Today in Salem: The servant Elizabeth Hubbard is hugging herself in front of the fire, still shivering after walking nearly four miles in the bone chilling cold. She’s brought something from her uncle, the doctor, to the Putnam home, and as soon as she’s warm she’ll walk the four miles back.
13-year-old Ann Putnam is also shivering, but not from cold. She’s been tormented for three days now, grabbed and pushed and pinched by a strange specter who’s trying to make her sign the Devil’s book. Ann hadn’t recognized the specter until today: it’s that stinking, pipe-smoking beggar Sarah Good. As soon as she says the name she begins to shake, and it immediately spreads to Elizabeth, whose shivers are now so violent that she can hardly hold a mug of warm tea.
Elizabeth sets back out, but a piercing wind has kicked up. She walks as quickly as she can, but she’s already walked four miles, with four more to go, she’s freezing, it’s dark, and her eyes are watering in the wind.
Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she can see a dark shape moving quietly just behind her. When she walks slowly, it does too, and when she walks quickly, it picks up the pace. Something is following her. It’s a wolf, stalking her, hunching its shoulders and waiting for a chance to jump. Wolves are rare, though, hardly ever seen, especially in the Village.
Elizabeth breathes in sharply. This is no ordinary animal. Ann has just named the beggar Sarah Good as tormenting her, and now the beggar has come to attack Elizabeth as well. The wolf is probably Sarah Good, who’s transformed herself. Or maybe it is a real wolf, but it’s being commanded by Sarah.
Next to the wolf, teeth glinting in the dark, is another specter: the sickly Sarah Osborne. Two, two witches are now chasing Elizabeth through the cold darkness, and she runs as fast as she can.
LEARN MORE: What is a specter?
A “specter” is a disembodied spirit that’s much like a ghost, except it appears while a person is still alive. In Salem, the “witches” were accused of using their specters to torment and harm other people. The specter could pinch, bite, choke, or otherwise harm its victims while the actual, real-life witch was somewhere else.
“Spectral evidence” – testimony that said the accused person’s specter hurt someone – was enormously at fault in the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Ministers and judges believed that the Devil could lead faithful, religious people astray. But they did not believe that the Devil would impersonate that person. In other words, if you saw someone’s specter, it undoubtedly belonged to them, and it was there only because the person was in league with the Devil. That spectral evidence was enough to condemn a person.
WHO was Ann Putnam?
Age 12. Accused 18 of the 20 people who were eventually executed, and more than 40 more who were jailed.
Ann Putnam was the “leader” of the group of girls, which grew to include older women and men, as the accusations escalated. Ann was an oldest child, and her parents often encouraged Ann to identify “witches.” Most important, young girls then were nearly invisible and powerless, forbidden even to speak in church. When they became afflicted, though, they became the center of attention and were greatly influential. It must have been intoxicating.
14 years after the trials, Ann’s health was in decline and she was nearly an invalid. She asked to make a confession to be read at the meeting house.
Working with a minister, she dictated a confession that was written and signed in the church-book one night before services. The next morning it was read by the pastor in front of the congregation while Ann stood.
“The Confession of Anne Putnam, when she was received to Communion, 1706.
“I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father’s family in the year about ’92; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons; and that it was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time, whereby I justly fear I have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon myself and this land the guilt of innocent blood; though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded by Satan. And particularly, as I was a chief instrument of accusing of Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust, and to be humbled for it, in that I was a cause, with others, of so sad a calamity to them and their families; for which cause I desire to lie in the dust, and earnestly beg forgiveness of God, and from all those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow and offence, whose relations were taken away or accused.