The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials Podcast

The Weekly Podcast of the Salem Witch Trials

Author: Josh

  • The Controversy around Salem Witch Trial’s Rev. Samuel Parris – January 6, 1692

    The Controversy around Salem Witch Trial’s Rev. Samuel Parris – January 6, 1692

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    Show Notes

    Why was Salem Village minister Samuel Parris embroiled in controversy throughout his time there? In today’s episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily, we look into the reasons many people were angry at their pastor. We give his biography leading up to his time in Salem and discuss his tenure up to the start of the witch hunt. Why did he struggle to get villagers to join his church? Why did the villagers decide not to pay him?

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    Transcript

    January 6, 2026 - Salem Village People
    Josh Hutchinson: [00:00:00] What if your minister demanded not just a salary but ownership of church property and got it through a vote that might have been rigged? That's how Samuel Parris began his ministry in Salem Village in 1689, claiming the parsonage and two acres in what may have been in illegal meeting. That land grab would become a lasting bone of contention, and the resentment it created never went away.
    Sarah Jack: For more than three years, between March 30th, 1690 and July 23rd, 1693, not a single man in Salem Village joined Samuel Parris' Church, not one. In a Puritan community where church membership was supposed to be at central to life, the men of the village were sending their minister a crystal clear message: we don't want you here.
    Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Parris [00:01:00] was the minister of the Salem Village Church from 1689 to 1696. His tenure in the village was marked by controversy, which we'll highlight in today's episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. First of all, who was Samuel Parris? Well, he was born in London in 1653. His father, Thomas, moved the family to Barbados in the late 1650s. Thomas Parris was a merchant and owned a sugar plantation.
    Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Parris's uncle, Thomas Oxenbridge, left Barbados in 1670 to minister to Boston's first church. Samuel entered Harvard at about the same time at age 17.
    Josh Hutchinson: In 1673 though, Samuel's father died, and Samuel was forced to abandon his schooling. As great consolation to him, he inherited an estate worth about 7,000 [00:02:00] pounds, which would've made him very rich in Massachusetts, but he chose to go back to Barbados and take over his father's holdings.
    Sarah Jack: Samuel did not end up having his father's level of success in Barbados. He moved back to Boston in 1680 or 1681 after selling the Barbados properties. In 1682, he had to take out a loan to set up a shop as a merchant and stock up on goods to sell. His warehouse happened to be next to that of William Phips, who would be the governor in 1692.
    Josh Hutchinson: As in Barbados, Parris proved to be unsuccessful as a merchant in Boston, and soon considered a career in the ministry. In 1685, he preached in Stow, a frontier town in central Massachusetts.
    Sarah Jack: Then on November 15th, 1688, he entered discussions to minister to Salem [00:03:00] Village. He preached in Salem Village on November 25th, after which the village voted to pursue him as their next minister. There were months of negotiations after that.
    Josh Hutchinson: The village made its first offer on December 10th, 1688. The offer was 60 pounds a year plus lodging in the parsonage. However, Parris did not respond to this offer until the villagers invited him to come personally to Salem to discuss it.
    Sarah Jack: At that meeting, Parris tentatively agreed to the salary of 60 pounds per year but submitted an additional list of conditions: A. A third of the pay in cold, hard cash, the rest in goods to be assessed at the current prices,so the inflation plaguing the colony would not reduce the amount of goods he received. B. Control of the nature of provisions he was paid. C. Possibility of a raise if the village prospered, reduction if [00:04:00] it struggled. And D. Free firewood. The villagers did not agree to the free firewood, instead increasing Parris' salary by six pounds per year so that he could buy his own wood, which they would sell to him at four shillings a cord.
    Josh Hutchinson: Parris began preaching in the village in July 1689. His salary started on the first of that month. On October 10th that year, at a meeting he had requested, possibly led by Putnams, some villagers voted to overturn a 1682 vote that had banned giving the parsonage to the minister. They then voted to give the parsonage and two acres of land to Parris. This would be the lasting bone of contention in the village. 
    Josh Hutchinson: The vote was possibly illegal, as the fact that there was only one objection to the property transfer indicates that perhaps not all villagers were [00:05:00] informed of the meeting. 
    Sarah Jack: Rev. Parris was ordained on November 16th, 1689. On the same occasion, the first members of the Salem Village Church signed the covenant. There were 17 men and 10 women who joined, including Parris and his wife. 12 of the new members were Putnams. Four were their allies, the Wilkinses.
    Josh Hutchinson: Parris was unpopular with many in the village from the start. As of December 17th, a month after he was ordained, 38 of the village's families still had not paid their portions of the minister's salary, and Constable Edward Bishop was ordered to collect the late taxes. He was unsuccessful.
    Sarah Jack: Parris made it difficult to join the Salem Village Church, whereas the Salem Town Church had eased membership requirements. Parris rejected the Halfway Covenant, which churches in neighboring towns had adopted to make it possible for the [00:06:00] grandchildren of members to be baptized, even if their parents were not full church members.
    Josh Hutchinson: So with these stringent requirements and his unpopularity, in Parris's second year as minister, only seven villagers joined his church, and by 1692, 2 1/2 years after he started preaching in the village, there were still only 61 members, total, 35 of them women, because no man had joined the church in two years. 
    Sarah Jack: Every year, the village committee struggled to wrest Parris' pay from the villagers, and in April 1691, the committee found that only about 70% of Parris's salary had been collected for the year. The residents at the April 1691 village meeting decided to ask the Massachusetts General Court to force the withholders to pay Parris.
    Josh Hutchinson: Then on October 16th, 1691, a new [00:07:00] village committee was elected, made up of Joseph Porter, Joseph Hutchinson, Daniel Andrew, Joseph Putnam, and Francis Nurse, five men who opposed Parris. At the same time, the villagers at the meeting voted not to gather taxes to pay Parris.
    Josh Hutchinson: By November 1st, Parris was nearly out of firewood. 17 men met with him at the parsonage and created a three man delegation to beseech the village committee for help. After an unsuccessful plea at the November 10th village meeting, the men of the church voted to sue the village committee to force them to collect Parris's pay. Then the Village Committee announced a village meeting for December 1st, at which it planned to air its grievances against Parris. His contract was not legal, according to the village committee, he should not have been given the parsonage, and he should perhaps be paid voluntarily and not by taxes.[00:08:00] 
    Sarah Jack: Unfortunately, the Village record book contains no entries from October 17th until January 8th, so it's not clear the December 1st meeting took place. Nevertheless, a contentious meeting was held around this time, and Parris was compelled to answer about his original contract.
    Josh Hutchinson: Throughout Parris's tenure, the number of church members remained low for a community of about 500 to 550 people. According to Professor Emerson Baker, some 400 villagers were neither baptized nor members of the church.
    Sarah Jack: Controversy would continue to swirl around Samuel Parris until he resigned from the Salem Village Church at the end of June, 1696. But first, a lot transpires. 
    Josh Hutchinson: A lot that we'll be covering in the coming days, weeks, months. So stay tuned, and you learn all about this dramatic saga of Samuel Parris in Salem [00:09:00] Village.
  • Salem Town, Salem Farms, and Salem Village: A Tale of 3 Salems – January 5, 1692

    Salem Town, Salem Farms, and Salem Village: A Tale of 3 Salems – January 5, 1692

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    Show Notes

    Historians view the Salem of 1692 as being comprised of 3 neighborhoods: Salem Town, Salem Farms, and Salem Village. What were these communities, and how did contention for independence contribute to the witch trials? In today’s Salem Witch Trials Daily, we explore the early history of these neighborhoods and name prominent residents and landholders.

    Links

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    Transcript

    January 5, 2026 Salem Town and Salem Farms and Salem Village: A tale of 3 Salems

    Sarah Jack: Why did Salem have three different Salems? How did that confusion help spark a witch hunt?
    Josh Hutchinson: That's right. There really were three Salems. Of course, there was the town of Salem that encompassed all of it, but within that town, there were distinct communities. We tend to distinguish Salem Town, the port city, from Salem Farms and Salem Village, which were to the west of that in the interior of the country.
    Sarah Jack: Much of the land in Salem Farms, which lay to the west of Salem Town, was granted to the elite men of the colony.
    Josh Hutchinson: John Endicott, once governor of Naumkeag, the predecessor to Salem, and also future governor of Massachusetts Bay, owned more land in Salem Farms than anyone else.[00:01:00] 
    Josh Hutchinson: There were a lot of other prominent early landholders in the farms, including William Hathorne, father of witch judge John Hathorne, Richard Bellingham, future Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and John Winthrop's brother-in-law, Emmanuel Downing.
    Sarah Jack: These men did not remain long in the community, however. Attracted to opportunities on Salem Peninsula
    Sarah Jack: or Boston or London, they all either leased or sold their land, often dividing it into parcels for sale.
    Josh Hutchinson: Soon, men who would play roles in the Salem Witch trials and men who had children or wives who played roles in the witch trials were established in Salem Village and the surrounding farms. This included men like John Putnam, the father of Sergeant Thomas Putnam, who was wife to one Ann Putnam and father to another.
    Sarah Jack: Others who settled in Salem Village included Daniel Rea, Richard Hutchinson, and Bray Wilkins. John [00:02:00] Proctor leased Emmanuel Downing's land in 1666.
    Josh Hutchinson: Francis Nurse, husband of future accused witch, Rebecca Nurse, rented a good portion of the Endicott farm in 1678. With these men and their families in place, the Salem Village of 1692 was taking shape.
    Sarah Jack: In 1666, Salem Farms residents petitioned Salem for the right to have a minister of their own. Salem wasn't having it. A year later, men from Salem Farms asked to be exempted from night watch in the town, due to the great distances they had to travel from their homes. This proposal was rejected, as well.
    Josh Hutchinson: Residents of another neighborhood split off from Salem to form the town of Beverly in 1668. This seems to have encouraged many of the Salem Villagers to push harder for independence from Salem Town.
    Sarah Jack: In 1669, taxes were raised to fund a [00:03:00] new meetinghouse in the town. A group of 28 farmers balked at paying for a new meetinghouse in the town when they needed a meetinghouse of their own.
    Josh Hutchinson: The farmers asked the general court to allow them to have their own minister. The General Court did not approve the request until October 8th, 1672, in an order which also empowered the village to elect a five-member village committee to raise taxes to hire the minister.
    Sarah Jack: Then the village was at least recognized as a parish and allowed to have a minister, but not to form a church, meaning all the sacraments were still performed in the town church. Some who would attend the village meetinghouse remained members of the First Church of Salem and took communion there.
    Josh Hutchinson: Joseph Hutchinson, who's my ninth great grandfather who lived close to the center of Salem Village, donated the land for the meetinghouse. Yes, [00:04:00] this is the infamous meetinghouse where the Salem Witch Trials examinations were held, where afflicted people flopped and wailed and screamed and writhed. 
    Sarah Jack: In December of 1672, the village voted to build a meetinghouse on the gifted land and set a budget of 40 pounds. The meetinghouse was built in the spring of 1673.
    Josh Hutchinson: That year, the village hired its first minister, James Bayley. He served until 1679, when a group of villagers, including Bray Wilkins and Nathaniel Putnam, pressured him to resign. The next year, this faction won most of the seats on the village committee and forced him to step aside.
    Sarah Jack: George Burroughs was the town's next minister. Hired in November of 1680, he had preached in Falmouth, Maine, now Portland, for several years until that town was destroyedin King Philip's War, and he was forced to relocate to Salisbury, Massachusetts.
    Josh Hutchinson: Burroughs [00:05:00] left Salem Village in the spring of 1683, after the village committee voted to stop paying him. He returned to Maine.
    Sarah Jack: It took a year for Salem Village to hire the next minister, Deodat Lawson, who was a controversial choice. One faction lobbied Salem Town in 1686 for permission to ordain him and form a church, while another petitioned Salem Town in 1687 not to ordain Lawson.
    Josh Hutchinson: Supporters included Captain John Putnam and Sergeant Thomas Putnam, while opponents were led by Joseph Hutchinson, Daniel Andrew, Job Swinnerton, and Joseph Porter. 
    Sarah Jack: Joseph Hutchinson then fenced in the meetinghouse in a show of his disdain 
    Sarah Jack: for Mr. Lawson. 
    Sarah Jack: In February 1687, the Salem Town committee told the two factions that Lawson would not be ordained and urged his supporters to just shut up about ordination already.
    Sarah Jack: Lawson left [00:06:00] Salem Village less than a year after the town committee's decision.
    Josh Hutchinson: No new minister was hired until 1689. The previous November, villagers had opened discussions with Samuel Parris of Boston and formerly of Barbados.
    Sarah Jack: He gave one sermon on November 25th, 1688, and the town voted him to be the next minister. After months ofnegotiations, Parris started to preach in the village in July, 1689.
    Josh Hutchinson: He was ordained and the church was gathered on November 16th, 1689. This means all the covenanting members signed the contract that day and were able to then receive the sacraments.
    Sarah Jack: The hiring of Samuel Parris would go on to have the tragic outcome we all know about. Preaching constantly about the ever-present devil, he led his community down a road better left untraveled, and fueled the [00:07:00] witch trials.
    Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for enjoying Salem Witch Trials Daily with us. Tomorrow, we're going to break down the controversy surrounding Samuel Parris.
    Sarah Jack: This video is part of a larger series of videos that make up the Salem Witch Trials YouTube course. For information on how to take advantage of the course, go to youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts.
  • Salem’s Founding – January 4, 1692

    Salem’s Founding – January 4, 1692

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    Show Notes

    In today’s Salem Witch Trials Daily, we discuss the founding of Salem, Massachusetts in 1626 and how the town was reshaped over the years leading up to the witch trials in 1692, as the population of New England surged.

    Happy birthday, Salem!

    Links

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    Transcript

    January 4, 2026 - Salem's Founding
    Josh Hutchinson: The city of Salem, Massachusetts has its 400th birthday this year. Founded in 1626, Salem was the first English town in Massachusetts Bay. Its existence as Salem predates the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony itself.
    Sarah Jack: Of course, native settlements in the area date back much, much longer. The original inhabitants of what is now Salemcalled the area Naumkeag, which means fishing place.
    Josh Hutchinson: Naumkeag was a thriving settlement until European disease ravaged the eastern coast of New England from 1616 to 1619.
    Sarah Jack: In 1624, the Dorchester Company sent a mannamed Roger Conant to lead the colony they were trying to establish on Cape Ann, to the north of where Salem sits today.
    Josh Hutchinson: Conant and 20 families later relocated and settled in the fishing place in [00:01:00] 1626, so Conant is considered Salem's founder and a statue of him stands in the city, right in front of the Salem Witch Museum.
    Sarah Jack: In 1628, the Massachusetts Bay Company bought out the Dorchester Company's holdings on Cape Ann, and John Endicott was appointed governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He sailed to New England with a hundred colonists and established his government in Salem.
    Sarah Jack: Roger Conant was granted 200 acres of land in exchange for surrendering leadership to Endicott. After this peace was forged, the story goes that the community was renamed Salem, a hellenized form of shalom, the Hebrew word for peace.The First Church in Salem was formed in August 1629. It's important to note that in colonial Massachusetts, a church was a body of people and not a building. The building didn't come until 1635. Until then, members met in private [00:02:00] homes.
    Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Skelton was elected to be the first pastor, and Francis Higginson was elected to be the teacher. Francis Higginson, by the way, was the father of John Higginson, who served as Salem's senior minister during the witch trials. Unfortunately, neither Francis Higginson nor Samuel Skelton lived to see the construction of the church's first building.
    Sarah Jack: In 1634, Roger Williams came to Salem to be the new minister.
    Sarah Jack: He served less than two years and was banished for his theology from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, going on to found Rhode Island.
    Josh Hutchinson: Then Williams' successor in Salem was Hugh Peter. He lasted five years and then returned to England where he became personal chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and was later beheaded and mutilated for his role in the killing of King Charles I. So they had a lot of luck with [00:03:00] these early ministers.
    Sarah Jack: In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Company elected John Winthrop to succeed John Endicott as governor. A year later, in 1630, governor Winthrop and 700 colonists reached Salem in a fleet of 11 ships. However, Winthrop did not stay in Salem long. He and most of the new arrivals relocated and founded Boston, making it the capital of the new colony of Massachusetts Bay.
    Josh Hutchinson: About 20,000 immigrants poured into New England in the 1630s. As this Great Migration drew more and more people, new towns were created around Salem, which was soon ringed by Lynn, Reading, Andover, Rowley, Ipswich, and Gloucester
    Sarah Jack: Salem itself included. All are part of the modern towns of Beverly, Marblehead, Manchester, Wenham, Topsfield, Danvers, Middleton, Peabody, and Swampscott.[00:04:00] 
    Josh Hutchinson: Within Salem's early boundaries, the town of Wenham split off in 1643, the same year that the Jefferies Creek community was incorporated as Manchester. Marblehead split from Salem in 1648 and Beverly spun off in 1668.
     
    Sarah Jack: Most of the population of Salem lived near the bustling port, while others resided to the West, and in an area known as Salem Farms,which included a small settlement called Salem Village. We'll discuss Salem Village's history and disagreements with the town of Salem in further detail tomorrow. This is important for understanding the local dynamics at the time of the Salem Witch-Hunt.
    Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for watching Salem Witch Trials Daily. As always, I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Join us again tomorrow for that look at Salem Village's early history.

  • A Brief History of Massachusetts – January 3, 1692

    A Brief History of Massachusetts – January 3, 1692

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    Show Notes

    How did Massachusetts become what it was in 1692? We look into this question in today’s Salem Witch Trials Daily.

    We highlight the founding of Salem and Boston, the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the colony’s first legal code, and more.

    Keep coming back every day as we continue to explore the witch trials and their context throughout the year.

    Links

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    Transcript

    January 3 - The History of Massachusetts
    Josh Hutchinson: Salem, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first city, celebrates its 400th anniversary this year, and this focus on the history of the city has us thinking, what about the history of the colony? How did Massachusetts become what it was in 1692? Welcome to Salem Witch Trials Daily for January 3rd. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Sarah Jack: I am Sarah Jack. 
    Sarah Jack: For 10,000 years or more before the Europeans came, Massachusetts was occupied by Native Americans. In the 16th century, the Europeans came to New England to fish and to trap game where those Native Americans were living. A series of epidemics decimated the native population, especially along the coast where contact with the exotic, disease-carrying Europeans was very common. 
    Sarah Jack: Then in the [00:01:00] 17th century, English colonists tried to start settlements in several locations. These ventures failed until 1620 when the Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
    Josh Hutchinson: They formed Plymouth Colony and then in 1626 on Cape Ann, Salem was founded by Roger Conant, who had established a fishing village at Naumkeag, the site of a previous Native American settlement. Naumkeag means fishing place.
    Sarah Jack: You can see a statue of this founder of Salem Roger Conant, right outside of the Salem Witch Museum. People often mistake it for the statue of a witch or a generic puritan. It's specifically Roger Conant. In 1628, Massachusetts was founded by the Massachusetts Bay Company. So, at this point in time you had the Plymouth Colony in the South and Massachusetts Bay [00:02:00] Colony to the north of that. In 1629, King Charles I issued a charter so that the Massachusetts Bay Colony could govern itself. The town of Boston was founded in 1630 and it was made the seat of the colonial government, authorized by that charter.
    Josh Hutchinson: Yes. This was when they moved the capitol away from Salem, where they initially set up camp. And then in the 1630s, there was an explosion of immigration to New England, as approximately 20,000 Europeans came over to settle the colonies. In 1641, the first New England legal code was set down. This was called the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, and it set out the rights of the residents of [00:03:00] Massachusetts. Then in 1648, this book and other laws were put together into The Book of the General Laws and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts.
    Sarah Jack: And it wasn't long. Before there were accused witches between 1648 and 1691, many people were indicted in Massachusetts on witchcraft charges. Eight were convicted, five were executed, and two women were jailed or placed under house arrest.
    Josh Hutchinson: The one man who was accused, his conviction got overturned and then he fled to Rhode Island with his daughter. That was Hugh Parsons of Springfield. In 1684, the cherished charter of Massachusetts Bay Colony was revoked by King James II, throwing the colony into some [00:04:00] disarray.
    Josh Hutchinson: Then two years later, King James II established the Dominion of New England, which was a supercolony that ran all the way from what's now New Jersey, up to Nova Scotia, and included all of the New England colonies and New York under one royally appointed Governor, Edmund Andros, who was a very unpopular figure in New England, because he was very harsh on Massachusetts, in the opinions of the leaders and residents. He got overthrown two years later. The Glorious Revolution happened in England. This is when King William and Queen Mary came from the Netherlands to take the throne away from King James II. And while that was happening there, once the colonists got word of it, several weeks later, they stormed the Capitol in Boston and arrested Edmond Andros and [00:05:00] sent him back to England.
    Sarah Jack: From that time, 1688 to 1692, Massachusetts was led by an interim government resulting in jail overcrowding as the colony lacked courts to try suspects. 
    Josh Hutchinson: In 1691, Massachusetts finally got the charter it had been working for years to regain, but this new charter was controversial.It included clauses like Massachusetts had to be tolerant of other religious beliefs. In addition to Puritanism, they had to tolerate the Anglicans and the Baptists and the Quakers, who they did not tolerate at all before this. So they were very upset.
    Sarah Jack: him.
    Josh Hutchinson: They were persecute, they executed Quakers just for being Quakers.
    Josh Hutchinson: But finally this charter, it was issued by King William in October, and then it arrived in the colony of Massachusetts the following [00:06:00] February. So February to May, you still have this kind of quasi legal status, because the new governor, he doesn't arrive until the middle of May, after the jails were already packed with witchcraft suspects. This is just a little introduction to the history of Massachusetts. I know we didn't go into a lot of detail, but tomorrow you can come back and we're gonna dig into the founding of Salem.
    Sarah Jack: The Salem Witch Trials Daily is presented by The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts podcasts. Join us every Sunday and Wednesday for deeper explorations of the Witch trials of the past and the witchcraft persecution of today.

