister opened the business with prayer, and he saw that the afflicted then present were two girls of about ten or eleven years, and three others who appeared to be about eighteen. One of the younger girls could discern most spectres, and talked most (this was the shrewd Abagail Williams no doubt). When a prisoner was brought in, he or she was placed at some distance from the justices, with the eyes fixed directly on them, and the officers held each hand lest they should pinch the afflicted. The girls were placed between the prisoner and the magistrates, and if at any time the accused looked on them they were sure to be struck down in fits, or they screamed out they were hurt. Sometimes when they came out of their fits and stared round in peoples’ faces, the court would say they were struck dumb, and were then to go and touch the prisoner at the bar, to be restored to speech. This they would attempt with well dissembled hesitation, but would usually fall down in a fit. They would then be taken up and carried to the prisoner, that he might lay hands on them, and when this was done the justices would say that they were well, though Cary observed, that he could see no alteration, though he plainly saw that the justices understood the matter, and the girls were well disciplined.

Whilst all this was passing, Cary and his wife stood in sight of the afflicted, unnoticed, except a person came in the crowd and asked her name, and it would seem that quite unguardly she gave it. Soon after the examination broke up and Cary and his wife began to hope that their experiment was successful. They then repaired to the tavern, where they found the Indian John. They gave him some cider and he showed them his witch scars, but to Cary they seemed to be of long standing, and were more probably the work of his former Spanish master. John was supposed to have been stolen and brought away by the bucaniers, who then infested the American coast. Shortly the bewitched girls came in and began their fits and to tumble about the floor, and the company looked on in amazement and terror, no one knowing who might be cried out upon. As soon as they spoke they cried out Cary! Cary! and almost immediately, as if prepared, a warrant of arrest came from the justices then sitting in the house ready to try her. Her accusers were two girls, of whom she declared to the court, she had not the least knowledge before that day. She, too, now had to stand with her hands outstretched, like the others in the meeting house. Her husband begged that he might hold one of her hands, but it was denied him. And so Mrs. Cary stood condemned, her husband, at her request, wiped the sweat from her face and the tears from her eyes. As the examination proceeded and the girls testified as usual, she became faint and begged that she might lean on her husband, but Hathorn replied sharply, that so long as she had strength to torment those before them, she had strength enough to stand. John now came in and fell upon the floor also, and pretended to have a dumb fit. The justices then asked the girls who afflicted him. They replied that it was she (the prisoner), and that they could see that she now lay heavily upon him, though to all other eyes she was standing up and her hands held out. Upon this Cary, in his distress, said, that God would take vengeance on them for such conduct. But this seemed to prejudice the justices, for without more words her mittimus was written. No bail could be taken, and she was sent to Boston prison, from thence she was removed to Campton prison, where they put irons upon her of about eight pounds weight. And although her distress brought a severe sickness yet the irons were not taken off.

When the final trials came on at Salem, Cary went down, but when he saw the children’s spectre evidence admitted together with absurd and malicious stories against peoples’ lives, he became satisfied that there was but little chance for his wife’s life, and especially as all his efforts and those of his friends could not procure her a trial in Middlesex County. There was now only one remedy, and he embraced it. With some secret assistance he rescued her from prison and fled to Rhode Island, the common refuge of those persecuted in Massachusetts. But they were pursued, and he passed on to New York. Here Gov. Fletcher received them kindly, and sheltered them until the danger was passed.

A few days after this John Alden was brought before the Salem justices, upon accusation of witchcraft. He was a man of great consideration in the colony, being employed by the government to supply the fortress on the coast with warlike stores and provisions. His own account of the transaction has been perpetuated in the form of a deposition.

He states that he was arrested in Boston and sent down to Salem village, and when all were in presence of the magistrates, the girls were asked who of all the people in the room afflicted them; and one of them pointed to another man then present by the name of Hill, but she spake nothing. This girl had a man standing behind her to hold her up when necessary; and Alden saw him stoop down and place his mouth to her ear, and she cried out Alden! Alden! that it was Alden who afflicted her. Hathorn then asked her if she had ever seen Alden, and she said no, but the man near her said it was he. All were then ordered into the street and a ring was formed, the children and the justices in the centre; his accuser then cried out, pointing to him, “there stands John Alden, a bold fellow, with his hat on before the judges; he sells powder and shot to the French Indians.”

They bid Alden to look at the bewitched, and when he did they seemed to be struck down. He then asked the court why they themselves were not struck down also by his eyes. But no reason was given.

Alden spoke of God’s providence in suffering such creatures to accuse innocent persons, but the Rev. Mr. Noyes, minister of Salem, answered him, that God’s providence governed the world in peace, and with a long discourse prevented his further difficult questions. Alden was then committed to the prison in Boston, where he lay over three months, and when the final trials came on he saw how many were executed, he also made his escape and saved his life.

