Category Archives: March

03/1692

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Mar 19: NEWLY AFFLICTED: Mary Walcott, the captain’s daughter

Today in Salem: The minister brings the candle closer and asks the teenage girl to show him her wrist. There, in the flickering light, he can see fresh teeth marks. Now he motions to Nathaniel Ingersoll, the tavern’s owner, to come look.

Ingersoll leans down so close that the minister has to pull the candle back. But they agree: she’s been bitten, just now when she’d screamed. It’s Mary Walcott’s first spectral injury, and now she joins her friends in being afflicted. She is 17, the militia captain’s daughter, and cousin to the girls’ leader Ann Putnam.

Across the street at the parsonage, Rev Parris and his wife are looking at each other with fresh alarm as their niece, the 11-year-old tomboy Abigail Williams, flaps her arms furiously and shouts “whish, whish, whish,” as if she’s flying through the house. She screams at the specter of the beloved Rebecca Nurse, then flings herself into the fireplace and throws burning sticks into the room.

Meanwhile, after days of accusations against the gospel woman Martha Corey, the magistrates order the sheriff to bring her to Ingersoll’s Ordinary for a hearing in two days. This will be the second time the Village has gathered to examine an accused witch.

WHO was Nathaniel Ingersoll?

Age about 60. 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.

Nathaniel Ingersoll's signature
Endecott Pear Tree
The Endecott Pear Tree is America’s oldest cultivated tree, planted between 1632-1649.

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

Side note: Governor John Endecott was the longest-serving Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: he was the 1st, 10th, 13th, 15th, and 17th governor. He planted a pear tree sometime between 1632 and 1649, which is still standing. It’s America’s oldest cultivated tree.

WHO was Mary Walcott?

Age 17, she was one of the “core accusers.” Compared to the others, she was unusual in that she had a stable home life. She was not a servant, nor an orphan, and hadn’t been traumatized by the wars in Maine.

She was, however, cousin to Ann Putnam, the girls’ leader. Ann was 12, and her family servant was 18. Mary, age 17, undoubtedly spent a good amount of time with them, and witnessed or heard about their torments.

Mary may have been the first girl to fake affliction. In mid-March, when only one hearing had taken place, a minister was invited to Salem Village to witness the afflictions for himself. One of the first people he met was Mary Walcott, who, during a pleasant conversation, suddenly screamed that she’d been bitten by a specter. Sure enough, the minister could see teeth marks on Mary’s arm.

After the trials, Mary married twice and had at least 10 known children. She died in her mid-70s.

Side notes: Mary’s father was the captain of the village militia. Her aunt was the neighbor who’d suggested a witch-cake to Tituba. Case files: Mary Walcott

Tomorrow in Salem: Martha Corey and her yellow bird go to church

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Mar 18: AFFLICTED: Ann Putnam’s mother

child's hand

Today in Salem: 12yo Ann Putnam’s mother has just learned that she is pregnant, for the ninth time, and all she wants in the entire world right now is a nap.

“Mercy,” she says to the family servant. “Please mind the children while I rest.” But Mercy Lewis is feeling fragile from her memories of fire and war, and has hardly slept for the nightmares. So she doesn’t argue when Ann’s mother waves her out of the kitchen and tells her to go rest.

“Ann,” she says to her daughter, and makes the same request. Ann is the oldest, and it’s only right that she should help her mother. But Ann’s eyes are shining with tears. She’s bone-tired from the specters’ torments, and won’t even get out of her bed.

Her mother is ragged with exhaustion, utterly without a drop of energy. She’s been tending to Ann for weeks, and now Mercy. She’s pregnant, and with no help is still running the home, cooking, and caring for her other five living children and her husband. Now all she can do is hope for the best and take a nap anyway. But she’s too wound up to sleep. All she can think about is Ann’s recent accusations against the beloved Rebecca Nurse, until she’s sure that it’s Rebecca’s invisible specter that’s keeping her awake.

Tomorrow in Salem: NEWLY AFFLICTED: Mary Walcott, the captain’s daughter

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Mar 17: Giles Corey swaggers

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.

rope

“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?

old house
The Ingersoll Ordinary is still standing, The original part of this building was constructed in 1670.

