Salem Witchcraft Part 33

Joseph Fowler lived in Wenham, and was a person of respectability and influence. His brother Philip was also a leading man; was employed as attorney by the Village Parish in its lawsuit with Mr. Parris; and married a sister of Joseph Herrick. They were the grandsons of the first Philip, who was an early emigrant from Wales, settling in Ipswich, where he had large landed estates. Henry Fowler and his two brothers, now of Danvers, are the descendants of this family: one of them, Augustus, distinguished as a naturalist, especially in the department of ornithology; the other, Samuel Page Fowler, as an explorer of our early annals and local antiquities. In 1692, one of the Fowlers conducted the proceedings in Court against the head and front of the witchcraft prosecution; and the other had the courage, in the most fearful hour of the delusion, to give open testimony in the defence of its victims. It is an interesting circ.u.mstance, that one of the same name and descent, in his reprint of the papers of Calef and in other publications, has done as much as any other person of our day to bring that whole transaction under the light of truth and justice.

John Porter, who was a grandson of the original John Porter and the original William Dodge and a man of property and family, with his wife Lydia; Thomas Jacobs and Mary his wife; and Richard Walker,--all of Wenham, and for a long time neighbors of this Bibber,--testify, in corroboration of the statement of Fowler, that she was a woman of an unruly, turbulent spirit, double-tongued, much given to tattling and tale-bearing, making mischief amongst her neighbors, very much given to speak bad words, often speaking against one and another, telling lies and uttering malicious wishes against people. It was abundantly proved that she had long been known to be able to fall into fits at any time. One witness said "she would often fall into strange fits when she was crossed of her humor;" and another, "that she could fall into fits as often as she pleased."

On the 21st of May, warrants were issued against the wife of William Ba.s.set, of Lynn; Susanna Roots, of Beverly; and Sarah, daughter of John Procter of Salem Farms; a few days after, against Benjamin, a son of said John Procter; Mary Derich, wife of Michael Derich, and daughter of William Ba.s.set of Lynn; and the wife of Robert Pease of Salem. Such papers as relate to these persons vary in no particular worthy of notice from those already presented.

On the 28th of May, warrants were issued against Martha Carrier, of Andover; Elizabeth Fosd.i.c.k, of Malden; Wilmot Read, of Marblehead; Sarah Rice, of Reading; Elizabeth How, of Topsfield; Captain John Alden, of Boston; William Procter, of Salem Farms; Captain John Flood, of Rumney Marsh; ---- Toothaker and her daughter, of Billerica; and ---- Abbot, between Topsfield and Wenham line. On the 30th, a warrant was issued against Elizabeth, wife of Stephen Paine, of Charlestown; on the 4th of June, against Mary, wife of Benjamin Ireson, of Lynn.

Besides these, there are notices of complaints made and warrants issued against a great number of people in all parts of the country: Mary Bradbury, of Salisbury; Lydia and Sarah Dustin, of Reading; Ann Sears, of Woburn; Job Tookey, of Beverly; Abigail Somes, of Gloucester; Elizabeth Carey, of Charlestown; Candy, a negro woman; and many others. Some of them have points of interest, demanding particular notice.

The case of Martha Carrier has some remarkable features. It has been shown, by pa.s.sages already adduced, that every idle rumor; every thing that the gossip of the credulous or the fertile imaginations of the malignant could produce; every thing, gleaned from the memory or the fancy, that could have an unfavorable bearing upon an accused person, however foreign or irrelevant it might be to the charge, was allowed to be brought in evidence before the magistrates, and received at the trials. We have seen that a child under five years of age was arrested, and put into prison. Children were not only permitted, but induced, to become witnesses against their parents, and parents against their children. Husbands and wives were made to criminate each other as witnesses in court. When Martha Carrier was arrested, four of her children were also taken into custody. An indictment against one of them is among the papers. Under the terrors brought to bear upon them, they were prevailed on to be confessors. The following shows how these children were trained to tell their story:--

"It was asked Sarah Carrier by the magistrates,--

"How long hast thou been a witch?--Ever since I was six years old.

