Today in Salem: Captain John Alden is standing in front of the magistrates, the latest in the parade of accused persons. He’s standing tall and calm, as anyone of his station would, parrying with the judges when he can, and ignoring the swoons of the afflicted girls.
Wenches, he thinks. Playing their juggling tricks. Falling down, crying out. Staring in people’s faces. His parents arrived at Plymouth on the Mayflower. He himself is a military commander, sea captain, and merchant. None of it matters, though. The girls have accused him, and now he’s here.
One of the girls is so limp that a court officer is propping her up so she can stand.
“Who hurts you?” the cruel magistrate Hathorne asks. The girl is silent, and points weakly at another military man. But when the officer who’s supporting her whispers in her ear, she recovers her strength, puts her finger down, and proclaims “Alden!”
“Are you sure?” Hathorne asks. Well, she’s never actually seen Alden in the flesh, she admits. But she knows it’s Alden who’s been afflicting her. She just needed someone to point out who he is.
It’s so crowded in the meeting house that people are sitting on windowsills and blocking the light, so the magistrates order everyone outside in the sunshine to get a clearer look at Alden.
“That’s Alden,” says the same girl. “He sells powder and shot to the Indians and French, and lies with Indian squaws, and has Indian papooses.”
While this is true, more or less, it has nothing to do with witchcraft. He’s an adventurous man who’s spent much time on the northern frontier, and stories with a grain of truth have grown into scandal (some of which is deserved). Again, though, it’s hardly the kind of evil a witch would practice.
After a lengthy break, followed by angry give and take, the magistrates send Alden to jail in Boston to wait for future trial. But it marks a permanent shift for the the jail keeper. He’s heard of John Alden, and holds him in high esteem. How could this be possible? Perhaps others in the jail are just as innocent. It’s still his responsibility to contain the prisoners, but after today he’s a little more compassionate with them.
About 15 people are examined and jailed today. The neighborly Elizabeth How and the crabby Wilmot Redd are both examined and sent to jail, based on little more than the afflicted girls’ torments. The outcast Martha Carrier’s own relatives are relieved when she’s sent to jail, with her hands and feet tied so her specter can’t hurt anyone between the meeting house and the jail.
John and Elizabeth Proctor’s son insists he’s innocent. The judges take an especially ruthless stance and order that he be hogtied, bound neck and heels for 24 hours or until he confesses. A gushing nosebleed ends the torture early, though.
WHY is this important?
Five years after the Trials began, the merchant Robert Calef wrote an account called More Wonders of the Invisible World. In it, he said the Trials led to “a Biggotted Zeal, stirring up a Blind and most Bloody rage, not against Enemies, or Irreligious Proffligate Persons, But (in Judgment of Charity, and to view) against as Vertuous and Religious as any they have left behind them in this Country, which have suffered as Evil doers with the utmost extent of rigour.”
In this book, Captain John Alden provided his own account of what happened to him. It’s one of the few first-hand narratives that survive today.
Also, that the magistrates could churn through about 15 examinations in one day shows what a machine the process had become.
WHO was John Alden?
John Alden was the oldest son of John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden, who’d settled in Plymouth Colony in 1620, arriving on the Pilgrim ship the Mayflower.
John was in his mid-sixties when he was accused of witchcraft, and was a member of the Boston elite. He was a merchant, military commander, and sea captain, making several government-sponsored trips up and down the New England coast.
Alden was no stranger to scandal and gossip. At that time, northern New England, including Maine, was in a three-way tug-of-war between the English, the French, and the Native Americans. Raids and attacks were common, and when English settlers were taken captive they were frequently sent to Quebec. Alden participated in many prisoner ransoms and exchanges in French Canada; in fact, he spent so much time there that he was rumored to be selling guns to the French and their allied natives (not to mention sleeping with native women and siring several illegitimate children). It didn’t help that his interactions with the English prisoners were sometimes harsh, with some claiming he’d even left them behind for no good reason.
A few months before the witchcraft hysteria began, Alden’s ship was intercepted by a French frigate who captured the entire crew – including his son. Alden was released and sent to Boston to raise a ransom and arrange for a prisoner exchange, leaving his son behind in Quebec. His efforts were almost spectacularly unsuccessful (he managed to secure only six prisoners instead of 60). It was in the midst of this situation that Alden received a summons to appear in Salem Village, having been accused of witchcraft, then was sent to jail for several months. The French, losing patience with the delay, sent Alden’s son to the Bastille in France. It would be years before he returned home.
Alden spent four months in jail before escaping. His case was later dismissed, and he later contributed his first-hand account of his experience to Robert Calef’s More Wonders of the Invisible World.
Alden died ten years later at age 75. Nearly 170 years later, an excavation in Boston revealed old bones and gravestones, including the stone that had marked John Alden’s grave. The location of his remains is unknown, but his gravestone can be seen at the Old South Church in Boston.
