The Thing About Salem

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  • Week 6 Blog: The Accused and the Archives February 2 – 8, 2026

    Six weeks in, and the accused are coming into focus. This week our lesson opens with Sarah Good, one of the first three people accused along with Tituba and Sarah Osborne, and follows her story from the parsonage door to the gallows. Along the way, the course traces the transatlantic exchange of books and pamphlets that shaped how witch trials were conducted in America, the folk magic that colonists practiced even as they accused their neighbors of witchcraft, and the Swedish witch-hunt of 1669 that introduced the concept of flying witches and satanic sabbaths into New England testimony. The 980 surviving primary source documents from the trials, warrants, jailer’s records, examination transcripts, and petitions from the condemned, ground all of this in the historical record. The week closes with the Towne sisters, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce, and the weekly podcast examines the case of Mary Black, an enslaved woman whose life is documented only because she was accused. Woven throughout is the story of Dorothy Good, arrested at age four, whose life after the trials shows that the consequences of 1692 did not end when the courts stopped.

    This Week’s Content

    Daily Videos (Salem Witch Trials Daily YouTube Playlist) February 2: Sarah Good February 3: Transatlantic Communication February 4: Folk Magic February 5: Primary Sources February 6: The Swedish Connection February 7: Dorothy Good February 8: The Towne Sisters

    Weekly Podcast: The Thing About Salem: “Mary Black: An Enslaved Woman Accused of Witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials” Explore the story of Mary Black, an enslaved woman in the household of Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam, who was accused, jailed for nine months, and cleared, but whose survival was met with silence rather than support.

    Sarah Good: Poverty as Evidence of Evil

    On February 2, 1692, Sarah Good went to the Salem Village parsonage to beg money for herself and her two children, four-year-old Dorothy and an infant. The minister, Samuel Parris, gave something to Dorothy, and Sarah Good allegedly went away muttering something under her breath. After this incident, the mysterious illness afflicting the minister’s daughter, Betty, and his niece, Abigail, intensified. Reverend Parris later interpreted Sarah Good’s parting words as a curse.

    Sarah was born Sarah Soulart in Wenham, Massachusetts around 1653, the daughter of an established innkeeper named John Soulart who by suicide when she was young. While he left a substantial estate valued at 500 pounds, Sarah and her sisters were effectively left  out of any inheritance.

    By 1692, Sarah had married her second husband, William Good, a laborer described as a weaver who struggled to keep employment. The family was destitute. They had no permanent home and turned to neighbors for charity. In the Puritan mindset, poverty was not just a misfortune. It was often viewed as a moral failing, a sign that God had turned away from that person.

    When refused charity, Sarah Good was said to walk away muttering. She claimed she was reciting commandments or Psalms, but her neighbors interpreted her words as curses. In February 1692, when the sickness began in the household of the minister, Sarah Good was named alongside Tituba and Sarah Osborne as one of the tormenters.

    On February 29, the warrant was issued. Constable George Locker arrested her and brought her to Ingersoll’s Tavern on March 1. The crowd was so massive they had to move the examination to the nearby meetinghouse. The magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin pressed her hard. They asked, “What evil spirit have you familiarity with?” Sarah Good answered simply, “None.” When they asked why she hurt the children, she replied, “I do not hurt them. I scorn it.”

    The testimony against her continued to build, not just from the afflicted girls who displayed fits in the courtroom, but from her own husband. William Good testified against Sarah. He called her “an enemy to all good” and said he feared she was a witch, the very definition of enemy to good. 

    When Sarah was arrested, she had a daughter, Dorothy, who was between four and five years old, and she had given birth to a baby girl in December. That infant was taken to jail with Sarah. The conditions in the Salem and Boston jails were cold, filthy, and expensive, as prisoners had to pay for their own upkeep. The infant died in custody before Sarah was executed. Dorothy was arrested and shackled as well. At four years old, she was interrogated and confessed to being a witch, answering leading questions that her mother had given her a snake as a familiar.

    Sarah Good never confessed. She maintained her innocence to the very end. On July 19, she was taken to Procter’s Ledge to be hanged alongside four other women. There, she delivered one of the most famous lines in witch trial history. The Reverend Nicholas Noyes urged her to confess, telling her she was a witch and she knew it. Sarah Good declared, “You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard. If you take my life, God will give you blood to drink.” Legend, not historical records, reports that years later, Nicholas Noyes died of a hemorrhage, choking on his own blood.

    Sarah Good was a woman who had lost everything. Her wellbeing, any resources, her husband’s support, her ability to care for her new baby. She and her daughters sat in jail. But she never lost her voice.

    Transatlantic Communication: The Information Superhighway

    We often think of the early American colonies as isolated settlements on the edge of a dangerous frontier, but the truth is the Atlantic Ocean was an information superhighway. Ideas, laws, and panic traveled on ships. Transatlantic communication, specifically the distribution of books, pamphlets, and letters, played a definitive role in shaping how witch trials were conducted in America.

    The witch hunts in Connecticut and Massachusetts in the late 1640s coincided with the rise of Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed Witchfinder General in England. Historians we have spoken with believe that the leaders of Connecticut were reading Hopkins’ book, The Discovery of Witches, and conducting prosecutions with his book practically in hand.

    We see the physical evidence of this communication in the legal procedures. The technique of watching, keeping a suspect awake and under constant observation to see if a familiar spirit appears, was a hallmark of the English trials. Yet this exact method was used on Margaret Jones in Boston in 1648.

    Before 1692, New England’s accused witches were accused of harming a neighbor’s cow or making a child sick. They were not typically flying through the air to massive parties with the devil until Salem. The introduction of flight came because of a book. The Reverend Cotton Mather had read accounts of the Great Noise, the massive witch-hunt in Sweden in 1669. Mather incorporated these accounts into his own writings, likely pulling from Joseph Glanvil’s English book, Saducismus Triumphatus. This literature introduced New Englanders to the idea of witches flying on poles and attending a satanic Sabbath.

    Salem residents began describing what they had read or heard about from Europe, and the panic echoed back across the ocean. Cotton Mather’s book, Wonders of the Invisible World, which detailed the Salem trials, traveled back to Scotland. In the Bargarran Witch Trials of 1697, the family of the afflicted girl, Christian Shaw, had read Mather’s accounts. Consequently, Christian Shaw’s symptoms in Scotland began to mirror the symptoms of the girls in Salem.

    It was an information revolution. The printing of the Malleus Maleficarum centuries earlier had standardized the concept of the witch across Europe, and by the late 17th century, New England had a highly literate populace. When we look at Salem, we are not just looking at an isolated and local dispute. We are looking at the result of a global exchange of folklore, theology, and fear.

    Folk Magic: The Home Security System of Colonial America

    We stepped away from the courtroom and into the kitchen and the hearth to talk about something that was strictly forbidden by the ministers but practiced by almost everyone including the Magistrates and Governor Phips: folk magic. The accusers and the neighbors were often the ones using magic. They called it countermagic, or what historian Emerson Baker calls the home security system of Colonial America.

    In a world where people believe a neighbor can hurt their livestock or their children just by looking at them, protection matters. One of the most common methods used in this erea was the witch bottle. People would take a bottle and fill it with urine, usually the victim’s urine, along with pins, nails, or other sharp metal objects. By boiling this urine and pin mixture or burying it under the hearth, it was believed to inflict pain on the witch who may have cast a spell or curse, tormenting the tormentor until they revealed themselves or the curse broke.

    Roger Toothaker, a folk healer who died in prison during the trials, famously claimed he had taught his daughter how to kill a witch by boiling urine.

    It was not just bottles. Historic homes in New England sometimes reveal old shoes concealed in the walls, near chimneys or doors. Colonists believed witches entered through portals, doorways, windows, and especially chimneys, so they would hide objects like shoes or even desiccated cats in the walls to distract or trap the evil spirit before it could enter the room. Apotropaic symbols, like hexafoils or daisy wheels, were used on mantles and beams to ward off the evil.

    Folk magic was not just for protection. It was also used to see the future. One popular method was called the Venus Glass or oomancy. This involved dropping an egg white into a glass of water, and the shape of the egg white was supposed to resemble the tool of the trade of a future husband. There is no record directly tying this magic to Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, but was reported as a dangerous game that had killed its player. There were also references to the sieve and scissors, where a sieve was balanced on shears to answer yes or no questions.

    But the most famous act of folk magic in Salem was something that was eaten: the witch cake. In late February 1692, a neighbor named Mary Sibley instructed Parris’s enslaved servants, Tituba and John Indian, on how to make this English countermagic cake. They took rye meal and mixed it with urine of Betty and Abigail, baked it in the ashes, and fed it to a dog. The theory was that the dog, being a common familiar for the devil, would hurt the witch and force her to reveal herself. Instead of stopping the afflictions, the girls started naming witches immediately after. Samuel Parris claimed this act raised the devil in Salem. Even though folk magic was publicly condemned, it was also relied on in the culture.

