Part 9

It is manifest that the souls after death do as yet love their bodies which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial, or have left their bodies by violent death, and yet wander about their carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, beings as it were, allured by something that has an affinity with them, the means being known, by which, in time past, they were joined to their bodies, they be called forth and allured by the like vapors, liquors and certain artificial lights, songs, sounds, &c., which move the imaginative and spiritual harmony of the soul, and sacred invocations, &c.

Necromancy has its name because it works on the bodies of the dead, and gives answers by apparitions of the dead, and subterraneous spirits, alluring them into the carcasses of the dead by charms and infernal invocations, and by deadly sacrifices and wicked oblations.

There are two kinds of necromancy: raising the carcasses, which is not done without blood; the other in which the calling up of the shadow only suffices. To conclude, it works all its experiments by the carcasses of the slain, and their bones and members, and what is from them.

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THE MAGIC CRYSTAL is a ball of pure virgin glass, somewhat in the shape of an egg; the method of using it, is to hold it in the palm of the right hand, retain it there from eleven to twelve o’clock at night, in a dark room, all the time concentrating your thoughts upon the object you desire to see; about twelve o’clock, the crystal becomes quite hot―now look steadily into it, and picture of scenes that appear are transpiring with friends far distant; in fact, it is asserted that the movements of any one can be known, whether husband, wife, lover or friend.

THE CORRECT ACCOUNT OF THE SALEM WITCHES, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S.

We now commence some detail of the witch persecution from 1645 to the 2d charter, 1692, there stood upon the statute book the old Cottonian law of 1645, against witchcraft, a false recognition, by the highest authority of the devil’s power to appear in the colony; nay, by strange construction it was made an act of conjuration, a summons to come forth, and which he was well pleased to obey. Within one year after the statute recognition of witchcraft, in the jurisdiction, a case occurred. It was in Springfield upon the Connecticut river, and in the family of the Rev. Mr. Moxam. Two of his children betook themselves to extreme oddities in speech and behavior, and it was readily supposed they were bewitched, but there was no proof to fix the sorcery upon any one, until three or four years afterwards, when an old woman of settled witch reputation, upon close examination was said to have confessed her guilt, and here the matter rested. The case of Mrs. Margaret Jones of Charlestown was fatal. She was reputed a witch of such extraordinary malignity, that her touch would produce blindness, sickness at the stomach and violent pains, and in 1648 she was tried and executed. In disgust and distress, her husband went on board a vessel to leave the country, and then the vessel began to rock as if it would upset, and so continued for twelve hours. Upon this the enemies of Jones procured a warrant of arrest from the Governor and assistants, then sitting at Boston; and when he was imprisoned, the vessel became quiet. There were on board this vessel at the time as she lay in Charles River, eighty horses, shipped for Barbadoes, and this was the witchcraft that rocked the vessel; and as we hear no more of Jones, no doubt the assistants saw the error and released him. In 1652, the year that old Massasoit and the Rev. John Cotton died there was another case at Springfield. Hugh Parsons was indicted for witchcraft. The jury found him guilty; but the magistrates who tried the cause would not agree to it and under a law of 1651, it was carried to the general court, where the man was discharged.

The next, was the case of the widow Hibbins, whom Gov. Endicot and the assistants hung for witchcraft May 27, 1656. Her husband was a rich Boston merchant, and an assistant when the law against witchcraft was passed, and thus he qualified his enemies in the devil’s name, to put a halter about his wife’s neck. She was a haughty dame and was not, they thought, sufficiently humbled by her husband’s great loss of property in later life, and she came under church discipline and censure. But this only inflamed her hot temper, and a witch prosecution could alone reduce her to reason. At her trial it was proved, that having once seen two persons in the street talking, she said she knew it was about her, and unhappily she guessed right. This turned the case against her, and she thus lost her life. At her trial they searched her body for the devil’s mark as they did the Quaker maidens, Mary Fisher and her friends in less than two months after; but none were found. Before execution Mrs. Hibbons made her will, and therein begged her friends to respect her body, and give it a Christian burial. But the whole colony rang with her story. It was exceedingly alarming to the rulers that Satan should presume so high as an assistant’s widow, and for more than thirty years there were no witch executions here, although there were many supposed cases of the offence.

