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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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