  • What Caused the Salem Witch Trials? – January 2, 1692

    What Caused the Salem Witch Trials? – January 2, 1692

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    Show Notes

    Join us for this second episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily. Today, we highlight 5 of the key factors which contributed to the start of the witch hunt and its rapid spread. Tune back in tomorrow, when we explore a 6th factor.

    Salem Witch Trials Daily is the daily show that highlights key events in the witch-hunt as they happened and analyzes their significance. We go beyond the typical on this date programming to bring insights into key topics of interest.

    The Thing About Salem is the weekly podcast dedicated to revealing another “thing” about the Salem Witch Trials every week.

    The Thing About Witch Hunts is the weekly witch trial podcast bringing historical accounts and analysis, as well as actionable information on the witch hunts still occurring today.

    Links
    The Thing About Salem
    The Thing About Witch Hunts
    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

    Transcript

    January 2, 2026
    Josh Hutchinson: So we've been podcasting about witch trials for about three and a half years now, and people are always asking what caused the witch trials, particularly the Salem Witch Trials. Was it this ergot poisoning that we hear about with the LSD-like substance, or did everybody catch hysteria and just lose their minds? We'll discuss some of the key reasons in today's episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Josh Hutchinson: And I'm Sarah Jack. As of January 2nd, 1692, the Salem Witch Trials were not yet underway, so we'll be bringing you topical episodes until the action picks up.
    Josh Hutchinson: To set the stage for when the trials do happen, here are five of the most significant factors that led to the saga.
    Sarah Jack: The belief in witchcraft was nearly [00:01:00] universal. Even trial critics did not refute the existence of witches. Those defending accused witches believed in witchcraft.
    Josh Hutchinson: They did, and I want to point out here, too, that this belief in witchcraft was not just limited to people in Massachusetts. It wasn't limited to Puritans. It was nearly universal in all of Europe at the time that this was happening, regardless of which denomination the people involved were. Then the second factor that led to the witch trials or contributed to the rise and spread of the witch trials was war and the accompanying sickness that came along with it. King Philip's War had been fought in the 1670s and was the deadliest war per capita in the history of what is now [00:02:00] the United States. And King William's War was now being fought in 1690s, primarily in Northern New England.
    Sarah Jack: So that was the experience of those that were involved in witch trials, these wars.
    Josh Hutchinson: These wars and King William's war was when a large smallpox outbreak occurred, started with soldiers who were trying to invade Quebec, and they came home, hundreds of them sick with smallpox, and we'll see later down the road that that smallpox did contribute to some witchcraft accusations.
    Josh Hutchinson: Hint.
    Sarah Jack: The economy is the third factor we're gonna talk about.
    Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, the economy was ravaged by colonial debt, because these wars were so expensive. They literally had to start [00:03:00] printing money for the first time in Massachusetts to pay for this debt. So the taxes were very high. There's a high burden on the residents. And residents and the colony itself had suffered direct financial losses heavily due to these wars. You know, you think about the destruction of property, the loss of income.
    Sarah Jack: Loss really seems to contribute to witchcraft accusations.
    Josh Hutchinson: Indeed. 
    Josh Hutchinson: The fourth factor we wanna talk about today is social tensions. Of course, you have the usual tensions between neighbors, but these were heightened by the anxieties being felt at the economically precarious time. It was a precarious time in general for the colony. We'll talk about that more in later episodes, why the colony itself was [00:04:00] on edge.
    Sarah Jack: And there were increased social tensions because war refugees had moved to Massachusetts, mostly to Essex County, which is the northernmost county in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and that's where Salem is. So they had all this influx of people come down to Salem and surrounding towns. The last factor that we're gonna touch on today is religious anxieties.
    Josh Hutchinson: A feeling had been growing among many of the Massachusetts ministers that the colony and its residents were backsliding on Christianity, that they didn't have the faith of the founders who had first settled in the 1620s and 30s. That this generation by 1692, it's the third generation of people, some people are even fourth generations being born, and [00:05:00] the ministers just thought that these aren't the men that founded this colony that we revered because their faith was so strong. We feel like the faith is crumbling away. So that was big source of religious anxiety throughout the colony. 
    Josh Hutchinson: And then locally in Salem Village, there was intense controversy over the minister. For two decades, they squabbled over who to be minister. Nobody lasted more than a few years. And in 1692, Samuel Parris was the minister, and it seemed like at least half of the community was against him.
    Josh Hutchinson: And these five factors that we've talked about today aren't the only things that we're contributing to fueling the witch trials. There was this anxiety I alluded to a minute ago that was political in nature, [00:06:00] because the status of the colony was up in the air. 
    Josh Hutchinson: Salem Witch Trials Daily is presented by The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts podcasts. Tune into those every week.

  • Salem Witch Trials Governor Sir William Phips: America’s First Knight

    Salem Witch Trials Governor Sir William Phips: America’s First Knight

    Show Notes

    William Phips was the last person anyone should have trusted with one of the most consequential legal crises in American history. No formal education. No legal training. No political experience.The man who put him in charge of Massachusetts was Increase Mather, the most powerful Puritan minister in colonial New England.

    Phips arrived at the Salem witch trials as governor of Massachusetts Bay with a life behind him that had nothing to do with governance. There was a Spanish shipwreck, a knighthood, a failed military campaign, and a financial disaster that forced the colony to print currency for the first time. By the time he sailed into Boston Harbor in May 1692, the jails were already full of the accused, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was waiting to be built, and the pressure to act was immense.

    Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack examine the full arc of William Phips, the contradictions he embodied, the power he held during the Salem witch trials of 1692, and what he did and did not do with it.

    What You Will Learn:

    • The kind of man Puritan New England handed its witch trials to
    • What it took to become the most powerful man in Massachusetts without ever learning to write
    • How a man who could not read until age 21 came to control the Salem witch trials
    • The Spanish shipwreck that launched a political career
    • Why New England’s most powerful minister chose an illiterate treasure hunter for governor
    • The military disaster that forced Massachusetts to print money for the first time
    • What the ministers actually told Phips about the witchcraft cases
    • The accusation that landed inside his own home
    • Who Phips blamed when the Crown demanded answers

    Hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack.

    End Witch Hunts: endwitchhunts.org | aboutwitchhunts.com

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    William Phips_ Governor of Massachusetts During the Salem Witch TrialsDownload
  • American Revolution: How Families of Salem Witch Trials Victims and Accusers United for Independence

    American Revolution: How Families of Salem Witch Trials Victims and Accusers United for Independence

    Show Notes

    From Witch Trials to Revolution: Salem Village on the Front Lines

    We connect Salem’s darkest legacy to the opening clash of American independence with historian Dan Gagnon, Danvers resident and author of A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse. Our conversation brings the Revolution into the very streets of Salem and Salem Village (today’s Danvers), where coercive acts, a moved provincial capital, troops on the Salem Common, and General Gage’s presence near the Rebecca Nurse Homestead turned imperial policy into daily reality. Tensions surge as the Massachusetts legislature outmaneuvers Gage in Salem, town meetings defy his bans, and crowds force him to release arrested patriots. The action escalates with Leslie’s Retreat—an armed standoff over a raised bridge—and then the Lexington Alarm, as Danvers militia (including descendants of witch-trial families) race to Menotomy for some of the day’s most savage fighting.

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    American Revolution_ How Families of Salem Witch Trials Victims and Accusers United for IndependenceDownload
  • Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Introduction – January 1, 1692

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Introduction – January 1, 1692

    Happy New Year! And happy 400th birthday (2026) Salem, Massachusetts.

    In the first episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily, Josh Hutchinson previews the new series, which discusses each day of the Salem Witch Trials and searches for meaning behind the events.

    Every day in 2026, we will bring you key details and discussion of the events of 1692. In 2027, we will continue to bring you the events of 1693 and beyond.

    Salem Witch Trials Daily is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack and presented by The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials and The Thing About Witch Hunts.

    We’ll have more in the next episode, when we begin to look into the factors which helped the witch-hunt form and spread.

    Watch Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Introduction

    Links
    The Thing About Salem
    The Thing About Witch Hunts
    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

    Transcript

    The Salem Witch Trials were America's largest and most notorious witch panic, by a good measure. In 1692 and 1693, the Salem Witch Trials produced at least 156 formal accusations, 30 convictions, and 20 executions. In fact, Robert Calef, author of one of the very few 17th century books on the trials, said accusers named more than 200 people as witches. Not all of these individuals were prosecuted, however. 
    Happy New Year and happy 400th birthday to the city of Salem, Massachusetts, founded back in 1626. I'm Josh, and I'm excited to welcome you to Salem Witch Trials Daily, a new series exploring the Witch-Hunt of 1692 and 1693. This , is designed as a course.
    In 2026, we'll bring you a daily account of the [00:01:00] events of 1692, and next year we'll continue to cover the events of 1693 and beyond. In addition to the daily events, we'll discuss witch trial topics and debunk misconceptions. This course is for beginners first beginning to learn about the witch trials, people who know the gist of the history but want more details, and even seasoned Salem researchers who want to look at topics from different angles. You will all get something out of this series. 
    We will learn what factors created an environment in which the witch panic was able to happen, how the witch trials were prosecuted, and how the witch trials finally ended, among much more.
    So tune in every day. You'll be immersed in Salem Witch Trials history and in-depth discussion of the witch trials and learn everything you want to know about the witch-hunt in a few minutes a day. So the events of [00:02:00] 1692 and 1693, they started in January, 1692, some point in the middle of the month, in the household of Salem Village Minister Samuel Parris. His daughter, Betty, and his niece, Abigail Williams, began behaving very strangely. There were barking like dogs and quacking like ducks and flapping around like geese, pretending to fly across the room, and nobody knew what was up with that. They seemed to be sick with some illness, but doctors couldn't diagnose what it was. And what one strange thing was that betty and Abigail were the only people in a household of eight to come down with this condition. Betty's sister, Susannah, and brother, Thomas, they did not come down with this. The parents, Samuel and Elizabeth Parris, did not come down with this. Tituba, an enslaved [00:03:00] woman in the household, did not come down with this. John Indian, however, the other enslaved individual in the house, he did eventually come down with this, but didn't get it right away when the girls did.
    So as we go through January and the rest of this year, we'll continue to walk a day by day through the events of the Salem Witch Trials. So come back every day for an all new episode. Salem Witch Trials Daily is presented by The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts podcasts. Tune into those podcasts for even more. The Thing About Salem is dedicated exclusively to the Salem Witch Trials, while The Thing About Witch Hunts covers more witch trials and more related topics. 
    So we're gonna have more for you here tomorrow, when we begin to look into the [00:04:00] factors which helped the witch-hunt to form and spread. Until then, have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
  • Walpurgis Night, Salem Witchcraft, and the Maypole at Merrymount

    Walpurgis Night, Salem Witchcraft, and the Maypole at Merrymount

    Show Notes

    Every April 30, bonfires burn across Europe on the same night witches were said to gather on a mountaintop and make their covenant with the devil. That image did not stay in Europe. It crossed the Atlantic, embedded itself in colonial New England theology and law, and by 1692 it was being sworn to in witchcraft trials that sent nineteen people to their deaths. In this episode, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack follow that thread from a German mountain to a Danvers pasture — and the path runs straight through a Maypole, a folk magic discovery hidden inside a colonial home, a decades-old grudge over rancid butter, and a pear tree that has been standing since before the trials began and is still standing right now.

    In this episode, you will learn:

    • Why Walpurgis Night and the Salem witchcraft sabbath descriptions share the same historical roots
    • How one colonial settler’s May Day celebration became a theological threat to Puritan authority
    • What a single word in William Bradford’s writing reveals about how Puritans understood folk magic and social control
    • Why witchcraft gathering testimony carried such evidentiary weight in colonial Massachusetts courts — decades before Salem
    • How one man’s actions in the 1620s left a thread running directly through the 1692 witch trials
    • What a 400-year-old pear tree in a Danvers parking lot has to do with the Salem witch trials

    The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials is part of the End Witch Hunts podcast network. Learn more at endwitchhunts.org.

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    Walpurgis Night, Salem Witchcraft, and the Maypole at MerrymountDownload
  • When ESPN Covered the Salem Witch Trials: Ergot Theory at 50

    When ESPN Covered the Salem Witch Trials: Ergot Theory at 50

    Show Notes

    ESPN has a history podcast, and they used it to cover the Salem Witch Trials on the 50th anniversary of the ergot theory. Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, descendants of Salem Witch Trial victims, respond to Stupiracy’s April 2nd episode on whether moldy rye bread caused the accusations of 1692.

    What you will learn:

    • What the ergot theory is and why it has circulated for 50 years
    • How the historical symptoms from Salem do not match ergotism
    • Who was executed and who died in jail during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692
    • Why the devil, not bread mold, was the legal framework driving the prosecutions
    • The witch legends and actual 1692 witch trials in ESPN’s own backyard in Connecticut

    Hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack of The Thing About Witch Hunts Podcast. Learn more at www.aboutwitchhunts.com

    #SalemWitchTrials #WitchTrials #ErgotTheory #Salem1692 #SalemHistory #WitchHistory #RebeccaNurse #MaryEasty #GilesCory #ESPN #Stupiracy #ConnecticutWitchTrials #AmericanHistory #WitchHunts

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    When ESPN Covered the Salem Witch Trials_ Ergot Theory at 50Download
  • Salem Witch Trials Judge Coerces Confessions from Teens: The April 19, 1692 Story

    Salem Witch Trials Judge Coerces Confessions from Teens: The April 19, 1692 Story

    Show Notes

    On April 19, 1692, Salem witch trials magistrates conducted their busiest day of examinations yet. Four accused witches appeared before the court in colonial Massachusetts. Two confessions were recorded. And the Puritan legal proceedings that would lead to nineteen executions shifted into a dangerous new phase.

    In this episode of The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack break down the examinations of Giles Cory, Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren, and Bridget Bishop using the firsthand courtroom notes of Samuel Parris and Ezekiel Cheever. If you love American history, colonial history, or the true story behind one of the most dramatic legal crises in Puritan New England, this episode is for you.

    In this episode you’ll learn:

    • What Giles Cory said under examination, why his answers about a cow house drew the magistrates’ suspicion, and how the afflicted responded to Giles Cory’s every movement in the courtroom
    • How Abigail Hobbs became the first confessor since Tituba, what her confession revealed about life on the colonial Maine frontier, and why Abigail Hobbs’ testimony produced the first legal accusation against Sarah Wildes of Topsfield
    • What Mary Warren claimed about the afflicted accusers that the Salem witch trial court chose to ignore, and why Mary Warren’s examination collapsed across four separate appearances before the magistrates
    • How Bridget Bishop defended herself against charges of witchcraft in 1692, what the cuts in Bridget Bishop’s coat had to do with spectral evidence, and why her answer about not knowing what a witch was became a trap that led to her hanging

    The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack of End Witch Hunts nonprofit and The Thing About Witch Hunts podcast. For day-by-day coverage of the 1692 Salem witch trials, follow Salem Witch Trials Daily podcast.

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    Salem Witch Trials Judge Coerces Confessions from Teens_ The April 19, 1692 StoryDownload
  • Salem Witch Trials Survivor: Sarah Cloyce’s Story

    Salem Witch Trials Survivor: Sarah Cloyce’s Story

    Show Notes

    What does the American Red Cross have to do with the Salem Witch Trials? The answer runs through one of the most defiant women of 1692.

    Sarah Cloyce was the youngest of the three Towne sisters, the sibling who survived when Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty did not. Born in Salem in 1642, Sarah lived a relatively ordinary Puritan life until March 1692, when her sister Rebecca was arrested for witchcraft and Reverend Samuel Parris delivered a sermon that changed everything. Sarah’s response, walking out of the meetinghouse and reportedly slamming the door behind her, put a target on her back. Eight days later, she was formally accused.

    Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack tell the full story of Sarah Cloyce’s accusation, her examination at the Salem Town meetinghouse on April 11, 1692, and her nine months of imprisonment in chains before the charges against her were finally dismissed in January 1693. They also cover the joint petition Sarah authored with her sister Mary Easty while both were imprisoned, Peter Cloyce’s remarkable devotion to his wife throughout her ordeal, and the family’s journey west to what would become Framingham, Massachusetts, where Salem End Road still marks the path the witch trial refugees traveled.

    And that famous descendant? Sarah Cloyce’s daughter Hannah married Samuel Barton, and five generations later, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born in Oxford, Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1821.

    What You Will Learn:

    • What one act in a church doorway made Sarah Cloyce a target of the accusations
    • What role the afflicted claimed she played at the devil’s sacrament
    • Why one of the most active accusers of 1692 held back when it came to Sarah
    • What her husband did during her nine months of imprisonment that set him apart
    • Why Sarah survived when her sisters did not
    • Where Sarah and the other Salem refugees went, and what they left behind
    • How Sarah Cloyce’s bloodline connects directly to one of the most celebrated women in American history

    The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, descendants of Salem Witch Trial victims. New episodes every week.

    Also mentioned: the PBS miniseries Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1985) starring Vanessa Redgrave, authors Antonio Stuckey and Janice C. Thompson, and Salem Witch Trials Daily, the companion daily podcast. 

    Visit aboutsalem.com for more.

    Visit youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts for The Salem Witch Trials Daily podcast.

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    Salem Witch Trials Survivor_ Sarah Cloyce’s StoryDownload
  • Mary Warren’s Meetinghouse Note Lands Her in Hot Water – Salem Witch Trials Daily – April 2, 1692

    Mary Warren’s Meetinghouse Note Lands Her in Hot Water – Salem Witch Trials Daily – April 2, 1692

    In this episode, we move beyond the fictionalized drama of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to uncover the real Elizabeth Procter. Born into a family already shadowed by witchcraft accusations, Elizabeth faced the full weight of the 1692 panic. We trace her journey from a high-profile examination in front of the colony’s top officials to her harrowing months in prison.

    What You’ll Learn

    • The “Inheritance” of Suspicion: How Elizabeth’s grandmother, Ann Burt, influenced the community’s perception of her long before the trials began.
    • The High-Stakes Examination: Details of the April 11th hearing where Elizabeth stood her ground against the afflicted girls and the highest court in Massachusetts.
    • A Life-Saving Pregnancy: The legal reason Elizabeth survived the gallows while her husband, John, did not.
    • The Fight for Restitution: Elizabeth’s post-trial battle to reclaim her legal personhood and property after being declared “dead in the eyes of the law”.
    • Fact vs. Fiction: We debunk common myths regarding the Procter family’s ages and relationships that were popularized by 20th-century drama.

    Featured Quotes

    “I know nothing of it, no more than the child unborn.”

    Tune in to hear how one woman’s fierce determination allowed her to dismantle an unjust legal system and reclaim her life.

    Transcript

    Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Salem Witch Trials Daily. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Sarah Jack: This is Sarah Jack. Today, Saturday, April 2, 1692. Elizabeth Procter and Rebecca Nurse's Spectors, allegedly afflict Abigail William's
    Josh Hutchinson: According to Abigail, this happened on several occasions in March and April. In testimony, accusers would often provide lists of dates like this when they had been attacked spectrally, just numbering the second, third, fourth, 17th of March, things like that. And this is one of the reasons why we go through the events day by day so that we understand what the daily life was like for those involved in the witch-hunt.
    Sarah Jack: Abigail describes these attacks saying she felt "grievously pinched" and "had also her bowels almost pulled out."
    Josh Hutchinson: The Elizabeth [00:01:00] Procter specter reportedly tempted Abigail with fine things in exchange for signing a book.
    Sarah Jack: Elsewhere in Salem Village, Mary Warren, who worked for the Proctors, had recovered from her affliction and now put a note at the meetinghouse asking for prayers of gratitude for her recovery.
    Josh Hutchinson: Stay tuned this month for the aftermath of Mary pinning this note. There will be serious drama.
    Sarah Jack: In the immediate wake of the note posting, according to Mary's later testimony, Elizabeth Procter appeared to Mary that night, pulled her out of bed and confessed that she was a witch and had signed the book.
    Josh Hutchinson: Mary said that quote, she told me this in her bodily person. This means that it wasn't Elizabeth's specter visiting her, it was Elizabeth herself.
    Sarah Jack: Occasionally, we see complaints referenced bodily attacks made by physical people, but as you'll see, [00:02:00] it is far more common to read of spectral assaults by the shapes of the witches.
  • Salem Witch Trials: Was Mercy Lewis the Ringleader of the Afflicted Girls?

    Salem Witch Trials: Was Mercy Lewis the Ringleader of the Afflicted Girls?

    Show Notes

    She accused 16 people, was named a victim in 13 indictments, and may have been the most powerful force driving the Salem witch trials of 1692. So why does history overlook Mercy Lewis?

    What You’ll Learn

    • Why some historians consider Mercy Lewis the ringleader among the afflicted girls
    • How surviving the Wabanaki wars shaped her role in the Salem witch trials
    • The full content of her April 1st visions, including the biblical passages a glittering multitude sang
    • What she claimed George Burroughs offered her on top of a high mountain
    • How her near-death episode sent the Marshal of Essex County riding through the night to re-arrest Mary Esty
    • Why former employers testified she was a pathological liar

    At 19, Mercy Lewis was a maidservant in the Thomas Putnam household, carrying the trauma of war, probable orphanhood, and displacement from Maine. Her visions were among the most vivid and theologically detailed of the entire crisis. Her accusations helped send people to the gallows.

    Were those visions vivid dreams, trauma responses, or deliberate fabrications? Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack dig into the evidence.

    Follow 1692 day by day on Salem Witch Trials Daily Podcast. Resources and episodes at www.aboutsalem.com.

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    Salem Witch Trials_ Was Mercy Lewis the Ringleader of the Afflicted Girls_Download
  • The Devil’s Conspiracy: How Fear of a Demonic Plot Made the Salem Witch Trials Possible

    The Devil’s Conspiracy: How Fear of a Demonic Plot Made the Salem Witch Trials Possible

    Show Notes

    The Salem witch trials of 1692 were not driven by local grudges alone. Behind the arrests, examinations, and executions was a centuries-old theological framework that convinced educated elites, magistrates, and Puritan clergy that they were fighting a coordinated demonic war against the Christian church itself.

    Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack trace the elaborated theory of witchcraft from its origins at the Council of Basel in the 1430s through the circulation of the Errores Gazariorum, the standardization of the witches’ Sabbath concept, and the mass distribution of the Malleus Maleficarum following the invention of the printing press. By the late 17th century, this framework had transformed witchcraft from a personal crime of harmful magic into an existential conspiracy — witches organized under the devil, sworn to pull down the kingdom of Christ and replace it with a kingdom of Satan.

    In Salem, that theory played out in real time. Tituba’s confession named nine witches in the devil’s book. That number grew to forty, then a hundred, then three hundred alleged conspirators gathering in Samuel Parris’s own pasture to consume red bread and blood wine in mockery of the Christian sacraments. Reverend George Burroughs was accused of leading the diabolical assembly. Coerced confessions described a formal pact to destroy the churches. Cotton Mather, in Wonders of the Invisible World, traced the conspiracy back more than forty years — to executions in Connecticut and Massachusetts that included Alice Young, Margaret Jones, and the Carringtons.

    This episode examines how fear of an anti-church conspiracy — not panic, but deliberate legal prosecution rooted in genuine theological terror — drove the witchcraft crisis and what that pattern of fear-driven scapegoating reveals about witchcraft accusation violence today.

    Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack are co-hosts of The Thing About Salem, The Thing About Witch Hunts, and Salem Witch Trials Daily. Both are descendants of families who experienced the Salem witch trials.

    📚 Full course and resources at aboutsalem.com 🌍 End Witch Hunts: endwitchhunts.org

    Listen Where You Get Your Podcasts

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    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

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    Transcript

    The Devil’s Conspiracy_ How Fear of a Demonic Plot Made the Salem Witch Trials PossibleDownload
  • John Procter and Samuel Parris Get Big Mad: March 25, 1692

    John Procter and Samuel Parris Get Big Mad: March 25, 1692

    In this episode, we dig into Friday, March 25, 1692, as tensions surge in Salem Village and beyond. We discuss John Procter’s furious confrontation with Samuel Sibley at Walter Phillips’ Tavern over Mary Warren’s fits and his harsh skepticism toward the afflicted girls. Back in the village, we cover Ann Putnam Jr.’s reported violent spectral assault—attributed to Rebecca Nurse—with witnesses claiming visible bite marks and chain impressions, alongside Edward Putnam’s deposition against Nurse. In Salem Town, we examine Betty Parris’s severe seizures at Captain Stephen Sewall’s home and her account of a dark figure offering temptation, as well as the advice that seemed to end her fits. We also explore Rev. Samuel Parris’s discovery of Mary Sibley’s role in the witch cake and the church repentance he orchestrated.

    Transcript

    March 25, 1692: John Procter and Samuel Parris Get Big Mad

    Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Salem Witch Trials Daily. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
    Sarah Jack: This is Sarah Jack. Today, we are diving deep into the events of Friday, March 25th, 1692. It's a day packed with terrifying spectral attacks, shocking physical evidence, and bubbling frustrations among the villagers. 
    Josh Hutchinson: The day begins with some serious tension outside the village. Over at Walter Phillips' Tavern, right by the Cow House River, John Procter was on his way to Salem Village when he ran into Samuel Sibley. Procter asked how things were going at the village, and Sibley had grim news. Things were very bad last night.
    Sarah Jack: Is this Mary Sibley's husband?
    Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
    Sarah Jack: Witch cake husband.
    Josh Hutchinson: Witch cake husband.
    Sarah Jack: And this directly impacted Procter, because his own maid, Mary Warren, was among those having fits. She had actually stayed [00:01:00] overnight in the village after attending court. Procter was absolutely furious. He rudely declared that he was going to "fetch the jade" and that he would have "rather paid 40 pence than let her go in the first place."
    Josh Hutchinson: Sibley was a bit surprised by this reaction, considering Mary was a witness, but Procter was having none of it. He warned that if the afflicted girls were allowed to continue their behavior, "we should all be devils in witches quickly." In his mind, the girls didn't need a court. He said they should rather be had to the whipping post.
    Sarah Jack: His anger didn't stop there. John Procter viciously fumed about the afflicted shouting, "hang them! Hang them!" He told Sibley his plan was to bring his maid home and literally thresh the devil out of her. He even bragged that when Mary's Fitz had first started, he kept her busy at the spitting wheel and threatened to beat her if she tried having fits again, which worked perfectly until he had to leave for a day.[00:02:00] 
    Josh Hutchinson: It's a stark reminder that not everyone in the area was buying into the girls' claims, and some were becoming dangerously fed up. But while Procter was voicing his skepticism, things were getting violently physical back in Salem Village around 2:00 PM.
    Sarah Jack: The young Ann Putnam Jr. was allegedly attacked by a specter, but this wasn't just a invisible pinching or biting. The apparition of Rebecca Nurse supposedly lashed Ann with a chain. She was struck six times within half an hour.
    Josh Hutchinson: Her uncle, Edward Putnam, along with others witnessed actual bite marks and the physical impressions of chain links on the young girl's flesh. We also know that on this very day, Edward Putnam was formally deposed against Rebecca Nurse.
    Sarah Jack: Let's shift our focus away from the village and look at Salem Town. Betty Parris, the young daughter of Reverend Parris, was staying at the home of Captain Stephen Sewall. She was having [00:03:00] seizures so terrible that the Sewalls actually feared she was going to die.
    Josh Hutchinson: When she recovered enough from her fits to speak, Betty described being terrorized by the apparition of a great black man or a menacing dark shape. This entity was trying to bargain with her. He promised her that if she would be ruled by him, she could have absolutely anything she desired, and he would even take her to a golden city.
    Sarah Jack: Is this the first time we've heard Betty recount what she was experiencing directly?
    Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, this is the first we've heard from Betty. She hasn't done depositions. She had been in court early on, but we don't have any record of her saying anything in court. 
    Sarah Jack: Yeah, This is a classic depiction of demonic temptation,but 
    Sarah Jack: Minister Deodat Lawson reports that Mrs. Sewall stepped in with what he considered powerful advice. He said she explained to [00:04:00] Betty that that figure was the devil, that he was a liar from the beginning, and that Betty should tell him that exactly if he ever came back.
    Josh Hutchinson: This apparently worked, because we don't hear about Betty having fits again and she's not involved anymore in the trials or giving any testimony.
    Sarah Jack: I think it's interesting. If this is how it unfolded, here's Betty being given a defense instead of just panic. Oh, here's something in your tool belt you can use against the devil. Not just, oh, no, the devil's been here. You're harmed. I don't know.
    Josh Hutchinson: She basically banishes this, you know, probably, you know, imagined figure that she's seeing. She's able to tell it off and eventually it apparently goes away, 'cause she's not involved. But the real reason that she gets better is she's [00:05:00] isolated from the other afflicted people, so she's not influenced by them, and she doesn't feel like she has to conform to that group's behavior anymore.
    Josh Hutchinson: Back in Salem Village, Reverend Samuel Parris on this day finally uncovers who's responsible for the witch cake that was baked, the countermagic witch cake to identify the witch harming Betty and Abigail. He discovered it was Mary Sibley who was behind it, who's Samuel Sibley's wife, so we talked about him earlier, and now she's involved on March 25th as well. Parris brought her into his study and lectured her extensively, apparently, according to what he, he wrote in his own church record book. He rebuked her for her grand error of using diabolical means to find out the devil. [00:06:00] In Parris's eyes, even though his girls had been sick before, it was this witch cake charm that truly let all hell break loose in the community. 
    Sarah Jack: Parris records that he drafted a paper describing the entire witch cake incident, the terrible effects it had, and her repentance. 
    Sarah Jack: Yeah, so this document that Parris drafts, it's Mary Sibley's apology. He's the one writing it on her behalf, and he wants her to agree to it. So he gives her that opportunity. She cries, but she says yes, you can censure me in church, because that's what this is all about. He wants to publicly rebuke her behavior as a warning to the rest of his church that you don't play with the devil, because you're tempting him to come into the community and harm people.
  • The Devil’s Library: The Books That Shaped the Demonic Pact Found in the Salem Witch Trials

    The Devil’s Library: The Books That Shaped the Demonic Pact Found in the Salem Witch Trials

    Show Notes

    The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 didn’t emerge from nowhere. They emerged from a library. This episode traces the centuries of theological and legal texts that shaped how Salem’s magistrates understood witchcraft, the demonic pact, and the infamous Devil’s book.

    From a 15th-century inquisitor’s manual to a Scottish king’s royal obsession to a Boston minister’s bestseller, Josh and Sarah open the books that made Salem possible.

    Books and Sources Covered

    Malleus Maleficarum (1486) — Heinrich Kramer’s foundational witch-hunting manual codified the idea of a vast anti-Christian conspiracy sealed by a formal pact with the devil. It provided the theological and legal framework for prosecuting witchcraft across Europe for centuries.

    Daemonologie (1597) — Written by King James VI of Scotland (later King James I of England), this royal text argued that witches entered the devil’s service through a pact alone. The king’s authority gave the work enormous cultural weight, and his framework for the devil’s covenant shaped New England Puritan thought directly.

    A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (1608) — William Perkins detailed the diabolical compact in legal terms, distinguishing between explicit verbal pacts and implicit ones inferred through action. He also established seven grounds for suspicion of witchcraft. During the Salem crisis, Cotton Mather specifically recommended judges follow the guidelines of Perkins and his successor Richard Bernard.

    A Guide to Grand Jury-men (1627) — Richard Bernard’s practical manual for witch trial proceedings was among the texts Cotton Mather recommended to the Salem court.

    The Discovery of Witches (1647) — Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch Finder General, ran one of the most lethal witch-hunting campaigns in English history across East Anglia. His methods, his obsession with the witch’s mark, and the confessions he extracted helped cement the Devil’s book as a recognizable cultural image decades before Salem.

    Hudibras (Samuel Butler, 17th century) — Butler’s satirical poem mocked Hopkins by portraying him as a secret witch himself, hanged for possessing the very Devil’s book he hunted. The satire is significant: it confirms the Devil’s book was already deeply embedded in the popular imagination.Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689) — Cotton Mather’s account of the Goodwin children’s afflictions, attributed to an Irish woman named Goody Glover, circulated widely through New England. When Salem’s afflictions began in 1692, the symptoms closely mirrored the Goodwin case. Reverend Samuel Parris was in Boston during the Goodwin episode, meaning his household had direct familiarity with Mather’s template.

    The Devil’s Book at Salem: First Appearances

    By the time formal accusations began in 1692, the Devil’s book was already a recognized legal and theological concept. Its appearance in Salem testimony followed quickly:

    • February 27, 1692 — Ann Putnam Jr. claimed Sarah Good’s specter tormented her and pressured her to sign the Devil’s book. This is the first accusation involving the Devil’s book in the Salem crisis.
    • February 27, 1692 — Elizabeth Hubbard named Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as tormenters, alleging Osborne’s specter urged her to write in the book.
    • March 2, 1692 — Tituba confessed to making her mark in the Devil’s book with blood and stated the book was already signed by nine witches, including Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Seven signers remained unidentified, located in Roxbury, Salem, and Boston.
    • March 14, 1692 — Abigail Williams claimed she was tempted to put her hand to the Devil’s book and saw Martha Corey at a Devil’s Sacrament. Mercy Lewis reported similar pressure to sign.

    Notably, the physical description of the Devil’s book changed throughout testimony, varying in color, size, and material depending on the witness.

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    Key Themes

    • The Salem Witch Trials were the product of deliberate legal and theological machinery built over two centuries, not a sudden or unexplainable event
    • The concept of the demonic pact as formal contract was codified in print long before 1692
    • Cotton Mather’s 1689 work functioned as a near-immediate template for Salem’s afflictions
    • The Devil’s book served prosecutorial purposes by implying an organized conspiracy with many unnamed participants still at large

    Sign the Petition

    Five women were hanged in Boston between 1647 and 1688 and have never had their names cleared. Sign the petition at change.org/WitchTrials to support their exoneration.

    About The Thing About Salem

    The Thing About Salem offers bite-sized episodes exploring the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack are descendants of witch trial victims and co-founders of End Witch Hunts, the only U.S. nonprofit dedicated to witchcraft accusation awareness.

  • Podcasthon: When Children are Accused of Witchcraft

    Podcasthon: When Children are Accused of Witchcraft

    Show Notes

    This special Podcasthon 2026 episode of The Thing About Salem brings together two stories separated by more than three centuries. Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack share a clip from End Witch Hunts’ International Women’s Day panel featuring Maimunat Mohammad, a woman from Niger State, Nigeria, who grew up in a community that accused her mother of witchcraft after her father’s death. Her account is followed by the story of Dorothy Good, a four-year-old girl jailed during the Salem witch trials of 1692 after her mother, Sarah Good, was accused and hanged.

    The parallel is not coincidental. It is the point. Podcasthon is a global event where podcasts raise money for nonprofits. This episode is End Witch Hunts’ contribution to that effort, and it makes the case for why the work of this organization matters now.

    Donate at endwitchhunts.org/donate.

    What You’ll Learn

    • What Podcasthon is and how it supports nonprofit work
    • Who Maimunat Mohammad is and what her family endured after her father’s death
    • How witchcraft accusations spread beyond the accused person to children and family members
    • What happened to Dorothy Good, one of the youngest people detained during the Salem witch trials
    • How the experience of accusation affects a person’s sense of self over time
    • Why End Witch Hunts connects historical witch trials to contemporary witch hunting

    Keywords

    Salem witch trials, Dorothy Good Salem, witchcraft accusations Nigeria, End Witch Hunts nonprofit, Podcasthon 2026, Salem witch trial children, Sarah Good Salem, Maimunat Mohammad Nigeria, witch hunting today, witch trial descendants, advocacy for accused witches, Leo Igwe Advocacy for Alleged Witches Nigeria, witch hunt survivors, witchcraft accusation family, Salem 1692, charitable giving witch hunt nonprofit, how to support End Witch Hunts, witch trial history and human rights, contemporary witch hunting, Colorado nonprofit witch hunts

    Support End Witch Hunts

    End Witch Hunts is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Colorado. It produces two weekly podcasts, advocates for legislative recognition of witch trial victims, and partners with advocates working on the ground in countries where witchcraft accusations cause harm today.

    Donate: endwitchhunts.org/donate Share this episode to help spread the word.

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    Article by Dr. Leo Igwe Give to Gain: Justice for Women Accused of Witchcraft in Africa

    Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW)

    End Witch Hunts

    International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)

    Association of Women against Gender-Based Violence

    Radio Nigeria

    UN Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8

  • Tituba as American Cultural Figure with Samaine Lockwood

    Tituba as American Cultural Figure with Samaine Lockwood

    Show Notes

    For International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, The Thing About Salem takes a deep look at one of the Salem witch trials’ most fascinating and misrepresented figures: Tituba Indian. Who was she, and why have writers, scholars, and storytellers kept returning to her story for two centuries?

    Joining Josh and Sarah is Samaine Lockwood, associate professor of English at George Mason University and the 2026 Fenwick Fellow, whose forthcoming book traces Tituba’s transformation as an American cultural figure from 1820 to the present.

    In this episode, you’ll discover:

    • Why Tituba is largely absent from 19th-century Salem novels, and what her absence reveals about race and citizenship in post-Civil War America
    • How wrongfully accused white women in historical fiction were shaped into symbols of ideal democratic citizenship, while Tituba was cast as their opposite
    • Which overlooked novels and authors are essential to understanding how Salem has been reimagined across American literary history
    • Why Black feminist writers like Ann Petry and Maryse Conde were the first to place Tituba at the center of the story, and why that matters
    • What Samaine’s research trip to Salem will examine about how Tituba is represented in today’s memorial and tourist spaces

    This episode also includes an invitation to the live International Women’s Day panel Justice for Women Accused of Witchcraft in Africa, taking place Sunday, March 8th at 6:30 PM GMT. Join Dr. Leo Igwe, Chief Magistrate Safiya Musa Salihu, Dr. Barrister Dise Ogbise Goddy Harry, broadcast journalist Hauwa Mundi, and Maimonat Mohammad for a conversation on gender, justice, and witchcraft accusations today. Register at endwitchhunts.org/iwd.

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    Publications by Samaine Lockwood

    University Libraries has named Samaine Lockwood, associate professor of English, the 2026 Fenwick Fellow

    Buy Books Mentioned in Today’s Episode

    Sign the Petition to Exonerate the Boston 8

    The History of Witch Trial Exonerations in Massachusetts

    About the MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    Purchase a MA Witch Hunt Justice Project Memorial Pin

    Attend Free Event March 8, 2026: Woman Accused of Witchcraft in Africa

    Transcript

    Tituba as American Cultural Figure with Samaine LockwoodDownload
  • How did the Salem Witch Trials start?

    How did the Salem Witch Trials start?

    Show Notes

    How the Salem Witch Trials Began: The First Week of March 1692 | The Thing About Salem

    It’s early March 1692, and Salem Village is about to change forever. In this episode of The Thing About Salem, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack cover the explosive first week of the Salem Witch Trials, from the very first arrests to the courtroom confessions that transformed a local crisis into a full-blown witch hunt.

    The episode opens with a recap of the pivotal final days of February 1692, when a physician’s diagnosis, a desperate folk magic ritual, and a gathering of ministers set the stage for what was coming. By February 29, the waiting was over. Complaints were filed, warrants were issued, and three women were headed to examination.

    March 1, 1692 marks a critical  moment in the Salem Witch Trials. Magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin questioned the accused in the packed Salem Village meeting house, and what happened inside those walls would send shockwaves through Massachusetts Bay Colony and fuel months of accusations to come.

    The episode traces events day by day through March 7, showing exactly how a handful of afflicted girls, a contested diagnosis, and one dramatic confession set an entire province on edge.

    In this episode:

    • Day-by-day events from March 1 through March 7, 1692
    • The witch cake and what it was meant to do
    • The first complaints and arrest warrants of the Salem Witch Trials
    • The examinations of Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba before magistrates Hathorne and Corwin
    • Tituba’s confession and the Devil’s book with nine signatures
    • Why the debate over spectral evidence mattered
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    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing on YouTube⁠!

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    ⁠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

    Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

    Transcript

    The First Arrests of the Salem Witch Trials_ Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and TitubaDownload
  • Salem Witch Trials: Nothing But Putnams

    Salem Witch Trials: Nothing But Putnams

    Show Notes

    The Putnam Family’s Role in the Salem Witch Trials

    No family is more associated with the Salem Witch Trials than the Putnams. And for good reason. One man in this family filed complaints against 35 people. His wife, his daughter, and their maid were all among the afflicted. The depositions, the courtroom drama, the relentless momentum of accusation after accusation. The Putnams were not bystanders to any of it.

    So it would be easy to close the book on them there. Villains. Next chapter.

    Except the same family also signed the petition defending Rebecca Nurse. Some members testified against the accused in the morning and put their names on her defense in the afternoon. One branch quietly took in Dorothy Good in the years after the trials, when almost no one else would. And one Putnam kept his horse saddled for months, ready to ride at a moment’s notice, because he was openly opposing the trials and he knew what that could cost him.

    In This Episode

    Three branches of the Putnam family, three generations, and a cast of individual’s history has flattened into footnotes. Josh and Sarah trace who accused, who defended, who did both, and who walked a quieter path that history almost forgot. The story of Ann Putnam Jr. and the only public apology to come out of the entire crisis. The Putnam descendants who shaped American history long after 1692. And the harder question underneath all of it: when a community turns on itself, what does it take to be one of the people who helped it happen, and what does it take to be one of the people who doesn’t?

    About The Thing About Salem

    The Thing About Salem takes the Salem Witch Trials seriously as history. That means going beyond the names everyone knows, sitting with the complexity, and treating the people involved as real human beings rather than symbols. Hosted by Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson, the podcast draws on decades of research, firsthand expertise, and a genuine commitment to getting it from the records. New episodes every week.

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    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing on YouTube⁠!

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    ⁠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

    Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

    Transcript

    Salem Witch Trials_ Nothing But PutnamsDownload

  • Magic in the Courtroom: The Story of Candy, A Woman Accused of Witchcraft in 1692

    Magic in the Courtroom: The Story of Candy, A Woman Accused of Witchcraft in 1692

    Show Notes

    History remembers Tituba—but she wasn’t the only enslaved woman caught in Salem’s 1692 witch hunt. Meet Candy of Barbados, whose courtroom testimony turned Puritan assumptions upside down.

    When magistrates asked if she was a witch, Candy gave an answer that indicted the entire colony: “Candy no witch, Barbados. This country, mistress give Candy witch.” Then she brought cheese and grass into the courtroom as proof.

    What followed was one of the strangest examinations of the summer—complete with burning rags, forced grass-eating, and an enslaved woman accusing the woman who held her in bondage of witchcraft. Discover the story of resistance, strategy, and survival that the history books rarely tell.