In 1662 witchcraft passed over to Connecticut. In Hartford at that time, there was imprisoned as a witch, a Mrs. Greensmith and the peculiar art that was used to entrap and convict her deserves our notice. In the same place there lived a girl whom they called Ann Cole, and much admired for her beauty and ingenuity. She understood the Dutch and French languages, rare attainments then, but which of themselves would hardly excite suspicion to her prejudice, even in the realm of blue laws. But she possessed in addition to these, the power of ventriloquism in a high degree, and all combined, came very near to her own undoing; indeed they quite undid old Mrs. Greensmith. Ann Cole at first only amused herself with the little ones of her own family, and when she practiced the deceptive art in the Dutch language, the unearthly jargon seeming to came from no visible object, it afforded her great amusement to see the terrified urchins gather round the very cause of their alarm for protection. Success tempted her on, and she began to amuse herself with her neighbors. When they came in and were seated perhaps the chair would seem to compliment them with “how do you do?” and if they started up in surprise, “pray keep your seat,” would follow in a low coaxing tone; and then the house cat seated in Ann’s lap would sing melodiously. But although the facetious maiden never suffered these pastimes to pass without explanation, yet some doubted, and eyed her with jealousy and circulated strange stories, and before she had thought of consequences, rumor had declared her a sort of Magdalene, and that her demons talked to each other, in a strange variety of languages. These reports excited the attention of two clergymen of the place and they obtained Miss Ann’s consent to approach her so near when a conference of her spirits took place, as to hear and write down the particulars; and herein commenced the only veritable witchcraft of the case; for Ann Cole’s ventriloquism or the listening ministers, feigned the supposed demons to converse with Mrs. Greensmith as one in league with them to do mischief, a foul slander in either case, and which cost the poor woman her life. The clergyman then repaired to prison, they said the accused was much agitated upon learning the discovery they had made, and by sharp interrogatories was made to confess her familiarity with the devil. She had not signed his book, or made a covenant with him, but at the then coming Christmas, she was to be ready for a high frolic and then all was to have been finished. Strange hymenials for a woman of seventy-five and the mother of ten sons and daughters and abundance of grandchildren; and it does not even appear that she was a widow. However the poor woman was hung without scruple, or space for repentance, and without apparent pity for her future state; or whether in her execution they were doing the devil a good or ill service.

In October 1671 a demon, it was said entered into Elizabeth Knapp, an unmarried girl of Groton, and he caused her alternately to weep and laugh, and then in great agitation to call out money, money, like a modern paper banker.―On the 17th of December following, this demon began again to speak in the young woman and to utter horrid railings against the minister of the town, but without harm to his character, as the people would not believe him. He next made Elizabeth accuse the minister’s wife as the cause of all her woes; but in this also he obtained no credit; for the pious woman, after prayers with her accuser made her confess the slander; and the devil had to shift his quarters, for he can never do his business unless he can maintain some reputation. In 1679 a demon probably the same infested a house in Newbury. Sticks and stones were thrown at the family, by an invisible hand: and a staff which hung against the wall, began to swing of its own accord; and then leaped down and danced on the hearth, and when they seized it to burn, it could hardly be held on the fire.―So a dish, when the owner of the house was writing, leaped into the pail and threw water on his work. At length the terrified family cried to God for help; and then the demons were heard to say mournfully that they had no more power, and soon departed.

In 1682 one Desborough of Hartford was possessed of a chest of clothes, claimed by his neighbor, but which he would not give up. Soon after many stones, and corn cobs, were thrown at him by an invisible hand. They came in at the doors of the house, and through the windows and sometimes even down the chimney. At length fires were set on his lands which did him much damage. Whereupon he gave up the clothes and his vexations ceased.

