Category Archives: August

08/1692

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Aug 31: SMALL MERCIES: Rev Parris forgives absences

Today in Salem: Rev Samuel Parris is pacing in front of the meeting house and praying for guidance. Six weeks ago the beloved Rebecca Nurse was hanged, and her family essentially disappeared from church. Two weeks ago, he and a committee of men were appointed to ask them why.

They’ve made the rounds and heard them out, and now the question is what to do about it? Rebecca’s son actually has been to church, but not every week, he admits. Her daughter has an infant, and has been tending a sick husband for the entire time. And her sister, the outspoken Sarah Cloyce, is still in jail. Still, Sarah’s husband ought to be in church – although he’s been visiting her so much that he’s hardly home.

Attendance at church is mandatory, and those who miss it are fined, or whipped if they can’t pay. He could argue with the excuses, but Rev Parris decides to wait and see if things improve.

Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell

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Aug 22: ESCAPE and FORFEIT

Today In Salem: Yesterday was the Sabbath, a day of sermons and prayer. It’s only today that people are waking up to the news: the wealthy Philip English and his wife Mary have escaped from jail and are racing away to parts unknown.

By running, Philip and Mary have forfeited a £4,000 bond. But they’ve also left behind an enormous estate, and the Sheriff wastes no time seizing it. In addition to the usual furniture, clothing, and household goods, he confiscates a wine cellar; hundreds of bushels of wheat, rum, and molasses; a warehouse full of lumber, grain, and fishing supplies; and seven fishing boats floating in the harbor, all worth about £1,200.

Seventeen years after the Trials, Phillip will petition the government for recompense, but it will take the courts another nine years after that to grant him only £200.

I Phillip English Whas Imprisoned togather With My Whife in salem Prison and then Carred to Boston Prison, and thare Lay Nine Weeks from Whance Whe Made our Escape in Which time besides our Charge in flying had the Estate heare aftor Menechened Loast and Tacking a Whay

500 butchells of Vorginiy Whet
203 butchells of Engen Corn
3 pipes of Whine
2 hogsheds of Suger
4 hoggheds of Melases
… [more] …
58 thousands of Bords or More
10 thousands of Staves
2000 of Clabbords
28 thousands of Shingells
… [more] …

The foregoing is a true Account of What I had Seized tacking away Lost and Embezeld whilst I was a prisoner in the yeare 1692 & whilst on my flight for my life besides a Considerable quantity of household goods & other things which I Cannot Exactly give a pertickolar Acco off for all which I Never Reseved any other or further satisfacon for them Then Sixty Pounds 3s payd Me by the Administrators of George Corwine Late Sherife desesd and the Estate was so seisd & Tackin away Chiefly by the Sherife and his under offisers not withstanding I had given fore thousand pound Bond with Surety att Boston *philip English

LEARN MORE: Why was the Sheriff allowed to seize people’s property?

The Sheriff in Salem was obeying the law by seizing property, though he could have been kinder or less gleeful about it.

For a few months during the witchcraft trials, the Court was required to follow the laws of England, not the laws that had evolved in the colonies. English Common Law said that when a felon escaped or was convicted, all of their personal goods (except land) were forfeited to the king. In Salem, a lot of the property the Sheriff seized was actually sent to England, or sold, with the money being sent. A lot of it was also used to maintain the jails and support the prisoners. But there was no inventory of the items, and no one to monitor the Sheriff as he confiscated them. So there was (and is) speculation that he may have personally profited from it.

Only felons who owned property were in a position to lose it. But it was complicated by gender and marital status.

When a man was convicted, he lost everything. If he was married, then his wife also lost everything, because anything she “owned” was actually owned by her husband. (This is why the Sheriff had the wedding ring worn by George Jacobs Sr.’s wife in his pocket.)

When a married woman was convicted, nothing happened, because legally she couldn’t own anything. Everything belonged to her innocent husband. (This is why there are no forfeiture stories about Rebecca Nurse, Martha Carrier, or other married women.)

When a widow was convicted, her property was taken because, in the absence of a husband, she actually did own it. (This is what happened to Mary Parker.)

When anyone escaped, their property was taken, even if they weren’t convicted yet. (This is why the Sheriff raided the estate of the wealthy Philip English.)

Tomorrow in Salem: Summary and FAQs

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Aug 20: A guilty granddaughter mourns

Today in Salem: It’s one thing to watch your grandfather die. It’s another to watch him die and know it’s your fault. It’s yet another to learn that he’s left all of his money to you, with none for his own children.

