Category Archives: October

10/1692

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Oct 4: SEIZED and SENT: The Sheriff takes cattle, and the ministers send a letter

Today in Salem: The Sheriff is busy again, seizing cattle from a family to pay the prison debts of the parents, who’ve been in jail for almost 6 months. For the first time, though, the Sheriff takes pity and leaves a few cattle behind for the family. These he brands on the horns with the help of the oldest son, age 22.

Meanwhile in Boston, an esteemed minister writes an introduction to Increase Mather’s lengthy essay and sends the entire manuscript to the governor, hoping to persuade him to stop or at least slow down the trials. The minister doesn’t know that the governor’s wife has been accused.

Tomorrow in Salem: PETITION from 6 confessors to recant

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Oct 3: The furious Rev. Increase Mather is *done*

Today in Salem: the prominent Rev Increase Mather is furious. Twenty people have died. Eight more have been sentenced. More than one hundred people, including children, are still in prison. This week yet another parent has asked the afflicted girls — rather than God — to say who’s hurting his child. Then two dogs were killed; one of them obviously an innocent animal. And all of this because of the shrieking and swooning of a handful of girls who say they can see specters.

Today Mather has written an essay on the matter, and, as the most influential minister in New England, he intends it to stop the Trials entirely.

“It were better that ten suspected witches should escape,” he’s written, “than that one innocent person should be condemned.”

Now his son, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather, is reading the essay to a group of area ministers. He is a stammerer, and in the best of times speaks slowly. These are not the best of times, though, so he articulates each word even more slowly, in a clear and authoritative voice, so the ministers can hear and consider his father’s main points:

The Devil CAN impersonate an innocent person to hurt others.

Proof is ONLY shown by confession or testimony from two people about real-world evil.

Seeing specters is NOT proof.

Touch tests are DANGEROUS. Asking an accused person to touch and heal the afflicted is a jaw-dropping mockery of the power of Jesus Christ to touch and cure the sick. It also tempts the Devil to touch and hurt that person.

LEARN MORE: These four points are distilled from a 74-page essay. Many details (and much florid writing) have been omitted. But the main points stand.

The essay can be found in its entirety here and is titled:

Cases of Conscience
concerning evil
SPIRITS
Personating Men,
Witchcrafts, infallible Proofs of
Guilt in such as are accused
with that Crime.

By Increase Mather,
President of Harvard College at Cambridge, and Teacher of
a Church at Boston in New-England.

Tomorrow in Salem: SEIZED and SENT: the Sheriff takes cattle, and the ministers send a letter

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Oct 2: Man’s “best friend”

Today in Salem: A dog is leaping in lopsided circles and bucking like a wild horse as the afflicted girls shriek nearby. A specter is riding him, they cry, and no matter how fast the dog twirls he cannot shake the specter loose. It’s no ordinary specter, though: A judge has recently announced that he is skeptical of the entire witchcraft situation, and will not arrest so much as one more person. Now the judge is in hiding, knowing that he could be accused in retaliation. It’s obvious to the girls: They can see that his furious brother has sent his own specter to attack the girls through a dog.

Finally a Village man finds a gun and shoots the dog, who stops and dies mid-leap, as if he’s hit a wall. But this dog isn’t the only one: Nearby, another dog is shot when an afflicted girl claims he’s the Devil in disguise.

The prominent Rev. Increase Mather is furious. It’s impossible to kill the Devil. Since the dog had in fact died, it was obviously an ordinary and innocent animal. Just like that, Mather’s belief in the afflicted girls is gone.

Tomorrow in Salem: The furious Rev Increase Mather is *done*

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Oct 1: The tide begins to turn

Today in Salem: After several weeks away, Governor Phips had returned two days ago astonished to find that his wife has been named as a witch. She has always been a kind and merciful woman, but now she has gone too far, and it’s counting against her. While the Governor was gone, and without any authority, she’d signed a warrant to release a specific woman from prison. Now the woman has disappeared, and the jailer must be fired. Her accusers say it’s obvious: His wife must be a witch, in league with one that she’s set free. What else could explain it?

Privately, the Governor can only hope that his wife hasn’t mentioned the horoscope. Many years ago an astrologer had given it to him unasked for. Then last winter the Governor’s wife had found it and destroyed it, thinking that its predictions were a little too accurate. Would owning a horoscope reflect badly on either of them? Does it matter that he didn’t ask for it? Or that she’d destroyed it as soon as she found it?

Meanwhile, a notable man has brought his sick child all the way from Boston to ask the afflicted girls if a specter is causing the illness. For the first time, though, when the girls formally accuse a specific woman, the judges refuse to arrest her. Then, when the prominent minister Increase Mather hears about it, he confronts the child’s father. Why didn’t he seek help from God in Boston rather than the Devil in Salem?

Tomorrow in Salem: Man’s “best friend”