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.

Nathaniel Ingersoll's signature

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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Mar 16: The cantankerous Giles Corey suspects his wife

Today in Salem: The cantankerous Giles Corey is yelling at his ox to get up, get up. Its back legs have given way, and now the barrel-chested animal is starting to keel over. Giles isn’t foolish enough to put his shoulder to the ox and push. No man is that strong, and at age 81 Giles would be crushed in an instant. Suddenly, though, the animal scrabbles hard and gets control of himself, then lumbers off as if nothing has happened.

How does an animal suddenly lose all of its strength, to the point of collapsing and even dying, then suddenly recover? At noon Giles goes inside for a midday meal and is telling his wife about it when suddenly the cat freezes in a seizure and rolls over, nearly dead. Then she suddenly recovers and minces off, like only a cat can.

Tonight his wife, the gospel woman Martha Corey, is saying her evening prayers. But instead of sitting in a chair, she’s kneeling at the hearth, as if she’s praying to … fire? Giles narrows his eyes. He’s old enough to know suspicious behavior when he sees it. He’s heard the accusations against Martha, and with her temperament it wouldn’t surprise him at all if she’s somehow involved in something sinister.

WHO was Giles Corey?

A well-to-do farmer in Salem Village. Martha Corey was his third wife. Both were accused of witchcraft. Giles and two of his sons-in-law spoke against Martha in her trial.

As for his own trial, Giles’ history of violence and contentious behavior set public opinion against him. He had stolen from several people, including goods from Justice Corwin’s father, and twelve bushels of apples from a neighbor. After another conflict, the same neighbor’s saw-mill mysteriously stopped working. Giles’ reputation was such that when John Proctor’s house caught on fire, Proctor accused Corey setting the blaze. The matter reached the courts until one of Proctor’s sons confessed to an accident with a lamp.

Worst of all, about 15 years before the trials, he was tried for brutally beating an indentured servant who was caught stealing apples from Corey’s brother-in-law. Ten days later, Corey sent the servant to get medical attention, but he died soon after. Case files: Giles Corey

Tomorrow in Salem: Giles Corey Swaggers

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Mar 14: AFFLICTED: the refugee Mercy Lewis

Today in Salem: Mercy Lewis, 18, is swinging a stick wherever 12-year-old Ann Putnam points. There! Ann screams. No, there! Mercy swings wildly, but the specter of Martha Corey just swings backs with a phantom red hot iron rod.

fire

Ann’s father, the powerful Thomas Putnam, has invited the real gospel woman Martha Corey to visit, just to be sure that Ann’s visions are correct. It’s no small thing to accuse a church member of witchcraft. It’s a mistake, though. The minute Martha Corey entered the door Ann had contorted herself in torment.

Now Ann claims to see a man skewered on a spit, roasting right there in her parents’ hearth, with Martha Corey turning the spit. Suddenly Mercy loses control, swinging sticks and screaming at the specter, even though Ann is the only one who can see her.

Now it’s late at night. In a chair at the hearth, smoke is curling from her skirts as the refugee and servant Mercy Lewis inches closer and closer to the fire. She remembers her entire village burning, every structure blazing with heat and fire, even the cattle destroyed, and her parents dying brutally. How had she escaped? Why was she still alive? She can’t answer those questions. Now the fire pulls her toward it. It doesn’t matter that she’s sitting in a chair, that the hearth is laid with rough bricks, that two grown men are sweating and grunting as they try to pull her away. The chair just keeps moving forward, dragging all of them with it. Finally Ann Putnam’s uncle throws himself between Mercy and the fire then lifts, tilting her backward into the other men’s arms. They carry her to the corner of the room, where she’s safe, for now.

LEARN MORE: Why did Native Americans attack and destroy settlements in Maine?

22 years before the Salem witchcraft trials, English officials banned selling ammunition to Native Americans, hoping to quell rising tensions. Instead, they were inflamed. So when war broke out in southern Massachusetts, Commissioners were sent to northern Massachusetts – today’s Maine – to proactively enforce the ban on ammunition sales.