    Primary Sources: The Voices of the Past

    How do we know what we know about the Salem Witch Trials? Podcast guest Margo Burns asks us this critical question. We are fortunate to have a massive, though incomplete, collection of primary source documents. The definitive collection for this study is titled Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, published in 2009. Margo Burns, the associate editor and project manager of that undertaking, explained that it took a team of 12 scholars over 10 years to locate, organize, and transcribe all of these documents. They scoured 12 different archives, including the Peabody Essex Museum and the Massachusetts State Archives.

    It is important to note that the official record books of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the actual reports from the trials, are missing. They likely have not survived. Many documents were probably lost when Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s house was ransacked during the Stamp Act riot in the 18th century. The mob threw his papers into the street, and we probably lost the official court records in the mud that night.

    However, what we do have are the loose papers, the working documents of the legal process. 980 of these records survive. These include arrest warrants and documentations of the preliminary examinations, which contain the actual back-and-forth interrogation between the magistrates, like John Hathorne, and the accused. Those examinations vary by the scribe. If Samuel Parris wrote it down, he tried to capture every word. Other scribes might just summarize the event. Except for a few petitions composed by the accused, we don’t actually have their own side of the story.

    One of the most heartbreaking types of documents are the jailers’ records. We have accounts from jailers like John Arnold in Boston. These lists tell exactly when someone was booked, when they were released, or if they died in custody. They detailed the cost of each suspect’s food and shackles. The archives even contain the bills from blacksmiths for making the chains used on the prisoners.

    There are also petitions written by the accused themselves. Mary Esty’s petition to the court, written after she had been condemned to die, is one of the most powerful documents in American history. She pleaded not for her own life, but that no more innocent blood be shed. The original copy of that petition still exists. The team behind Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt had to analyze the handwriting of over 200 people to determine who wrote what. Previous transcripts from the 1970s relied on Works Progress Administration transcripts from the 1930s, which were full of errors, including testimonies dated after a person had already been executed because of transcription mistakes. The 2009 collection fixed those errors and put everything in chronological order, allowing us to see how the crisis unfolded day by day. Author Marilynne Roach published The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege.

    The Swedish Connection: Blockula and Salem

    What does a Swedish witch panic from the late 1660s have to do with Salem in 1692? As it turns out, quite a lot. The accounts from Sweden provide a script for what a massive, organized witch conspiracy looks like. According to the accounts, the supposed witches would go to a gravel pit, put garments over their heads and dance around. Then they would run to a crossroads and call upon the devil three times, chanting, “Antecessor, come and carry us to Blockula.”

    They described the devil appearing at the crossroads wearing a great coat, red and blue stockings, and a high-crowned hat. He also had a red beard. This red-bearded man would then call upon beasts to carry the witches to a great meadow, Blockula, where they held a Witch’s Sabbath.

    Before 1692, the concept of witchcraft in New England was usually much more grounded in local disputes, sick cows, or neighbors muttering curses. The idea of flying through the air to a massive diabolical party was not the standard narrative. As author Stacy Schiff noted, before this period, witches in New England had never flown. The idea of a witch being able to fly to do her business was a continental concept. And this concept came through the library of Reverend Cotton Mather.

    Mather had obtained accounts of the European Witch Panic, specifically the Swedish Witch Trials of 1669, and incorporated them into his own bestselling writings. In the Salem records, we find Tituba and others describing flying on poles to meetings and the devil carrying them. The accusers in Salem were no longer describing local folk magic. They were describing a vast, organized conspiracy that mirrored the accounts from Blockula. The afflicted people in Massachusetts were influenced by how the afflicted children behaved in the Swedish witch panic known as the Great Noise. The Swedish trials were instigated by children telling colorful tales of being abducted by witches and carried off to sabbaths. In Salem, some of the afflicted people reported visiting these sabbaths. The narratives are remarkably consistent across the Swedish trials and the panic in Massachusetts.

    Dorothy Good: The Youngest Accused

    Dorothy, sometimes called Dorcas in older texts, was only four or five years old when she was arrested, interrogated, and chained in the dungeon. While she was not executed like her mother, Sarah Good, the effects of that imprisonment followed her for the rest of her life. Dorothy was finally released from jail on December 10, 1692, after spending nearly nine months in custody.

    Rachel Christ-Doane’s research shows that Dorothy’s release did not lead to a stable life. When she was released, she returned to her father, William Good. He had remarried rather quickly to a woman named Elizabeth after his wife Sarah had been executed. William Good eventually petitioned the colony for restitution in 1710, claiming that the imprisonment had so ruined and destroyed his daughter, Dorothy, that she was ungovernable and a financial burden. Her father took the settlement money and abandoned Dorothy and his new wife, leaving them to the care of the town.

    Recent research into the town records of Salem and Beverly by Christ Doanes reveals a transient, unstable adulthood for Dorothy. She did not have a permanent home. The records show her bouncing around from household to household, dependent on others for her basic survival. For a significant portion of her adult life, Dorothy lived with a man named Jonathan Batchelder in Beverly. That name is significant because Jonathan Batchelder had been one of the accusers who testified against Dorothy’s mother, Sarah Good, during the trials. Was he caring for the daughter of the woman he helped execute out of guilt, or was it simply a matter of the town paying him to do so?

    Dorothy’s life was a cycle of institutions and wandering. At various points, she was sent to the house of correction in Salem, a workhouse for the poor that was physically attached to the very jail where she had been traumatized as a child. The records show that Dorothy had two children and never married. She had a son named William and a daughter named Dorothy. Because she was impoverished and unmarried, the town took those children away and indentured them out to other families. Her daughter was indentured to Nathaniel Putnam and her son to Jonathan Batchelder.

    A newspaper article from New London, Connecticut, describes the discovery of “a transient vagrant woman named Dorothy Good found dead in a bog meadow.” Was this the same Dorothy Good? The Salem Witch Trials did not end when the courts stopped. For Dorothy Good, the consequences of the witch-hunt lasted a lifetime.

    The Towne Sisters: Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce

    On February 8, 1692, news of the new Massachusetts charter arrived in Boston, worrying many who were concerned about the colony losing some of its independence. The Towne sisters, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce were the daughters of William and Joanna Towne. Rebecca and Mary were born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England before the family migrated to the colonies. Sarah was born later in Massachusetts. The Townes eventually settled in Topsfield, Massachusetts on a farm that stretched toward Beverly. In 1692, the sisters were grown women with families of their own. They were church members and well respected.

    Rebecca Nurse was the oldest at 71 years old. She was sick at the time of her arrest on March 24, 1692, and her community considered her a pious member of the Salem Town church. Her arrest was a shock to many, including herself. Her trial was one of the most notable moments of the entire witch-hunt. The jury initially found her not guilty, but the chief justice, William Stoughton, was not satisfied. He sent the jury back to reconsider. During the trial, another accused woman, Deliverance Hobbs, was brought in. Rebecca asked, “What do you bring her for? She’s one of us.” Did Rebecca mean that she was a fellow prisoner? The court interpreted “one of us” to mean one of us witches. Because Rebecca was elderly, possibly hard of hearing, the courtroom was crowded and noisy, and the afflicted people were screaming, Rebecca could not hear the court ask her to clarify the statement. Her silence was taken as a confession of guilt. She was executed on July 19, 1692.

    Mary Esty lived in Topsfield. She was arrested, interrogated, and actually released in May 1692 because the accusers momentarily stopped crying out against her. But then the afflicted girl, Mercy Lewis, fell into fits and claimed Mary’s specter was choking her and would kill her by midnight. Mary was rearrested and dragged to jail in the middle of the night. Mary knew she was going to die, but rather than pleading for her own life, she wrote a petition to the governor, the judges, and the ministers.  She asked the judges to examine the accusers separately. Mary Esty was hanged on September 22, 1692, in the final group of executions.

    Sarah Cloyce, the youngest sister, was about 20 years younger than Rebecca. Her trouble began in church. The Reverend Samuel Parris preached a sermon titled “Christ Knows How Many Devils There are in His Church,” clearly targeting Rebecca Nurse. Sarah stood up and walked out of the church, allegedly allowing the door to slam behind her. Shortly after, she was accused. The afflicted girls claimed they saw Sarah at the Witches’ Sabbath serving red bread and blood wine as a deacon of the devil. She spent months in the Boston and Ipswich jails but unlike her sisters, she was never tried. The grand jury eventually dismissed the case against her. After her release in January 1693, Sarah and her husband, Peter Cloyce, moved to what is now Framingham, Massachusetts. The road they settled on is called today Salem End Road.

    Their legacy lives on today through the Towne Family Association and the many descendants who gather to honor them.

    This Week’s Podcast: Mary Black: An Enslaved Woman Accused of Witchcraft

    The Thing About Salem explores the story of Mary Black, an enslaved woman who was accused of witchcraft in April 1692. Her story appears in the historical record only because she was accused, examined, imprisoned, and eventually cleared.

