Tag Archives: Ann Putnam

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Apr 20: A minister works for the Devil, and the servant Mary Warren’s story changes again

Today in Salem: A stunned silence has descended on Salem since yesterday’s court appearances. It’s enough that the wild child Abigail Hobbs has confessed to being a witch. But the Devil had recruited her in Maine. And she was accused by someone who used to know her there – the servant and war refugee Mercy Lewis. Just how far afield is the Devil working?

man's shadow

Mercy is a servant in the Putnam family, and has often told stories about the wild child she knew in Maine. So 13-year-old Ann Putnam, the afflicted girls’ leader, has heard all about Abigail’s dangerous behavior. But she’s also heard stories about the minister there, Reverend George Burroughs.

The Putnam family remembers Burroughs well. He’d been the minister in Salem Village until 9 years ago, when the Village stopped paying him and the Putnams had him arrested for an unpaid debt. He’d left for Maine with bitterness on all sides, and has been ministering to a flock that, until recently, included Abigail Hobbs and Mercy Lewis.

This very night, Rev Burroughs’ specter attacks Ann Putnam, and her visions electrify her family. “A minister?” she shouts. ”Recruiting children’s souls for Satan?” The specter boasts that he’s the one who recruited the wild child Abigail Hobbs, not the Devil. Burroughs is more powerful than any witch or wizard. The Putnams are not surprised.

In Salem jail, the Proctors’ servant Mary Warren is picking dirty straw from her hair. Yesterday she’d fainted in terror during the court hearing, but now, after sleeping on the floor of the jail cell for the night, she’s had a chance to think about which side she’s on: afflicted, or accused.

The two magistrates keep their arms crossed when they question her. She did call the afflicted girls liars, she says, but the Devil had forced her to. And yes, she did sign the Devil’s book. But she didn’t know that’s what it was. Her master John Proctor (who was in jail himself) had just handed it to her. In fact, Mary says, it’s impossible for her to be a witch, because she’s still afflicted herself. Why, just last night she was visited by the specter of the cantankerous Giles Corey.

Mary chokes on Giles’s name and falls to the floor, gasping and crying, then describes exactly what the specter was wearing. The magistrates send for Corey, who’s in his own jail cell, but no sooner does Mary see him than she convulses again. The real Giles Corey, as all can see, is dressed exactly as Mary had said. Of course, they’d been in court together yesterday. And he’s wearing the same clothes now. But surely he could have found a way to change his clothes since then?

The magistrates just look at each other and turn to the wild child Abigail Hobbs. She fully confessed yesterday, but gives them a few more details about the specters she’s seen and who she herself has tormented. It’s enough to make the trip worth it for the magistrates. But they’re still not sure about Mary’s changing story, and they leave her to spend another night on the jail cell floor.

WHO was George Burroughs?

Age about 42. George Burroughs was the minister of Salem Village until 9 years before the Trials began. He lived in Maine when he was accused of witchcraft, but the people of the Village remembered him well. They’d been dissatisfied with him as the minister, and refused to pay him. So when his wife died suddenly, he had to borrow money to pay for her funeral. With no salary, Burroughs couldn’t repay the debt, so he resigned and left, which would come back to haunt him.

The court ordered them to settle their differences, and the Village agreed to pay him everything it owed, minus the amount of his debt. But when Burroughs arrived with the paperwork, he was arrested instead. Eventually the case was dropped, and the Village paid Burroughs some of what they owed. But it left bitterness for everyone involved. So when he was accused of witchcraft, there was already animosity on both sides.

Burroughs landed in Falmouth, Maine (now Portland), where he lived when an Indian attack destroyed the settlement. It was here that Burroughs met the families of Mercy Lewis and Abigail Hobbs. The attack drove the Hobbs family to Salem. But the Lewis family was killed, so he took Mercy in as a servant for a time, before sending her to another unknown family, and then eventually to Salem. He himself then moved further south to Wells, Maine, where he lived at the time of the accusation.

Burroughs’ history with Salem Village was troublesome enough. But people also suspected his physical traits. He was dark-skinned, very short, and muscular. He was also much stronger than he looked, even preternaturally so. His trial included testimony from people who’d heard that he could lift a 7-foot musket by inserting one finger into the barrel, then raising it to arm’s length. It was also said that he could “take up a full barrll of molasses wth butt two fingers of one of his hands in the bung and carry itt from ye stage head to the door att the end of the stage wth out letting itt downe.” Case files: George Burroughs

George Burroughs’ descendants include Walt Disney.

Tomorrow in Salem: Two wheels and nine arrests

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Mar 28: The Nurse family demands answers

Today in Salem: Three hard raps on the Putnam’s door announce a visitor: Rebecca Nurse’s son-in-law. When the door opens, he steps in without being asked and immediately confronts Ann Putnam’s mother.

“Who said it first?” he demands. “Who accused Rebecca first?” Yesterday’s slammed church door was a wake-up call to the beloved Rebecca Nurse’s family, and the men are taking action, starting with the Putnams.

Ann’s mother touches her pregnant belly and sits in her chair by the warm hearth. Her cheeks are flushed, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s from warmth of the fire. “If Ann says Rebecca’s specter is tormenting her, then she’s speaking the truth,” her mother says.