Letter about the Indian raid on Casco Bay
A letter dated Sept. 13, 1676 and sent to John Leverett, Governor of Massachusetts, about an Indian raid on Casco Bay, Maine.

The war spread to Maine, though, when the French (longtime foes of the English) gave ammunition to the Native Americans anyway, and British sailors killed a Native American baby. After five weeks of aggressive fighting on both sides, 60 miles of Maine coastland was wiped clean of English settlements. Native American villages were just as devastated. Families were forced to flee their homes and leave fields unharvested. With no access to fishing grounds or guns for hunting, many Native Americans starved.

A peace treaty was eventually negotiated, but the English settlers ignored it, flagrantly. Over the course of the next 20 years they intentionally blocked fishing streams, let their cattle destroy Native American crops, and inflicted other major abuses. (In one overture for “peace,” the English invited 400 Native Americans to attend a conference, and promptly captured and enslaved 200 of them.)

War broke out again, with the major event being the burning destruction of Falmouth (now Portland), Maine. Many of its traumatized residents – including at least one accuser and four who were in turn accused – fled to Salem, just two years before the witchcraft hysteria began.

WHO was Thomas Putnam?

A third-generation resident of Salem Village. Some of the most prolific accusers were his daughter Ann, his niece Mary Walcott, and his servant Mercy Lewis. He gave their accusations legal weight by seeking arrest warrants, transcribing depositions, swearing out complaints, and writing letters to the judges.

Thomas was aggressive in his support in part because he was a resentful and bitter man, for several reasons.

On a general level was an ongoing family feud between Thomas’s family, the Putnams, and the Porters. The Putnams lived in the rural Village, while the Porters lived in the Town. The Putnams were farmers, and the Porters were merchants. The Putnams were prosperous enough, but all of their worth and income were tied up in a farm. The Porters, with their ability to start and fund new businesses, eventually became one of the wealthiest families in the region. It was a classic conflict of rural vs. urban, farmer vs. merchant, and Thomas was squarely on the rural farmer side.

On a more personal level, Thomas’s father had recently died and left most of his estate to Thomas’s stepmother and half-brother, whom he disliked. Thomas felt cheated, even disinherited, and contested the will, but he failed. Adding insult to injury, his half-brother then married into the enemy side: Porter family. The feud just intensified.

To sum it up: Thomas had a lot of axes to grind. Case files: Thomas Putnam Jr.

Tomorrow in Salem: SUMMARY: This WEEK in Salem

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Mar 13: NEWLY ACCUSED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse

Today in Salem: 12-year-old Ann Putnam is caught in the crosshairs. On one side is her mother, pregnant and fearful, demanding to know what specter Ann can see. On the other side is the family’s 18-year-old servant, Mercy Lewis, who’s spent the last two weeks witnessing Ann’s torments and accusations. Who? Who is tormenting you this time?

dying flower

Her grandmother’s empty rocking chair is across the room, and now Ann says she can see a pale old woman sitting in it. But she doesn’t know who it is. Mercy and Ann’s mother lean into Ann’s face. ”Look again,” her mother says, barely breathing. “You must know,” Mercy says.

Maybe, Ann says, it’s hazy but she might remember where the old woman sits in the meeting house. Ann’s mother sits back and thinks. Maybe it’s one of the women who’ve already been accused. But Tituba is enslaved, and sits in the balcony where Ann wouldn’t see her. The beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne don’t go to church, so they wouldn’t have been in the meeting house at all. That leaves the gospel woman Martha Corey, who attends church weekly without fail. It must be Martha.

“Martha Corey!” Ann’s mother says. “It must be her.” But no, Ann says. Between them, Mercy and Ann’s mother can see every person in the meeting house, with Mercy sitting in the balcony with the other servants and slaves, and the Putnam family sitting on the main floor. Now they tick off the name of each woman they’ve seen in meeting until Ann finally agrees wearily to one: the beloved Rebecca Nurse.