    Mary Black lived in the household of Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam. When we hear Putnam in the Salem trials, we think of Thomas, Edward, and Ann Putnam Junior, but this household belonged to Nathaniel Putnam. Nathaniel had real political power. In December 1691, he was the moderator of a town meeting who announced that Minister Samuel Parris’s contract had been broken. He told Salem Village to stop paying Parris’s salary. This financial crisis hit the Parris household just weeks before the afflictions began.

    Nathaniel Putnam comes up repeatedly in the record. He had land disputes with the Francis Nurse farm, but it does not appear he used the trials to settle scores. On June 29, 1692, he signed a petition in defense of Rebecca Nurse. He was one of eight Putnams to sign for her. While Thomas and Edward Putnam were filing complaints and Ann Putnam Senior and Junior were among the afflicted accusers, Nathaniel and seven other Putnams signed a petition defending Rebecca Nurse. The Putnam family was not united. They took opposing sides during the trials.

    Mary was accused of witchcraft on April 21 and examined on April 22 before Judge Hathorne and Judge Corwin. The transcript was recorded by Samuel Parris. The judges asked, “Be you a witch?” Mary Black was silent. “How long have you been a witch?” “I cannot tell.” Asked again, she replies, “I cannot tell you.” They asked about harming people. “Why do you hurt these folks?” She replied, “I hurt nobody.” “Who doth?” “I do not know.”

    She then faced spectral evidence. Several of the afflicted persons said they had been hurt by her, and Mary denied it. They asked her to demonstrate pinning her neck cloth. She did, and when that happened, several of the afflicted cried out that they were pricked. Mary Walcott said she was pricked in her arm until the blood came. Abigail Williams claimed to be pricked in the stomach. Mercy Lewis said she was pricked in the foot.

    Mary was imprisoned for nearly nine months. She was released from Boston Jail on January 3, 1693, to go to the jail in Salem for a trial. On January 11, 1693, she was cleared by proclamation at a superior court session held in Salem. 

    When we contrast Mary Black with Rebecca Nurse, the disparity is clear. Rebecca Nurse was a white woman of standing. 39 people testified to her Christian character. Nathaniel Putnam used political influence on her behalf. There are no defenders on record for Mary Black. No petitions. No testimonies in support. She was in that household, but there are no records of anyone advocating for her.

    Once somebody was cleared of charges, they still had to pay jail fees to be released from prison. Did Nathaniel Putnam pay for Mary Black’s release? Did he advocate for her like he did for Rebecca Nurse? The documents do not shed any light on this. Mary Black survived. She was cleared. But the questions her story raises about race, power, and silence in colonial America are questions we must keep asking.

    Conclusion

    This week moved from the accused to the archives and back again. Sarah Good’s poverty and reputation made her one of the first targets, and she maintained her innocence to the end. The books and pamphlets that crossed the Atlantic shaped not only how the trials were conducted but what the accusers described in their testimony. The folk magic that colonists practiced in their own homes blurred the line between the accusers and the accused. And the 980 surviving primary source documents, from warrants to jailer’s bills to Mary Esty’s petition, make it possible to study the crisis day by day, even as the gaps in those records reveal whose stories colonial America chose to preserve and whose it did not. Dorothy Good and the Towne sisters show that the outcomes of the trials ranged widely, from execution to release to a lifetime of instability, but none of them escaped without consequence.

    Where We Are

    Week 6 of ~75 weeks | ~8% Complete | January 2026 – May 2027

    February 2 through February 8, 1692. The accused are emerging. The documents survive. 

    Key People This Week

    Sarah Good was a destitute woman from Salem Village, one of the first three accused, who never confessed and delivered one of the most famous lines in witch trial history at the gallows before her execution on July 19, 1692

    Dorothy Good was the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, arrested, interrogated, and chained in the dungeon, whose imprisonment affected the rest of her life. A 1761 newspaper article may describe her death as a transient woman found in a bog meadow

    William Good was Sarah Good’s husband, a laborer who testified against his own wife, calling her “an enemy to all good,” and later abandoned their daughter Dorothy

    Rebecca Nurse was the eldest Towne sister, 71 years old, found not guilty by the jury but convicted after Chief Justice Stoughton sent the jury back, executed July 19, 1692

    Mary Esty was the middle Towne sister who wrote a petition pleading not for her own life but that no more innocent blood be shed, executed September 22, 1692

    Sarah Cloyce was the youngest Towne sister who walked out of church in protest, was accused and jailed but never tried, survived and moved to Framingham

    Mary Black was an enslaved woman in the household of Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam, accused in April 1692, jailed for nine months, cleared in January 1693, with no defenders on record

    Nathaniel Putnam was a powerful Salem Village figure who opposed Parris’s salary, signed a petition defending Rebecca Nurse, and owned Mary Black, but left no record of advocating for her

    Margo Burns was the associate editor and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, the definitive 2009 collection of primary source documents

    Cotton Mather was the influential minister whose reading of European witch trial accounts, especially from Sweden, introduced the concepts of flying witches and satanic sabbaths to New England

    Roger Toothaker was a folk healer who died in prison during the trials, known for claiming he taught his daughter how to kill a witch by boiling urine

    Mary Sibley was the neighbor who instructed Tituba and John Indian on how to make the witch cake, the act Samuel Parris blamed for raising the devil in Salem

    Key Terms

    Witch Bottle was a bottle filled with the victim’s urine, pins, and nails, boiled or buried to inflict pain on a witch and break a curse

    Countermagic was the use of folk magic techniques to protect against or identify witches, practiced widely but condemned by ministers

    Witch Cake was an English countermagic cake made from rye meal and the afflicted girls’ urine, baked in ashes and fed to a dog to identify the witch

    Apotropaic Symbols were protective markings like hexafoils or daisy wheels carved on mantles and beams to ward off evil spirits

    Venus Glass or Oomancy was a fortune-telling method involving dropping an egg white into a glass of water to see the shape of a future husband’s trade tool

    Blockula was the great meadow in Swedish witch trial accounts where witches were said to hold a Witch’s Sabbath after being carried there by the devil

    The Great Noise was the name for the massive Swedish witch-hunt of 1669, instigated by children’s tales of being abducted by witches

    Saducismus Triumphatus was Joseph Glanvil’s English book published in 1681 that contained accounts of the Swedish witch trials and influenced Cotton Mather

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt was the definitive 2009 collection of 980 primary source documents, compiled by 12 scholars over 10 years from 12 archives

    Court of Oyer and Terminer was the emergency court whose official record books are missing, likely lost during the Stamp Act riot

    Mittimus was a jail receipt documenting the transfer of a prisoner to jail, one of the surviving document types from the trials

    Transatlantic Communication was the exchange of books, pamphlets, and letters across the Atlantic that carried witch-hunting methods and panic between England, Sweden, and the American colonies

    Share Your Progress

    Course students: Post your badges! ✅ #SalemDailyStudent (started the course) ✅ #SalemWeek6 (completed Week 6) ✅ #SalemDescendantPathStudent (if you have ancestral connections)

    Use #SalemDailyStudent #SalemWeek6 #ThingAboutSalem #SalemDailyYoutube #SalemDescendantPath to connect with others on this journey.

    Join the Conversation

    Sarah Good maintained her innocence at the gallows. Mary Esty petitioned not for her own life but for everyone who came after her. Mary Black survived nine months in jail with no documented support. Dorothy Good carried the consequences of her arrest for the rest of her life. Whose story stands out the most to you, and why? What does it mean that 980 documents survive but still cannot answer basic questions about Mary Black’s experience?

    Drop your thoughts in the comments.

    See you next week.

    #SalemDailyStudent #SalemWeek6 #ThingAboutSalem #SalemDailyYoutube

    Connect & Support

    Watch & Listen Salem Witch Trials Daily (YouTube) The Thing About Salem Podcast: Weekly episodes exploring Salem Witch Trials topics The Thing About Witch Hunts Podcast: Historical witch trials and modern witch hunt news

    Take Action MA Witch Hunt Justice Project: Sign the petition for justice and exoneration www.change.org/witchtrials Learn more: https://massachusettswitchtrials.org/

    Support Our Work This course is created by the nonprofit End Witch Hunts. Your donations support primary source research, educational content, and advocacy for those facing witch accusations today. Donate: https://endwitchhunts.org/donate/

    Sources & Further Reading

    Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience Bernard Rosenthal, ed., 

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege 

    Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 

    Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England 

    Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England 

    Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 

    Joseph Glanvil, Saducismus Triumphatus (1681) 

    Podcast Episode: Rachel Christ-Doane on the Salem Witch Museum and the Life of Dorothy Good https://aboutwitchhunts.com/early-modern/rachel-christ-doane-on-the-salem-witch-museum-and-the-life-of-dorothy-good/

    Primary Sources: 

    Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (2009) / Salem Witchcraft Papers (1977) / Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection / Examination Transcripts / Jailer’s Records / Petitions Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub Week 5 Course Work / The Thing About Salem / The Thing About Witch Hunts / The Thing About Witch Hunts & About Salem YouTube channel

  • Week 5 Blog: The Framework of Death

    January 26 – February 1, 2026

    Five weeks in, and the picture is becoming terrifyingly clear. You understand the social powder keg, the legal chaos, the charter crisis, and the imported European methodology. This week, you met the people who will populate the courtroom: the judge who will preside without mercy, the minister who will be accused of leading a witch conspiracy, the afflicted persons whose fits will determine guilt, and the neighbors whose casual curses over borrowed scythes and dead cows will become evidence of diabolical pacts. You examined the 1641 Body of Liberties, the legal code that made witchcraft a capital crime, and you traced Salem Village’s decades-long struggle for independence, a fight that will shape the factional lines of accusation. We are still in late January and early February 1692, but the framework of death is complete.