So about the same time, a Quaker at Portsmouth, withheld from an old woman of his town, a lot of land which she claimed as her own; and stones soon began to be thrown at his house by an invisible hand. When they were picked up, it was said they were found hot, and smelt of brimstone, by which it was readily known from whence they came. Upon this the subdued and terrified Quaker settled with the woman and his troubles ceased. Both these cases are recorded as examples of witchcraft. Yet to us they seem to be those where claimants of property, seek other remedies than courts of law. But among these examples there is recorded one tale of horror. It appears that at Hartford, and about the time of Ann Cole’s case, one Mary Johnson a young girl in her minority, was indicted and tried by the supreme court for familiarity with the devil! The jury returned her guilty; and that mainly upon her alleged confessions. I will transcribe a portion of Cotton Mather’s history of this case. “The girl said that her first familiarity with the devil began in her discontent, and by her often saying the devil take this and that, and sometimes wishing the devil would do this or that for her, until at last the devil did appear and tendered her what services might best content her. Then if her master blamed her for not carrying out the ashes, the devil would come and clear the hearth for her. So when she was sent to drive the hogs out of the corn field, the devil would so chase and frighten them as to make her laugh most merrily. She further confessed that she had murdered a child and committed uncleanness with both men and devils;” and it was for an illicit intercourse with the latter, that the Connecticut govenor hung this young woman.

After her sentence the Rev. Mr. Stone of Hartford, visited her in prison and as he verily thought was successful in turning her heart towards the true God. So that when led out to execution she expressed a humble hope in the mercies of redemption; and died much to the satisfaction of those gathered round the gallows. In this black transaction who does not see the full success of some vile seducer of female virtue, in an apparent legalized destruction of his victim. Yet it is called a case of lamentable witchcraft. So it was with those who slew the innocent. In 1685 or 6 a book was published at Boston with the approbation of the ministers and magistrates. It recited the cases I have named with many others and contained various arguments to fortify their credulity. The Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston, a man of great influence in church and state was the author; though he at the time withheld his name. He was then a young minister of about five and twenty, the son of Mr. Increase Mather then president of Cambridge college,―a position then of greater civil and church power than any other in the land; he was also the grandson of the great John Cotton. Mather’s opinions and turn of thought were in harmony with those who then ruled in Massachusetts, and we thus consider him.

This book produced the notorious witch case of the Godwins, of which he also published an account commencing thus. “Haec ipse miserima vidi.” John Godwin was a Boston merchant, a character of the first respectability, and he sat under the teachings of Mather himself. A poor Irish woman called Glover, with her daughter lived near him. The young Glover often served in Godwin’s family, and on a certain time being accused by his eldest daughter of some little theft, she cast back a denial and abuse for the accusation. The mother came up also and defended her child, and her passion and wild Irish accent, so terified the little Godwin that she was thrown into hystericks, and they were kept up from day to day. Her case excited great commiseration in the neighborhood and the physicians who were called in, being puzzled, pronounced it a “preternatural visitation;” a very significant phrase, by which all understood that the little maid was bewitched. Next her little sister, and two brothers seeing what was going on, had fits also and were afflicted by the invisibles. They declared they were pinched and pricked by some one whom they knew not, and then at times they would seem deaf, dumb and blind; and sometimes their mouths would be forced wide open and then suddenly brought together with great violence, to the great hazard of their tongues.

Stoughton and Dudley, both first charter rulers, were now also supreme judges, lately commissioned by Sir Edmund; and these at the solicitation of Mather and others, ventured to arraign and to try Mistress Glover for witch practices on the Godwin family. But she was a stranger to the language and too ignorant to understand legal proceedings, and when asked to plead to her indictment, her answer was unintelligible. The court then swore an interpreter, and he soon confessed himself puzzled declaring that he believed some other witch, or the devil himself had confounded her language, lest she should tell tales. Then they searched Glover’s house and some rag babies were found stuffed with goats hair. We must know that the woman was a Catholic and sold toys.