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    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    ⁠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

    Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

  • Mary Black: Enslaved Woman Accused of Witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials

    Mary Black: Enslaved Woman Accused of Witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials

    Show Notes

    Episode Description

    This episode examines the story of Mary Black, an enslaved woman accused of witchcraft in April 1692, and the complex household she lived in. Mary Black was owned by Nathaniel Putnam, a politically active Salem Village leader who opposed Reverend Parris before the trials began and later defended Rebecca Nurse—yet left no documented advocacy for the enslaved woman in his own household.

    What You’ll Learn

    • The racial dimensions of the Salem witch trials and how court records identified accusers differently
    • How Mary Black’s experience contrasts with white accused women who had community defenders
    • Nathaniel Putnam’s complex role: opposing Parris, defending Rebecca Nurse, while owning Mary Black
    • The stark silences in historical sources around enslaved and women of color in colonial New England
    • Mary Black’s examination, nine-month imprisonment, and eventual clearing by proclamation

    Key Figures Discussed

    • Mary Black – African enslaved woman accused April 21, 1692
    • Nathaniel Putnam – Mary’s owner, Salem Village political leader
    • Rebecca Nurse – white woman Nathaniel defended

    Keywords: Salem witch trials, Mary Black, enslaved women, Nathaniel Putnam, racial history, colonial New England, 1692, Tituba, Rebecca Nurse, Salem Village

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    ⁠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

    Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

    Transcript

    Mary Black_ An Enslaved Woman Accused of Witchcraft during the Salem Witch TrialsDownload

  • The Judges of the Salem Witch Trials Courts

    What’s in This Episode:

    The Court of Oyer and Terminer operated for less than five months in 1692, but the nine judges who sat on that bench sentenced nineteen people to death by hanging and allowed another man to be pressed to death under stones. This episode goes judge by judge, revealing the real men who wielded power without accountability during the Salem witch trials.

    What You’ll Learn:

    Discover the legal framework that made the Salem witch trials possible, from the Body of Liberties of 1641 to the constitutional crisis that created this special court. Learn how the 1604 English Witchcraft Act shifted prosecution from proving actual harm to proving a diabolical pact with the Devil, and how spectral evidence became the cornerstone of convictions despite warnings from ministers like Cotton Mather and Increase Mather.

    Meet William Stoughton, the chief justice who sent juries back to reconsider acquittals and later raged when executions were halted. Hear about John Hathorne’s aggressive interrogations that terrorized the accused, and why his descendant Nathaniel Hawthorne added a W to distance himself from the family legacy. Find out why Samuel Sewall became the only judge to publicly apologize and observe an annual day of fasting for the rest of his life, and why Nathaniel Saltonstall resigned from the court in protest after the first execution.

    Why It Matters:

    These weren’t faceless figures of history. They were educated men with families and church connections who had acquitted accused witches years earlier but chose to accept unreliable evidence in Salem. 

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    Learn About the Judges, Buy this book: A Storm of Witchcraft by Emerson W. Baker

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

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    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

  • The First Terrifying Accounts of the Salem Witch Trials

    The First Terrifying Accounts of the Salem Witch Trials

    Show Notes

    The Salem Witch Trials became a publishing phenomenon before they even ended. Discover how writers raced to document the crisis in real time, defying colony-wide publication bans to get their accounts into print.

    This episode explores the groundbreaking early writings about Salem, from Minister Deodat Lawson’s eyewitness account published just two weeks after his 1692 visit to Salem Village, to the fierce theological debates that followed. Learn how these documents shaped public opinion, influenced the trials’ outcome, and preserved crucial historical evidence.

    What You’ll Learn

    Early Crisis Documentation Former Salem Village minister Deodat Lawson captured the panic at its peak, describing violent fits, spectral accusations, and the chaos that erupted in church services. His March 1692 narrative became the first published account of the unfolding crisis.

    The Evidence Debate Samuel Willard’s mysterious dialogue challenged the very foundations of spectral evidence. When is supernatural testimony trustworthy? Can the Devil frame innocent people? These questions divided the colony.

    Three Voices, Three Visions October 1692 brought competing perspectives: Thomas Brattle’s scathing critique of court procedures, Cotton Mather’s defense of the trials as spiritual warfare, and Increase Mather’s theological bombshell that changed everything.

    The Standard That Stopped the Trials Increase Mather’s famous principle that ten guilty should escape rather than one innocent person be condemned transformed the legal landscape overnight. Discover how one theological argument dismantled an entire prosecution system.

    Voices of Regret and Rage John Hale’s humble admission of misguided zeal contrasted sharply with Robert Calef’s response to the writings of Cotton Mather. Thomas Maule offered yet another interpretation, seeing divine judgment rather than satanic attack.

    Why This Episode Matters

    These primary sources reveal how communities process crisis in real time. They show the power of written words to challenge authority, preserve truth, and change minds. From eyewitness terror to philosophical reflection, these documents chart the emotional and intellectual journey of a society reckoning with its own actions.

    Perfect for history enthusiasts, researchers, and anyone interested in how evidence standards, media influence, and public opinion intersect during moments of social panic.

    Keywords

    Salem Witch Trials books, Deodat Lawson narrative, spectral evidence debate, Increase Mather Cases of Conscience, Cotton Mather Wonders Invisible World, Thomas Brattle letter, Robert Calef criticism, John Hale apology, Thomas Maule Quaker perspective, witch trial publications, 1692 primary sources, Salem witch panic documentation, early American publishing, colonial Massachusetts writings, historical witch trial accounts

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    Join us for daily episodes exploring Salem Witch Trials history and weekly deep dives on The Thing About Salem podcast.

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    Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative

    Samuel Willard, Some Miscellany Observations

    Thomas Brattle, Letter of Thomas Brattle

    Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience

    Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World

    Thomas Maule, Truth Held Forth and Maintained

    John Hale, A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft

    Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    The First Terrifying Accounts of the Salem Witch TrialsDownload

  • Who Wrote the First Book on the Salem Witch Trials? The Answer May Surprise You

    The Salem Witch Trials are one of the most written about historical episodes ever. Books abound on the topic, which supplies an endless amount of ideas to writers. Right from the beginning of the witch panic in 1692, accounts were published, and people continued to write about the witch trials despite a colony-wide ban later put on publication by Governor William Phips. This week we are examining some of the many early writings about the Salem Witch Trials: those published during the event and those printed in the first decade after. These contemporary accounts of the Salem Witch Trials give us an unprecedented window into how people understood, debated, and eventually condemned one of America’s darkest chapters.

    The First Salem Witch Trials Book: Deodat Lawson’s Eyewitness Account

    So who wrote the first book about the Salem Witch Trials? Two months before the trials even began, former Salem Village minister Deodat Lawson documented a trip he made to the village in the spring of 1692, and both his account and a sermon he gave there were published within two weeks of his visit. This makes Deodat Lawson the first person to publish an account of the Salem Witch Trials, capturing the panic as it was still unfolding.

    Had there been a newspaper, the press would have been going around the clock printing Salem Witch Trials news.

    Lawson had served as minister in Salem Village from 1684 to 1688, and he was invited up from Boston to give a lecture on Thursday, March 24, 1692. According to his firsthand account, he arrived in the village on Saturday the 19th and remained until at least March 24, documenting everything he witnessed during those pivotal days when the crisis was escalating from local concern to full-blown panic.

    What Did Deodat Lawson See During the Salem Witch Trials?

    Lawson’s narrative is crucial because he gives us the “ground zero” perspective, arriving in Salem Village in March 1692 right when things were heating up and chronicling exactly what he saw between March 19 and April 5. The details are visceral and terrifying, describing Mary Walcott and Abigail Williams in violent fits with visible teeth prints on their arms from invisible biters. The psychological pressure in the meeting house was immense, with the afflicted interrupting worship services and yelling out at respected community members. He specifically mentions Abigail Williams screaming at the minister and claiming to see Goodwife Corey suckling a “Yellow bird” on her fingers.

    Imagine the chaos of that moment. What made Lawson’s Salem Witch Trials account so influential was how he validated the “sympathetic magic” that became so deadly in court, noting that during examinations, if the accused bit their lip or clenched their hand, the afflicted accusers would instantly cry out in pain. He even documents the tragedy of Sarah Good’s four-year-old child, who was jailed after confessing her mother gave her a snake to suckle.

    Lawson’s account of the Salem Witch Trials ends with the conclusion that this was a Satanic attempt to mimic and divide Christ’s Kingdom, essentially telling the colony: “This is real. The war is on.” The printer added a telling note to readers, signed by Benjamin Harris, promising that this narrative was “only as a Taste, of more that may follow in Gods Time,” revealing just how much the publishing world anticipated the unfolding drama would captivate readers.

    Early Opposition to the Salem Witch Trials: Samuel Willard Questions the Evidence

    But almost immediately, there was pushback against the Salem Witch Trials, quiet at first but there nonetheless. We see it in a document by Minister Samuel Willard from later in 1692, known as “Some Miscellany Observations On Our Present Debates,” presented as a dialogue between two characters: “S,” representing the Salem prosecution, and “B,” representing the skeptical view.

    This document is fascinating because of its logical precision, with both parties agreeing that witches exist but fundamentally disagreeing about what constitutes proof in Salem Witch Trials cases. “S” argues that “strong presumption” is enough to catch a witch because it’s a hidden crime, but “B” argues that you need “Humane evidence,” facts you can see and hear with natural senses rather than supernatural guesses. “B” specifically attacks the “Touch Test” used in the Salem Witch Trials, the idea that a witch’s touch cures the victim’s fit, asking the devastating question: if the Devil is doing the tormenting, why are we trusting him to tell us who the witch is?

    That logic became the wedge that eventually cracked the Salem Witch Trials open, exposing the fundamental flaw in the entire prosecutorial approach.

    October 1692: Three Major Writers Respond to the Salem Witch Trials

    Before the Salem Witch Trials ended, three heavyweights entered the ring in October 1692: Thomas Brattle, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather, each representing radically different views of the crisis and its proper resolution. These three writers shaped how people understood the Salem Witch Trials both during and after the events.

    Thomas Brattle’s Letter: A Scathing Critique of the Salem Witch Trials

    What did Thomas Brattle say about the Salem Witch Trials? Brattle’s letter doesn’t hold back, condemning the “Touch Test” as nothing more than “sorcery” and “Salem superstition” while mocking the judges for thinking they can catch a witch by “pistolling the shadow,” meaning convicting someone based on what their “spectre” does rather than their actual physical actions. He shines a harsh light on the hypocrisy of the court, noting that “distributive Justice” failed because people connected to the judges, were accused but never arrested, while others with no such connections were dragged to prison and ultimately the gallows.

    Brattle exposes the torture used during the Salem Witch Trials, detailing the “violent, distracting, and draggooning” methods used to force confessions from terrified prisoners who would say anything to make the pain stop. His letter offers a devastating critique of the Salem witchcraft proceedings, arguing that the Justices employed superstitious and illegal methods to convict the accused while abandoning the very principles of English justice they claimed to uphold.

    Cotton Mather Defends the Salem Witch Trials

    While Brattle was shouting “Stop,” Cotton Mather was shouting “Go.” His book, “The Wonders of the Invisible World,” was commissioned by the Governor to defend the Salem Witch Trials and present them not as a miscarriage of justice but as a righteous battle against genuine supernatural evil.

    What was Cotton Mather’s role in the Salem Witch Trials? Mather paints a picture of a spiritual siege, arguing the Devil has come down with “Great Wrath” because he knows his time is short, and he details the physical evidence from the Salem Witch Trials with prosecutorial zeal: the teeth marks, the “poppets” found in Bridget Bishop’s walls with headless pins in them, the preternatural strength of George Burroughs. To Cotton Mather, the Salem Witch Trials were battles won in a holy war against Satan’s attempt to establish his kingdom in New England. He lists the confession of Martha Carrier’s children and presents case after case as proof that the executions were justified, necessary, and divinely sanctioned.

    Increase Mather’s “Cases of Conscience” Ends the Salem Witch Trials

    But Cotton Mather’s defense of the Salem Witch Trials couldn’t stand against his own father’s logic, and Increase Mather’s “Cases of Conscience,” written at the same time, is really the document that stops the machinery of death. It comes down to one crucial theological point: Can the Devil frame an innocent person? Increase Mather said yes, asserting that Satan can transform into an “Angel of Light” and therefore seeing a ghost of your neighbor doing harm isn’t proof that your neighbor is guilty of witchcraft.

    How did the Salem Witch Trials end? Increase Mather famously wrote that it is better for ten suspected witches to escape than for one innocent person to be condemned, demanding that evidence for witchcraft be just as clear as evidence for murder with no more “touch tests.” Once Increase Mather addressed the standard of evidence, the Salem Witch Trials effectively collapsed because the entire prosecutorial structure had been built on precisely the kind of spectral evidence he now declared inadmissible.

    After the Salem Witch Trials: Books of Regret and Anger

    But the story of Salem Witch Trials books doesn’t end with the trials’ collapse, because then came the regret and the anger, the slow painful process of a community trying to understand what it had done and who was to blame.

    John Hale’s Apology for the Salem Witch Trials (1697)

    Five years after the Salem Witch Trials, in 1697, Reverend John Hale wrote “A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft,” and the title itself signals the change in tone from the confident assertions of the trial period. Hale had been there from the start and had supported the Salem Witch Trials, but now, looking back, he admits they were the product of “misguided zeal,” a humble admission that carries real weight coming from someone who had been part of the machinery of prosecution.

    He says they walked in “clouds and darkness” during the Salem Witch Trials, systematically dismantling the very evidence he once accepted: the witch marks, the touch tests, the confessions extracted under psychological torture. He admits those were likely “delusions of Satan” intended to ensnare the innocent, and his careful theological analysis reveals a man genuinely trying to understand how so many intelligent, pious people could have gotten it so catastrophically wrong.

    Robert Calef’s Attack on Cotton Mather and the Salem Witch Trials (1700)

    If Hale was the apology, Robert Calef was the indictment, and in 1700 his book “More Wonders of the Invisible World” went directly after Cotton Mather with barely concealed fury. What did Robert Calef write about the Salem Witch Trials? Calef attacked the theology that gave the Devil so much power, arguing that claiming the Devil can perform miracles or independent harm is blasphemous because those powers belong to God alone, and the entire theological framework of the Salem Witch Trials therefore rested on heretical assumptions.

    But Calef also documented the recantations of the confessors who admitted they lied to save their lives and published the apology of the jurors who admitted they were under a “strong and general delusion.” He made sure the “heathenish” methods of the court were recorded for history, creating a contemporary account that would make it impossible for future generations to forget what had been done in the name of justice and godliness.

    Thomas Maule’s Radical View of the Salem Witch Trials (1695)

    Thomas Maule  published “Truth Held Forth and Maintained” in 1695 with a completely different take on why the Salem Witch Trials happened. Maule was a Quaker, and he didn’t see the trials as a Satanic plot against the church but rather as Divine Judgment against New England for the “sin of Blood,” specifically the persecution and execution of Quakers in the decades before Salem.

    What was Thomas Maule’s perspective on the Salem Witch Trials? That is such a powerful twist, arguing that the “persecuting Priests and Rulers” were the real witches because they were in rebellion against God, using the state’s power to commit murder under the guise of religious purity. He pointed out the cynicism of the Salem Witch Trials court with devastating clarity, noting how the arrests stopped only when the “Spectre” started accusing “eminent” persons instead of the poor, the marginalized, the unpopular. Maule’s conclusion is perhaps the most modern of all these early Salem Witch Trials writers: “better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.”

    What We Learn from Early Salem Witch Trials Books

    From Lawson, seeing teeth marks and terrifying beasts, to Maule and Calef, seeing a government that lost its way and shed innocent blood, these documents are the Salem Witch Trials in all their complexity. They are the evidence of how fear can shape a system, how intelligent people can convince themselves that cruelty is justified, and how difficult but necessary it is to walk that back and admit error.

    These early writers on the Salem Witch Trials gave us more than historical records; they gave us a roadmap of the events of 1692 and 1693.  From Deodat Lawson’s terrified observations in March 1692 to Robert Calef’s righteous anger in 1700, we can trace the arc of a community grappling with one of history’s greatest injustices, watching in real time as people moved from certainty to doubt to horror at what they had done.

    The question remains: how much ink was used, how many trees were cut down for paper to write about the Salem Witch Trials? The answer is countless, because we’re still writing about Salem Witch Trials today, still learning from them, still warning against its dangers.

  • The Thing About 1692

    The Thing About 1692

    Description:

    What kind of world produces a witch trial?

    The same world where Newton’s physics coexists with spectral evidence. Where a ship captain faces witchcraft charges because he couldn’t save a town from military raid. Where an opera about fairies premieres the same day a minister is arrested for consorting with the devil.

    1692 reveals a world caught between eras. The Scientific Revolution is rewriting reality itself while courtrooms still accept dreams as proof. Empires are consolidating power and centralizing judicial systems, yet some places double down on persecution. The Enlightenment is dawning, but the darkness hasn’t lifted everywhere.

    War, piracy, earthquake, massacre, resistance, revolution. The globe is in upheaval, and the choices different societies make in response tell us everything about who holds power and who gets blamed when things go wrong.

    Salem wasn’t an isolated outbreak of superstition. It was one response among many to a world transforming faster than people could comprehend.

    Explore colonial America history, the Early Modern Period, and the global context of the Salem witch trials.

    Keywords:

    • What happened in 1692 around the world
    • What was happening in 1692 besides Salem witch trials
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    • What was the world like in 1692
    • Isaac Newton discoveries 1692
    • King William’s War and Salem witch trials
    • Golden Age of Piracy 1692
    • Scientific Revolution and witch trials
    • How did war affect Salem witch trials
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org


    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

  • Where Can I Learn More About the Salem Witch Trials?

    Where Can I Learn More About the Salem Witch Trials?

    Show Notes

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Course – How It Works | Day-by-Day History Education

    Description:

    Welcome to our YouTube channel! Discover a revolutionary way to learn about the Salem Witch Trials through our daily video series. This comprehensive course follows the actual 1692-1693 timeline, bringing you history as it happened day by day. In this informational episode, learn how our unique course structure works and see a sample daily lesson.

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    Subscribe to our YouTube channel for daily videos throughout 2026-2027 as we follow the historical timeline!

    What You’ll Get on This Channel: ✅ Daily bite-sized video lessons (just a few minutes each) ✅ 75-week journey through the complete 1692-1693 timeline ✅ Watch on YouTube as we release them or binge full weeks ✅ Companion resources at AboutSalem.com

    Beyond YouTube: 📚 Weekly workbooks with activities and challenges 📝 Blog posts recapping each week’s content 🎙️ The Thing About Salem podcast 🏆 Achievement badges to track your progress

    Course Features: 📚 Researched from primary sources 📝 Fill-in-the-blank summaries and reflection questions ✍️ Citation practice and character journal prompts 📖 Vocabulary building and quote analysis 🎯 Four weekly challenges to grow your expertise ⏱️ Watch at your own pace as all YouTube videos remain available

    The Salem Witch Trials by the Numbers: • 156+ formal accusations • 30 convictions • 20 executions • Started January 1692 in Minister Samuel Parris’s household • Legal proceedings: February 1692 – May 1693

    Perfect for:

    • History students and educators
    • Homeschoolers seeking structured curriculum
    • History enthusiasts wanting deep knowledge
    • Descendants honoring family connections
    • Anyone interested in colonial American history

    👍 Like this video if you’re excited to learn about the Salem Witch Trials! 🔔 Subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss daily uploads! 💬 Comment below: Are you planning to do the full course or just follow along casually?

    Get the Full Course Experience: Visit AboutSalem.com to download this week’s workbook, read the blog, and access all resources.

    Course Hashtags: #SalemDailyStudent #SalemWeek2 #SalemDailyResearcher #SalemDailyGrad

    Keywords:

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    Traditional Keywords: Salem Witch Trials course, Salem Witch Trials history, 1692 witch trials, colonial America education, history course online, Salem Massachusetts history, witch trials documentary, American history lessons, homeschool history curriculum, Salem Village 1692, YouTube history channel, educational YouTube

    Connect With Us: 🌐 Website: AboutSalem.com 🎙️ Podcast: The Thing About Salem 📱 Share your progress: #SalemDailyStudent ▶️ Subscribe to our YouTube channel for daily history lessons!

    This nonprofit educational project brings you meticulously researched history accessible to all learners. Whether you’re doing the full course with workbooks or just following the daily YouTube videos, you’re part of a community exploring this pivotal moment in American history.

    New videos uploaded daily following the 1692 timeline!

    Salem Witch Trials | History Education | Online Course | Colonial America | Massachusetts History | Educational Videos | YouTube History Channel | History Curriculum

    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    Where Can I Learn More About the Salem Witch Trials_Download
  • What harm were Salem’s supposed witches actually accused of causing?

    What harm were Salem’s supposed witches actually accused of causing?

    What Were Witches Actually Accused of Doing in Salem?

    Signing a mysterious book with blood. Attending midnight gatherings in the minister’s pasture. Shape-shifting into wolves. Sending spirits through jail cell walls despite iron shackles. The accusations against Salem’s alleged witches painted a picture of organized supernatural conspiracy that went far beyond what most people imagine.

    But what did colonists actually believe witches were doing? How did the Devil supposedly recruit his servants? Why were investigators searching bodies for hidden marks? What made everyday misfortunes like spoiled milk or a bad dream transform into evidence of murder? And how did witnesses claim to see ghostly victims and impossible creatures with mixed animal parts?

    The accusations reveal an elaborate belief system where witches weren’t just casting spells. They were waging war against the Christian church itself, plotting to return New England to Satan’s control one village at a time.