    This Week’s Content

    Daily Videos (Salem Witch Trials Daily YouTube Playlist)

    Week 5 Coursework: Standard Workbook / Youth Workbook

    Weekly Podcast: The Thing About Salem: “The Judges of the Salem Witch Trials Courts”
     Explore the men who presided over the examinations and trials, their backgrounds, their decisions, and their legacies

    William Stoughton: The Judge Without Mercy

    On January 26, 1692, Massachusetts received devastating news: York, Maine had been attacked on January 24th. Fifty English were killed and seventy to one hundred taken prisoner by French and Wabanaki forces. The minister Shubbael Dummer was killed and his body mutilated. War was happening at the northern border, and it created an atmosphere of apocalyptic crisis.

    That same day in our daily exploration, we examined William Stoughton, the man who would become Chief Justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and preside over the Salem Witch Trials with unwavering certainty.

    Born in England, Stoughton migrated as an infant to Dorchester, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1650, served as a minister in England while earning a master’s in divinity from Oxford, then returned to Massachusetts in 1662 as a merchant. He served in the General Court beginning in 1671, worked as a commissioner during King Philip’s War, and became a judge on county courts.

    Between 1676 and 1679, he worked as a colonial agent in London trying to preserve the Massachusetts charter. After returning, he was appointed major in the Suffolk County militia and served as deputy president of the Council of New England under Joseph Dudley during the Dominion of New England. He continued under Governor Edmund Andros as a judge.

    When Andros was ousted in 1689 following news of the Glorious Revolution, Stoughton was tainted by his association with the hated Dominion. He was not elected to office in the interim government between 1690 and 1692. He received the lieutenant governor position in 1692 because Increase Mather recommended him to the king, and his commission arrived with the new charter on May 14, 1692.

    Critically, Stoughton already had witch trial experience. He served during the 1681 trial of Mary Hale of Boston, the 1683 trial of Mary Webster of Hadley, and the 1683 trial of James Fuller of Springfield. He was possibly involved in the case of Elizabeth Morse, who was convicted by the Court of Assistants in May 1680 but reprieved three times and eventually released to house arrest.

    William Stoughton never married and never had children. He had only one sibling, a sister. He worked as acting governor of Massachusetts from the death of Governor Phips in 1695 until his own death in 1701.

    His infamous actions during the Salem Witch Trials will unfold day by day as we proceed through the examinations and trials. He was the man in the judge’s seat, and he never wavered.

    George Burroughs: The Minister Accused of Witchcraft

    On January 27, 1692, two Wabanaki messengers met with Wells, Maine minister George Burroughs and informed him that the captives taken at York three days before could be ransomed in two to three weeks. Burroughs sent a letter to the Massachusetts governor and council pleading for help. He wrote, “God is still manifesting his displeasure against this land. He who formerly has set to his hand to help us doth even write bitter things against us.”

    George Burroughs was born in Virginia around 1653. His father, Nathaniel, was a successful merchant who moved to Maryland and then returned to England when George was young. George and his mother stayed in America. He was raised in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where his mother joined the church in 1657. George graduated from Harvard in 1670.

    He first married Hannah Fisher of Dedham, and their first child was baptized in Roxbury in February 1674. Soon after, he became the minister in the original Falmouth, Maine (now Portland). On August 11, 1676, Falmouth came under attack by French and Wabanaki forces. Burroughs escaped to a temporary refuge on an island in Casco Bay, along with the family of Mercy Lewis, one of the girls who would later accuse him. They knew each other in Falmouth.

    He served briefly as John Wheelwright’s assistant in the church in Wells, then became the minister in Salem Village, hired in November 1680 and serving until 1683. For the first nine months, Burroughs with his wife and two children lived in the home of Rebecca Putnam and John Putnam Senior. Then they moved to the brand new parsonage.

    His wife, Hannah Fisher Burroughs, died in September 1681. The couple had four children together, three of whom survived infancy.

    He married again, this time to Sarah Ruck Hathorne, the widow of Captain William Hathorne and brother of the witch judge John Hathorne. When Burroughs married Sarah, he became the brother-in-law of John Hathorne. The couple had four children together.

    His salary unpaid, George Burroughs left Salem Village in March 1683 and returned to Falmouth, which had been rebuilt during his time in Salem. He did return to Salem Village in late April 1683 to obtain his back pay and settle his debts. While he was in the village to settle his debts, John Putnam Senior had him arrested for unpaid debt before anything could be resolved. He was released after one night in jail.

    Burroughs had to make another trip back from Maine to Salem Town’s court in June 1683, but Putnam dropped the suit because Burroughs ordered the village to pay part of his unpaid salary directly to Putnam.

    He moved again in 1686, negotiating with Black Point, Maine to become their minister. He apparently then preached in both Black Point and Falmouth. He was in Falmouth on September 21, 1689 when French and Wabanaki forces again assaulted the town, but the attack was repelled.

    Between then and May 1690, his wife Sarah Ruck Hathorne Burroughs passed away. He took the minister job in Wells, Maine and relocated there. Both Falmouth and Black Point fell to attackers in May 1690. George remarried a third time, a woman named Mary.

    Following the York attack on January 24, 1692 and his January 27 letter pleading for help, George Burroughs continued ministering at Wells through the winter and early spring. On May 4, 1692, he was arrested on witchcraft charges in Wells, Maine and transported to Salem.

    He was accused by the afflicted girls of murdering his first two wives and the wife of his Salem Village successor, Deodat Lawson. His third wife left his children behind in Wells and fled with the one child they had together. Wells was attacked after Burroughs was arrested.

    Burroughs was executed on August 19, 1692. According to Thomas Brattle, Burroughs and the others who were hanged that day forgave those who had condemned them. According to Robert Calef, Burroughs perfectly recited the Lord’s Prayer, something witches were believed to be unable to do.

    The very fact that he had been fortunate enough to survive multiple attacks in Maine may have been a factor in the accusations against him. He would be accused of being the ringleader of the witches, the “little black minister” who presided over witch sacraments and recruited others to Satan’s service.

    Salem Village Independence: The Factional Lines

    On January 28, 1692, after the Thursday lecture, Salem Village’s men voted to confirm a previously elected committee to present a petition for independence at the Salem Town meeting. The committee was made up of Nathaniel Putnam, John Putnam, Francis Nurse, Joseph Hutchinson Senior, Joseph Porter, and Thomas Flint.

    Salem was established in 1626. Originally, the town was much larger geographically, incorporating parts of what are now Salem, Marblehead, Wenham, Swampscott, Beverly, Topsfield, Danvers, Middleton, and Peabody. Demand for land increased as the population grew, originally concentrated in the coastal area that is now the city of Salem. The land in the interior, originally known as Salem Farms, was settled beginning in the 1630s.

    Salem Farms consisted of various land grants made by both the town of Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Endicott, who was governor of Massachusetts Bay from 1628 to 1630 and again in the 1650s, held the largest land grant in the Farms. Other large landowners included Emmanuel Downing, brother-in-law of Governor John Winthrop Senior; William Hathorne, father of the future witch judge John Hathorne; and Richard Bellingham, a future governor.

    These large land grants were largely sold or leased, often to families we think of when we think of Salem Village in 1692. In 1647, William Hathorne sold his lands in Salem Farms to Richard Hutchinson, John Putnam, and Daniel Rea. In 1660, Richard Bellingham sold his land to three men, one of whom was Bray Wilkins, an accuser of John Willard during the witch trials. From 1666 to 1692, John Proctor leased Emmanuel Downing’s grant. In 1678, Francis and Rebecca Nurse signed a contract to rent a portion of the Endicott estate. This is where the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is located today.

    As the large land grants were divided through sales and leases, a cluster of homes and a tavern were built in the center of the Salem Farms region. Given the distance from this village to the Salem Town meeting house, in 1666 the farmers petitioned Salem’s town meeting for the opportunity to hire a minister of their own. The town rejected this request.

    In 1667, the farmers received permission from the General Court to skip night watch duty in the town, owing to the distance involved in traveling into town from their homes. In 1669, twenty-eight Salem farmers did not pay when a tax was levied for the construction of a new meeting house in the town. They said they would only pay for the town meeting house if the town residents would also contribute to a meeting house for the Farms.

    In 1670, the farmers submitted a petition to the General Court in hopes of winning the right to hire a minister and put up a meeting house. After two long years, Salem Village was organized as a distinct parish within the town of Salem in 1672, when the General Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of the villagers.