"How old are you now?--Near eight years old: brother Richard says I shall be eight years old in November next.

"Who made you a witch?--My mother: she made me set my hand to a book.

"How did you set your hand to it?--I touched it with my fingers, and the book was red: the paper of it was white.

"She said she never had seen the black man: the place where she did it was in Andrew Foster's pasture, and Elizabeth Johnson, Jr., was there. Being asked who was there besides, she answered, her aunt Toothaker and her cousin. Being asked when it was, she said, when she was baptized.

"What did they promise to give you?--A black dog.

"Did the dog ever come to you?--No.

"But you said you saw a cat once: what did that say to you?--It said it would tear me in pieces, if I would not set my hand to the book.

"She said her mother baptized her, and the Devil, or black man, was not there, as she saw; and her mother said, when she baptized her, 'Thou art mine for ever and ever. Amen.'

"How did you afflict folks?--I pinched them.

"And she said she had no puppets, but she went to them that she afflicted. Being asked whether she went in her body or her spirit, she said in her spirit. She said her mother carried her thither to afflict.

"How did your mother carry you when she was in prison?--She came like a black cat.

"How did you know it was your mother?--The cat told me so, that she was my mother. She said she afflicted Phelps's child last Sat.u.r.day, and Elizabeth Johnson joined with her to do it. She had a wooden spear, about as long as her finger, of Elizabeth Johnson; and she had it of the Devil.

She would not own that she had ever been at the witch-meeting at the village. This is the substance.

"SIMON WILLARD."

The confession of another of her children is among the papers. It runs thus:--

"Have you been in the Devil's snare?--Yes.

"Is your brother Andrew ensnared by the Devil's snare?--Yes.

"How long has your brother been a witch?--Near a month.

"How long have you been a witch?--Not long.

"Have you joined in afflicting the afflicted persons?--Yes.

"You helped to hurt Timothy Swan, did you?--Yes.

"How long have you been a witch?--About five weeks.

"Who was in company when you covenanted with the Devil?--Mrs. Bradbury.

"Did she help you afflict?--Yes.

"Who was at the village meeting when you were there?--Goodwife How, Goodwife Nurse, Goodwife Wildes, Procter and his wife, Mrs. Bradbury, and Corey's wife.

"What did they do there?--Eat, and drank wine.

"Was there a minister there?--No, not as I know of.

"From whence had you your wine?--From Salem, I think, it was.

"Goodwife Oliver there?--Yes: I knew her."

In concluding his report of the trial of this wretched woman, whose children were thus made to become the instruments for procuring her death, Dr. Cotton Mather expresses himself in the following language:--

"This rampant hag (Martha Carrier) was the person of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed that the Devil had promised her that she should be queen of h.e.l.l."

It is quite evident that this "rampant hag" had no better opinion of the dignitaries and divines who managed matters at the time than they had of her. The record of her examination shows that she was not afraid to speak her mind, and in plain terms too. When brought before the magistrates, the following were their questions and her answers.

The accusing witnesses having severally made their charges against her, declaring that she had tormented them in various ways, and threatened to cut their throats if they would not sign the Devil's book, which, they said, she had presented to them, the magistrates addressed her in these words: "What do you say to this you are charged with?" She answered, "I have not done it." One of the accusers cried out that she was, at that moment, sticking pins into her. Another declared that she was then looking upon "the black man,"--the shape in which they pretended the Devil appeared. The magistrate asked the accused, "What black man is that?" Her answer was, "I know none." The accusers cried out that the black man was present, and visible to them. The magistrate asked her, "What black man did you see?" Her answer was, "I saw no black man but your own presence." Whenever she looked upon the accusers, they were knocked down. The magistrate, entirely deluded by their practised acting, said to her, "Can you look upon these, and not knock them down?" Her answer was, "They will dissemble, if I look upon them." He continued: "You see, you look upon them, and they fall down." She broke out, "It is false: the Devil is a liar. I looked upon none since I came into the room but you." Susanna Sheldon cried out, in a trance, "I wonder what could you murder thirteen persons for." At this, her spirit became aroused: the accusers fell into the most intolerable outcries and agonies. The accused rebuked the magistrate, charging him with unfairness in not paying any regard to what she said, and receiving every thing that the accusers said. "It is a shameful thing, that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits;" and, turning to those who were bringing these false and ridiculous charges against her, she said, "You lie: I am wronged." The energy and courage of the prisoner threw the accusers, magistrates, and the whole crowd into confusion and uproar. The record closes the description of the scene in these words: "The tortures of the afflicted were so great that there was no enduring of it, so that she was ordered away, and to be bound hand and foot with all expedition; the afflicted, in the mean while, almost killed, to the great trouble of all spectators, magistrates, and others."