    What’s in This Episode:

    • How Satan allegedly recruited and marked his followers • The role of spectral evidence in convicting the accused • Why metal shackles were believed necessary but didn’t work • What investigators looked for during physical examinations • The supposed plot to establish the Devil’s kingdom in Salem Village • How poppets, familiars, and fortune-telling became criminal evidence • Why witnesses testified to seeing ghosts in winding sheets

    Key Topics:

    Salem Witch Trials, witchcraft accusations 1692, spectral evidence, Devil’s book, maleficium, witch marks and teats, familiars, poppets, Salem sabbats, Tituba confession, Bridget Bishop, Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, Rebecca Nurse, diabolical witchcraft, colonial New England, Samuel Parris, 17th century witch hunts

    Discover the Answer:

    What could transform your neighbor into a suspected servant of Satan? Join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to find out.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    What harm were Salem’s supposed witches actually accused of causing_Download
  • Still Seeking Justice for the Victims of New England’s Witch Trials: An Ongoing Legacy

    Still Seeking Justice for the Victims of New England’s Witch Trials: An Ongoing Legacy

    Show Notes

    When Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty wrote petitions from their jail cells in 1692, they couldn’t have known their words would inspire descendants 333 years later to continue the fight for justice.

    Sarah Jack has now testified twice for her ancestors’ exonerations. In 2023, she stood before Connecticut’s Joint Committee on Judiciary on behalf of her ancestor Winifred Benham, part of a successful effort to absolve all the accused witches in Connecticut. Then in November 2025, she testified in Massachusetts for another ancestor, Mary Hale, Winifred’s mother, who was accused in the Boston Witch Trials.

    While Massachusetts has systematically cleared names from the Salem trials over centuries, eight people convicted in Boston have been overlooked. House Bill 1927 seeks to finally exonerate these eight, including Mary Hale, and acknowledge hundreds more accused across the state whose lives were destroyed by accusations.

    The act of speaking up spans generations. Family members in the 1600s risked being accused themselves by defending loved ones. Descendants petitioned through the 1700s and 1900s. In 2022, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. became the last Salem conviction cleared. Now it’s time for Boston’s victims to receive the same justice.

    What’s in This Episode:

    • The power of petitions across 333 years of seeking justice • Sarah Jack’s experiences testifying in Connecticut and Massachusetts • The history of witch trial exonerations from 1711 to 2022 • How Connecticut successfully cleared all their accused witches • Why eight Boston victims remain convicted while Salem cases were resolved • What you can do to support Massachusetts House Bill 1927 before the committee deadline

    Key Topics:

    Witch trial exonerations, Massachusetts House Bill 1927, Connecticut witch trials resolution, Boston Witch Trials, Winifred Benham, Mary Hale, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, descendant testimony, historical justice, Joint Committee on Judiciary, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., Salem Witch Trials

    Take Action:

    The committee is still accepting written testimony through the end of January. Learn how you can add your voice at massachusettswitchtrials.org

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    Links

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    Still Seeking Justice for the Victims of New England’s Witch Trials_ An Ongoing LegacyDownload
  • Writing Salem: Author Kathleen Kent on Writing about Her Ancestor Martha Carrier

    Writing Salem: Author Kathleen Kent on Writing about Her Ancestor Martha Carrier

    Show Notes

    Enjoy this author interview with New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Kent. Kathleen shares how she discovered her descent from Salem Witch Trials victim Martha Carrier and transformed that family history into her acclaimed debut novel, The Heretic’s Daughter.

    Martha Carrier was executed on August 19, 1692, after refusing to confess to witchcraft. Accused of causing a deadly smallpox epidemic in Andover, Massachusetts, she stood her ground even when her own children were tortured into testifying against her. Today she’s remembered as a woman who wouldn’t confess to something she didn’t do.

    In this conversation, Kathleen discusses her writing process, the challenges of bringing historical figures to life, and offers invaluable insights for aspiring historical fiction writers.

    About Kathleen Kent

    Kathleen Kent is a New York Times bestselling author whose books include The Heretic’s Daughter (winner of the David J. Langum Sr. Award for American Historical Fiction), The Traitor’s Wife, The Outcasts, and her Edgar Award-nominated crime trilogy. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and teaches writing workshops for aspiring novelists.

    Episode Highlights

    • How Kathleen discovered her connection to Martha Carrier
    • The research process behind The Heretic’s Daughter
    • Martha Carrier’s story
    • Advice for aspiring historical fiction writers
    • Balancing historical accuracy with compelling storytelling

    Keywords

    Salem Witch Trials, Martha Carrier, Kathleen Kent, The Heretic’s Daughter, historical fiction writing, Andover witch trials, Salem history, writing advice, Colonial America

    #SalemWitchTrials #HistoricalFiction #WritingPodcast #MarthaCarrier #KathleenKent

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    Links

    Kathleen Kent Website

    Purchase the novel: The Heretics Daughter by Kathleen Kent

    Support our Podcast by purchasing books through our affiliate link to End Witch Hunts Bookshop

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts and About Salem YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

    Transcript

    Writing Salem_ Author Kathleen Kent on Writing about Her Ancestor Martha CarrierDownload
  • Why the Salem Witch Trials Went Viral

    Why the Salem Witch Trials Went Viral

    Show Notes

    More than 150 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Had the Court of Oyer and Terminer tried them all, they may all have been hanged.

    They sat chained in dungeons to prevent their specters from roaming. They watched as friends and neighbors were dragged to the gallows. As the body count rose, the terror must have reached unimaginable levels. And yet the accusations kept coming.

    How did an entire community participate in its own destruction?

    In this essential introduction to The Thing About Salem, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack explore what made Salem different from every other witch hunt in American history. The mystery isn’t what ailed the afflicted girls. Why were people at the highest levels of society accused right alongside the usual suspects?

    This episode reveals the forces that turned Salem Village into America’s deadliest witch hunt: warfare closing in on Massachusetts settlements, economic devastation, the collapse of political and religious certainty, and the kind of existential terror that makes the unthinkable seem reasonable.

    **Length:** 15 minutes

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    What You’ll Learn

    • Why 150+ people faced execution when typical New England witch hunts involved 2 to 3 accusations

    • What conditions make rational people accept supernatural explanations for their suffering

    • How fear and crisis override legal safeguards and community bonds

    • Why focusing on the accusers matters more than diagnosing the afflicted

    Key Stats

    • 150+ people accused in Salem

    • 30 convictions (vs. 4 in Hartford’s 1662 witch panic)

    • Only 1 witch hanged in Massachusetts in the 36 years before Salem

    • People at the highest levels of society were named as witches

    Topics Covered

    • The terror of Salem’s dungeons and the rising panic

    • What made Salem different from other colonial witch hunts

    • The perfect storm: war, disease, political collapse, and religious crisis

    • Why popular theories like ergotism miss the point

    • What Salem reveals about fear, judgment, and human nature

    Links

    The Thing About Salem on YouTube

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project

    Transcript

    Why the Salem Witch Trials Went ViralDownload
  • Salem Questions from the Next Generation

    Salem Questions from the Next Generation

    When a seventh grader reached out with questions for their National History Day documentary, podcast hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack knew they’d been asked something special. The student’s thoughtful inquiries became the foundation for this episode of The Thing About Salem.

    This wasn’t just another school assignment. The questions this student asked revealed a depth of engagement that many adults never reach when studying 1692. They saw past the surface story to the human complexity underneath, the kind of questions that don’t have easy answers but force you to truly reckon with what happened in Salem.

    We knew immediately these questions needed to be shared. They’re the kind that make history stop being about memorizing events and start being about understanding people, choices, and consequences that still echo today.

    Sometimes the best teachers are the ones still in school.

    Keywords: Salem Witch Trials, National History Day, student history project, Rebecca Nurse, Joseph Hutchinson, Bridget Bishop, family history research, witch trial education, historical questions, Salem descendants, Tituba, Abigail Williams

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    Links

    National History Day Website

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project


    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    Salem Questions from the Next GenerationDownload
  • Captain John Alden: Son of Pilgrims and Salem Witchcraft Suspect

    Captain John Alden: Son of Pilgrims and Salem Witchcraft Suspect

    In May 1692, one of Boston’s most respected citizens walked into a Salem courtroom—and the accusers couldn’t even identify him. Captain John Alden Jr., son of Mayflower passengers and decorated war hero, seemed an unlikely target for witchcraft accusations. But his connections to Native Americans and the French made him dangerous in the eyes of wartime Massachusetts.

    What happened when Salem’s witch hunt reached beyond the village to pull in a prominent Bostonian with impeccable colonial credentials? This episode examines how Captain Alden’s examination revealed the absurdity and danger of the spectral evidence system and how his escape became one of the trial period’s most dramatic moments.

    From his parents’ legendary Plymouth courtship to his own flight from justice, Captain Alden’s story shows us who could be accused, who could survive, and what it took to navigate Salem’s machinery of suspicion.

    Episode Highlights:

    • John Alden Sr. and Priscilla: The last surviving Mayflower passenger and the marriage that inspired Longfellow
    • Captain Alden’s controversial fur trading and the rumors that made him a target
    • The chaotic May 31st examination where accusers needed prompting
    • The touch test, the sword, and the claims of “Indian Papooses”
    • His September escape to Duxbury and surprising return

    Key Figures: Captain John Alden Jr., John & Priscilla Alden, Judges Bartholomew Gedney and John Richards, Rev. Samuel Willard, Robert Calef

    The Thing About Salem examines the people, places, and events of the 1692 Salem witch trials. New episodes weekly.

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    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

  • Before Salem: Boston’s Forgotten Victims

    Before Salem: Boston’s Forgotten Victims

    Episode Description:

    When you think “Massachusetts witch trials,” you think Salem, 1692. But what if we told you that 44 years before Salem, Massachusetts was already executing people for witchcraft in Boston?

    Between 1648 and 1693, more than 200 people were formally charged with witchcraft across Massachusetts. In 1957, the state cleared 31 Salem victims. But Boston’s victims have been forgotten.

    On November 25, 2025, Bill H.1927 goes before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary to finally exonerate 8 individuals convicted of witchcraft in Boston and recognize everyone else who suffered accusations across Massachusetts.

    Co-hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, descendants of Salem witch trial victims and co-founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, explain why Salem’s story is incomplete without Boston—and how YOU can help Massachusetts finish the job.

    Before Salem: Boston’s Forgotten Victims

    Five women were executed in Boston:

    • Margaret Jones (1648) – First person executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts, 44 years before Salem
    • Elizabeth Kendall (1651)
    • Alice Lake (1651)
    • Ann Hibbins (1656)
    • Goody Glover (1688) – Executed just 4 years before Salem, her case influenced Cotton Mather

    Three others were convicted but not executed:

    • Hugh Parsons (1651)
    • Eunice Cole (1656-1680) Eunice was brought to court on witchcraft accusations over and over!
    • Elizabeth Morse (1680)
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    The Salem Connection:

    Cotton Mather was deeply involved in Goody Glover’s 1688 trial in Boston. Her execution influenced his thinking about witchcraft—thinking he brought to Salem just four years later.

    The same fears, the same accusations, the same injustice—Boston laid the groundwork for what happened in Salem.

    When Massachusetts cleared Salem’s victims in 1957, they left Boston’s victims behind.

    What Bill H.1927 Does:

    ✅ Exonerates the 8 individuals convicted of witchcraft in Boston between 1647-1688

    ✅ Recognizes all others who suffered accusations across Massachusetts

    ✅ Completes the work Massachusetts started in 1957 when they cleared Salem’s victims

    ✅ Acknowledges that Salem wasn’t the beginning—Boston was

    ✅ Costs nothing – zero fiscal impact

    How You Can Help RIGHT NOW:

    1. Sign the Petition: Change.org/witchtrials – Over 14,000 signatures and growing

    2. Contact Massachusetts Representatives: Email or call members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary before November 25th

    3. Submit Written Testimony: Even if you can’t attend in person, your voice matters

    4. Share This Episode: Help spread the word before the November 25th hearing

    Why Salem’s Story Is Incomplete Without Boston:

    For decades, we’ve told the story of Salem 1692 as if it appeared out of nowhere. But Massachusetts had been executing people for witchcraft since 1648.

    The fears, the evidence, the methods—all of it was already established in Boston before it exploded in Salem.

    You can’t understand Salem without understanding Boston.

    Connecticut Showed It Could Be Done:

    Josh and Sarah co-founded the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project and launched their podcast in 2022 to support the legislative effort. With help from listeners like you, Connecticut passed House Joint Resolution 34 in May 2023 with overwhelming bipartisan support, absolving 11 individuals and recognizing all others who suffered accusations.

    You were part of Connecticut’s success from the beginning. Now Massachusetts needs you to help finish what they started in 1957.

    Key Facts:

    • Boston’s first execution was in 1648—44 years before Salem
    • Goody Glover’s 1688 execution influenced Cotton Mather just 4 years before Salem
    • More than 200 people were formally charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts (1648-1693)
    • Massachusetts cleared 31 Salem victims in 1957, but left Boston’s victims behind
    • Massachusetts has already amended the 1957 Resolve twice (2001 and 2022)
    • Bill H.1927 simply continues this established pattern with zero fiscal impact

    The November 25th Hearing:

    When: November 25, 2025
    Where: Massachusetts State House, Joint Committee on the Judiciary
    What: Public testimony on Bill H.1927

    Even if you can’t attend, you can submit written testimony or contact committee members.

    Why This Matters Today:

    When we clear the names of historical victims, we acknowledge that witch hunting is not a relic of the past—it continues in the same form globally. The same patterns of accusation, fear, and injustice that started in Boston in 1648 and exploded in Salem in 1692 continue in witch hunts around the world today.

    Massachusetts can finish what it started in 1957.

    Resources & Take Action:

    📋 Petition: Change.org/witchtrials
    🌐 Learn More: MassachusettsWitchTrials.org | AboutSalem.com
    📧 Find Your Rep: Contact the Joint Committee on the Judiciary
    🎙️ More Episodes: AboutSalem.com | AboutWitchHunts.com
    💜 Support Our Work: EndWitchHunts.org

    The Thing About Salem
     Co-hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack
     Descendants of Salem witch trial victims
     Co-founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project
     A project of End Witch Hunts nonprofit organization

    Listen wherever you get podcasts

    Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

  • 8 Individuals Deserve Justice: How You Can Help Pass MA Bill H.1927

    8 Individuals Deserve Justice: How You Can Help Pass MA Bill H.1927

    Massachusetts’ witch hunt history didn’t begin in Salem—and justice isn’t finished yet.

    The Thing About Salem explores the 1692-1693 Salem witch trials in depth, examining the people, the trials, and the lasting impact on Massachusetts. But Salem wasn’t the beginning of witch hunting in the Commonwealth. Between 1647 and 1688, five women were executed for alleged witchcraft in Boston: Margaret Jones, Elizabeth Kendall, Alice Lake, Ann Hibbins, and Goody Glover.

    These women were executed decades before the Salem panic began. Yet while Salem’s victims have been exonerated, these five Boston women remain the only people executed for witchcraft in New England who have never been cleared.

    Massachusetts has an opportunity to honor all its witch trial victims. Bill H.1927 will finally bring them justice.

    The Scale of Massachusetts Witch Trials

    Between 1638 and 1693, more than 200 individuals were formally charged with witchcraft by Massachusetts courts. During this dark chapter:

    • At least 250 individuals were accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
    • More than 200 were complained of, implicated in court, questioned, arrested, and/or imprisoned
    • 38 people were convicted of witchcraft (30 in Salem, 8 in Boston)
    • 25 people died: 19 hanged in Salem, 5 hanged in Boston, and Giles Corey pressed to death in Salem
    • At least six additional people died in jail while awaiting trial or execution

    The witch trials spanned over five decades across Massachusetts, from the earliest accusations through the Salem panic. Most attention has focused on Salem, but the Commonwealth’s witch hunting began much earlier in Boston.

    Massachusetts State House

    The Boston Eight: Those Convicted in the Capital

    Bill H.1927 seeks to exonerate 8 individuals convicted of witchcraft in Boston between 1647 and 1688:

    The Five Executed:

    Margaret Jones (executed 1648) was a woman whose medicines were deemed too effective, her skill too powerful. When neighbors’ misfortunes occurred, she became the scapegoat. She maintained her innocence to the very end. Margaret was the first person executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts.

    Elizabeth Kendall (executed between 1647 and 1651) was falsely accused by a nurse who blamed her for a child’s death, a child who had actually died from the nurse’s own negligence. Even after the nurse’s fraudulent testimony was revealed, Elizabeth was never exonerated.

    Alice Lake (executed c. 1650) was a mother of four who had been judged harshly for choices she made as a young woman. That judgment haunted her and was weaponized against her when witchcraft accusations arose.

    Ann Hibbins (executed 1656) was called “quarrelsome” for speaking her mind and refusing to accept unfair treatment. Her husband had been an Assistant in the Massachusetts General Court, but even her connections couldn’t save her from being targeted as a widow with property.A character based on Ann Hibbins later appeared in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

    Goody Glover (executed 1688) was an Irish Catholic widow whose first language was Gaelic. An outsider within her community, she became an easy target when children exhibited strange behaviors. Her execution came just four years before the Salem panic began. A plaque dedicated to her memory describes her as “the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts” and stands on a Catholic church in Boston’s North End.

    The Three Convicted But Not Executed:

    Hugh Parsons (convicted 1652) of Springfield was tried in Boston. He was initially convicted but the General Court overturned his conviction and he was released from jail in June 1652. He moved to Rhode Island with his daughter Hannah.

    Eunice Cole (convicted 1656 and 1673) of Hampton was convicted and imprisoned, though records are incomplete. She was whipped and spent years in and out of jail over witch hunt accusations spanning from 1656 to 1680. She may have been spared execution for reasons unknown. Hampton, New Hampshire formally recognized her in 1938, but Massachusetts never officially cleared her name.

    Elizabeth Morse (convicted 1680) of Newbury was convicted and sentenced to death, but her sentence was reduced and she was eventually released. Her case involved accusations from her grandson and neighbors who claimed spectral evidence and mysterious occurrences.

    These eight individuals—five executed, three imprisoned—all suffered grave injustices. None have been officially exonerated by Massachusetts. None have received an acknowledgment.

    Bill H.1927: Completing Massachusetts’ Work

    Massachusetts has already taken steps to address its witch trial legacy. The Salem witch trial victims have been exonerated through legislation passed in 1703, 1711, 1957, 2001, and most recently in 2022, when Elizabeth Johnson Jr. became the last Salem victim to be cleared.

    But Massachusetts has never issued an official acknowledgment of any non-Salem witch trial victims, and the eight Boston-area victims have never been exonerated at all.

    Bill H.1927, proposed by Rep. Steven Owens of Cambridge and Watertown, will:

    • Clear the names of the 8 individuals convicted of witchcraft in Boston
    • Recognize all others who suffered witchcraft accusations in Massachusetts
    • Finally address the incomplete justice that has left these victims behind for nearly 400 years

    The Hearing: November 25, 2025

    The Joint Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing on Bill H.1927 on November 25, 2025. This is a critical opportunity for Massachusetts residents, descendants, historians, and anyone who cares about the Commonwealth’s history to voice their support.

    How Massachusetts Can Take Action

    1. Sign the Petition

    Visit change.org/witchtrials and add your name to those calling for justice.

    2. Submit Written Testimony

    Massachusetts residents’ voices carry particular weight. Written testimony can be submitted to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. Consider including:

    • These people were innocent
    • Why Massachusetts should exonerate all its witch trial victims
    • How this legislation honors the Commonwealth’s commitment to justice
    • Why an official acknowledgment matters for descendants and for Massachusetts’ historical record
    • The connection between understanding past injustices and preventing modern persecution

    3. Contact Your Massachusetts Legislators

    Find your state representative and senator. Tell them you support H.1927. Massachusetts exonerated the Salem victims but left the Boston-area victims behind. Ask your legislators to honor all the witch trial victims and ensure every person wrongly convicted receives justice and an official acknowledgment.

    4. Spread the Word

    Share this post and information about H.1927. Use hashtags like #H1927, #WitchTrialJustice, #MassachusettsHistory, #maswitchhuntjusticeproject.

    5. Learn More

    • massachusettswitchtrials.org: Complete information about the 8 convicted individuals and how to support H.1927
    • Listen to The Thing About Salem: We explore Salem witch trial history in depth
    • Listen to The Thing About Witch Hunts: Our companion podcast connects Massachusetts history to witch hunting worldwide

    Why This Matters for Massachusetts

    The patterns that led to executions in colonial Massachusetts—scapegoating outsiders, targeting vulnerable women, using fear to justify injustice, denying basic rights—didn’t disappear after 1693. Understanding this history helps us recognize similar patterns today, both in Massachusetts and around the world where witch hunts continue.

    By formally exonerating these victims and acknowledging what was done to them, Massachusetts demonstrates that confronting injustice honestly matters. This legislation acknowledges that:

    These people did not have a diabolical pact with the devil. They were innocent people falsely accused.

    It was human agency that executed alleged witches, not a community deluded by the devil. People made these choices and people must take responsibility for the injustice.

    Previous efforts are incomplete. Massachusetts has exonerated those convicted during the 1692 and 1693 Salem witch trials, but has never issued an official acknowledgement of any Massachusetts witch trial victims outside of the Salem Witch-Hunt.

    Justice delayed is justice denied. These eight individuals have waited nearly 400 years. Massachusetts can honor them now.

    Massachusetts’ Opportunity

    When Connecticut passed its exoneration resolution in 2023, it set an example for how a state can fully address its witch trial legacy—with both exoneration and apology. Massachusetts can follow this model and complete the work it began decades ago.

    The Commonwealth has a chance to demonstrate that it values truth, acknowledges injustice, and honors all who suffered under its colonial courts.

    Eight people convicted of witchcraft in Boston have waited nearly four centuries. Five were hanged. Three endured imprisonment and lifelong stigma.

    Will Massachusetts finally bring them justice?