Ann’s mother sits back and thinks. Of course. Rebecca is beloved, even saintly. But her husband has been no end of trouble, arguing about land boundaries and recently even winning a well-known dispute in court against one of his neighbors. People say he’s been crowing about it, making sure his other neighbors know where his other boundaries lay, and daring them to push back. It’s easy to believe the Nurses have aligned themselves with the Devil.

WHO was Mercy Lewis?

A traumatized orphan and refugee of the Indian Wars in Maine. She was a servant in the powerful Putnam family. Mercy accused 9 people of witchcraft, testified in 16, and appeared with the other afflicted girls in several more.

Mercy was born and raised in Falmouth, Maine, where her village was decimated by Indian attacks that, early in her childhood, took her grandparents and cousins. Then, when she was 15 or 16, another brutal attack burned her village to the ground and killed most of its people, including Mercy’s parents.

Mercy and the few other survivors took refuge on an island, where the minister George Burroughs took her in as a servant. He was known to be verbally abusive to his wives, both of whom had died years earlier, and he may have been a harsh taskmaster. Perhaps that explains why Mercy would later accuse him of witchcraft.

Over the next few years Mercy served the Burroughs family, then an unknown home in Beverly, Massachusetts, and then finally the Putnam family in Salem Village. It was here that she befriended the 12-year-old Ann Putnam, and began suffering with fits and seizures. Today we might say Mercy had PTSD.

Once the trials were over, Mercy moved 50 miles north to Greenland, New Hampshire to live with her aunt. There she gave birth to an illegitimate child, married a man with the last name Allen, and moved away, probably to Boston. History loses track of her after that. Case files: Mercy Lewis

WHO was Rebecca Nurse?

A weak grandmother and much beloved member of the church. The accusations against her planted the first seeds of doubt in the trials.

Some historians speculate that a handful of women in the Village were suspicious of Rebecca because all eight of her children had survived to adulthood. This was unusual in a time of high infant mortality and diseases like smallpox.

It’s more likely that the animosity stemmed from years of land disputes between Rebecca’s father and then husband against other families, including the Putnams, who were the most powerful family in the Village. Most recently, the Nurse family had been part of a long and loud boundary dispute with a neighbor who claimed that some of the Nurses’ 300 acres were his. The dispute ended up in the General Court, where the neighbor lost, bitterly. The truth was more complicated, though. The Nurses didn’t own their farm; they mortgaged it. So it wasn’t the Nurses who’d won in court and insulted the neighbor: it was the farm’s owner. Still, many people believed it was the Nurse family who’d been so stubborn and argumentative. Case files: Rebecca Nurse 

Tomorrow in Salem: AFFLICTED: the refugee Mercy Lewis

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Mar 12: NEW GIRL: the servant Mary Warren joins the afflicted; Martha Corey makes things worse

wool

Today in Salem: A 20-year-old servant named Mary Warren is feeding wool through a spinning wheel when suddenly she pulls back, and puts her hands in the air. “It’s Martha Corey,” she shouts. “Her specter is in my lap.” Her master, the harsh John Proctor, looks up from his tools.

Mary reaches out to pull the specter closer. Wait. It isn’t the gospel woman Martha Corey. Mary opens her hand and sits back sharply. “It’s you!” she cries, and looks across the room at her master, the harsh John Proctor.

John is a large man, impatient by nature, and Mary provokes him like no one else. “It’s my shadow,” he says, and raises his fist. “Enough lying.” John’s wife, the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor, dumps another pile of wool in Mary’s basket. Elizabeth has already been accused, but doesn’t know it yet.

John steps down and leans down into her face. “Any more specters and you’ll feel it from me.”

Meanwhile, the girls’ leader, 12-year-old Ann Putnam, is pale with exhaustion. She’s been tormented for days now by the raging specter of the gospel woman Martha Corey. It’s hard to believe it’s Martha, though. She’s a full church member. How can this be?

The church deacons already know from Tituba’s testimony that specters wear the same clothes as their owners. So the deacons agree: if Martha and her specter are dressed alike, it’s proof that Martha is in league with the Devil.

black cat

They visit Ann Putnam to ask what the specter is wearing, but unfortunately Ann can’t see the specter today. The specter is furious with her and won’t let her see into the Invisible World until tonight.