    The court’s order dated October 8 did not permit the village to gather a covenant church or ordain its minister. Over the next seventeen years, Salem Village had three different full-time ministers and at least one part-time preacher was brought in to fill a gap in ministers. None of these men were able to administer sacraments. Some villagers continued to make a monthly trip to Salem or another surrounding town to receive communion.

    In 1686, the village committee petitioned the town meeting for permission to ordain their minister Deodat Lawson. However, many in the village opposed Lawson and did not support the measure, which was not approved.

    The village finally gained the ability to ordain a minister and gather a church in 1689. On November 19, Samuel Parris was ordained as the minister of the Salem Village Church. Unfortunately, he was the man in the pulpit when trouble began in January 1692 with his daughter, Betty, and niece, Abigail.

    Over the six-plus decades following the witch trials, the villagers would continue to press periodically for independent town status. A particularly intense campaign began in 1733 and did not conclude until the town was incorporated as Danvers in 1757. They shed the Salem Village name. The king did not like the incorporation and sent it back with a note reading “the King unwilling,” a sentiment now expressed on the Danvers Town Seal.

    The Body of Liberties: The Legal Foundation

    On January 29, 1692, George Jacobs Senior dictated his will, leaving his homestead to his wife, Mary, until she passed, then to their son George, and then to his son George. Within months, George Jacobs Senior would be accused of witchcraft and executed. Business was still carrying on as usual on this date in history. 

    Compiled in 1641 by Nathaniel Ward, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties stands as New England’s first legal code. Ward was born in England around 1578, the son of a Puritan minister. He had a background in both fields, studying law to become a barrister and later entering the ministry. He moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1634, where he wrote this code before eventually returning to England.

    It was not just a list of rules but a list of liberties meant to guide the General Court. In many ways, this document was incredibly ahead of its time. It established rights that you would recognize today in the United States Bill of Rights: freedom of speech, the right to bail, the right to a jury trial, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment. It laid out general rights for all inhabitants of Massachusetts while also detailing specific rights for freemen, women, servants, foreigners, and even animals.

    However, it was still a product of its time. While it protected civil liberties, it also contained harsh prohibitions against straying from orthodox Puritan religious beliefs. The code listed twelve capital laws, crimes punishable by death. The very first three prohibited false gods, witchcraft, and blasphemy.

    Citing Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, the Body of Liberties stated: “If any man or woman be a witch, that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, They shall be put to death.”

    The timeline for these laws stretches back to May 1635, when the first committee was formed to frame laws resembling a Magna Carta. Over the next few years, multiple General Courts and committees met, asking towns to assemble and collect necessary fundamental laws. By 1641, after years of drafting including a competing draft by John Cotton, Ward’s model was preferred, though Cotton’s ideas heavily influenced the criminal provisions.

    On December 10, 1641, the General Court established the Body of Liberties. While scholars disagree on whether these liberties were ever fully or provisionally adopted, this document is widely considered the precursor to the Massachusetts General Laws and Constitution. By 1648, the General Court used this document to create the first printed laws, known as The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes, which served as the model for statutory law across New England.

    This was the legal foundation. Witchcraft was a capital crime. Those who consulted with familiar spirits would be put to death.

    The Curses and The Cursed: When Neighbors Became Witches

    For January 30, 1692, we examined how the Salem Witch Trials were fueled not by sorcery but by the friction of close-quarters living, where ordinary disputes over fences, livestock, and borrowed tools festered into deadly accusations. In this environment, a casual curse, often just a clap-back spoken in frustration or a mutter of discontent, became evidence of a diabolical pact.

    Martha Carrier was reportedly angry when land near the Carrier home was granted to Benjamin Abbott. According to Benjamin, Martha told him she would stick as close to him as the bark to the tree, that he would regret that land grant before seven years were out, and that the local physician, Dr. Prescott, would never be able to cure him. Sometime after this threat was made, Benjamin had a sore in his foot and then one in his side, which was lanced, producing several gallons of corruption. He claimed that he continued to have problems with sores until Martha was arrested for witchcraft.

    Sarah Good, who had fallen into poverty, often went door-to-door begging for charity. When neighbors refused her requests, she would walk away muttering, which those who had denied her interpreted as curses or spells cast in spite. When Sarah and Thomas Gage had a disagreement with her, likely over such a refusal, Sarah Good was heard muttering as she walked away. The neighbors interpreted this unintelligible grumbling as a curse. The next morning, one of the Gages’ cows was found dead, cementing the belief that her anger had lethal power. Her most famous curse occurred at the gallows. When Reverend Nicholas Noyes urged her to confess, she snapped, “I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.”

    Susannah Martin had a history of friction with her neighbors. When a neighbor named John Allen refused to loan her his oxen because they were overworked, an argument ensued. Subsequently, all of Allen’s oxen ran into the sea and drowned, an event he attributed to her anger. In another instance, when a neighbor named Robert Downer called her a witch, she retorted that “a she-devil would fetch him away,” a statement he recalled when he was later harassed by a shape resembling a cat.

    Margaret Scott was accused of bewitching a neighbor’s livestock following a dispute over food. When Daniel Wycomb told her she could not glean corn in his field until he had removed his crop, she reportedly told him, “You will not get your corn out tonight.” Wycomb testified that immediately following this interaction, his oxen refused to pull the cart, even though they were only a short distance from his home.

    Wilmot Redd of Marblehead was accused after a dispute over stolen linens involving her servant. When a neighbor, Mrs. Sims, threatened to go to the magistrate regarding the theft, Wilmot Redd reportedly snapped that she wished that she might never urinate nor defecate. Following this harsh wish, Mrs. Sims was seized with the dry bellyache and remained ill for many months, a condition the court attributed to Redd’s anger.

    Sarah Wildes faced long-standing animosity from neighbors in Topsfield. In one instance, John and Joseph Andrews asked to borrow a scythe, but Sarah refused, claiming she did not have one to lend. When the men found the scythe anyway and took it, Sarah angrily retorted, “It is a brave world if everyone did what they would.” Shortly after this confrontation, the neighbors experienced mishaps with their hay, which they blamed on Sarah’s ill will.

    These were not supernatural events. They were ordinary neighborhood disputes. A refused loan. A denied request. A muttered complaint. A sharp retort. In the atmosphere of 1692, with the legal machinery in place, the judges ready, and the afflicted girls seeing specters, these everyday frictions became evidence of witchcraft.

    The Afflicted Persons: Not Just Girls

    For January 31, 1692, we examined the afflicted persons, the individuals whose accusations determined who was arrested, whose testimony convicted the innocent, and whose fits in the courtroom sealed the fate of the accused. When we think of the Salem witch trials, we often picture a handful of afflicted girls. But historian Marilynne K. Roach identifies seventy-three people who claimed affliction during the crisis. This larger group included adults such as Ann Putnam Senior and John Indian.

    The crisis began in January 1692 in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris in Salem Village when his daughter, Betty, and niece, Abigail Williams, began to exhibit strange symptoms. They displayed behaviors such as barking like dogs, quacking like chickens, hiding under furniture, and attempting to walk into fireplaces.

    On February 24, 1692, a physician, believed to be Dr. William Griggs, diagnosed the girls as being under an evil hand, ruling out natural causes. On February 25, following the baking of the witch cake (rye flour mixed with the girls’ urine) in the Parris home, the afflictions spread. Ann Putnam Junior and Elizabeth Hubbard began showing symptoms. On February 26 and 27, the girls began naming their tormentors, specifically Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne.

    In March 1692, the afflictions spread further to individuals like Mary Walcott and Mercy Lewis and began occurring publicly during church services and throughout the witch examinations. The afflictions would continue to spread throughout Essex County.

    Betty Parris was nine years old and the daughter of Samuel Parris. She was one of the first two children to be afflicted. Her symptoms included contortions and throwing herself on the floor during examinations. She was removed from the village relatively early in the crisis, sent to Salem Town to live with Stephen Sewall (the brother of Judge Samuel Sewall) to separate her from the ordeal. Because she was removed, she dropped out of the trials and legal proceedings. She survived and lived into the 1760s.

    Abigail Williams was eleven years old and the niece of Samuel Parris, living in the parsonage. Though often portrayed as older in fiction like The Crucible, she was a child at the time. She was a key accuser who provided vivid testimony, including claims of seeing “a little black minister” (George Burroughs) and attending a witch sacrament involving red bread and blood wine in Parris’s pasture. She demonstrated behaviors like running around rooms flapping her arms and crying “whish, whish.” She disappears from the historical record after the trials. Her death date and location are unknown.

    Ann Putnam Junior was twelve years old, the daughter of Thomas Putnam Junior (a parish clerk and sergeant) and Ann Putnam Senior. She was one of the most active accusers, her name appearing on over one hundred depositions. She claimed to see the ghosts of George Burroughs’ first two wives, who told her they had been murdered. Her family was heavily involved in the accusations. Her father Thomas and uncle Edward filed many of the initial complaints, and her mother was also afflicted. She is the only one of the afflicted girls known to have publicly apologized. In 1706, she stood in church while her apology was read, stating she had been deluded by Satan and specifically apologizing to the family of Rebecca Nurse. She remained unmarried, raised her siblings after her parents died young, and died at a relatively young age.