    The Thing About Salem Exploring the Salem witch trials in depth A companion podcast to The Thing About Witch Hunts Co-hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack A project of End Witch Hunts

    Listen wherever you get podcasts | aboutsalem.com

    Take Action for Massachusetts:

    Related:

    Does this work? I’ve added the overall Massachusetts statistics and details about Hugh Parsons, Eunice Cole, and Elizabeth Morse—the three convicted but not executed.

  • What’s a Witch’s Teat? The Bizarre Body Searches of Salem

    What’s a Witch’s Teat? The Bizarre Body Searches of Salem

    In this episode of The Thing About Salem, co-hosts Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson examine one of the most invasive and degrading practices used during the Salem Witch Trials: the search for witch’s marks and devil’s teats. Discover how this invented “evidence” was used to convict innocent people—including the hosts’ ancestors.

    What You’ll Learn:

    The Origins of Witch Mark Theory

    • How English legal writers like Michael Dalton (1618) and William Perkins created detailed instructions for finding “devil’s marks”
    • Why Richard Bernard claimed these marks appeared in “secretest parts” requiring invasive searches
    • The shocking truth: none of this evidence appears in the Bible

    Familiar Spirits in Salem

    • Cotton Mather’s definition of familiar spirits as “devils in bodily shapes”
    • Strange creatures described in testimony: hairless cats with human ears, rooster-monkey hybrids, and hairy upright beings
    • How these supposed demons were believed to feed from witch’s teats

    The Salem Examinations

    • Documented searches of accused witches including Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, and Elizabeth Procter
    • George Jacobs Sr.’s brutal examination with pins driven through his flesh
    • Four-year-old Dorothy Good’s traumatic examination and the “flea bite” used as evidence
    • Why some marks disappeared between examinations—and what that tells us

    Dehumanizing Practices

    • The invasive nature of stripping and examining prisoners in their “most intimate areas”
    • How postpartum scarring from childbirth was twisted into evidence of witchcraft
    • Why the Court of Oyer and Terminer convicted all 27 people tried in 1692—whether marks were found or not

    Modern Connections As Robert Calef pointed out in More Wonders of the Invisible World, witch marks weren’t biblical—they were man-made tests designed to find guilt. This pattern continues in modern witch hunts worldwide, where accusers still decide what constitutes “evidence” against innocent victims.

    Perfect for listeners interested in:

    • Salem Witch Trials history
    • Colonial American history
    • Wrongful convictions and false evidence
    • Women’s history and bodily autonomy
    • Modern witch hunts and human rights
    • Historical witchcraft accusations
    • Legal history and justice reform

    Featured Historical Sources:

    • William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft
    • Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice (1618)
    • Richard Bernard, The Certainty of the World of Spirits
    • Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World
    • Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World
    • Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative
    • Original Salem Witch Trial examination records

    About the Hosts: Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson are descendants of Salem witch trial victims and co-founders of End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit addressing modern witch hunts globally. Together, they co-host The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts (265+ episodes).

    Support Our Work: Learn more about modern witch hunts and how to help at EndWitchHunts.org

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: Exonerate Those Accused of Witchcraft in Massachusetts

    Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

  • How Did Salem Become the Witch City?

    How Did Salem Become the Witch City?

    How does a town infamous for executing twenty people for alleged diabolical witchcraft rebrand itself as “Witch City”? Salem spent centuries trying to forget 1692, then something changed. Join descendants Sarah and Josh as they uncover the surprising story of how grief, guilt, and capitalism collided to transform Salem into America’s Halloween capital. From the first witch-themed business to the controversy over memorializing victims, this is the untold story of who chose to remember, who profited, and what got lost along the way.

    What You’ll Discover:

    Why did Salem stay silent about the trials for over 150 years, and what finally broke that silence? Who made the first move to capitalize on witch trial history (the answer might surprise you)? When the city had a chance to build a memorial in 1892, why did descendants of the accusers fight so hard against it? And how did a fish company, a souvenir spoon, and a Knights Templar march help pave the “yellow brick road” to Witch City?

    Keywords:

    Salem witch trials | Witch City | Salem Massachusetts | Halloween tourism | dark tourism | historical memory | commercialization of tragedy | Salem history | 1692 witch hunt | American history | New England | modern witchcraft | Pagan community | tourism | memorialization | historical injustice | colonial America | Arthur Miller | The Crucible | Haunted Happenings

    About The Thing About Salem:

    Sarah and Josh are descendants of Salem witch trial victims investigating how their ancestors’ tragedy became a tourism empire, and what that transformation reveals about memory, commerce, and identity.

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    Links

    HauntedHappenings.org

    Salem Tourism Information

    The Salem Witch Museum

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    How Did Salem Become the Witch City_Download
  • Haunted Happenings: Salem’s Halloween Takeover

    Haunted Happenings: Salem’s Halloween Takeover

    Episode Description

    What happens when an entire city becomes Halloween for a month?

    Salem’s Haunted Happenings started with the Salem Witch Museum as one weekend in 1982. Now it’s a  month-long community event of costumes, crowds, street performers, and pure October magic.

    This episode captures the spirit of it all—the performers who show up year after year, the locals that go ALL OUT, the Grand Parade that kicks it off, and the chaotic, joyful energy that makes October in Salem unlike anywhere else.

    What to expect:

    • How a single weekend became a month-long phenomenon
    • The vibe, the crowds, the performers
    • Costumes that stop you in your tracks
    • Why “don’t drive in Salem in October” is essential advice
    • The magic (and reality) behind the Halloween capital of the world

    Whether you’re planning your first visit or you’ve been coming back every October, this one’s about what makes Haunted Happenings unforgettable.

    🎃 Ready for Salem’s October?

    Keywords: Haunted Happenings, October Salem, Salem Massachusetts Halloween, Salem October events, Haunted Happenings Grand Parade, Salem Halloween capital, The Thing About Salem podcast

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    Links

    HauntedHappenings.org

    Salem Tourism Information

    The Salem Witch Museum

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    Haunted Happenings_ Salem’s Halloween TakeoverDownload
  • Salem’s Original Ghost Tour Started During the Witch Trials of 1692

    Salem’s Original Ghost Tour Started During the Witch Trials of 1692

    Episode Description

    Discover the shocking truth about ghosts in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. This isn’t your typical ghost story. These supernatural encounters were used as courtroom evidence that sent innocent people to the gallows. Join hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack as they explore the different types of apparitions that appeared in Salem testimony, from murdered wives seeking vengeance to protective angels revealing hidden crimes.

    Some Featured Historical Cases

    – George Burroughs. Former minister accused by ghostly wives appearing in winding sheets

    – Ann Putnam Jr.’s Testimony: Multiple ghost sightings including murdered wives, children, and victims

    – Martha Carrier’s Examination. Thirteen ghosts appearing as evidence against her

    – Spectral Evidence. How ghost testimony became critical courtroom evidence leading to convictions

    The Role of Ghosts as Legal Evidence

    Learn how supernatural testimony functioned in 1692 trials.

    Historical Figures Mentioned

    George Burroughs, Ann Putnam Jr., Bridget Bishop, John Willard, Martha Carrier, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Bradbury, Giles Corey, Mary Easty, Susannah Sheldon, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard

    The Salem Irony

    The ultimate twist: In 1692, innocent people were executed for supposedly appearing as ghosts. Today, tourists pay for ghost tours hoping to encounter those same spirits. Salem, Massachusetts—where historical tragedy became supernatural entertainment.

    Episode Hosts

    – Josh Hutchinson- Co-host, The Thing About Salem

    – Sarah Jack – Co-host, The Thing About Salem

    Keywords

    Salem Witch Trials, ghost evidence, spectral evidence, 1692 Salem, Ann Putnam Jr., George Burroughs, Salem ghosts, witchcraft trials, historical ghosts, Salem Massachusetts, witch trial testimony, supernatural evidence, colonial America, Salem history, ghost tours Salem

    #SalemWitchTrials #HistoryPodcast #TrueHistory #SalemMassachusetts #SpectralEvidence #ColonialAmerica #HistoricalGhosts #Halloween

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

    Transcript

    Salem’s Original Ghost Tour Started During the Witch Trials of 1692Download
  • Slender Man and Salem: When Children Create Monsters

    Slender Man and Salem: When Children Create Monsters

    What connects a 2014 internet horror tragedy to the fear of 1692 Salem? In this captivating 15-minute clip from our full conversation, Josh and Sarah—along with Ain’t it Scary? with Sean and Carrie podcast —draw haunting parallels between the young girls involved in the Slender Man stabbing case and the afflicted girls of the Salem witch trials.

    How do fear, belief, and community pressure transform young people into actors in real-world tragedies? From oppressed accusers in colonial Massachusetts to pre-teens acting on digital folklore. A thought-provoking exploration of monsters, morality, and the girls who became part of history’s shocking moments.

    Episode Highlights

    🔮 Girls Under Pressure – Comparing the afflicted girls of Salem to the Slender Man crime perpetrators
    ⚖️ Belief Gone Wrong – When fear of something unseen leads to tragedy
    🎃 Monster or Victim? – Society’s struggle to categorize young people who do terrible things
    👻 The Power of Narrative – How stories—whether Puritan theology or internet creepypasta—drive real-world actions
    🕯️ Panic Then and Now – What the Salem trials teach us about modern viral panic

    About Our Returning Guests

    Sean & Carrie host Ain’t it Scary with Sean and Carrie, where a skeptic and a believer explore the unknown, unsolved, unbelievable, and just plain weird. With their passion for history and uncovering truth, they bring complementary perspectives to every mystery they tackle.

    Keywords

    Slender Man, Salem witch trials, afflicted girls, creepypasta, true crime, digital folklore, witch hunts, moral panic, paranormal podcast, horror podcast, Ain’t it Scary, historical parallels, Salem Massachusetts, youth violence, folklore

    Listen & Subscribe

    Don’t wander off the path—subscribe to The Thing About Salem and join us every episode as we explore the trials, mysteries, and untold stories of Salem and beyond.

    Also check out: Ain’t it Scary with Sean and Carrie wherever you listen to podcasts!

    Keep the porch light on. 🎃

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    Ain’t It Scary With Sean and Carrie Podcast

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    Join One of Our Projects

    The Thing About Salem Podcast

    Transcript

    Slender Man and SalemDownload
  • The Salem Witch Trials in Popular Culture

    The Salem Witch Trials in Popular Culture

    In this episode of ‘The Thing About Salem,’ hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack explore the various ways the Salem Witch Trials have been depicted in films and TV shows over the decades. They discuss the historical and fictional elements in productions like ‘The Crucible,’ ‘Maid of Salem,’ the ‘Bewitched’ TV series, and ‘Hocus Pocus,’ highlighting how these portrayals have shaped and transformed Salem’s image in popular culture. The episode also covers works such as ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ and ‘Three Sovereigns for Sarah,’ emphasizing the ongoing cultural fascination with this dark chapter in American history.

    00:00 Introduction to Salem in Pop Culture

    01:04 Maid of Salem and The Crucible

    02:37 Salem Witch Trials miniseries and Hocus Pocus

    05:01 Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch

    10:07 The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Three Sovereigns for Sarah

    13:49 Conclusion: The Legacy of Salem in Pop Culture

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    The Thing About Salem YouTube

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    Transcript

    The Salem Witch Trials in Popular CultureDownload

  • Did Cotton Mather’s Supernatural Tales Inspire The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

    It’s a relevant question for The Thing About Salem podcast: Did Cotton Mather influence Washington Irving? It’s so fun considering this inquiry due to The Salem Witch Trials’ broad and lasting influence on the world. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was foundational creative horror storytelling. So, what inspired Irving?

    The Origins of a Classic

    Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” published in 1819, remains one of America’s most enduring ghost stories. But the tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman didn’t emerge from thin air; it is rooted in the very same colonial New England fear of the unexplainable that enveloped Cotton Mather a little over a century earlier.

    Irving penned his famous short story as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent setting it in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, around 1790. The story follows superstitious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane’s terrifying encounter with the legendary Headless Horseman while pursuing the hand of the lovely Katrina Van Tassel.

    Cotton Mather is in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

    Irving directly referenced Mather in the story itself. In “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Ichabod Crane is described as an avid reader of Mather and mentions a book called History of New England Witchcraft. This is a fictional title that serves as a composite reference to Mather’s multitude of supernatural writings. Ichabod spends his afternoons devouring tales of the supernatural before traveling through the gathering darkness, his imagination inflamed by accounts of specters and apparitions.

    This is no coincidence. Mather’s writings, particularly The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) and Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), discuss supernatural occurrences, witchcraft, and spectral encounters throughout colonial New England. By placing Mather’s doctrine directly in Ichabod’s hands, Irving makes the explicit connection between colonial New England’s supernatural anxieties and his protagonist’s vulnerability to superstition. The very book that fills Ichabod’s mind with terrors becomes the lens through which he interprets his fateful encounter with the Horseman. What lens interprets your encounters with the unexplained?

    The Horseman from Hell in American Pop Culture

    “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” has delighted American popular culture for over two centuries. From a silent film in 1922 to Disney’s classic 1949 animated adaptation to Tim Burton’s 1999 film Sleepy Hollow starring Johnny Depp, the Headless Horseman continues to gallop through our collective imagination. Burton’s version notably expands the supernatural elements by adding a witch character into the plot, an evil stepmother who controls the Horseman and ultimately meets her doom as he drags her to hell, bringing the story full circle to its witchcraft roots.

    Here’s something you might not expect: this cinematic image taps into something far more ancient than Irving’s tale. As explored in The Thing About Witch Hunts podcast episode “Speak of the Devil,” with Devil history expert Dr. Richard Raisewell,  the motif of demons on horseback dragging the damned to hell stretches back to medieval Europe. The 12th-century tale of the Witch of Berkeley, recorded by William of Malmesbury, tells of a devil who burst into a church, shattered the chains binding a witch’s coffin, and placed her on a monstrous, spike-covered horse that carried her away to torment—her screams echoing for miles.

    The Horseman Rides On

    The image of the demonic horse and its doomed rider has traveled through the centuries from medieval legend, through Mather’s doctrine, Irving’s tale, and finally Burton’s film. The tale has inspired countless other retellings, including the TV series Sleepy Hollow (2013-2017), which reimagined Ichabod Crane as a time-displaced Revolutionary War soldier.

    Every headless horseman costume, every dark autumn night spent telling ghost stories, is an acknowledgment to Irving’s creation and a nod to Cotton’s legacy of devil fear. The connecting thread endures from Mather’s accounts to Irving’s tale, and ultimately to the screens and stages where the Headless Horseman’s story developed. Just as Ichabod felt pursued that fateful night…is that thunder you hear, or hoofbeats?

  • Ben Wickey’s More Weight: Salem’s Modern Relevance and Historical Horror’s Future

    Ben Wickey’s More Weight: Salem’s Modern Relevance and Historical Horror’s Future

    The Thing About Salem concludes our exclusive three-part series with Ben Wickey as we explore the modern implications of his debut graphic novel More Weight: A Salem Story in Part 3. With the book released September 23, we examine why this Salem Witch Trials story resonates powerfully with contemporary readers.

    Wickey discusses Salem’s modern identity and how his work addresses the town’s complex relationship with its tragic past. We explore the visual challenges of depicting historical horror, his artistic influences including Alan Moore’s impact on his creativity, and why he chose a mature rating for responsible storytelling about historical brutality.

    What aspects of the 1692 witch trials feel most relevant today? We discuss modern witch hunts, the importance of authentic historical narratives in pop culture, and how Wickey’s ancestral connection influenced his approach to Salem’s psychological darkness.

    This final installment reveals why critics are calling this an “appalling masterpiece” and how More Weight will reshape how we understand Salem’s legacy for future generations.

    Keywords: Ben Wickey, Salem modern relevance, More Weight final review, contemporary witch hunts, Alan Moore influence, Salem today historical horror

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    Transcript

  • Unveiling the Past: Ben Wickey’s More Weight

    Unveiling the Past: Ben Wickey’s More Weight

    Josh

    The Thing About Salem continues our conversation with Ben Wickey in Part 2 of our three-part series about his groundbreaking graphic novel More Weight: A Salem Story, releasing next week. This installment focuses on the heart of Wickey’s narrative: the psychological transformation of Giles Corey.

    We explore Corey’s devastating journey from testifying against his wife Martha to his defiant final moments uttering “more weight” as stones crushed him to death. Wickey reveals his meticulous research using historical documents and his innovative dual-timeline narrative featuring Nathaniel Hawthorne interludes that bridge past and present.

    As a Mary Easty descendant, Wickey discusses the emotional weight of bringing his ancestor’s story and Salem’s broader tragedy to authentic life. We examine how he balanced historical brutality with responsible storytelling, his striking use of color and its absence, and why maintaining historical accuracy was crucial to honoring the victims’ memory.

    This is essential listening for anyone interested in Salem Witch Trials history and how graphic novels can illuminate our darkest chapters.

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    Links

    Buy the Graphic Novel “More Weight”

    Read the Alan Moore World Blog: Ben Wickey An Extraordinary Enchanter

    More Weight Preview Page on TopShelfComix.com

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts

    Transcript

    Unveiling the Past_ Ben Wickey’s More WeightDownload
  • Ben Wickey’s More Weight: The Artist Behind Salem’s Most Anticipated Graphic Novel

    Ben Wickey’s More Weight: The Artist Behind Salem’s Most Anticipated Graphic Novel

    With his highly anticipated debut graphic novel “More Weight: A Salem Story” releasing, Massachusetts-born author Ben Wickey joins us for an exclusive pre-launch interview about this Alan Moore-praised “appalling masterpiece.” The Edward Gorey Award-winning artist’s first solo work tells the harrowing tale of Giles Corey, the only person pressed to death under stones during the infamous 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

    What makes this upcoming graphic novel release extraordinary? Beyond Wickey’s stunning and unmatched visual storytelling that brings historical horror to visceral life, he is a descendant of Salem Witch Trial victim Mary Easty, bringing deeply personal perspective to this decade-long project that Publishers Weekly compared to “From Hell.” 

    We explore the pre-release excitement, Wickey’s meticulous research using historical documents, and his innovative dual-timeline narrative featuring Nathaniel Hawthorne interludes. Using the graphic novel format, Wickey cuts through pop culture mythology to restore the genuine horror and humanity of Salem’s history.

    Discover how Corey transformed from testifying against his wife Martha to defiantly uttering his final words “more weight,” and why this Salem witch hunt story will captivate readers everywhere.

    #SalemWitchTrials #BenWickey #MoreWeight #GraphicNovel #HistoricalHorror

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    Links

    Buy the Graphic Novel “More Weight”

    Read the Alan Moore World Blog: Ben Wickey An Extraordinary Enchanter

    More Weight Preview Page on TopShelfComix.com

    Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

    www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts

    Transcript

    Ben Wickey’s _More Weight_ – The Artist Behind Salem’s Most Anticipated Graphic NovelDownload
  • Salem and Friends: The Plethora of Witch Trials in Early America

    Salem and Friends: The Plethora of Witch Trials in Early America

    Episode Summary

    Not all witch trials were the Salem Witch Trials. To truly understand the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693, we must examine the broader context of witch hunting that swept through colonial America. This episode explores the extensive history of witch trials in British North America that preceded and influenced the Salem events, revealing how witch hunts affected dozens of communities across New England and beyond.

    Key Topics Covered

    The Context Behind Salem

    • Why Salem didn’t happen in a bubble
    • European influence on colonial witch trials
    • How English writings shaped Salem court decisions
    • The role of European witchcraft tales in accuser testimonies

    Pre-Salem Witch Trials in New England (1647-1691)

    Connecticut Witch Trials

    • Alice Young of Windsor – First execution, May 26, 1647
    • 34 total indictments with 11 executions
    • Hartford Witch Panic (1662-1663) – 14 accused, 4 executed
    • Final Connecticut hangings: January 25, 1663

    Massachusetts Witch Trials

    • Margaret Jones of Charlestown – Hanged June 15, 1648
    • 31 indictments between 1648-1691
    • 8 convictions, 5 executions
    • Notable gap in executions from 1656-1688
    • Accused often fled to Rhode Island for safety

    The Goodwin Children Case

    • Goody Glover trial as Salem’s precursor
    • Cotton Mather’s “Memorable Providences” (1689, 1691)
    • How the Goodwin children became the model for Salem’s afflicted

    Witch Trials Beyond New England

    Virginia

    • First accusation: Joan Wright (1626)
    • William Harding conviction (1656)
    • Grace Sherwood, “Witch of Pungo” – water ordeal trial (1706)

    Maryland

    • Multiple accusations investigated
    • Rebecca Fowler execution (1685)
    • John Cowman conviction

    Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont

    • Goody Cole trials across jurisdictions
    • Massachusetts Bay control influence

    Salem’s Wider Impact

    The 1692-1693 Salem Witch Trials affected numerous communities:

    • Andover
    • Boston
    • Maine and New Hampshire territories
    • Connecticut spinoff: Katharine Branch case (1692)

    Episode Highlights

    • First witch trial execution in colonial America: Alice Young, 1647
    • Total colonial witch trial scope: Over 65 indictments across multiple colonies
    • Geographic spread: From Connecticut to Maine, Virginia to Maryland
    • Timeline: 45+ years of witch trials before Salem
    • Legal precedents: How earlier trials shaped Salem procedures

    Resources & Further Learning

    Check out the hosts’ companion podcast: The Thing About Witch Hunts for deeper dives into European witch trial history and modern witchcraft persecution worldwide.