Deliverance Hobbs of Hopsfield, having been cried out upon and imprisoned, seems to have framed her confession in the terms of the accusation. She said she had, indeed, signed the devil’s book after many threatenings and great torment from him and his emissaries; and that so soon as she had done it, he used her spectre to afflict persons. That whilst her spectre was so employed on a certain time, one of the bewitched maids cried out, there stands Deliverance Hobbs, strike her? Upon which the marshal, a man of courage, standng by, made a pass at the spot pointed out, with his rapier, and the girl said there! you have given her a small prick about the eye, and Deliverance showed the wound to the justices, who seemed highly gratified to have the maid’s outcry so well authenticated, and to learn that a wound given to the spectre of a witch, would reach the original, although at home and about her business.

After this, says Calef, it was quite common for the afflicted to tell of the black man, or a spectre being on the table before the magistrates; and then the by-standers would strike at the places with their sticks and swords. Justice Curwin once broke his cane at this exercise.

This penitent also confessed that she was at the great witch sacrament at Salem village. That George Burroughs was there, that he called all the witches together by the sound of a trumpet; that he preached to them and urged them to pull down Christ’s kingdom and build up that of Satan in its stead, and that Salem village should be destroyed, beginning at Mr. Parris’ house. Among her confederates, Deliverance accused old Candy, a negress, and who was thereupon brought before Justice Hathorn. Candy said, he, you are a witch? Ans. Candy witch!―no, no―Candy no witch in her country―Candy’s mother no witch; Candy no witch Barbadoes―this country―mistress Hawks give Candy witch―(indeed!) yes, this country mistress give Candy witch.

Well, Candy, said Hathorn, with unusual mildness, how do you hurt these young folks, show us the poppets you do it with, Candy. Candy was quite happy, and asked to go out of the room, and said she would show all. When she returned she held in her hand two rags, with knots tied in them. At sight of these Deliverance Hobbs, who had now joined the afflicted band, went into a strong fit; and the other girls declared they could now plainly see Goody Hawks, Candy and the devil, standing together pinching the poppets, and then they (the afflicted) were sorely pinched, though no one actually touched them, but it was done in spectre. The Court then directed Candy to untie the knots, and when she did so, Deliverance came out of her fit, and all were well. A bit of rag was then put in the fire, and the girls cried out that they burned dreadfully. To quench it they dipped it in some water, and Deliverance started like a deer for the river, but was caught by a swift youth before she plunged in.

The cunning Candy exulted in the efficacy of her charms, and all beholders thought her mistress had practised upon her ignorance, and Goody Hawks had to confess to save her life.

About this time commeced the Andover tragedy; where as Cotton Mather says, was discovered the most horrid crew of witches that ever disgraced a New England town The wife of Joseph Ballard of Andover fell sick, and the town doctor finding her disease too stubborn for his art, advised her husband that she was bewitched. This practice was too common among the early Massachusetts physicians. The hint took with Ballard; and he forthwith sent men and horses to Salem village, and to the house of Mr. Parris, and brought to Andover old Tituba’s pupils Abagail Williams and Mary Walcot. When these came into the sick woman’s room, they said they could well enough see witch spectres hovering round her bed and person, but not being acquainted with any Andover people, they could not name the originals. Describe them says the husband; and they did so in language sufficiently vague to embrace half the women in the town;―and still fancy or malignity might select at pleasure; and fancy or malignity did select at pleasure and that most fatally, as the event will show.

Dudley Bradstreet, son of the old patentee, was then the acting magistrate in Andover, and he granted a warrant against a number of women on this occasion and held the examination in the meeting house. After prayers by the Rev. Mr. Barnard, minister of the town, the women were brought in, and Abagail and Mary fell down in fits at the sight, as in time past at Salem; and when the prisoners laid hands on them, they rose up and said they were well. All the old experiments were tried with the old success; and Bradstreet committed a number of his towns-women to Salem prison, to answer there, and Abagail and Mary returned home with increased credit. Yet Goody Ballard died soon after of a fever; and Dudley Bradstreet repented of the step he had taken. Some of these in their weakness were made to confess the wildest witch pranks on record, and to implicate others as associates, by which more than forty Andover women were ensnared by witch prosecutions and some lost their lives.

Here follow some of the recorded confessions of these Andover witches, long after drawn up, with death’s terrors before them. Ann Foster was one of these. She had been brought to acknowledge, in Salem prison, that she was a witch, and had attended a great witch sacrament at Salem village; that she rode thither on a pole, behind Martha Carrier, high through the air; that on their way the pole broke, and that she holding fast by Martha, came to the ground and was sorely bruised by the fall, but they mounted again and went on. Being asked what they eat, she said they carried their bread and cheese in their pockets, and ate it before the meeting began, sitting under a large tree, with the Andover company, and they drank water from a brook near by.