Meet The Witches
Within the infamous Salem witch trials of
1692-93, more than 200 people were accused unjustly of practicing witchcraft. Eventually, the government acknowledged the trials, which were a
mistake, and compensated the families of those convicted witches. Unfortunately this decision didn't appear fast enough for the 19 who were excecuted because of accusations within the Salem with trials. As many as 13 others died in prison. Below are brief biographies of the 19 executed in the event.
1692-93, more than 200 people were accused unjustly of practicing witchcraft. Eventually, the government acknowledged the trials, which were a
mistake, and compensated the families of those convicted witches. Unfortunately this decision didn't appear fast enough for the 19 who were excecuted because of accusations within the Salem with trials. As many as 13 others died in prison. Below are brief biographies of the 19 executed in the event.
Bridget Bishop
An older woman, Bishop had a reputation for gossiping and promiscuity, but when it came to witchcraft, she insisted to her judicial accusers that “I have no
familiarity with the devil.” Nevertheless, Bishop was the first convicted witch
hanged on what later became known as Gallows Hill.
Sara Good
After her first marriage to an indentured servant left her deep in debt, Good married a laborer who worked in exchange for food and lodging, and the two eked out a meager existence in Salem Village. She was among the first suspects identified by the female children when they were questioned by magistrates in February 1692. Good protested her innocence, but officials insisted upon questioning her young daughter, and the child’s timid answers were construed as proof of Good’s guilt. Good was pregnant at the time of her conviction, and officials stayed her execution until she could give birth. The infant died in prison, and in July 1692, Good herself was hanged. Defiant to the end, Good’s final words were a warning to her tormentors: “If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink!”
Elizabeth How
The Ipswich woman was a kind soul who tenderly took care of her husband John How, who was blind. Nevertheless, something about her aroused others’ ire. Neighbors accused her of causing both their cows and their young daughter to die after they quarreled with her, and when she sought to become a member of a local church congregation, neighbors and kin opposed her. They subsequently experienced a spate of injured animals and other bad luck, which they interprete as supernatural acts of revenge. In court, her own brother-in-law, Captain John How, accused her of killing his sow and inflicting upon him a painful numbness in his hand that made it impossible for him to work. She was also accused of sending her spectral form to attack a young girl and attempt to drag her into Salem pond. “God knows, I am innocent of anything of this nature,” she testified. But even though other witnesses vouched for her character, she was convicted and executed.
Susannah Martin
A widow in her late sixties, Martin was the wife of a blacksmith and the mother of eight. In the 1670s, she previously was accused of witchcraft and infanticide, but her husband had successfully countered the charges by suing her accusers for slander. By 1692, however, he had died, and when 15 of her neighbors accused her of bewitching them or causing their farm animals to die, she had to confront the charges alone. Some historians have speculated that the accusations against Martin were linked to an inheritance dispute in which she was involved. Deeply religious, she comforted herself by reading “her worn old Bible” in jail as she awaited execution.
Rebecca Nurse
An
elderly woman in ill health and a respected member of the church, Nurse was
among the second wave of suspects accused by the children. In her initial court
hearing, Nurse protested her innocence, but when her youthful accusers cried out
in fake pain and performed contortions to suggest that they were being tormented
by her, prosecutors took her impassive reaction as a sign of guilt. She was
bound over for trial and executed.
Sarah Wildes
As
a young woman, Wildes was considered glamorous and forward, and rumor had it
that she had once engaged in illicit sex. The accusations of witchcraft against
her actually began decades before the Salem witch trials, when she married a
widower, John Wildes, which raised the ire of his first wife’s family. The
sister of Wildes’ first wife, Mary Reddington, accused Sarah Wildes of
bewitching her, prompting John Wildes to threaten a slander suit unless she
stopped. When one of Sarah Wildes’ new stepchildren, Jonathan Wildes, began to
behave strangely, some took it for demonic possession, and the suspicions
against Sarah Wildes continued to simmer. In 1692, things finally boiled over.