    SEO Keywords

    Salem Witch Trials, colonial witch trials, New England witch hunts, Alice Young witch trial, Connecticut witch trials, Massachusetts witch trials, Goody Glover, Cotton Mather, Grace Sherwood, Hartford Witch Panic, colonial America witchcraft, pre-Salem witch trials, New England history, colonial justice system

    Episode Tags

    #SalemWitchTrials #ColonialHistory #NewEnglandHistory #WitchTrials #AmericanHistory #ColonialWitchcraft #Massachusetts #Connecticut #WitchHunts #17thCentury #PuritanHistory

    The Thing About Salem podcast explores the real history behind one of America’s most infamous events. New episodes dive deep into the social, legal, and cultural factors that led to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

  • Bewitched and Bothered: The Real Witch’s Brew of Salem

    Bewitched and Bothered: The Real Witch’s Brew of Salem

    What caused the Salem Witch Trials? It wasn’t moldy bread, mass hysteria, or girls dabbling in magic. Join hosts Josh and Sarah (whose ancestors lived through these events) as they uncover the real forces that created one of America’s darkest chapters.

    What You’ll Discover

    • The Real Causes: Multiple explosive factors that turned Salem into a powder keg
    • Political Chaos: How governmental instability set the stage for tragedy
    • Community Tensions: The deadly mix of wealth gaps, frontier trauma, and religious conflict
    • The Spark: What actually triggered the first accusations in January 1692
    • Modern Relevance: Why these lessons matter for recognizing witch hunts today

    Key Topics Explored

    ✓ Belief systems that made witchcraft accusations believable
    ✓ Political upheaval following the revocation of Massachusetts’ Royal Charter
    ✓ Controversial judicial decisions like allowing “spectral evidence”
    ✓ Economic anxieties from King William’s War and previous conflicts
    ✓ European witchcraft beliefs that influenced New England thinking
    ✓ The snowball effect that made accusations spiral out of control

    Why This Episode Matters

    Learn the complex, interconnected causes behind one of history’s most misunderstood events. Discover how fear-mongering, scapegoating, and abandoning rational thinking can lead entire communities astray—and why these patterns still matter today.

    Perfect for history buffs, true crime fans, and anyone who wants to separate Salem facts from fiction in just 15 minutes.

    Tags: #SalemWitchTrials #AmericanHistory #TrueCrime #HistoryPodcast #Massachusetts #Colonial #WitchHunts

    Apple Podcasts
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    TuneIn
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

  • Pens not Panic: The Petitions of the Salem Witch Trials

    Pens not Panic: The Petitions of the Salem Witch Trials

    What happens when your only defense against a death sentence is a handwritten letter? In 1692 Salem, petitions became lifelines for the accused, their families, and entire communities caught in the witch trial hysteria.

    In this episode, we explore:

    • Mary Easty’s remarkable final petition that prioritized saving others over herself
    • The creative legal strategies colonists used to challenge “spectral evidence”
    • How torture was used to extract confessions (and documented in writing)
    • The economic reality of having family members imprisoned for witchcraft
    • Community petitions that reveal the social chaos engulfing entire towns
    • Why some people recanted their confessions—and what that tells us about coercion

    From character witness statements to desperate pleas from prison, these historical documents reveal the human cost of mass hysteria and the courage it took to speak truth to power with nothing but ink and parchment.

    Plus: The meaningful modern connection—how middle schoolers in 2022 successfully petitioned to clear a victim’s name, and why there’s still a bill before Massachusetts legislature today.

    Perfect for history buffs, true crime fans, and anyone fascinated by how ordinary people navigate extraordinary circumstances.

    Keywords: Salem witch trials, historical petitions, spectral evidence, Mary Easty, colonial justice system, Massachusetts history

    Apple Podcasts
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    YouTube Music
    Amazon Music
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    TuneIn
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Pens not Panic_ The Petitions of the Salem Witch TrialsDownload
  • Whatcha got to hide, Salem? The Conspiracy to Cover up the Salem Witch Trials

    Whatcha got to hide, Salem? The Conspiracy to Cover up the Salem Witch Trials

    The thing about witch hunts is what happens after can be just as revealing as the hunt itself. After 20 executions and over 150 arrests, Salem had a serious PR problem on its hands. How do you explain away one of colonial America’s most notorious legal disasters? Simple: you control who gets to tell the story.

    But here’s the thing about cover-ups—they rarely go according to plan. Join us as we dive into Salem’s messy aftermath, where the real question wasn’t who practiced witchcraft, but who was willing to admit they’d been wrong. Because the thing about truth is it has a funny way of surfacing, even when powerful people are trying their hardest to bury it.

    Apple Podcasts
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts https://witchhuntshow.com/Sign the Petition

    Transcript

    Whatcha got to hide, Salem_ The Conspiracy to Cover up the Salem Witch TrialsDownload
  • What’s the Worst that Could Happen? Salem: Let Us Show You

    What’s the Worst that Could Happen? Salem: Let Us Show You

    What if history’s most infamous witch hunt could have been stopped with just a few different decisions? We’re examining the pivotal moments between January 1692 and May 1693 when someone—anyone—could have pumped the brakes on Salem’s runaway train of accusations.

    From the shocking arrest of four-year-old Dorothy Good to Martha Carrier’s unfortunate promotion to “Queen of Hell,” we’ll explore how escalating choices transformed a local crisis into colonial America’s most notorious legal disaster. We’ll meet the key players who either fanned the flames or tried to douse them—including Cotton Mather’s mixed messages and Governor Phips’ late-in-the-game reality check.

    Join us as we dissect the moments when cooler heads could have prevailed and discover how 45 residents of unlucky Andover got swept up in accusations that would make even the devil blush. Sometimes it takes a village—or several villages—to create a catastrophe.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts

  • The Salem Witch Trials: TL;DR Edition

    The Salem Witch Trials: TL;DR Edition

    Josh and Sarah tell the TL;DR version of the story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93, where 156 people faced formal accusations and over 1,000 became entangled in a legal system that had lost its moral compass. They examine what transformed a small Massachusetts community into the epicenter of mass persecution, from the unprecedented scale of the proceedings to the types of people targeted. This wasn’t just colonial paranoia—it was a perfect storm of social tensions, legal failures, and human frailty that contemporaries recognized as extraordinary even by their own standards. The hosts discuss why Salem continues to captivate us centuries later, serving as both historical cautionary tale and enduring reminder of how quickly justice can derail when fear takes the wheel.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

    Apple Podcasts
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

    Transcript

    The Salem Witch Trials_ TL;DR EditionDownload
  • From Witch Cakes to Blood Wine: The Flavor of the Salem Witch Trials

    From Witch Cakes to Blood Wine: The Flavor of the Salem Witch Trials

    Sarah Good’s final words to the minister who demanded her confession—”God will give you blood to drink”—would echo through Salem long after her death. In a community where everyday foods like butter, bread, and pudding became evidence of witchcraft, the line between nourishment and damnation blurred beyond recognition. Explore how Salem’s fears transformed the most basic human need into suspicions of a pact with the devil, from spoiled butter that doomed a sea voyage to cheese found in an accused witch’s pocket.

    Apple Podcasts
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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Read the full transcript of “From Witch Cakes to Blood Wine: The Flavor of the Salem Witch Trials” here or download the file below.

    From Witch Cakes to Blood Wine_ The Flavor of the Salem Witch TrialsDownload
  • Transcript: Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin? Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim.

    Transcript: Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin? Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim.

    View the episode page here.

    Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin? Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim.

    [00:00:00]

    Josh Hutchinson: Mary Bradbury was supposed to die on Salem’s gallows in 1692, but she pulled off the greatest vanishing act in witch trial history. Centuries later, her descendant Christopher Reeve would make another kind of magic, convincing the world that superheroes are real. Welcome to The Thing About Salem, where we discover that the real superpowers were in the family tree all along. I’m Josh Hutchinson, and I’m descended from several people involved in the Salem Witch trials, including victim Mary Esty, accused witch Mary Osgood, minister Francis Dane, and accuser-turned-defender Joseph Hutchinson.

    Sarah Jack: I am Sarah Jack. I’m also a descendant. Mary Estyand Rebecca Nurse are my ninth great grandmothers, and they were sisters who were both executed in 1692.

    Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and guess what? Sarah and I are distant cousins because of [00:01:00] Mary Esty.

    Sarah Jack: And our friend Mary Bingham is also a Mary Esty descendant.

    Josh Hutchinson: And we had no idea about that when we met each other and started this show.

     I find that incredible that the three of us wanting to speak for our ancestors came together to work on exonerations, not even realizing that we were gonna have the connections. And you may have connections, as well. Dr. Emerson Baker says there are probably a hundred million descendants of the people accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch trials, let alone everybody else who was involved in the Witch trials in other roles. We are just two of these people. You may be, as well. If you are, let us know.

    Sarah Jack: I think that is really powerful to realize when you consider how recent those witch trials really were, 1692, less than 400 years ago, and here we are [00:02:00] at over a hundred million descendants.

     And there are other Witch trials, of course. Salem’s not the only one, and you might be descended from someone involved in a witch trial in Connecticut or Europe or some other place. And we’re interested in knowing about those connections, as well, if you wanna share that on our Patreon.

    There are descendants that come from other witch trials in Boston. I had a 10th great grandmother, Mary Hale, who stood trial in Boston, and then her daughter and granddaughter were then tried later in Hartford, Connecticut. So a lot of us are descendants of women who were accused of witchcraft.

    Josh Hutchinson:

    Sarah Jack: One group of descendants that has come together for centuries, in fact, are descendants of Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty. Their parents, William and [00:03:00] Joanna, came over from Great Yarmouth, England and had several children, and there is a Towne Family Association, and there are thousands of descendants, and we have a Facebook group, there are family reunions, and there’s a lot of those cousins who tie back to several of the siblings. I myself go back to both Mary and Rebecca. It’s so interesting to, look at all those family lines in the Towne Family Association. Back in the nineties when I was growing up, it was still your family who gave you an idea of your family history. Many of us had family historians, and I had one of those, her name was Darlyn, and she did research by writing cousins and going to archives and visiting [00:04:00] cemeteries. And I had a high school assignment to build out a family tree, and so she was the first one I went to on that side of my family, and she gave me one of these handy little, typed up pedigree charts, and at the very end it says, Rebecca hanged in 1692. That didn’t really mean much to me back in the nineties,but that’s the first time that I knew Rebecca Nurse’s name. I hadn’t read The Crucible. I wasn’t familiar with that story. It came from my own family history, just on a loose piece of paper of typed genealogy, and that was the beginning of this story.

    Josh Hutchinson: One day, I was at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, when I was 16 years old, with my family. We had gone to my grandfather’s hometown of Danvers, Massachusetts, which used to be Salem Village. And so we were wandering around [00:05:00] the property of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, and in the cemetery area, there’s a marker to Rebecca, but there’s also a little marker, a stone that lists the names of the people who defended Rebecca in a petition that was submitted to the court.

    And I was looking at this marker, and I saw my name on it. It said Josh Hutchinson. I was very sure it said Josh Hutchinson. Until I looked at the picture closely that I had taken of it, and I saw a little apostrophe, and it said JOS apostrophe H Hutchinson. And so I did some digging in family history materials and found out that there was a Joseph Hutchinson, who was my 10th great-grandfather, and he was involved in the Salem Witch Trials, and that was his name on that marker.

    So that meant that he defended Rebecca [00:06:00] Nurse, who, as it turns out, was his neighbor. They were cattycorner to each other, their properties, so they would’ve been close. And that’s probably why he came to her defense, because he probably knew her pretty well.

    There’s a funny story about Joseph Hutchinson. He had donated the land for Salem Village’s first meeting house, but he got mad at the minister, Samuel Parris, and he fenced off the meeting house so nobody could come in and go to service. And of course, everybody was irate, and they tore up the fence and went to meeting anyways.

    And Joseph Hutchinson, another interesting thing about him is that, as I said, he was an accuser turned defender. He was one of the four men who filed the first complaints against [00:07:00] Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba.

    So he was part of this process of getting the whole witch trial episode underway, but then later he appears to have changed his mind, because he defended Rebecca by signing this petition and also by testifying in court against one of the accusers of Rebecca, pointing out how she had contradicted herself and was basically lying. And today you can visit Joseph Hutchinson’s land anytime you go to see the Witch Trial Victims memorial in Danvers, that’s Joseph Hutchinson’s land.

     And as we’ve said, Sarah and I are both descendants of Rebecca’s sister, Mary Esty. She was special in that she wrote a very strong petition urging that no more innocent blood be shed. She [00:08:00] knew that it was her time to die, but she didn’t want anybody else to suffer the same way in the witch trials because if she was innocent and she knew it, then she was sure that others were innocent as well, and suffering needlessly.

    Sarah Jack: But she firmly believed that she had to be respectful and not question authority. I can’t imagine what that conflict is like when your life is on the line. So she used her energy to beseech them to really consider who they were convicting, because, like Josh said, she knew she was innocent and she didn’t want anybody else to to die who was innocent. And unfortunately, as we all know, many, many more people have gone on to die because of witchcraft accusations.

    Josh Hutchinson: We were able to visit the place that she hid from [00:09:00] her second arrest in 2023. We were able to visit that spot andwe had that experience with advocate Leo Igwe, who is with Advocacy for Alleged Witchesof Nigeria. I bring this up, because as a descendant of Mary, her petition is one of the things that drives me to speak about the modern witchcraft accusations. Being in the place where she hid and visiting it with an advocate who’s on the ground every day trying to save lives from these same witchcraft accusations, it’s something that I think of very regularly, and so I appreciate that I had that experience. I’m also really sad to be able to have an experience like that and for it to be something that’s so critical.

     It was really powerful to be with him on that trip [00:10:00] and take him to the monuments and memorials so he could pay his respects, because he doesn’t have that opportunity in his own country where these things are happening every day. There’s no place to go in remembrance of the victims yet.

    Another one of my ancestors I mentioned at the beginning is the minister Francis Dane of Andover. He was the senior minister in the town, and this was the town that unfortunately had the most accusations of any community in Massachusetts or in New England at all in the Salem Witch trials. It outdid Salem plus Salem Village combined by a good margin.

     Andover wasn’t a very great big town. 500 some people and about 45 or [00:11:00] of them were accused of witchcraft. Many of them were related to Francis Dane. So I bring him up, because of all these connections he has through his own descendants and his wife’s sisters and cousins and things. He had 28 members of his extended family accused of witchcraft in 1692, 28. There were 156 people total accused of witchcraft that we know for sure, may have been more, but 28 is a big chunk of that for one family. His wife was Elizabeth Ingalls, her sisters and nieces, and everybody that she was connected to basically got accused and not exactly sure why, but probably because one of her relatives was Martha Allen Carrier, [00:12:00] the Queen in Hell, as she was said to be by Mary Lacey Jr, who accused her of that, of receiving that rank from the devil. Martha Allen Carrier. There’s Abigail Dane Faulkner, Mary Allen Toothaker, and who was the wife of Roger Toothaker, who’s an interesting character because he was a unwitcher,so he was trying to reverse spells and also to inflict pain and death on witches. And then there’s Elizabeth Johnson Jr, who was recently exonerated in 2022. And many, many more. As I said, there’s 28 of them.

    And then beyond the witch trials, 12 of Francis Dane’s 20 grandchildren married into other Andover families that were involved in the witch trials, many of them being related to accused people, but a few of them actually being [00:13:00] related to accusers. Who were you gonna marry after the witch trials were over? It was probably somebody that was involved, because pretty much everybody in Essex County seems to get involved, especially in Andover.

    Sarah Jack: We opened today thinking about Christopher Reeve, and as a human, he really proves that heroism isn’t about superpowers, but he’s also a symbol of superpowers. We want you to think about perseverance. We all take different, poignant things away from the Salem Witch Trials. It’s so complex, there’s so many layers, and there’s a lot of positive things to pull out, but we wanted you to think about perseverance today, that the gift of every Salem descendant is carried by the perseverance of our ancestors, but you don’t have to share those bloodlines to share that lesson. Salem teaches us about the price of silence, the power of [00:14:00] standing up, and the importance of questioning authority. Please don’t be as polite as Mary Esty was.

    Josh Hutchinson: Those aren’t genetic traits. They’re human traits. And please come join us on Patreon. We’ll have a chat there about this episode, and you can tell us about your family stories and tell us what you respect and admire about your ancestors.

    Sarah Jack: Show us your support by liking and subscribing at our YouTube channel, in our Patreon community, in our Facebook posts. If you’re on LinkedIn, share our work there.

    Josh Hutchinson: We can’t promise you’ll be faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but you’ll have a great time. That’s patreon.com/aboutsalem.

    Sarah Jack: Join our organization, End Witch Hunts, live on [00:15:00] World Day Against Witch Hunts to learn from leading experts about the survivors of witchcraft accusations in Ghana outcast camps.

    Sunday, August 10th, End Witch Hunts Events is bringing together specialists from Amnesty International, the Sanneh Institute, the Total Life Enhancement Center Ghana Action Aid,and Songtaba for a crucial discussion on supporting survivors of witchcraft accusations with a special focus on women and children in Ghana’s outcast camps.

    Josh Hutchinson: The World Day Against Witch Hunts isn’t just about history. It’s about understanding a crisis happening right now. Vulnerable people, especially women and children, still face violence and exile due to witchcraft accusations in communities that desperately need our support.

    This is your opportunity to learn directly from researchers, advocates, and organizationsworking [00:16:00] directly in these communities to address their needs. Events are happening globally to honor this day of remembrance and education, please share the event details with your network.

    Sarah Jack: You can register for free at endwitchhunts.org/day. Attending this event will help you gain insights that can help turn awareness into meaningful action.

    Josh Hutchinson: Because understanding and then starting an important conversation is where meaningful change starts.

    Sarah Jack: Hear the special expert panel Sunday, August 10th, 2025 at 5:30 PM GMT. That’s 1:30 PM EDT. Find the link to this free online webinar at endwitchhunts.org/day.

  • Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin? Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim.

    Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin? Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim.

    Christopher Reeve proved that heroism isn’t about superpowers—it’s about perseverance. That’s the gift every Salem descendant carries, but you don’t have to share their bloodline to share their lesson. Salem teaches us about the price of silence, the power of standing up, the importance of questioning authority. Those aren’t genetic traits—they’re human ones.

    Hosts Josh and Sarah explore their own ancestral connections to the trials and reveal how descendants of Salem’s victims number in the millions today.

    Apple Podcasts
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    TuneIn
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    Links

    Towne Family Association⁠

    ⁠Towne Cousins Facebook Group⁠

    ⁠Listen to the Podcast Episode: Finding Your Salem Witch Trial Ancestors with David Allen Lambert⁠

    ⁠Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project⁠

    ⁠Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum⁠

    ⁠Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Website⁠

    ⁠⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube⁠

    ⁠⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon⁠

    ⁠⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    ⁠⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Read the full transcript of “Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin?” here or download the file below.

    Is Superman your Salem Witch Trials cousin_ Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a descendant of a Salem Witch Trials victim_Download
  • Transcript: Hysteria in Salem: Nothing to See Here

    Transcript: Hysteria in Salem: Nothing to See Here

    View the episode page here.

    [00:00:00]

    Josh Hutchinson:

    On the night of May 20th, 1692, between about 8 and 11, Mercy Lewis was reportedly bewitched so badly that six eyewitnesses described it as if death would’ve quickly followed and said that she could not continue long in this world without a mitigation of those torments.

    Sarah Jack: Mercy

     There were men attending to Mercy, but she couldn’t speak, so they sent for Elizabeth Hubbard so they could find out who was afflicting Mercy.

    Josh Hutchinson: But once Elizabeth Hubbard arrived on the scene, she and Mercy began having alternating fits, that one was afflicted while the other was well, and so one could speak while the other was in a fit. And so eventually they revealed that Mary Esty was the one that they saw coming to afflict them in her spectral form, and Mary Esty had only recently been released [00:01:00] from jail because the afflicted girls didn’t agree on whether Mary’s specter was the one that was hurting them.

    So Esty’s specter supposedly brought the devil’s book to Mercy Lewis and threatened to kill her by showing her a winding sheet and a coffin. This, the men took to be a grave threat, meaning that her death was imminent. In fear, they rode to Salem Town to get a warrant for her arrest in the middle of the night to wake up the magistrates and say, Hey, we need to arrest this woman and get her back in chains so that her specter is not roaming any longer. So they rode to Salem, got the warrant, rode back with the constable, arrested Mary Esty, and took her back to the jail, and got all that done sometime between the [00:02:00] start at eight and 11 and midnight, this imposing deadline that seemed to be in place on Mercy Lewis’s life.

    Sarah Jack: She lived, but she still had afflictions.

    Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and poor Mary Esty went to jail and stayed there for four months before her trial in September. Welcome to The Thing About Salem. I’m Josh Hutchinson.

    Sarah Jack: I am Sarah Jack. We are descendants of Mary Esty. Did that sound like hysteria to you?

    Josh Hutchinson: Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines hysteria as behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess.

    Sarah Jack: Hysteria is not the most accurate way to explain the Salem Witch Trials. Though the Salem Witch Trials are considered a witch [00:03:00] panic and there was certainly widespread fear, we cannot diagnose clinical hysteria from a distance of 330 years, and accusers definitely were not all hysterical all the time.

    Josh Hutchinson: The Salem Witch Trials proceeded through orderly legal channels, and months went by before the first trial. And during all this time, there’s no reports of any extrajudicial actions, any vigilante style justice, or people just taking the law into their own hands. And also the non-afflicted witnesses and accusers were quite composed in court hearings, as were the jury members, and of course, the judges seemed to be of sound mind the entire time.

    Sarah Jack: Hysteria has turned into a buzzword when it comes to witch hunts. It’s just an adjective. It’s a description we just throw [00:04:00] on there. But when we label any witch-hunt the result of hysteria, it is a way of not accepting what causes a witch-hunt and not accepting that we’re capable of the same injustices today.

