Today in Salem: It’s the Sabbath, and so foggy that it’s hard to see if one’s next step is a stone or a hole, a bruised foot or a twisted ankle. The congregants make their way slowly to the Meeting House, heads down and looking for the smoothest path.
In Boston it’s no better, and the Reverend Increase Mather is running late to his pulpit. So when his wife hands him a letter, he’s impatient. It’s embossed with a wax seal from the jail in Salem and can only mean problems. It’ll have to wait, he thinks, and tucks it in his Bible.
WHO was Increase Mather?
Age 53. Puritan minister & President of Harvard College. Urged the court to disregard “spectral” evidence. Case files: Increase Mather