Parris closes his report of this examination as follows:--

"NOTE.--As soon as she was well bound, they all had strange and sudden ease. Mary Walcot told the magistrates that this woman told her she had been a witch this forty years."

This shows the sort of communications the girls were allowed to hold with the magistrates, exciting their prejudices against accused persons, and filling their ears with all sorts of exaggerated and false stories. However much she may have been maligned by her neighbors, some of whom had long been in the habit of circulating slanders against her, the whole tenor of the papers relating to her shows that she always indignantly repelled the charge of being a witch, and was the last person in the world to have volunteered such a statement as Mary Walcot reported.

The examination of Martha Carrier must have been one of the most striking scenes of the whole drama of the witchcraft proceedings. The village meeting-house presented a truly wild and exciting spectacle.

The fearful and horrible superst.i.tion which darkened the minds of the people was displayed in their aspect and movements. Their belief, that, then and there, they were witnessing the great struggle between the kingdoms of G.o.d and of the Evil One, and that every thing was at stake on the issue, gave an awe-struck intensity to their expression.

The blind, unquestioning confidence of the magistrates, clergy, and all concerned in the prosecutions, in the evidence of the accusers; the loud outcries of their pretended sufferings; their contortions, swoonings, and tumblings, excited the usual consternation in the a.s.sembly. In addition to this, there was the more than ordinary bold and defiant bearing of the prisoner, stung to desperation by the outrage upon human nature in the abuse practised upon her poor children; her firm and unshrinking courage, facing the tempest that was raised to overwhelm her, sternly rebuking the magistrates,--"It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits;"--her whole demeanor, proclaiming her conscious innocence, and proving that she chose chains, the dungeon, and the scaffold, rather than to belie herself. Seldom has a scene in real life, or a picture wrought by the inspiration of genius and the hand of art, in its individual characters or its general grouping, surpa.s.sed that presented on this occasion.

Hutchinson has preserved the record of another examination of a different character. An ignorant negro slave-woman was brought before the magistrates. She was cunning enough, not only to confess, but to cover herself with the cloak of having been led into the difficulty by her mistress.

"Candy, are you a witch?--Candy no witch in her country.

Candy's mother no witch. Candy no witch, Barbados. This country, mistress give Candy witch.

"Did your mistress make you a witch in this country?--Yes: in this country, mistress give Candy witch.

"What did your mistress do to make you witch?--Mistress bring book and pen and ink; make Candy write in it."

Upon being asked what she wrote, she took a pen and ink, and made a mark. Upon being asked how she afflicted people, and where were the puppets she did it with, she said, that, if they would let her go out for a moment, she would show them how. They allowed her to go out, and she presently returned with two pieces of cloth or linen,--one with two knots, the other with one tied in it. Immediately on seeing these articles, the "afflicted children" were "greatly affrighted," and fell into violent fits. When they came to, they declared that the "black man," Mrs. Hawkes, and the negro, stood by the puppets of rags, and pinched them. Whereupon they fell into fits again. "A bit of one of the rags being set on fire," they all shrieked that they were burned, and "cried out dreadfully." Some pieces being dipped in water, they went into the convulsions and struggles of drowning persons; and one of them rushed out of the room, and raced down towards the river.