Show Notes
Step into Salem in 1692 as we follow Bridget Bishop from her life in Salem Town to the courtroom that condemned her. She was the first person executed in the Salem Witch Trials, convicted on testimony about specters, poppets, an “unnatural mark,” and long-running neighborhood quarrels—despite insisting she had never harmed the accusers and did not even know them. We trace her documented history from England to Massachusetts, her three marriages, earlier accusations that faded for lack of evidence, and the legal machinery that made her case the opening death sentence for the Court of Oyer and Terminer. We also confront how Bridget has been misremembered, explore modern portrayals like Cry Innocent and screen adaptations, and highlight memorials, exoneration, and the living legacy of her descendants.
Chapters
00:00 Bridget Bishop Introduced
00:40 Life Before 1692
02:24 Arrest And Examination
04:47 Spectral Evidence Piles Up
06:08 Trial And Execution
07:04 Myths And Mixups
07:36 Remembering Bridget Today
09:02 Stage And Screen Portrayals
09:57 Memorials And Exoneration10:49 Legacy And Descendants
Links
- End Witch Hunts
- The Thing About The Salem Witch Trials
- The Thing About Witch Hunts
- Salem Witch Trials History
- Buy A Book About The Salem Witch Trials
- Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub
- Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
- Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
- Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
- Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
- High Quality Scans of Original Court Documents – Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection