Category Archives: September

09/1692

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Sep 2: Resistance

Today in Salem: The prominent minister Cotton Mather sends a manuscript to Chief Justice William Stoughton. The people were just short of an angry mob at the last hanging, and the tide has turned against the trials. They’re furious at the thought of innocent people dying because it was the Devil – not them – using their specters. In fact, the public is so angry that it might be too late to reform the court. It could destroy the judicial system altogether, or even lead to violence against the judges.

The ministers agree in part. All summer they’ve said that spectral evidence alone isn’t enough to find someone guilty and sentence them to death. Of course, those who’ve been hanged so far were guilty without question. Still, it’s possible that many innocent people have been swept up in the fervor and eventually will die, only because their specters have been seen doing evil. So the question remains: What if those specters are actually the Devil in disguise?

Mather knows that a guilty verdict requires three kinds of evidence: spectral, real-world evil, and recognition from confessed witches. But he isn’t sure that the citizenry knows that. Maybe it will calm things down if Mather writes about how careful the judges are being.

Earlier this summer he’d asked Chief Justice Stoughton about his idea. Did he agree with Mather’s representation? Would he write an endorsement? Stoughton does agree, in general. But he’s never wavered from one key point: that the Devil can disguise himself as an innocent person’s specter only if that person has given their permission. Unfortunately Mather thought the Chief Justice had changed his mind and didn’t follow up on it. Now the manuscript rests in Stoughton’s hands.

Tomorrow in Salem: ContagionSep 3: Contagion

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Sep 1: ACCUSED: the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell

Today in Salem: The fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell is in court. It was just a few weeks ago that his brother-in-law’s house had suspiciously caught fire, during a funeral, and with Samuel watching, no less. But now the judges are asking about other suspicious events, especially complaints from the afflicted girls that his specter has tormented them.

Samuel looks down at the table and takes a breath, then says he’s innocent. But with his reputation for telling fortunes, it seems undeniable, so he quickly changes his mind and confesses. “Why?” the judges ask. What have you done to summon the Devil?

Samuel searches his mind. He’s frustrated, he says. He has too much work to do, he says, and he’s constantly overwhelmed by it. Maybe he’d accidentally invoked Satan by saying the Devil should help him. Oh, and he’d also told someone – only once! – that he could make cattle come to him using only his mind.

That’s not enough for the judges, and they command him to tell the truth. Wardwell thinks for a minute, then tells the story of 20 years ago, when a young woman had rejected his professions of love. That night he’d seen a strange man who called himself a Prince of the Air, and promised him a more comfortable life in return for his service. So, in the throes of despair, he’d signed the Devil’s book with a black square. After 20 years of silence, the Devil had appeared and commanded him to afflict other people. So he’d done it, by pinching the buttons on his coat. But he wasn’t the only one.

Tomorrow in Salem: Resistance