The gesture hollows her out. Her grandfather, George Jacobs Sr., was hanged yesterday, in no small part due to her false accusation. It doesn’t matter that she accused him to save herself, or that she’d sobbed in misery and recanted it right after she’d said it. It makes no difference that she’s in jail herself, or that she prayed with Rev George Burroughs the night before the hanging.

She thinks about her father, who’d escaped three months ago when he himself was accused. He almost certainly doesn’t know that his own father is dead, or that she herself is in prison. So she writes him a letter. She can only hope that it reaches him, though. No one has seen him since he ran away.

From the Dungeon in Salem-Prison, August 20, 92

Honoured Father, After my Humble Duty Remmbered to you, hoping in the Lord of your good Health, as Blessed be God I enjoy, tho in abundance of Affliction, being close Confined here in a loathsome Dungeon, the Lord look down in mercy upon me, not knowing how soon I shall be put to Death, by means of the Afflicted Persons; my Grand-Father having Suffered already, and all his Estate Seized for the King.

The reason of my Confinement is this, I having, through the Magistrates Threatnings, and my own Vile and Wretched Heart, confessed several things contrary to my Conscience and Knowledg, tho to the Wounding of my own Soul … I was forced to confess the truth of all before the Magistrates, who would not believe me, but tis their pleasure to put me in here, and God knows how soon I shall be put to death.

Dear Father, let me beg your Prayers to the Lord on my behalf, and send us a Joyful and Happy meeting in Heaven. My Mother poor Woman is very Crazey, and remembers her kind Love to you, and to Uncle, viz. D. A.

So leaving you to the protection of the Lord, I rest your Dutiful Daughter, Margaret Jacibs

Tomorrow in Salem: ESCAPE and FORFEIT

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Aug 19: *** Sensitive Content: Death by Hanging ***

Today in Salem: The pregnant Elizabeth Proctor wills herself to keep looking, not to blink, to keep her eyes wide, and to watch every movement of her husband as he climbs into the sheriff’s cart and prepares for his final journey. She memorizes John’s face, the set of his shoulders, the way he holds out a calloused hand to help the only woman who will be hanged today. He is innocent, and it confounds her, why God would allow this.

The cart sags under the weight of the condemned: three farmers, a minister, and another minister’s niece, and although the farmers might prefer to walk, it would be difficult with the throng of people surrounding them. An even larger crowd is waiting at Gallows Hill, though, twice as large as those at previous hangings. For as much as the hanging itself is sensational, it’s the minister George Burroughs that the crowd has come to see. Is it true? Is a minister — a minister — in league with the Devil? Worse, is it not true? Are they about to hang an innocent man?

A wooden ladder is leaning against the branch of the hanging tree, where several ministers wait to pray for the condemned if they ask. The prisoners stand up in the cart, and the former deputy John Willard steps to the front. He’d quit his position last spring when he began to think he was arresting innocent people. But now he knows it. “Please pray with us,” he says to the ministers. “We are innocent. Please pray that ours will be the last innocent blood that is shed.”

At that, John Proctor steps forward. “We are innocent, and yet we ask that God will forgive us all our sins.” He looks at the crowd. “We also pray that he will forgive the sins of our accusers.” The crowd starts to shuffle and bow their heads as the Reverend Cotton Mather begins to pray.

It’s now, when people are looking away or closing their eyes, that the Sheriff decides the order of execution, for when the crowd looks up, the outcast Martha Carrier already has the noose around her neck. If any of them are guilty it’s she, with a trail of death and smallpox behind her. Rev Cotton Mather has barely said Amen when the crowd begins to boo and jeer.

It’s easy to see her husband, standing a full foot taller than the men around him. But Martha is looking up at the sky. Does she not hear him begging her to confess? Or are his entreaties drowned out by the noise of the cheering crowd? Just like that, before she can look down, the Sheriff knocks the ladder away and she hangs, swaying in the swirling dust.

The elderly George Jacobs Sr. stands on a lower rung, having climbed with difficulty, not having the use of his canes. Jacobs has always been ornery, even vulgar, and now is no different. He has no last words except a string of his own accusations, of the girls lying, the judges ignorant, the Sheriff stealing. At that, the Sheriff kicks the ladder away and Jacobs hangs, as quickly as an 80-year-old man would.

The hangings continue, one after the other. The ladder creaks under the weight of the bold John Proctor. With his pregnant wife Elizabeth in jail, his oldest son is running the 700-acre Proctor farm and caring for the younger children. Still, he’s found a way to be there, and mirrors John’s stance, with his shoulders back and an angry look in his eyes.

