Show Notes
Andover’s Witch Hunt: Coerced Confessions, Family Betrayals, and the Touch Test
45 of the total 150–200 accused witches in the Salem Trials came from a single town that bordered Salem—Andover, where nearly 10% of the town population was accused of witchcraft and a lethal rumor spread: confess and live. Grounded in the real1692 examination transcripts and contemporary accounts from writers like Robert Calef, we trace how Martha Carrier’s May 1692 arrest ignited a wider dragnet, then how Elizabeth Ballard’s sudden illness brought Ann Putnam Jr. and Mary Walcott to Andover and triggered the infamous meetinghouse touch test rooted in beliefs about effluvia. As coerced confessions multiplied, family networks collapsed under pressure—from Ann Foster and the Mary Laceys to the torture-driven confessions of Carrier’s sons—and accusations surged through Reverend Francis Dane’s kin, fueling sensational claims of diabolical plots.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Andover Focus
02:01 Martha Carrier Accused
02:37 Defiant Courtroom Exchange
04:41 Ballard Illness and Touch Test
06:33 Confess and Live Rumor
07:22 Lacey Family Interrogations
09:37 Carrier Children Tortured
10:50 Dane Family Targeted
12:35 Sabbaths and Hell Crowns
13:43 Mather Versus Carrier
14:15 Elizabeth Johnson Testimony
15:13 Execution and Closing
Links:
Salem Witch Trials History YouTube
The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials
People Accused of Witchcraft in 1692
Select Salem Witch Trials Books:
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Richard Hite, In the Shadow of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692
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