The deacons can’t prove anything without that information, but they visit Martha anyway to tell her what she’s been accused of and to ask what she thinks. But they’ve hardly said hello when she interrupts them. “You’re here to ask if I’m a witch,” she says, and smiles. “Does the girl know what clothes I’m wearing?” she asks, and leans forward. “Well? Does she?” The deacons can hardly speak. How did Martha know they’d visited Ann at all, never mind that they’d asked her what Martha was wearing? How does Martha know she’s been accused?

LEARN MORE: Why did people believe that witches and their specters dressed alike? Why was that important?

When Tituba confessed, she described in detail the clothes worn by the specters she’d seen: a tall, white-haired man wearing black or woolen clothing, a woman wearing two silk hoods, and another woman wearing a wool coat with a white cap. That established fact #1: Specters actually wear clothes.

The day after Tituba’s confession, Elizabeth Hubbard saw the specter of the beggar Sarah Good. The specter was barelegged and barefoot, with her dress pulled down to reveal one breast. Later Elizabeth’s neighbors were shocked to find out that the real Sarah Good had been in exactly the same state of undress. This established fact #2: Specters were dressed like their “owners.”

In court, some testimonies mention what a specter was wearing or how their hair looked. It was considered proof that a particular person had a specter, and that it had been seen doing evil.

WHO was Mary Warren?

A servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor. She may have been an orphan when she started working for them, and at age 20 was beginning to lose any prospect of marriage and family.

When Mary was young she witnessed a heated argument between her father and their neighbor, Alice Parker. Shortly after that, her mother and sister became ill, possibly with smallpox. It killed her mother, and her sister became deaf (and eventually mute). Mary blamed Alice Parker for her family’s tragedies and indeed, when Alice Parker was accused of witchcraft, Mary was happy to testify.

Mary herself was accused of witchcraft, and in turn accused others. Of the people Mary testified against, eight were hanged, one was tortured, and one died in prison. Case files: Mary Warren  

WHO was John Proctor?

The first male to be accused of witchcraft during the trials.

John was a forthright and practical man who could also be harsh. He’d been known to enjoy rum a little too much and often quarreled with his wife. But he was also respected throughout the community as an intelligent and upstanding citizen.

When the trials began, John was leasing a 700-acre farm and running a tavern from his home. By all accounts it was successful, in part because his wife Elizabeth always insisted on payment, even if it was with pawned goods. It’s possible some of the Village residents were jealous of his prosperity and success. Case files: John Proctor

Tomorrow in Salem: NEWLY ACCUSED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse

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Mar 11: AWAY with little Betty

Today in Salem: Rev Parris uses a quill to scratch out a letter to his cousin in Boston. I should have done this sooner, he thinks. His daughter Betty is only 9, and it’s final: he needs to send her as far away, as quickly as possible, from the witchcraft hysteria. Perhaps his cousin will take her in.

Little Betty has been suffering from fits and seizures for weeks, cried and shook her way through the hearings for Tituba and the two Sarahs, and was again tormented two nights ago. And today, more of the same. Several ministers have spent all day at the parsonage, fasting and praying. Every time one of the ministers said “Amen,” Betty and her cousin Abigail twisted and jerked, barely under control. The girls know that the word “Amen” means “truth.” Obviously the devil knows it, too.

Rev Parris drips hot wax on the note and presses his seal into it. God’s will be done, he thinks, and hopes he’s doing the right thing. But he’d rather not see his daughter at all, than see her at home in so much distress.

Tomorrow in Salem: NEW GIRL: the servant Mary Warren joins the afflicted; Martha Corey makes things worse

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Mar 10: The bossy gospel woman Martha Corey

black cat

Today in Salem: The two Sarahs are still tightly chained to the wall of their Boston jail cell, and so are their specters. You cannot chain the Devil, though, and now he’s using the specter of the bossy Martha Corey to torture the girls’ leader Ann Putnam. The specter is furious that Ann has accused Martha’s fellow witches the slave Tituba, the beggar Sarah Good, and the sickly Sarah Osborne.