The crowd is quieter now as the former deputy John Willard climbs the ladder easily. He stares hard at the Sheriff, who used to direct him in his arrests. Then he locks eyes with his wife, who holds their three year-old daughter on her hip, swaying the way mothers do. Willard isn’t a large man like Proctor, but he stands tall and doesn’t flinch or resist when the Sheriff kicks the ladder.

Finally it’s the minister George Burroughs who climbs the ladder and turns toward the crowd. “What say ye?” asks Cotton Mather. The ladder wobbles as the sheriff ties Burroughs’ hands and legs. “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” Burroughs says. “Hallowed be Thy Name.” He calmly finishes the Lord’s Prayer, flawlessly, with nary a stutter.

An uncomfortable buzz begins at the front of the crowd and moves to the back, and several women begin to cry. Everyone knows that witches and wizards cannot recite Scripture, most especially and in particular the Lord’s Prayer. And yet here he is, the minister they’ve accused, doing exactly what he should not be able to do.

“Stop!” someone yells. “Stop!” The cry spreads through the crowd, growing louder and louder, until it seems like half of the people are raising their hands and shouting. Something has changed. The Sheriff hesitates, and looks at Rev Cotton Mather.

“It’s the Devil’s work!” cries one of the afflicted girls, and points at Burroughs. “The Devil is telling him what to say!”

Mather blinks and gives a nod; the tiniest, almost imperceptible nod. At that, the Sheriff turns away and kicks the ladder, hard, until the Reverend George Burroughs hangs.

The deputies bury the bodies quickly, this time in one large grave, so quickly that George Burroughs’ hand protrudes from the dirt, resting awkwardly on someone else’s foot. Tonight several men will float down the dark river, just as some have before them. They will take the bodies of John Proctor and George Jacobs, and bury them at home with dignity. The others will be left behind.

Tomorrow in Salem: A guilty granddaughter mourns

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Aug 18: A sobbing confession

Today in Salem: Sometimes a minister’s job is to preach and pray, and sometimes it’s simply to listen. But right now there’s no choice to be made. The girl in front of Rev George Burroughs is sobbing so hard that all he can do is listen.

Her words are punctuated by her sobs, and hard to make out. Lying. Dust. (Lie in the dust?) False. He. Used. Burroughs puts his hands on his knees, takes a deep breath, and waits. Grandfather Jacobs. Willard. You.

Ah. He rubs his knees and closes his eyes. He and the others are innocent, so of course they’ve been falsely accused. She’d even spoken against her own grandfather, George Jacobs Sr. But why is she here? And why now, the night before he and the others are to be hanged?

Please. For. Give. At last she looks up. Pray?

Burroughs hesitates. The stone in his heart is large. But there’s nothing to be gained by being harsh. Prayer has always been the way he begs forgiveness, the way he navigates through heartache, and loss. And so he prays, for both of them. For strength. For understanding. For light in the darkness.

Tomorrow in Salem: ***Sensitive Content: Death by Hanging***

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Aug 17: No reprieve for the wicked

Today in Salem: The sounds of galloping hooves and her own strangled breathing are all John Willard’s wife can hear as she races from Salem to Boston. Six months ago John was a deputy, an esteemed man who was trusted by the authorities, if not the public. Now he’s in jail, though, convicted of witchcraft, and will be hanged.

She’d convinced the court to consider his former reputation and release him for a day or two so he could see his children before his execution. But the jail keeper in Salem says he never received authorization from Boston, and she means to find out why. John will be hanged in two days, and there’s no time to spare.

LEARN MORE: Why were prisoners allowed to leave jail? Why didn’t more of them escape?

These days, a guilty sentence might include a number of years in prison, where being locked up is a punishment in itself. In colonial times, though, jail was not a punishment. It was a detention center, where prisoners waited for their actual punishment; for example, whipping, fines, or death.

If a prisoner could convince the authorities that detention wasn’t necessary, they could leave jail for a few hours, as long as they promised to return for the night. Occasionally they were released for days or even weeks. These prisoners were almost always rich or well-connected men who were seen as trustworthy.

Even with the privilege of leaving jail, actual escape was difficult. There were no getaway cars or flights to another country. Horses and hiding were the only options, both of which were easy for authorities to discover. Successful escapees usually depended on a chain of friends and family to hide them in several places as they traveled to other colonies. It required connections and money, which most prisoners didn’t have.

Tomorrow in Salem: A sobbing confession

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Aug 16: the outcast Martha Carrier panics

Today in Salem: While the bold John Proctor is calmly putting his affairs in order, the outcast Martha Carrier is shaking, with anger or fear or both, she cannot say. Her trial was nothing more than a parade of neighbors, and even her own nephew, throwing accusations at her like stones. “Queen of Hell,” they’d called her. That was the Devil’s promise, they said. If she followed him, if she did his bidding, then she would be his Queen. Throughout everything, the afflicted girls had performed with their usual crying and falling, pointing at her “specter” and shrieking. Martha had lost her temper and shouted at them. Now she will hang.