When one of these images or puppets was brought into court, the witch swiftly and oddly started up and seized it, and immediately one of the children had a sad fit before the court and assembly. The judges noted the fact, and repeated the experiment and with the same result, as it was said, the children saw not when Glover laid her hand on the baby images. In the end the court was satisfied that she used these dolls mysteriously in her work of torment. She owned also that there was one who was her prince, but did not say whether he were the pope or the devil. It was suggested that she might be crazed; but a jury of doctors returned, that she was compos mentis. She was finally sentenced to death and executed in Boston; yet the afflicted children did not recover but rather grew worse, or they improved by practice, for they would now bark at each other like dogs and then they would purr like cats. They would pretend to be in a red hot oven, and pant and sweat accordingly; and then that they were cast into cold water and appeared very chilly.

Sometimes the devil would bring Miss Godwin a horse, and then she had all the graceful motions of an equestrian. One day she rode up stairs into the minister’s study, where upon she cried out as if surprised, “they are gone. God won’t let them come here;” and she was at once cured, and sat reading the Bible and other good books for a long time. But when she left the study the demons returned, with her horse, and she frolicked as before.―This experiment of the charmed study, was tried before many visitors and with the like success. Mather’s experiments further satisfied him that Miss Godwin’s demons understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but none of the Indian languages.

This tragedy also began in a minister’s family. The Rev. Samuel Parris, was educated at Cambridge. He first engaged in trade, but being unsuccessful he turned to the ministry and was settled at Salem village. At the time now in view, his parish was in a high quarrel of which his arts to obtain the fee instead of the improvement for life only of the parsonage farm, was the cause. And whilst thus warm with mutual malevolence, pastor and flock, the current notions of witchcraft suddenly placed in their power the means of mutual revenge; and they were at once fully delivered over to the effects of their own excited wrath. A very mutual but terrible punishment. It was a horrid policy in the charter government to ever use the devil to overawe the people. A boundless power of evil, which a child, as well as a minister, or a charter ruler, could set in motion; and then whoever could might lay him. In the latter part of February, 1692, two children in the Parris family, both about ten years old, Elizabeth his daughter, and Abagail Williams his niece, began to behave in a strange manner; they would creep under chairs, sit in uncommon attitudes and utter language which none could understand; and as they were pitied and indulged; their freaks increased until it was thought they were very like the Godwins, and must be bewitched; and the physicians when called in confirmed the opinion. Mr. Parris only increased their malady by holding a day of solemn prayer at his house with the neighboring ministers.

But he had in his family two slaves, John and Tituba his wife. The squaw was from New Spain, and once a subject of the old Montezumian empire, and probably was imbued with some of its gloomy and unfathomable superstitions. Her thoughts too seemed as busy as her master’s, and she told him that although no witch herself, she once served a mistress who was, and who taught her how to find them out; and she would try upon the children without hurting them. Parris greedily took with her scheme, and he saw her while she took rye meal and kneaded a cake, which she salted in a peculiar manner, and which she said, when baked in green cabbage leaves in the embers and eaten by the two girls, would make them see their tormentors; and she continued the experiment. But although both she and her master affected to act and talk myteriously, yet the children as they crept about shrewdly under the chairs, eyed the cookery with a very jealous interest, and when they became conscious that the unsavory morsel was for their mouths they grew restive; for no necromancy could satisfy them that Tituba’s briny bread was like gingerbread, or anything good, and they began to show a rational opposition. But Tituba said they must eat, and Mr. Parris began to use authority. “I’ll smell on’t,” said little Elizabeth, “now won’t that do? say yes, say yes, good Titty.” But she shook her head. Bless me, said the father, how natural they seem; and about the same time the slave pulled the rank cake from the embers, and as the hot scent filled the room, Abagail cried out, there! there! I see them, I see them as plain as day, and so do I, said little Elizabeth. O how many! and there’s old Titt, too, she torments us, old Titt torments us, said they both.

It was now all over with the Mexican. In vain she frowned and coaxed by turns; or denied that the girls could see witch spectres by the smell of her cake only. She discredited her own magic, and which they would sustain for self-defense, and the more she labored thus, the more they professed to be tormented, until Parris himself took their part and threatened Tituba with punishment unless she confessed and disclosed her confederate witches. And John, too, her husband, when he saw her in distress meanly deserted her. He told master Parris that the girls no doubt spoke the truth; that she had for a long time tormented him, and was an old hand at it. But discouraged and deserted as she was, her master’s whip alone, as she afterwards affirmed, brought her to lie, and to confess that the devil engaged her to sign his book, and to afflict the children. And thus was acquired the spectral vision by the afflicted so much used and so fatally for the peace of the country, as we shall hereafter see. Tituba was imprisoned and so continued, until sold to pay her prison fees! And Mr. Parris fasted and prayed at his house a whole day. His family now excited a general sympathy and consideration, which others were willing to share. Their persecutions, Satan being the author, were somewhat honorable, and Ann Putnam, an older girl of the neighborhood, instigated by her mother no doubt, pretended to be afflicted also. Thus fortified, they now complained of Sarah Good and a Mrs. Osborn. It was supposed that the equivocal character of these caused the accusation; and it was the more readily credited. They were committed by two Salem magistrates the first week in March. Of Osborn we hear no more; but Mrs. Good was finally executed.

It is almost incredible, and yet it is sober history, that a little daughter of Sarah Good, five years old only, was accused by the afflicted of tormenting them; and they showed what they pretended were the prints of the child’s little teeth on their arms! The Salem magistrates committed this mere infant for witchcraft, but as we hear no more of her, she was probably liberated without further harm.

About this time there was a great fast at Salem, and another proclaimed by the government throughout the colony, “that the Lord would effectually rebuke Satan and save his people.” And the afflicted accusers multiplied daily, and there was added to the number Ann Putnam’s mother, goodwives, Pope, Bibber and Goodall, maidens, Mary Walcott and Mary Lewis; also, Tituba’s husband John; he turning accuser to save himself from being accused. About the same time a society was formed in Salem for the detection of witches, and these procured the accusation and commitment of many. This formidable band of accusers now cried out against two aged females who were church members, by the names of Corey and Nurse. Mrs. Nurse belonged to the church in Salem under the Rev. Mr. Noyes, and Mrs. Corey was of Mr. Parris’ flock. This was a dark business. It was supposed Parris instigated the accusation. For when made he gave it publicity and strength; and on the following Lord’s day he preached in his pulpit from this text: “Have I not chosen twelve, and one of you is a devil.”

A Mrs. Cloyes, sister to Nurse, was at the meeting, and during the furious and uncharitable sermon which followed her distress for her sister’s life, which it much endangered, constrained her to leave the meeting. A high wind closed the door suddenly after her, and it was said that she showed temper; and on the following Monday an accusation for witchcraft by the Parris family, and those under its control, went after her, upon which she was carried before Hathorn and Currier for examination. This charge, we know, must have been both malicious and false, as it was sustained by perjury.

A further knowledge of the temper and insolence of those, in whose power the lives and liberties of the citizens were now placed, may be gathered from this incident. On the 9th of March a Mr. Lawson, minister of Scituate, preached for Mr. Parris, it being the Sabbath day, and the bewitched band were present. After the psalm had been sung, Abagail Williams called out to him to stand up and name his text, and when he did so, she said it was very long indeed. In the discourse, he explained some point of doctrine at considerable length, when Mrs. Pope said loudly, “now take up some other point, the people have had enough of that.” In his improvement he made reference to doctrines which he said he had established. “Pray,” said Abagail again, “what doctrines do you mean?” And then Ann Putnam suddenly cried out, there! there! I see a little yellow bird sitting on the minister’s cocked up hat; there where it hangs on the peg in the pulpit. This was spectral vision; nobody else saw it and it seemed to be considered that the devil thus scoffed and jeered the congregation through the mouths of the afflicted.

