In May 1692, one of Boston’s most respected citizens walked into a Salem courtroom—and the accusers couldn’t even identify him. Captain John Alden Jr., son of Mayflower passengers and decorated war hero, seemed an unlikely target for witchcraft accusations. But his connections to Native Americans and the French made him dangerous in the eyes of wartime Massachusetts.
What happened when Salem’s witch hunt reached beyond the village to pull in a prominent Bostonian with impeccable colonial credentials? This episode examines how Captain Alden’s examination revealed the absurdity and danger of the spectral evidence system and how his escape became one of the trial period’s most dramatic moments.
From his parents’ legendary Plymouth courtship to his own flight from justice, Captain Alden’s story shows us who could be accused, who could survive, and what it took to navigate Salem’s machinery of suspicion.
Episode Highlights:
John Alden Sr. and Priscilla: The last surviving Mayflower passenger and the marriage that inspired Longfellow
Captain Alden’s controversial fur trading and the rumors that made him a target
The chaotic May 31st examination where accusers needed prompting
The touch test, the sword, and the claims of “Indian Papooses”
His September escape to Duxbury and surprising return
Key Figures: Captain John Alden Jr., John & Priscilla Alden, Judges Bartholomew Gedney and John Richards, Rev. Samuel Willard, Robert Calef
The Thing About Salem examines the people, places, and events of the 1692 Salem witch trials. New episodes weekly.
In this episode of The Thing About Salem, co-hosts Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson examine one of the most invasive and degrading practices used during the Salem Witch Trials: the search for witch’s marks and devil’s teats. Discover how this invented “evidence” was used to convict innocent people—including the hosts’ ancestors.
What You’ll Learn:
The Origins of Witch Mark Theory
How English legal writers like Michael Dalton (1618) and William Perkins created detailed instructions for finding “devil’s marks”
Why Richard Bernard claimed these marks appeared in “secretest parts” requiring invasive searches
The shocking truth: none of this evidence appears in the Bible
Familiar Spirits in Salem
Cotton Mather’s definition of familiar spirits as “devils in bodily shapes”
Strange creatures described in testimony: hairless cats with human ears, rooster-monkey hybrids, and hairy upright beings
How these supposed demons were believed to feed from witch’s teats
The Salem Examinations
Documented searches of accused witches including Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, and Elizabeth Procter
George Jacobs Sr.’s brutal examination with pins driven through his flesh
Four-year-old Dorothy Good’s traumatic examination and the “flea bite” used as evidence
Why some marks disappeared between examinations—and what that tells us
Dehumanizing Practices
The invasive nature of stripping and examining prisoners in their “most intimate areas”
How postpartum scarring from childbirth was twisted into evidence of witchcraft
Why the Court of Oyer and Terminer convicted all 27 people tried in 1692—whether marks were found or not
Modern Connections As Robert Calef pointed out in More Wonders of the Invisible World, witch marks weren’t biblical—they were man-made tests designed to find guilt. This pattern continues in modern witch hunts worldwide, where accusers still decide what constitutes “evidence” against innocent victims.
Perfect for listeners interested in:
Salem Witch Trials history
Colonial American history
Wrongful convictions and false evidence
Women’s history and bodily autonomy
Modern witch hunts and human rights
Historical witchcraft accusations
Legal history and justice reform
Featured Historical Sources:
William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft
Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice (1618)
Richard Bernard, The Certainty of the World of Spirits
Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World
Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative
Original Salem Witch Trial examination records
About the Hosts: Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson are descendants of Salem witch trial victims and co-founders of End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit addressing modern witch hunts globally. Together, they co-host The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts (265+ episodes).
Support Our Work: Learn more about modern witch hunts and how to help at EndWitchHunts.org
In Salem, people were hanged based on crimes no one else could see.
In Salem, accusers claimed to see the ghostly “shapes” of their neighbors tormenting them from miles away. These spectral attacks left real bruises, real terror, and real questions: Could the Devil impersonate innocent people? Why did Connecticut reject this evidence decades earlier while Salem embraced it with deadly consequences?
From midnight visitations to courtroom chaos, discover how testimony about invisible crimes became the most dangerous evidence in American legal history.
The shadows cast by Salem’s trials reach far beyond 1692—and the question of what we’re willing to believe based on what we cannot see remains as relevant as ever.
Explore one of the more bizarre forms of evidence used to convict witches in colonial America. When the Salem Witch Trials judges accepted poppets as deadly proof of witchcraft, they turned dolls and rags into evidence that cost innocent people like Bridget Bishop their lives. The judges admitted all kinds of evidence that wouldn’t survive five minutes in a modern courtroom, including poppets—dolls crafted with malicious intent—that were allegedly used to afflict targets from afar.
The hosts reveal how law enforcement searched accused witches’ homes for “pictures of clay or wax,” turning up everything from rag dolls stuffed with goat hair to knotted handkerchiefs filled with cheese and grass. In the most shocking cases, judges conducted live magical experiments in their own courtrooms while watching the “afflicted” witnesses writhe in apparent agony, then using these theatrical displays as evidence to send people to the gallows.
Listeners discover the tragic stories behind Salem’s most infamous poppet cases, like those involving Bridget Bishop, Candy, and Abigail Hobbs, who claimed the devil personally delivered poppets to her. The episode also explores pre-Salem cases like Goody Glover. This is another chapter in understanding how Salem became America’s most infamous example of justice gone terribly wrong.