    Ann Putnam Senior was the wife of Thomas Putnam Junior and the mother of Ann Putnam Junior. At the time of the trials in 1692, she was in her mid-thirties. Unlike the younger girls involved in the accusations, Ann Putnam Senior was a full-fledged adult. Her participation changed the legal nature of the proceedings because adult testimony carried significantly more weight in court than that of children.

    She was a primary accuser of Rebecca Nurse. Ann Senior claimed to have engaged in a two-hour physical struggle with Nurse’s specter on March 18, 1692. She testified that Nurse’s specter appeared to her wearing only a shift and nightcap, holding a little red book, and threatening to tear her soul from her body if she did not sign it. During Rebecca Nurse’s examination, Ann Senior shouted out accusations, asking, “Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God and die?” She testified that she saw the ghosts of her six deceased nieces from Boston. She claimed these apparitions called her Auntie and told her that Rebecca Nurse had murdered them. She played a key role in validating gossip that witchcraft ran in the Towne family, testifying that she heard John Putnam Junior say it was no wonder Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty were witches because their mother (Joanna Towne) had been one before them.

    Elizabeth Hubbard was seventeen years old, making her one of the older afflicted girls and old enough to testify under oath. She was an orphan living as a servant or maid with her great-aunt and uncle, Dr. William Griggs (the village doctor). She was a major accuser, testifying against many, including Sarah Good (claiming Good sent a wolf to attack her) and Rebecca Nurse. She fell into fits during examinations, claiming she was pinched and pricked by specters.

    Bathshua Pope was an adult woman and notably the aunt of Benjamin Franklin. She experienced afflictions during church services, such as being struck blind or having fits. During the examination of Elizabeth Proctor, Pope claimed her feet were afflicted.

    Sarah Bibber was a woman of relatively low social status and did not have a good reputation in the town. She rarely initiated accusations but would corroborate the claims of others, saying “that happened to me too.” She testified that the apparition of Sarah Good pressed her breath out, pinched her child, and choked her. Despite her low status, the judges appeared to find her testimony trustworthy.

    John Indian, husband of Tituba, was an enslaved Indigenous man living in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris. In late February 1692, a neighbor named Mary Sibley instructed John Indian and Tituba to bake a witch cake with her to identify who was afflicting the Parris girls. The process involved using rye meal and the urine of the afflicted girls, which was then fed to a dog. This use of English counter-magic was viewed by Reverend Parris as going to the devil for help against the devil and was blamed for escalating the crisis.

    As an Indigenous man and an outsider associated with the household where the trouble began, John was in a precarious position similar to his wife, Tituba, who was the first person accused. Following his wife’s accusation and imprisonment, John Indian began to display symptoms of affliction himself. 

    John Indian became an active participant in the examinations of other suspects. During the examination of Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce, he claimed to be bitten, choked, and pinched by their specters. When asked who hurt him, he identified Elizabeth Proctor, claiming her specter came to him at the parsonage and tried to force him to sign the Devil’s book. During John Willard’s examination, John Indian cried out, “Oh, he cuts me,” contributing to the spectral evidence used against Willard. His behavior angered skeptics like John Proctor, who famously threatened to beat the devil out of John Indian to cure his fits.

    While his wife Tituba confessed and was imprisoned (where she remained for over a year), John Indian avoided imprisonment by integrating himself into the group of accusers. By claiming affliction, he moved from being a potential suspect to a witness for the prosecution, granting him a degree of power and safety in the dangerous environment of 1692.

    The afflicted persons were not a monolithic group. They were children and adults, servants and landowners, the vulnerable and the calculating. Their motivations varied. Some may have genuinely believed they were bewitched. Some were embedded in families deeply invested in the accusations. Understanding who they were, their individual circumstances, and how their afflictions spread is critical to understanding how the trials unfolded.

    Animals in the Salem Witch Trials

    We kicked off the new month examining the animals involved in the Salem Witch Trials, who can be categorized as victims of maleficium, shapes taken by the Devil and demons, and familiars or specters that tormented the afflicted.

    When a cow stopped giving milk in 1692 Salem, it was not just bad luck. It could be evidence in a capital crime. From Elizabeth Howe’s bewitched mare to Dorothy Good’s snake familiar, from Tituba’s shape-shifting black dogs to the mysterious yellow bird that haunted the courtroom, animals were not just background details. They were central characters in the testimonies that sent people to the gallows. Understanding how colonists categorized these animals reveals the complex belief system that made spectral evidence not just believable but legally actionable.

    Livestock and domestic animals were frequently believed to be targets of a witch’s malice, often following a dispute. Giles Corey’s ox was reported to be strangely afflicted. In other instances, neighbors claimed their cows stopped giving milk following arguments with a witch. Sarah Wildes was accused of bewitching oxen, causing them to run into a brook. Elizabeth Howe was accused of bewitching a mare. A neighbor cut off the ear of the sick animal to burn it as counter-magic, after which the mare died. Giles Corey’s cat was reported to be afflicted with the same strange symptoms as his ox. Maleficium against livestock often included sheep and pigs, which would sicken or die.

    The Devil was believed to be able to shapeshift into various animal forms to communicate with or recruit witches. Tituba testified to seeing a black dog. Abigail Hobbs also claimed the Devil came to her in the form of a black dog to get her to agree to be a witch. Tituba described seeing a hog as one of the forms of the evil spirits. Tituba reported seeing a black cat and a red cat. A creature resembling a white calf was reported to have jumped down the chimney in the home of George Burroughs. Descriptions of the Devil or demons included a creature that was a monkey with a rooster’s head.

    Witches were believed to employ animal familiars or specters in animal shapes to torment their victims. A yellow bird was frequently mentioned in the courtroom. It was said to fly around Sarah Cloyce and was mentioned during the examination of Martha Corey. The afflicted girls also mimicked being birds, flapping their arms and flying about. Elizabeth Hubbard accused Sarah Good of sending a wolf to attack her. Four-year-old Dorothy Good was said to have a snake as a familiar that would suck between her fingers. In addition to the Devil appearing as a cat, spectral cats were reported to attack victims. John Hughes testified that a large gray cat appeared in his chamber. George Burroughs was accused of appearing to the afflicted in the shape of a cat. 

    Strange and hybrid creatures populated the testimonies. The minister George Burroughs denied his house in Maine was haunted, but admitted there were toads there. One witness described seeing a creature that had the body of a chicken or rooster and the head of a monkey. Witnesses described a creature that was hairy all over but shaped like a man. William Allen testified that he saw a mysterious beast or strange beast that transformed into the shapes of the three initial suspects: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba.

    According to Robert Calef, at least two dogs were put to death. A dog in Salem Village was reportedly afflicted. The afflicted girls who could see specters visited the dog and declared it bewitched by John Bradstreet, brother of Andover magistrate Dudley Bradstreet and son of Simon Bradstreet, who served as acting governor until William Phips arrived in May 1692 with a new colonial charter. The dog was put to death. Meanwhile, John Bradstreet escaped to New Hampshire. Another dog was said to have afflicted several people in Andover and was also put to death.

    A dangerous dog, a dying ox, a suspicious cat, a yellow bird circling a defendant’s head: each represented tangible evidence of invisible crimes in a world where the boundary between natural and supernatural was dangerously permeable.

    This Week’s Podcast: The Judges of the Salem Witch Trials Courts

    The Thing About Salem explores the men who presided over the examinations and trials during the Salem Witch Trials. Understanding who these judges were, their backgrounds, their beliefs, and their decisions is critical to understanding how twenty people were executed and hundreds more imprisoned.

    The Court of Oyer and Terminer, created by Governor Phips on May 27, 1692, was an emergency court designed to quickly clear the jails. William Stoughton served as Chief Justice. The other judges included John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, Bartholomew Gedney, John Richards, Wait Winthrop, Samuel Sewall, Peter Sergeant, and Nathaniel Saltonstall. Saltonstall resigned early, troubled by the proceedings.

    They were merchants, ministers turned magistrates, and military officers. They brought to the bench their experiences from earlier witch trials, their Puritan theological training, and their conviction that they were fighting a real war against Satan. They accepted spectral evidence, relied on the touch test, and watched the afflicted girls writhe in the courtroom, tolerating the evidence brought before them as real.

    Samuel Sewall would later publicly apologize for his role. William Stoughton never would. John Hathorne, whose questioning was aggressive and hostile, would never express regret. These were the men who decided guilt and innocence, who sent neighbors to the gallows, who presided over a legal system where conviction was nearly guaranteed once you were accused.

    The episode examines their individual backgrounds and connections, their legal reasoning, their interactions with the accused, and their legacies.