Wildes’ son Ephraim was a local constable in Topsfield, and protested her
innocence when she was arrested by his superior, Marshal George Herrick. One
witness fingered her as being part of a coven of specters who whispered at the
foot of a dying child’s bed, while others accused her of telekinetically
sabotaging their ox cart after they borrowed her plow without her permission.
Yet another testified that after quarreling with Wildes, she felt an apparently
spectral cat walk across her in the middle of the night. Bizarre as the case
against her was, Wildes was convicted and executed.
Rev. George Burrough
The only Puritan minister to be indicted and executed in the
witch trials, Burrough was accused by Andover and Salem Village residents of
being a ringleader and priest of the devil in the witch coven. Part of the
evidence against Burrough was his exceptional physical strength, which was
viewed as a sign of satanic assistance. Puritan inquisitor Rev. Cotton Mather,
who suspected Burrough of being a Baptist and deviating from Puritan practices,
attended his trial and urged the jury to convict him, which it did. When
Burrough was on the ladder to the scaffold, he gave an impassioned speech
protesting his innocence, and concluded by reciting the Lord’s Prayer—which,
supposedly, witches were unable to do. His conspicuous religious fervency
prompted some of the onlookers to shed tears and wonder if a terrible mistake
had been made.
Martha Carrier
This
victim of the witch hunt is best remembered, perhaps, for being denounced by one
of the inquisitors, Rev. Cotton Mather, as a “rampant hag.” The daughter of one
of the founding families of Andover, MA, Carrier was married to a servant and
the mother of four children. She was an independent, strong-willed person who
didn’t like to defer to those who imagined themselves as her betters, and their
dislike may have led to her becoming a target of the accusations. Carrier was
fearless enough to denounce her youthful accusers. “It is a shameful thing that
you should mind these folks that are out of their wits,” she admonished the
court. Unfortunately, that didn’t save her from execution.
George Jacobs, Sr.
A twice-married father of three in his early seventies, Jacobs
was accused by one of his servants, Sarah Churchill, and by his own
granddaughter, Margaret. Both of them had been fingered as witches and may have
been trying to save their necks by implicating others. Others, however, soon
came forward to join them, including women who claimed that Jacobs’ spectral
projection had beaten them with a walking stick. But the most damning evidence,
in the minds of his inquisitors, was a slight protuberance on his right shoulder
that they believed to be the “witch’s teat” that the devil gave to those who’d
made a covenant with him. Jacobs offered an unusual defense, arguing that
although he was innocent, the devil may have taken his form to commit mischief.
The court, however, decided that such shape-shifting could only have occurred
with his consent, and he was condemned to death and executed.
John Proctor
After
inheriting a substantial fortune from his father, Proctor went on to become a
successful farmer, entrepreneur, and tavern keeper. Unfortunately for him, he
made the mistake of criticizing the young girls who were accusing witches,
saying that if they were to be believed, “we should all be devils and witches
quickly,” and recommended that they be whipped or even hung for their lies.
After being falsely accused by their servant Mary Warren, Proctor and his wife
were arrested in 1692. The sheriff went to their house and seized their goods
and provisions, and sold off his cattle, leaving the Proctors’ children without
a means of support. Proctor petitioned the court to move his trial to Boston,
or at the very least, to change the magistrates, because the locals “have
already undone us in our estates, and that will not serve their turns without
our innocent blood.” It was to no avail. Proctor was convicted and executed in
August 1692. His wife was spared because she was pregnant.
Martha Cory
Another
respected church member who was among the second wave of suspects accused by the
children. She was hanged in September 1692.
Mary Esty
Some
historians’ accounts alternately spell her name as Easty or Eastey. The sister
of fellow defendant Rebecca Nurse, Esty insisted in court that “I am clear of
this sin” and that she had prayed against the devil “all my days.” Her demeanor
was so convincing that even her questioner, magistrate John Hawthorne, was moved
to turn to Esty’s accusers and ask, “Are you certain this is the woman?” They
responded by writhing and screaming in feigned demonic possession, but
nevertheless, Esty was released from jail. In the days that followed, however,
one of her accusers appeared to fall ill, and two of the others claimed that
they had seen Esty’s specter tormenting her. Esty was arrested once again, and
this time she was convicted and hanged.