Martha begins to pace. Once again her neighbors had held the recent smallpox outbreak against her. She would never understand it. How could people believe that she had conjured smallpox to kill her father and two brothers, not to mention four of her extended family? And now four of her children are in jail, also accused of witchcraft. Her two teenage sons, one with a terrible stutter. Her ten-year-old boy, named for his father. And her quiet little eight-year-old daughter. What will happen to them? Martha’s racing heart gives in to panic, and she doubles over, leaning against the cold stone wall. She can’t breathe.

Tomorrow in Salem: No reprieve for the wicked

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Aug 15: the bold John Proctor prepares

Today in Salem: George Jacobs Sr. isn’t the only one to write a new will. The bold John Proctor has done so as well. In his 60 years he’s managed a 700-acre farm, negotiated land deals in two towns, started a successful tavern, and raised 16 children with three wives. He is not an idle man.

He will be hanged in four days. His trial was a formality, his petition to the governor has been denied, and letters on his behalf have gone unnoticed. The sheriff has already sold or killed all his cattle and seized everything in his house, even pouring beer and broth onto the ground so he could take the barrels and pots.

Other men would feel despair. But Proctor hasn’t lost everything. His children are safe, with the littlest ones taken in by the older ones. His land cannot be seized by the Sheriff, and will be given to his children. Then there’s his wife, Elizabeth. She’s quarrelsome, and he’s too easily provoked. But, as the Proverbs say, iron sharpens iron, and they’ve built a good life together. Now she’s with child, and will be spared … for now.

Tomorrow in Salem: the outcast Martha Carrier panics

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Aug 14: The Nurse family is AWOL from church

Today in Salem: The tavern owner is picking a splinter from the wooden table, listening intently to the other men and trying not to leap up from his chair. He’s used to greeting his customers and walking from table to table, not sitting at one.

It’s the Sabbath, and the men of the church have met at the tavern to discuss a troubling matter. Three families have not attended worship in several weeks, all of them related to the beloved Rebecca Nurse: her son, her daughter, and her brother-in-law. Including their spouses and children, their meeting house benches have been conspicuously empty.

“She was hanged three weeks ago,” one of the deacons says. He is a thoughtful man who takes his duties seriously. But he is also a member of the powerful Putnam family, which no one around him forgets. “They should be here, praying for understanding and forgiveness.”

The tavern owner is also a deacon, and now he looks up from the splintered table. “Yes, but can they not pray from their homes? Is understanding only to be found at the meeting house?”

The other men agree with one deacon or the other, and the conversation is pointed. As a group, though, they agree on one thing: the families must explain themselves. They appoint a committee of four men to visit the families: Rev Samuel Parris, the two church deacons, and the 73-year-old patriarch of the powerful Putnam family.

The other men drift away while the newly formed committee gathers more closely around the splintered table. They quickly make their first decision: They will wait before visiting the families. There’s another hanging in a few days, and they have much prayer and work to do. Perhaps the Nurse families will right themselves without intervention.

Tomorrow in Salem: the bold John Proctor prepares

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Aug 13: Rev Cotton Mather says what he thinks … again

Today in Salem: The cobblestones are warm underfoot as the Reverend Cotton Mather walks to his office in the early morning heat. In his pocket, he’s folded and tucked a letter from the Governor’s council, and now he composes an answer as he’s walking.

The letter he’s received is short but clear: What advice can he offer about the witchcraft trials? Five more witches will be hanged next week, and one of them is a minister. The council is uneasy, more than ever. How should the Governor proceed?

Mather gives an exasperated huff as he walks. His opinions haven’t changed, and he’s already expressed them clearly, or so he’d thought. Fine. He will write a letter that’s simple enough for a child to understand.

  • The Devil can impersonate anyone, even the Governor himself. (Therefore, do not use spectral evidence alone to prove someone’s guilt.)
  • The Devil doesn’t need permission to impersonate someone. (Therefore, believe people who say they didn’t know about their specter.)
  • An accused person can be victimized by the Devil, just like an afflicted person can be. (Therefore, do not use the touch test in court, since the Devil can control both parties.)
  • For those who are found guilty, consider exile rather than execution. (He himself would
  • accept this punishment if his specter was seen.)

He pushes the quill in frustration and winces when the ink splotches. None of this is different from what he’s already said, in person and in writing. Why are they asking again?

Tomorrow in Salem: The Nurse family is AWOL from church