Martha’s specter is an extreme version of Martha herself, who’s always quick to say what she thinks and correct others’ mistakes. She’s always right, in her opinion, and refers to herself as a Gospel Woman; after all, she’s been a full member of the church for two years.

Martha is not without sin, though, and everyone knows it. More than 20 years ago, Martha gave birth to an illegitimate, mixed-race son. He still lives with Martha and her husband Giles, and the gossiping villagers have never stopped talking about it.

LEARN MORE: Was there racism in Salem?

Yes. When the witchcraft hysteria began, the first enslaved people had been brought to the new world 170 years earlier. So racial division and slavery were already firmly in place in New England. But when the West Indian Tituba confessed to witchcraft, it electrified the racial questions around her and other enslaved people. They had dark skin. Many of them had foreign accents and frightening folklore. And now, it seemed, at least one of them was in league with the Devil.

In addition, the colonists were terrified of Native Americans, who also had dark skin and accents. Allied with the French, with both intent on rousting England’s presence, the Native Americans were brutal in their attacks on the English colonists. Many in Salem had lost family members or friends, sometimes watching them die in horrific ways. During the trials, when witnesses said they’d had visions or nightmares about black men, it was Native Americans they were referring to.

WHO was Martha Corey?

As a young woman, Martha had an illegitimate son who was of mixed race. She named him Benoni, meaning “son of my sorrow,” a name usually reserved for babies whose mothers had died in childbirth. Martha lived with “Ben” in a boarding house for several years before she was married for the first time.

words from Martha Corey's examination
From a deposition against Martha Corey, filed during her examination

When her first husband died, Martha married Giles Corey, 80. Her mixed-race son, now 22, was living with them at the time of the trials.

Martha had joined the church two years before the trials began, and had referred to herself as a Gospel Woman ever since. She could be condescending, and was quick to state her opinions. She was respected but disliked, and her scandalous past counted against her. Case files: Martha Corey

Tomorrow in Salem: AWAY with little Betty

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Mar 9: CHAINED: Good & Osborne

ankle chains

Today in Salem: The jail keeper drops eight pounds of chains at the feet of the beggar Sarah Good. Stand back, he says, and pushes her against the wall. Sarah is spitting mad, but she can’t kick, and she won’t drop the baby. All she can do is unleash a string of curses as the jail keeper yanks the shackles tight, then locks them to a hook in the wall.

Until last night the magistrates had assumed that a jail cell would contain the witches and their specters. But after last night’s torments they know that a jail cell isn’t enough. The women may be locked in a cell, but their specters are traveling freely and inflicting great harm. So they’ve told the jail keeper to physically attach the women to the jail cell wall. That should keep their specters at bay.

The jail keeper drops another eight pounds of chains in front of the sickly Sarah Osborne, but she’s too ill to put up a fight. She slides down to sit, then leans against the wall. As weak as she is, though, the jail keeper is still rough as he pulls and locks the shackles. He’s no fool. She may be sick, but her specter is not.

The slave Tituba stands to the side. She doesn’t need to be attached to the walls; her specter didn’t torment the girls last night. Why would she? Tituba has no cause to be vengeful or angry with them. They didn’t testify against her. She’s already confessed.

LEARN MORE: Why were there babies in jail?

History doesn’t tell us why Sarah Good had her baby with her. But we do know that her baby, 5 months old, was still nursing. Puritans were strict about mothers nursing their own babies rather than using a wet nurse; in fact, Cotton Mather, a prominent minister of the time, later wrote that women who refused to suckle their infants are “dead while they live.”

Still, wet nurses were used in Puritan society during the first few days of a child’s life, until the mother was no longer producing colostrum (which the Puritans believed was poisonous, or at least impure). A wet nurse would also be required in the case of maternal death, or other extreme circumstances. But prison probably wasn’t one of them, especially for a beggar.

Tomorrow in Salem: The bossy gospel woman Martha Corey