Today in Salem: The cantankerous Giles Corey drags his sleeve across his mouth and wipes the cider away. Martha calls herself a Gospel Woman, he says, but he knows things about her that would fix her business. The men around him guffaw. That woman needs to be taken down a peg or two, they all agree.
“And what about you, Giles?” the tavern owner says, and clanks a metal plate of bread and butter on the table. “What’s your business?”
The laughter is more tentative this time, but Nathaniel Ingersoll, the owner, gives a genuine smile. He’s among the most respected men in the Village, and possibly the most well-liked. He’s been running this tavern for years, and if the meeting house is the spirit of the Village, his tavern is the heartbeat. He can say what he will, and no man will hold it against him.
That includes Giles, who just waves Nathaniel away and tucks into his bread. The other men have stopped drinking, though. One of them picks at his finger as if he’s removing a splinter. Another looks off to the side and cranes his neck. They know Giles’ reputation: the thieving, the vindictive behavior toward his neighbors, the way he beat a servant so severely that he died. Still, like his wife, Giles is a full member of the church, and as long as no one brings it up, the past can remain the past. God’s grace can be a mystery, and who are they to question it?
WHO was Nathaniel Ingersoll?
One of two deacons in the church, and a Lieutenant in the militia. Nathaniel was known to be unfailingly honest, fair, and generous. He donated land for the Meeting House. After his father’s death, Nathaniel, 11, went to live with his father’s friend Governor Endecott on a 300-acre country estate, where he apprenticed for several years. There he learned to run his own farm and home, and when he was only 19 he married a young woman and moved on to his own land. The Ingersolls had one daughter, who died young. But their neighbor had several sons, and offered to let the Ingersolls adopt one of them and raise him as their own.
The Ingersoll Ordinary is still standing, though much of the building has been renovated or added to since. The original part of the building was built around 1670. Case files: Nathaniel Ingersoll
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