Ann Pudeator
The
twice-widowed mother of six, who worked as a midwife and nurse, inherited
property from her second husband. In male-dominated colonial New England
society, a self-sufficient professional woman was contrary to what was perceived
as the rightful order of things, and that may have made her a target for
witchcraft allegations. The testimony of witnesses—including a girl who claimed
Pudeator had tortured her by impaling a voodoo doll, and another who accused her
of shape-shifting into a bird—was augmented by a constable’s discovery of
“curious containers of various ointments” in her home. (The latter, apparently,
were either foot oil or grease that Pudeator used to make soap.) Despite her
protestations of innocence, she was condemned to death and hanged.
Samuel Wardell
Born
in Boston, Wardell was a carpenter who followed his brother Benjamin to Salem to
build houses. He was one of the few, and perhaps the only, defendant who
actually had dabbled in magic, when he occasionally amused his neighbors by
playing at telling their fortunes, a practice that was outlawed as black magic
by the Puritans. Nevertheless, Wardell’s bigger crime may have been marrying a
younger widow, Sarah Hawkes, in 1673. Her sizable inheritance—combined with his
carpentry work—made the couple conspicuously affluent in a society where petty
resentments and envy often blossomed into suspicions that someone had satanic
assistance. After his arrest in 1692, Wardell—perhaps in an effort to save
himself—conceded that he had agreed to a contract with the devil, who had
promised to make him wealthy, and even confessed to evil deeds that he hadn’t
been accused of. He later tried to recant, but it was too late. In September
1692, he was hanged.
Alice Parker
The
wife of John Parker of Salem, she was arrested in May 1692 after being accused
by the same servant who fingered John Proctor and his wife. Accused of “sundry
acts of witchcraft, she was tried in September 1692, and convicted and hanged
shortly afterward.
Mary Parker
A
wealthy widow from Andover, she apparently was unrelated to Alice Parker but was
related to one of the other suspects, Frances Hutchins. Parker and her daughter
Sarah were arrested and accused of witchcraft as well. When she entered the
courtroom at her trial in September 1692, several of the young female accusers
fell into writhing spells, even before her name was announced. Once witness
testified that she had seen Mary Parker’s spirit, perched high on a beam above
the court, at one of the hearings in Salem. Parker was convicted and hanged
shortly afterward.
John Willard
Willard,
a sheriff’s officer who lived in Salem, was ordered to bring in several of the
accused. He declined, apparently out of a belief that they were innocent. As a
result, he was himself accused. After initially escaping arrest in Salem by
fleeing to Nashawag, about 40 miles away, he was taken into custody and put on
trial in August 1692. The girls who claimed to have been afflicted by witchcraft
testified that a spectral being that they called “the shining man” had
materialized and prevented Willard’s specter from cutting one of their throats.
Willard was found guilty and hanged shortly afterward.
Wilmot Redd
Also
known as Wilmet Reed, she was the only Marblehead resident to be condemned for
witchcraft. Known locally as “Mammy,” Redd was an eccentric with a volatile
temper, and liked to argue with her neighbors. Among other crimes, she was
accused of sending her spectral doppelganger to Salem to torment one of the
young girls who instigated the witch hunt. She was arrested, brought to Salem
for trial, and then hanged in September 1692, in the final wave of
executions.
Margaret Scott
Born
in England in 1615, Scott moved to New England with her parents at a young age
and married a struggling tenant farmer, Benjamin Scott. The couple had seven
children, only three of whom lived to adulthood. After her husband died in 1670,
Scott lived off his meager savings until they were exhausted. In her old age,
she was forced to beg for support from her neighbors and passersby to survive,
which made her a target of resentment and probably led to her arrest. At
Scott’s trial, witnesses testified that she had visited them in spectral form
and choked and pinched them. She was found guilty and hanged in September 1692,
in the final wave of executions.