    Conclusion

    Week 5 reveals the framework of death fully assembled. You met William Stoughton, the judge who would preside without mercy. You met George Burroughs, the minister who survived multiple frontier attacks only to be accused of being the ringleader of the witches. You traced Salem Village’s decades-long fight for independence, a struggle that shaped the factional lines of accusation. You examined the 1641 Body of Liberties, the legal code that made witchcraft a capital crime punishable by death. You saw how ordinary neighborly disputes over borrowed scythes, dead cows, and muttered curses became evidence of diabolical pacts. You met the afflicted persons, not just young girls but adults, servants, and even an enslaved man who joined the accusers to save himself. You cataloged the animals who populated the testimonies as victims, demons, and familiars.

    The law is in place. The judges are appointed. The accusers are ready. The neighbors are primed to see the devil in every dispute. These were not myths. They were real people with real grievances, real fears, real ambitions, and real consequences. The framework of death is complete.

    Where We Are

    Week 5 of ~75 weeks | ~6.7% Complete | January 2026 – May 2027

    January 26 through February 1, 1692. The framework of death is complete: the law, the judges, the accusers, the accused, and the patterns of suspicion. Next week: the first examinations begin on March 1, 1692.

    Key People This Week

    William Stoughton was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and Chief Justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the man who presided over the trials without mercy and never apologized

    George Burroughs was the former Salem Village minister who survived multiple frontier attacks in Maine, only to be arrested and executed as the alleged ringleader of the witches

    Nathaniel Ward was the author of the 1641 Body of Liberties, New England’s first legal code that made witchcraft a capital crime

    Ann Putnam Senior was an adult accuser whose testimony carried more legal weight than the children’s, primary accuser of Rebecca Nurse

    John Indian was an enslaved Indigenous man who helped bake the witch cake, then became an afflicted accuser to avoid suspicion after his wife Tituba was imprisoned

    Betty Parris was the nine-year-old daughter of Samuel Parris, one of the first two afflicted, later removed from the village and survived

    Abigail Williams was the eleven-year-old niece of Samuel Parris, one of the first two afflicted, claimed to see George Burroughs as the “little black minister”

    Ann Putnam Junior was a twelve-year-old primary accuser whose name appears on over one hundred depositions, the only afflicted girl to publicly apologize in 1706

    Key Terms

    Body of Liberties was the 1641 legal code compiled by Nathaniel Ward that established civil rights and listed twelve capital crimes, including witchcraft

    Familiar Spirits were devils in bodily shapes like birds, cats, rats, and dogs that witches allegedly consulted with, making witchcraft a capital crime under the Body of Liberties

    Spectral Evidence was testimony about what a person’s spirit allegedly did, accepted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer

    Touch Test was the belief that if an accused witch touched an afflicted person, the affliction would stop because the evil flowed back into the witch

    Maleficium was harm caused by witchcraft, often against livestock following neighborly disputes

    Witch’s Mark or Teat was supposedly left by the devil on a witch’s body for familiars to suckle, searched for in invasive examinations

    Yellow Bird was a spectral creature frequently mentioned in courtroom testimony, said to fly around accused witches

    The Afflicted were the seventy-three people identified by historian Marilynne K. Roach who claimed to be tormented by witches, including both children and adults

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    Join the Conversation

    What do you think happens when the examinations begin on March 1, 1692? The law says witchcraft is a capital crime. The judges are in place. The accusers are ready. The neighbors are primed to interpret every dispute as evidence of witchcraft. The machinery of death is ready to operate.

    Drop your predictions in the comments.

    See you next week.

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    Sources & Further Reading

    Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience

    Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

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

    Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

    Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England

    Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

    Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft

    John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England

    Richard S. Ross III, Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647-1663

    Primary Sources: The Body of Liberties (1641) / The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes (1648) / Examination Records from the Salem Witch Trials Witness Depositions and Testimonies

    Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub Week 4 Course Work / The Thing About Salem / The Thing About Witch Hunts / The Thing About Witch Hunts & About Salem YouTube channel

  • Week 4 Blog: The Machinery of Death

    January 19-25, 2026

    Four weeks in, and you’ve built a foundation. You started with the social powder keg of Salem Village, moved through the legal chaos of Massachusetts, traced the charter crisis and ministerial conflicts, and now you understand how 250 years of European witch-hunting methodology culminated in the machinery that would kill 20 people for witchcraft in 1692 New England. This week, you moved from abstract theory to concrete application, watching how theological concepts became legal procedures, how books became instruction manuals, and how invasive physical examinations became “evidence.” We’re still in January 1692, but the machinery of death is now fully assembled.

    This Week’s Content

    Daily Videos (Salem Witch Trials Daily YouTube Playlist)

    Weekly Podcast The Thing About Salem: “Who Wrote the First Book on the Salem Witch Trials?” Explore how Deodat Lawson, Thomas Brattle, the Mathers, Robert Calef, and others documented the evolution from terror to regret

    From Europe to Salem: 250 Years of Methodology

    The Salem Witch Trials didn’t emerge from a vacuum. They were the culmination of 250 years of European witch-hunting methodology, transmitted through books, legal precedents, and shared beliefs across the Atlantic.

    Between 1428 and 1436, witch trials in the Canton of Valais resulted in over 100 executions. Authorities believed witches were so numerous and organized they could raise up a king to challenge Christendom. The elaborated theory emerged: witches made pacts with the devil, attended sabbats, and formed a conspiracy against Christianity.

    In 1486, Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum standardized these beliefs and spread them across Europe through the printing press. Roughly 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft across Europe from 1400 to 1750. Between 40,000 and 60,000 were executed.

    The Holy Roman Empire was the epicenter, accounting for roughly half of all executions. Torture extracted confessions leading to chain-reaction accusations. England treated witchcraft as a felony, not heresy. Witches were hanged rather than burned. Scotland was far more brutal, executing five times as many people per capita as England. Southern Europe’s Inquisitorial Courts were skeptical, executing very few people.

    Witch trials declined in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Magistrates realized it was impossible to prove that a crime had taken place. Centralized justice systems made convictions harder. High profile failures undermined credibility. Witch trials were expensive and socially disruptive. The hunt didn’t end because of enlightenment, but rather due to legal reform, judicial skepticism, and social exhaustion.

    Proving the Unprovable: Methods That Crossed the Atlantic

    Witchcraft was classified as crimen exceptum, an exceptional crime. Courts suspended normal legal protections, justifying torture to secure confessions. They searched for the Devil’s mark, believing the devil left an insensitive spot on the witch’s body. The swimming test relied on the belief that pure water would reject a witch. Spectral evidence allowed testimony that a witch’s spirit performed harm while their body was elsewhere.

    During England’s civil war in the 1640s, Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General, exploited the legal vacuum. He employed watching and walking, keeping suspects awake for days. The stated purpose was to watch for demonic familiars. The actual result was sleep deprivation that induced hallucinations and extracted confessions. These methods were later exported to New England.

    In 1649, Newcastle experienced the largest single mass execution for witchcraft in English history. Approximately 15 people were hanged in a single day. The witch pricker was eventually exposed, confessing he had been responsible for the deaths of over 200 women, all for financial gain.

    New England Before Salem: The Precedents

    The first execution for witchcraft in the American colonies happened in Hartford, Connecticut on May 26, 1647 when Alice Young was hanged. Between 1647 and 1654, Connecticut executed seven people consecutively, a 100% conviction rate.

    The Hartford Witch Panic of 1662 to 1663 reached its peak when Ann Cole experienced what was interpreted as demonic possession. Her fits implicated Rebecca Greensmith, who confessed and implicated others. Mary Barnes and Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith hanged on January 25, 1663.

    Connecticut established a crucial precedent for ending witch trials. In 1669, Governor Winthrop and minister Gershom Bulkeley ruled that spectral evidence was insufficient for conviction. This effectively ended executions in Connecticut decades before Salem.

    Between 1648 and 1688, five women were executed in Boston. Margaret Jones became the first woman executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts Bay. Her case established the precedent for searching accused’s bodies for witch teats, a practice imported from English witchfinders like Matthew Hopkins.

    The 1688 execution of Goody Glover in Boston served as a direct precursor to Salem. Her alleged bewitchment of the Goodwin children was chronicled by Cotton Mather in Memorable Providences, widely disseminating the symptoms of bewitchment: fits, biting, flying objects. These same symptoms would reappear four years later in Salem Village.

    Witch trials occurred across North America with varying results. New York saw no such executions under colonial authority, reflecting Dutch legal skepticism. Pennsylvania’s jury found Margaret Mattson guilty only of having the reputation of a witch, but not guilty of actual witchcraft. Virginia treated witchcraft as harmful magic, with accusations typically handled as slander suits.Colonial New Mexico’s centralized Inquisition largely viewed accusations with skepticism. In early 1651, news that Bermuda was experiencing witch trials would reinforce New England colonists’ belief that they were part of a global battle against the devil.