The six commitments now made of the females―Tituba, Osborn, Good, Corey, Nurse, and Sarah Good’s little daughter, were upon the assumed authority of the two Salem magistrates alone, instigated by Parris. On the 11th of April, Danforth the Deputy Governor, with the council came down from Boston and sat formally with Hathorn and Curwin in the place of power.―The Governor Bradstreet the old patentee, who hung the Quakers, was now almost ninety; and ill qualified for the new service. Many of the neighboring ministers were also present. This terrible witch inquisition gave a sanction to the delusive and malicious prosecutions, and sealed the doom of many innocent victims. The inquisitors, the accused and a cloud of spectators, met in a large meeting house, Mr. Samuel Parris being employed as clerk, and assuming also a leading part in the production and examination of witnesses. The Rev. Mr. Noyes of Salem, an enthuiast in witch hunting opened the business with prayer. After which one of the accused begged that she might go to prayer also; but Danforth told her, they had come there to examine into her witchcrafts, and not to hear her pray! and she gave it up. Mr. Parris then began business by calling up as a witness Tituba’s husband John. That cunning treacherous slave knew well how to please his master and save his own neck: and living in the Parris family he knew also the views and wishes of those who now controlled the witch accusations.

Question.―John; who hurt you? A.―Goody Proctor first, and then Goody Cloyes. Q.―What did she do to you? A.―She (who?) brought the book to me, and choked me. Q.―John, tell the truth now, who hurts you; have you been hurt? A.―The first I saw was a gentlewoman.―(This was no doubt, a dark hint at Mrs. Mary English, the wife of one of the first merchants in Salem, and who was afterwards arrested and committed.) This was the woman, who, when the constables were at the door to seize and carry her to prison, called her little ones round her, gave them her parting blessing and advice, prayed with them, and wept over them, as she supposed for the last time, and then gave herself up quietly to her fate. Q.―John, who did you see next? A.―Goody Cloyes. Q.―How often did she torment you? A.―A good many times. Q.―Do the women come to you mostly in the daytime or in the night? A.―They come most in the daytime. Q.―John, do you know Cloyes and Proctor? A.―Yes, there is Goody Cloyes. Upon this Mrs. Cloyes looked sharply at him and said;―tell me when did I ever come to, or hurt thee? John.―(a little abashed,) O, a great many times. O, said Cloyes you are a grievous liar! Upon this Parris grew warm. Now, John, said he, tell us what did this Cloyes do to you? A.―She did pinch me and bite me till the blood came. She came and hurt me yesterday at meeting.

This was the woman whose only crime was leaving Mr. P.’s sermon. The malice of the master, the perjury of the slave, and the despotism of Danforth and his assistants were too hard for her. John, too, seems to have had the spectral vision in a high degree, though he never even smelt of his wife’s cake. He learnt it, no doubt, of the little girls her pupils, as did Ann Putnam and others. Parris then called Mary Walcot, and asked who hurt her. A.―Goody Cloyes. Q.―What did she do? A.―She hurt me. Q.―Did she bring the book? A.―Yes. Q.―What were you to do with it? A.―Sign it, and be well. Then she fell into a fit, in affected horror at the devil’s book. Abagail Williams, who so successfully outwitted Tituba in the matter of the salted cake, was next called by her uncle Parris. Abagail, said he, did you, by your spectral vision, once see a company near this meeting house eat and drink? A.―Yes sir;―it was their witch sacrament. It was on the day of the great fast. They had bread like raw flesh; and they had red drink, which they said was our blood; and they had it twice that day. Q.―How many were there? A.―About forty; they came together by the sound of a trumpet. They had a minister who preached, and Goody Cloyes and Goody Good were their deacons.

Mrs. Cloyes was of rather delicate health, and when she heard this strange tissue of falsehood, so great was her surprise and terror, that she sickened and asked for water, but as no one would assist her, she fainted and fell upon the floor. Upon which Abagail cried out, there, there, I see her spirit fly to her sister Nurse in prison for council; and she was believed; and as soon as the woman revived, she was forthwith imprisoned.