    Josh Hutchinson: We still have the same emotions. There’s the same kind of quick spread of fear that happens when scary situations arise in our society. The quick spread of the panic in 1692, it was a function of several things happening in the colony at that point in time. There was economic uncertainty, there was war, political uncertainty, religious strife and uncertainty, and the list goes on, so many stresses on people’s minds at that time that when they found an enemy they could pin all of this uncertainty and disarray, basically, [00:05:00] on, they went with that enemy.

    Sarah Jack: So you know, all of these conditions, the economics and war, and politics and religious and social, and every other factor that went into the Salem Witch Trials, those are things that just regularly happen during human history. You could look at any period of time and you’d see similar things going on in societies, and it’s just when there’s a big enough combination of all of those factors that panics happen and witch-trial-like behaviors occur. So today we call those things witch hunts when we recognize them, but so often we don’t.Since 1692, there have been several moral panics. We’ve had them recently in our world. I don’t have to say what they are. You’re thinking of them [00:06:00] right now and we need to recognize it. Reactions to injustice can be extreme, because injustice is an extreme negative experience. It doesn’t mean the reaction’s hysteria, and we need to recognize that it’s ordinary human behaviors that responsible for those panics.

    Now the affliction stories are colorful. They were modeled over and over, over decades and through other hunts for witches, colorful and imaginative, but not hysterical. You know, sometimes we feel hysterical or we see someone we love have a really extreme response to a trauma and we might say it was so bad we were in hysterics. But that’s a generalized description. [00:07:00] Shock, anger, sadness, fear, those are the things that we need to pull the threads out on and look at to honestly reflect on the Salem Witch Trials.

    Salem wasn’t the only witch panic that happened in New England, so these things happened periodically. Salem of course, dwarfs the others in its absolute scale, but fears like this came up many times in New England, and it’s crucial to understand that they weren’t all merely an irrational outburst of hysteria. They were actually profound panic born from deeply held beliefs and very real societal pressures. The colonists genuinely believed in the existence of witches and their diabolical powers, as did pretty much any Christian at the time. They viewed these powers as an existential threat to their community and their faith.[00:08:00]

    Extreme fear is fear. It can cause panic, but the hysteria isn’t what would propel the judicial conviction of an accused witch.

    Josh Hutchinson:

    Salem

     began in mid-January when Betty and Abigail began displaying the first symptoms. Late February, they were diagnosed as being under an evil hand, a witch cake was baked to test who was the first witch, and the first accusations were made on February 26th. So March 1st, you get the first arrest, legal examinations, and incarcerations, but it’s not until June 2nd that there’s the first trial. So this is five months between January and June that the children are ill. The illness is spreading through the village and then surrounding communities. Somehow they allow five months to go by while they’re supposedly [00:09:00] hysterical this entire five months before they have the first trial of a defendant.

    Sarah Jack: It is obvious that the events are just too complex to simply write off to hysteria and move on. Moving on afterafter labeling it hysteria is one of the reasons that we’re, generation after generation, still trying to figure out what’s going on. If we stop labeling it as hysteria, that’s one point. Now I’m not gonna go hunt who’s using the label still and criticize you, but just think about, if we take that word out of there, it leaves more space for talking about the story of our ancestors. More nuanced and sophisticated explanations help us to learn lessons from these witch trials, and the way people reacted then is just how we react to fears now. Fears about immigration, terrorism, nonconformity to gender [00:10:00] norms today, those reactions. It’s us. They’re humans. We’re humans. Same reactions.

    Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and we started this episode with the story of Mercy Lewis accusing Mary Esty of imminently planning to murder her. Even this midnight horse ride illustrates that people went through legal channels, even when they were at their most frantic.

    Sarah Jack: The Salem Witch Trials were a human reaction to great fear during a time of stress and uncertainty. And when we consider that, we can have more empathy for both sides, for accusers and the accused, I even think this hysteria label kind of takes the humanity out of the accusers, and we really need to recognize what they were experiencing also.

    Josh Hutchinson: And it’s so important just to recognize how ordinary the people and the emotions [00:11:00] involved in the witch trials were. They’re us, we’re them, people haven’t changed that much in 333 years, so we need to know and acknowledge that they had the same feelings and fretted about the same things that we do, and so reacted in ways that we react to things still today. So we’re much closer to thinking like the people did then than we choose to believe.

    Sarah Jack: It is so true. You know,  the United States is celebrating the, 250 years of independence and we act like that was, just yesterday. Well, 1692 was just a few generations before that. So if we can identify and recognize ourselves in the founding fathers of the United States, then we can do the same with those who were [00:12:00] founding the colonies and hunting witches.

    Josh Hutchinson: And it’s true that the afflicted people were energetic and noisy and just got wild in the court sessions, but in between attending the hearings against the accused, they were reported to have behaved normally. Thomas Brattle, in a letter to an unnamed clergyman, wrote that, “many of these afflicted persons who have scores of strange fits in a day, yet in the intervals of time are hail and hardy, robust and lusty, as though nothing had afflicted them.”

    And so he tells about here about the chief justice giving the jury their instructions. “He told them that they were not to mind whether the bodies of the said afflicted were really pined and consumed, as was expressed in the indictment, but whether the said afflicted did not suffer from the accused such afflictions as naturally [00:13:00] tended to their being pined and consumed, wasted, et cetera. This, said he, is a pining and consuming in the sense of the law.”

    Hysteria, while possibly affecting individual witch trial accusers at specific times, is not a satisfying explanation of why witch hunts occurred in the past or why they’re occurring today.

     The hysteria explanation leaves open the possibility that witch hunts happen randomly whenever a person or group is hysterical. They understate the factors that contribute to witch hunts, the social, economic, political, religious and cultural factors, the emotional stresses and fears, the familial and neighborhood strife, the sudden disaster that serves as the impetus for the hunt.

    To address witch hunting and in the future, we have to understand the ordinary human emotions and behaviors involved in the hunts. We are who [00:14:00] we always were. We’re as capable of witch hunts as any people at any time in history.

     America has seen numerous moral panics, including the Red Scare, the Satanic Panic, over the years. But rather than citing hysteria as the cause of these more recent panics, historians and other researchers reason that societal pressures caused these panics. So why do we insist that the witch trials 300 some years ago were the products of hysteria, when we know that people today are involved in the same kind of panics? Let’s be realistic and address the human factors that lead to widespread human rights violations during periods of panic.

    Sarah Jack: We’d love to chat with you about this in our Patreon community. Come say hi and tell us what you think of hysteria. I.

  • Hysteria in Salem: Nothing to See Here

    Hysteria in Salem: Nothing to See Here

    We kick off with a midnight ride that would make Paul Revere jealous—except instead of warning about the British, townspeople were frantically summoning help for a girl supposedly being tortured by a witch’s specter. But before you roll your eyes and mutter “mass hysteria,” consider this: What if the Salem Witch Trials weren’t the product of unhinged women with wandering uteruses (yes, that’s a real historical medical theory), but rather ordinary people responding to extraordinary fear in disturbingly familiar ways?

    Join us as we trace witch panics from Springfield to Hartford, uncovering a pattern that’s less “crazy town” and more “calculated legal proceedings.” We’ll explore why dismissing these events as hysteria might be the most dangerous mistake we can make—especially when the same human behaviors that fueled 17th-century witch hunts are alive and well in. Spoiler alert: We’re not as evolved as we think we are.

    Fair warning: Contains references to wandering uteruses, midnight rides, and uncomfortable parallels to contemporary society.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Click here to view the full transcript online or download the file below

    Hysteria in Salem_ Nothing to See HereDownload
  • Omelette You Finish, But Did an Afflicted Girl in Salem Divine Her Future with an Egg?

    Omelette You Finish, But Did an Afflicted Girl in Salem Divine Her Future with an Egg?

    We look at the reported use of oomancy—egg divination—allegedly preceding the Salem Witch Trials. The discussion centers around a haunting account from Reverend John Hale about an afflicted girl who used an egg and glass to divine her future, only to see a coffin appear in the reflection. This ominous vision allegedly led to her eventual death, serving as what Hale callously called “a just warning” about dabbling with divination.

    The hosts explore the ancient origins of divination practices, tracing them back thousands of years to early civilizations. The episode examines various divination methods documented in Salem records, including the sieve and scissors technique, key and Bible, and other techniques for fortune telling. Several fascinating Salem cases come to light, including Samuel Wardwell’s admitted fortune telling abilities and Dorcas Hoar’s reputation as a local fortune teller who specialized in predicting the deaths of men. The hosts share intriguing testimonies from neighbors who witnessed these practices firsthand, revealing how common divination was in 17th-century New England communities.

    Throughout the episode, the hosts address common myths about Salem, including the popular but inaccurate image of girls gathering in circles for magic sessions. They also explore the mystery of which afflicted girl Hale was referring to in his account, as her identity remains unknown to this day.

    Join Josh and Sarah as they uncover the surprisingly relatable human desire to glimpse the future, one cracked egg at a time. Connect with them on Patreon at patreon.com/aboutsalem to continue the conversation about Salem’s divination practices and their modern echoes.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Omelette You Finish, But Did an Afflicted Girl in Salem Divine Her Future with an Egg_Download
  • Did Bad Bread Bewitch Salem?

    Did Bad Bread Bewitch Salem?

    You’ve heard the theory: ergot-poisoned rye bread caused hallucinations that sparked the Salem witch trials. It sounds so logical, so scientific, so… wrong.

    When the afflicted girl Elizabeth Hubbard accused alleged witch Sarah Good of witchcraft through spectral torture – pinching, pricking, and demanding she sign the devil’s book – was she describing a fungal poisoning? Or something far more complex?

    Join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack as they finally address one of the most popular silver bullet “explanations” for the Salem Witch Trials. They’ll show you why this tidy medical explanation crumbles: convulsive ergotism is actually a syndrome with a constellation of symptoms and variables. 

    This episode will sharpen your critical thinking. The ergot theory’s problems show us how easily we can be drawn to explanations that sound scientific but don’t actually fit the evidence and why we need to dig deeper than the theories that simply make us feel better about difficult history.

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    Links

    ⁠Linnda R. Caporael, “Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?”

    Nicholas P. Spanos and Jack Gottlieb Rebuttal, “Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials”

    Mary K. Matossian, “Views: Ergot and the Salem Witchcraft Affair “⁠

    Nicholas P. Spanos, “Ergotism and the Salem Witch Panic”

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Did Bad Bread Bewitch Salem_Download
  • Caution: May Contain Specters

    Caution: May Contain Specters

    In Salem, people were hanged based on crimes no one else could see.

    In Salem, accusers claimed to see the ghostly “shapes” of their neighbors tormenting them from miles away. These spectral attacks left real bruises, real terror, and real questions: Could the Devil impersonate innocent people? Why did Connecticut reject this evidence decades earlier while Salem embraced it with deadly consequences?

    From midnight visitations to courtroom chaos, discover how testimony about invisible crimes became the most dangerous evidence in American legal history.

    The shadows cast by Salem’s trials reach far beyond 1692—and the question of what we’re willing to believe based on what we cannot see remains as relevant as ever.

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    Links

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer Documents, ⁠The Salem Witch Trials Collection, Peabody Essex Museum

    “The Return of Several Ministers”

    Letter from Cotton Mather to John Foster

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    The Thing About Salem Website

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Caution_ May Contain SpectersDownload

  • We Are Just Getting Started Talking About the Things

    One month in, and we’re finding our rhythm with The Thing About Salem podcast.

    Running two weekly podcasts keeps us busy, but dedicating one entirely to Salem has been a blast. We’re enjoying the focused approach, and each week brings new aspects of the story to life.

    Our First Four Episodes

    The Thing About Tituba started us off with the real story about the “witch cake” and how it set everything in motion. We started to separate the documented facts from the legends that have grown up around Tituba.

    Salem Witch Trial Judges Played with Poppets examined how judges brought poppets into the court proceedings and experimented with their power. Be sure to catch the extended cut on Patreon.

    Why The Crucible Never Gets Old examined Arthur Miller’s play and its continued relevance. We discussed how its themes connect to modern culture and society.

    Dining with the Devil in the Pastor’s Pasture explored how accusations evolved from simple claims to elaborate stories being accepted as evidence. These witches’ sabbath tales marked a significant escalation in the 1692 trials.

    What We’re Pulling from the Records

    Salem’s court records and contemporary accounts reveal many complexities. The documentation shows patterns that extend far beyond 1692—connections between legal procedures, community tensions, and individual motivations that help explain not just what happened, but why it happened the way it did.

    Looking Ahead

    Next up is an episode on spectral evidence, which was central to the accusations and convictions. We’re looking forward to breaking down this complicated view of the natural and unnatural worlds and how it played out in the courtroom.

    Thanks to everyone who’s been listening and engaging with the show. Come play with us on Patreon for even more Salem discussion and behind-the-scenes content. And take a look at The Thing About Witch Hunts for deep analysis of witch trials around the world.

    There’s still plenty more to cover. What aspects of Salem are you most curious about? Let us know. We’re just getting started.

    Thank you,

    Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson

  • Dining with the Devil in the Pastor’s Pasture: Salem’s Witches’ Sabbath

    Dining with the Devil in the Pastor’s Pasture: Salem’s Witches’ Sabbath

    What happens when a few cryptic accusations transform into elaborate tales of midnight gatherings with the Devil himself? In Salem, the introduction of witches’ sabbath stories didn’t just add fuel to the fire—it created an inferno that would consume an entire community. These stories reveal how panic spreads and conspiracies grow, transforming neighbors into enemies and turning familiar landscapes into theaters of supernatural warfare.

    Episode Highlights:

    European Origins of Sabbath Stories •  In the western Alps in the 1430s, stories spread after religious conferences • Originally called the “Synagogue of Satan,” not sabbath or sabbat • 1669 Swedish trials in Elfdale Province featured children confessing to journeys to Blockula • Accused described calling “Antecessor come and carry us to Blockula” three times at crossroads • The Devil appeared in a gray coat, red and blue stockings, and distinctive high-crowned hat with red beard

    Salem’s Transformation • European sabbath tales were fresh in colonial minds when Salem’s hunt began •Stories evolved from simple accusations into vast conspiracy narratives

    Impact on the Witch Hunt • Each confession built upon previous stories, creating coherent mythology • Details seemed to confirm worst fears about supernatural conspiracy • Stories recorded as evidence and treated as truth by authorities • Transformed the scope from individual accusations to community-wide threat

    Related Content: Join us on Patreon for bonus episodes and behind-the-scenes content

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    Links

    Buy the book: Origins of the Witches Sabbath by Michael D. Bailey

    Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

  • Why The Crucible Never Gets Old

    Why The Crucible Never Gets Old

    Arthur Miller’s timeless play, The Crucible, transformed the Salem Witch Trials into America’s most powerful allegory for McCarthyism. When The Crucible premiered in 1953, Miller—who would later marry Marilyn Monroe—created a dramatized version of Salem that exposed the dangerous parallels between witch hunts and communist hysteria.

    Hosts Josh and Sarah explore Miller’s deliberate historical changes and why he chose fiction over fact to reveal deeper truths about accusation, confession, and moral courage under pressure.

    The episode breaks down how Miller’s allegory connected Salem’s witch trials to 1950s Red Scare tactics, showing why both historical moments reveal the same pattern. Whether fearing witchcraft or communism, communities turn on perceived traitors through panic and make false accusations.

    Explore The Crucible’s lasting cultural impact from high school literature classes to multiple film adaptations. Whether you’re studying the play for school, preparing for a performance, or simply curious about its enduring relevance, this episode explains why Miller’s work remains essential reading in our current age of political polarization.

    Perfect for students, theater enthusiasts, and anyone seeking to understand how The Crucible connects Salem’s 1692 tragedy to timeless themes of integrity, community panic, and moral choice that still resonate today.

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    Buy the book: The Red Scare by Clay Risen

    Buy the Play: The Crucible by Arthur Miller

    ⁠The Thing About Salem YouTube

    ⁠The Thing About Salem Patreon

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠

    ⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

    Transcript

    Why The Crucible Never Gets OldDownload
  • The Salem Witch Trials Judges Played with Poppets

    The Salem Witch Trials Judges Played with Poppets

    Explore one of the more bizarre forms of evidence used to convict witches in colonial America. When the Salem Witch Trials judges accepted poppets as deadly proof of witchcraft, they turned dolls and rags into evidence that cost innocent people like Bridget Bishop their lives. The judges admitted all kinds of evidence that wouldn’t survive five minutes in a modern courtroom, including poppets—dolls crafted with malicious intent—that were allegedly used to afflict targets from afar.

    The hosts reveal how law enforcement searched accused witches’ homes for “pictures of clay or wax,” turning up everything from rag dolls stuffed with goat hair to knotted handkerchiefs filled with cheese and grass. In the most shocking cases, judges conducted live magical experiments in their own courtrooms while watching the “afflicted” witnesses writhe in apparent agony, then using these theatrical displays as evidence to send people to the gallows.

    Listeners discover the tragic stories behind Salem’s most infamous poppet cases, like those involving Bridget Bishop, Candy, and Abigail Hobbs, who claimed the devil personally delivered poppets to her. The episode also explores pre-Salem cases like Goody Glover. This is another chapter in understanding how Salem became America’s most infamous example of justice gone terribly wrong.

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    The Thing About Salem YouTube⁠⁠

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    The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website⁠

    Transcript

    The Salem Witch Trials Judges Played with PoppetsDownload
  • The Thing About Tituba

    The Thing About Tituba

    In the inaugural episode of The Thing About Salem, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack take you inside the Salem Witch Trials, focusing on the early events that triggered the infamous witch-hunt. Discover how Tituba became the unwitting catalyst for America’s most infamous witch hunt. This isn’t the sanitized version you learned in school or saw in The Crucible—this is the raw, documented truth about three pivotal days that changed history forever.

    When 9-year-old Betty Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began barking like dogs and trying to walk into fireplaces in January 1692, their desperate community turned to folk magic—baking a grotesque “witch cake” made with the girls’ urine and feeding it to a dog. This bizarre ritual, unique in all of New England’s witch trial records, appeared to succeed when the girls began naming witches the very next day. Their first target was Tituba, the enslaved indigenous woman in their own household—the most vulnerable person in Salem Village and the unwitting catalyst who would spend 15 months in jail as the witch trials exploded across Massachusetts.

    Listeners are provided with a detailed account of the strange behaviors exhibited by Parris’s daughter Betty and niece Abigail, the mysterious witch cake baked by Mary Sibley, and the subsequent accusations against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. The podcast also highlights Tituba’s lasting impact and a commemorative brick in her honor at the House of the Seven Gables. The episode is the first in a weekly series exploring different facets of the Salem Witch Trials.

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    Chapters

    00:00 Introduction to The Salem Witch Trials

    00:13 Meet Your Hosts: Josh and Sarah

    00:35 Podcast Overview and Schedule

    01:07 Focus on Salem Witch Trials

    01:25 Tituba: The Enslaved Woman at the Center

    02:02 The Mysterious Illness of Betty and Abigail

    05:55 The Witch Cake Experiment

    09:58 Accusations Begin: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne

    12:10 Tituba’s Fate and Memorial

    13:31 Closing Remarks and Patreon Invitation

    Key Topics Covered

    • The Parris Household Crisis (January 1692)
    • The Afflicted Girls
    • Mysterious Symptoms
    • Dr. William Griggs
    • Mary Sibley’s Folk Magic
    • Samuel Parris’s Response
    • Tituba’s Vulnerability
    • Life-Changing Moment

    Links

    The Thing About Salem YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Salem Patreon⁠⁠

    Mary Bingham’s YouTube Channel: Sarah Wildes 1692⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube⁠⁠

    The Thing About Witch Hunts Website⁠⁠

    Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem by Elaine G. Breslaw⁠⁠

    Six Women of Salem by Marilynne K. Roach⁠⁠

    The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach

    Transcript

    The Thing About TitubaDownload

  • May 15 in the Salem Witch Trials

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  • May 12 in the Salem Witch Trials

    On May 12, 1692:
    * The Salem magistrates issued arrest warrants for Ann Pudeator and Alice Parker
    * John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin questioned Abigail Hobbs, Ann Pudeator, Alice, Parker, and Mary Warren
    * Mary Walcott was allegedly assaulted by the shape of Sarah Buckley
    * Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam, Jr. supposedly saw the specters of John Willard and Sarah Buckley assault Bray Wilkins, to keep his bladder stopped.On May 12, 1693:
    * Connecticut’s General Court granted Mercy Disborough a reprieve.
    * The Superior Court cleared the remaining witchcraft suspects and would release them from jail once they paid their jail fees.

  • Deleted Scene: Eye Contact

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  • Join The Thing About Salem’s Patreon!

    Join The Thing About Salem’s Patreon!

    Be a part of our success and enjoy exclusive content with every membership tier. Whether you’re curious, intrigued, fascinated, or utterly obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials, we have a tier for you.

    Sign up for The Thing About Salem Patreon today.

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  • The Thing About Salem Premieres June 1, 2025

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  • The First Trailer Has Dropped

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  • The Thing About Salem Is . . .

    There are so many things about Salem for us to discuss, and we are determined to get to all of them, no matter how long it takes.

    Welcome to The Thing About Salem, where each week we have a lively discussion about a different facet, person, or event from the Salem Witch Trials. We are going to cover all the things, so buckle up.

    Episodes we already have lined up include discussions about Tituba, poppets, the witches’ sabbath, The Crucible, the ergotism theory, confessions, afflictions, and familiar spirits. The Thing About Salem also features talk on the legal, economic, military, social, religious, and political circumstances in which the witch trials occurred, as well as the procedures used in the witch trials. Basically, we are covering all the things.

    Each episode features our hosts Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson, who tell a dynamic story and then talk about the ramifications. Enjoy all the feels as we cover all the things about the Salem Witch Trials.

  • Coming June 1, 2025!

    The Thing About Salem premieres June 1, 2025.