    The Devil’s Mark: Invented Evidence

    English legal writers created detailed guides for finding witches. In 1618, Michael Dalton’s The Country Justice described marks as blue or red spots like flea bites, insensible to pain, often in their secretest parts. Richard Bernard listed exactly where to look: breasts under the nipples, thighs, buttocks, under the ears, armpits, within the lips, and in the secret parts. But as Robert Calef pointed out, none of this was in the Bible. This was invented by men.

    On June 2, 1692, examiners claimed that Bridget Bishop, Elizabeth Procter, and Rebecca Nurse each had marks in their secret parts. Bishop’s mark disappeared three hours later, Proctor’s vanished, and Nurse’s appeared as only dry skin on reexamination. Rebecca explained hers was from childbirth and asked for a new inspection by real experts. Even 4-year-old Dorothy Good had a red spot where they claimed a snake suckled.

    The War of Words: From Terror to Regret

    While blood was being spilled, ink was flowing. The narrative of 1692 shifted from terrified panic to deep regret.

    Two months before the trials began, Deodat Lawson documented his March 1692 trip to Salem Village. He saw Mary Walcott and Abigail Williams in violent fits with visible teeth prints on their arms. He noted that during examinations, if the accused bit their lip, the afflicted would instantly cry out in pain. His account, A Brief and True Narrative, published April 5, validated the supernatural attacks as real.

    Almost immediately, there was pushback. Reverend Samuel Willard wrote a dialogue between S, representing Salem prosecution, and B, representing the skeptical view. B argued you need humane evidence, not supernatural guesses. B attacked the touch test: If the Devil is doing the tormenting, why are we trusting him to tell us who the witch is?

    In October 1692, three heavyweights entered the ring: Thomas Brattle, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather. Brattle’s letter condemned the touch test as sorcery and exposed violent methods used to force confessions. Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of the Invisible World defended the trials as battles won in a holy war.

    But Increase Mather’s Cases of Conscience stopped the machinery of death. He asserted that Satan can transform into an Angel of Light. Therefore, seeing a ghost of your neighbor doing harm isn’t proof of guilt. He famously wrote that it is better for ten suspected witches to escape than for one innocent person to be condemned. Once Increase Mather changed the standard of evidence, the trials collapsed.

    By 1697, Reverend John Hale wrote A Modest Enquiry, admitting they walked in clouds and darkness. In 1700, Robert Calef published More Wonders of the Invisible World, directly attacking Cotton Mather and documenting the recantations of confessors who admitted they lied to save their lives.

    Thomas Maule saw the trials as Divine Judgment against New England for persecuting Quakers. He said it is better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.

    These documents map the psychological collapse of the witch trials, showing how fear can hijack a system, and how difficult but necessary it is to walk that back.

    Governor Sir William Phips: Absent Leadership

    William Phips couldn’t read until age 21. He made his fortune diving for Spanish treasure, becoming the wealthiest man in New England. King Charles II knighted him, making him the first New England-born knight.

    He spent most of 1691 and early 1692 in London petitioning for a new colonial charter. He landed in Boston with the charter on May 14, 1692. No witches had been hanged yet.

    On May 27, 1692, Governor Phips created the Court of Oyer and Terminer with Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton as chief justice. In June, ministers urged caution on spectral evidence but also urged “the speedy and vigorous prosecution” of witches. On June 25, Phips arrested a minister for questioning the court’s judgment. In July, he granted Rebecca Nurse a reprieve but was dissuaded by “Salem gentlemen.” By September, he approved Cotton Mather’s defense of the trials.

    Phips did not write to England about the witch panic until October 12, 1692, five months after arriving. Sometime in fall 1692, his own wife was named as a witch. On October 29, 1692, Phips finally shut down the Court of Oyer and Terminer. On January 31, 1693, he overruled the final execution warrant. He blamed his lieutenant governor, William Stoughton, for what had happened on his watch.

    This Week’s Podcast: Who Wrote the First Book on the Salem Witch Trials?

    The Thing About Salem explores the many early writings about the Salem Witch Trials. Even from the beginning, people couldn’t wait to write about it. People continued writing despite a colony-wide ban on publication.

    Deodat Lawson gives us the ground zero perspective. Samuel Willard wrote a fascinating underground dialogue questioning the evidence. In October 1692, Thomas Brattle exposed torture while Cotton Mather defended the trials. But Increase Mather effectively ended them by rejecting spectral evidence. By 1697, John Hale admitted they walked in clouds and darkness. In 1700, Robert Calef directly attacked Cotton Mather. Thomas Maule saw the trials as judgment against New England for persecuting Quakers.

    These documents map the psychological collapse of the witch trials, showing how fear can hijack a system.

    Conclusion

    Week 4 reveals the machinery of death fully assembled. European witch-hunting methodology was imported through books. Precedents were set in Connecticut and Massachusetts executions decades before Salem. Methods like sleep deprivation, searching for the devil’s mark, and accepting spectral evidence became standard procedure. Print culture created templates. Professional witch-finders showed it could be profitable. Legal vacuums enabled mass panics. An absent governor returned to jails packed with accused witches, creating an emergency court with disastrous consequences.

    These weren’t myths. They were real methods, real precedents, real books, and real decisions made under extraordinary pressure. The powder keg was packed in Week 2. The fuse was lit in Week 3. Now in Week 4, you understand exactly how the mechanism works. The first arrests are days away.

    Where We Are

    Week 4 of ~75 weeks | ~5% Complete | January 2026 – May 2027

    January 19 through 25, 1692. The imported methodology is in place, precedents are set, invasive examinations are normalized, and the governor has assembled an emergency court. Next week: late January when afflictions spread beyond Betty and Abigail and the first accusations are made.

    Key People This Week

    Matthew Hopkins was the English “Witchfinder General” during the 1640s who developed sleep deprivation methods exported to New England

    Margaret Jones was the first woman executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts Bay in 1648, establishing the precedent for searching bodies

    Goody Glover was executed in Boston in 1688, her case chronicled by Cotton Mather creating the template for Salem afflictions

    Deodat Lawson published the first book on Salem in April 1692, validating supernatural attacks as real

    Thomas Brattle wrote a scathing October 1692 letter exposing torture and hypocrisy in the trials

    Increase Mather published Cases of Conscience in October 1692, effectively ending the trials by rejecting spectral evidence

    Robert Calef published More Wonders of the Invisible World in 1700, directly attacking Cotton Mather and blaming clergy for the bloodshed

    William Phips was Massachusetts’s first royal governor who created the Court of Oyer and Terminer and eventually shut it down

    Key Terms

    Cumulative Theory was the belief that witches formed an organized diabolical sect threatening Christendom, developed in 15th century Western Alps

    Crimen Exceptum was classification of witchcraft as an exceptional crime justifying suspension of normal legal protections

    Watching and Walking was sleep deprivation method used by Matthew Hopkins to extract confessions

    Witch’s Mark or Teat was supposedly left by the devil on a witch’s body, searched for in invasive examinations

    Spectral Evidence was testimony about what a person’s spirit allegedly did, ultimately rejected as unreliable

    Court of Oyer and Terminer was the emergency court created by Governor Phips on May 27, 1692 to try witchcraft cases

    Familiar Spirits were devils in bodily shapes like birds, cats, rats, and dogs that supposedly

    Share Your Progress

    Course students: Post your badges!

    ✅ #SalemStudent (started the course) ✅ #SalemWeek4 (completed Week 4) ✅ #SalemDescendantPathStudent (if you have ancestral connections)

    Use #SalemDailyStudent #SalemWeek4 #ThingAboutSalem #SalemDailyYoutube #SalemDescendantPath to connect with others on this journey.

    Join the Conversation

    What do you think happens next? When the machinery of death is assembled, the governor is absent then returns to packed jails, and everyone knows the methods from books and precedents, what does Salem Village do?

    Drop your predictions in the comments.

    See you next week.

    #SalemDailyStudent #SalemWeek4 #ThingAboutSalem #SalemDailyYoutube

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    The Thing About Witch Hunts Podcast: Historical witch trials and modern witch hunt news

    Take Action

    MA Witch Hunt Justice Project:

    Sign the petition for justice and exoneration

    Learn more

    Support Our Work

    This course is created by the nonprofit End Witch Hunts. Your donations support primary source research, educational content, and advocacy for those facing witch accusations today.

    Donate: https://endwitchhunts.org/donate/

    Sources & Further Reading

    Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts

    Brian A. Pavlac, Witch Hunts in the Western World

    Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe

    Richard S. Ross III, Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647-1663

    David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693

    Emerson W. Baker and John G. Reid, The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651-1695

    Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience

    Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

    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

    Marion Gibson, The Witches of St. Osyth

    Marion Gibson, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials

    Marion Gibson, Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550-1750

    Malcolm Gaskill, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

    Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy

    James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England

    Paul B. Moyer, Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World

    Martin Austin Nesvig, The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

    Alison Games, Witchcraft in Early North America

    Primary Sources:

    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 Hub

    Week 3 Course Work

    The Thing About Salem

    The Thing About Witch Hunts

    The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel

  • 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
  • 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

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    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.