Ann Putnam is 12, but she’s never been questioned about her accusations. Now she’s shrinking as the man turns to her. ”Yes,” she admits in a small voice. She had seen the specter of a pale woman, sitting in her grandmother’s rocking chair. But she never said it was Rebecca. Her mother had encouraged her.

“You’re mistaken, child,” her mother says. “You were so upset. It was Mercy who said Rebecca’s name first.” Mercy Lewis is the family servant, but she’s not going to accept the blame, not this time. She, too, has never been questioned, and this angry man frightens her.

“How can you lie?” says Mercy, looking at Ann. And so it goes, from Mercy, to Ann, to her mother in a round robin of finger pointing that will not end.

Tonight the moon is new, and the dark tavern is lit by more candles than usual. In the flickering light, two men lean in to share a rumor they’ve heard: that the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor is the next to be arrested. But when a woman at the next table defends Elizabeth, one of the afflicted girls points into the empty air.

“She’s right there,” she says. “There!”

“Old witch,” another girl says. “I’ll have her hang.”

The men look at them coldly. You’re lying, one man says. He doesn’t see any specter, and he doesn’t believe they do either. Later he’ll testify that the girls treated it like a joke. The other man will say that the girls said they did it for fun. They needed to have some fun.

Tomorrow in Salem: Governor Phips heads for rocky shoals

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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 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 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 8: Vengeful specters attack the girls

Today in Salem: The gale-force wind continues, blustering north through the streets of Boston, out of the town, over the roiling water, and through the marshes into Salem Village. Heavy clouds hang over naked trees that moan and sway in the gusts, carrying the vengeful specters of the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne. The women are locked in the Boston jail, 20 miles away from Salem Village. But their specters are here, bent on revenge, twisting and choking the girls who dared to testify against them.

The meeting house is in disrepair, and now a board is pried loose in the wind, sailing into the air and smashing against the wall of the parsonage. Inside, little Betty jumps at the sound and nearly faints, then bursts into tears before bending backward and twisting hard toward the fireplace.

11-year-old tomboy Abigail Williams isn’t much better, grasping the table, sobbing and choking at the same time. Across the village at the Putnam home, the 12-year-old Ann is flailing her arms and yelling at the specters that she will not, will not follow them. And, at the home of Dr. Griggs, his 17-year-old servant Elizabeth Hubbard is staring at the hearth fire, wide-eyed and seemingly in a trance, unmoving, even when the wood snaps and an ember flies toward her.

LEARN MORE: Were the afflicted girls really having “fits,” or were they faking it?

Probably both, sometimes maliciously, but also because of stress, past trauma, fear, boredom, and perhaps mass hysteria.

Of the ten main accusers, at least two and probably more were traumatized refugees from the Indian Wars in Maine. These were teenage girls and young women who’d watched as their homes and towns were burned and their family members murdered brutally. The attacks were not small or isolated. In one campaign, 60 miles of Maine coastland were destroyed in five weeks, with not one English settlement left.

Today we would say these girls had PTSD. But the Puritan Church of the time believed that dreams and nightmares carried messages and prophesies. One can only imagine what kind of dreams or even hallucinations these girls were having, and what they were told they meant.

Consider, too, that at least four of the girls – some of them refugees – were orphans who’d lost their parents, and therefore their financial and emotional support, dowries, and social connections. Puritan culture required each person to be “attached” to a family unit. So the orphan was taken in, frequently by extended family, and treated as a servant. Overnight these girls had lost their prospects. They’d never be married, never have children, and never have status in the church. They would be servants forever. Some of these hopeless girls had nothing else to lose, and may have been vengeful or uncaring.

On a larger level, the entire community was suffering tremendous anxiety. They were at war with the Indians, believed that Satan was active and intent on destroying them, and had just endured a brutally cold winter. Even the youngest accuser, age 9, would have picked up on that level of turmoil.

Still, despite any compassionate context, it’s true that some fakery was at play, with staged injuries, dramatic acting, and obvious teamwork. One accuser eventually confessed that she’d lied, and two of them joked that they just wanted to have fun. It was complicated, but not, and leaves us with questions we’ll never be able to answer fully.

Tomorrow in Salem: CHAINED: Good & Osborne

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Mar 6: ACCUSED: the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor

Today in Salem: The girls’ leader Ann Putnam is sweating and shaking when her father demands “Who afflicts you?” Thomas Putnam is one of the most powerful and vengeful men in the Village. When he speaks, people listen, including his wife and children.

Ann is 12, but her father still frightens her. So when he asks if it’s the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor who’s tormenting her, Ann just nods. There’s been more than a whiff of suspicion around Elizabeth for 30 years, thanks to Elizabeth’s grandmother, a Quaker midwife and healer who was tried (and acquitted) for witchcraft 30 years earlier. Now Elizabeth is 40, stronger and more capable than most Puritan women, perhaps even too much so. She is her husband’s quarrelsome third wife, raising six of his children while adding five more of her own. She’s also supporting a 700-acre farm, running a tavern from the Proctor home and, like her grandmother, sharing knowledge of her garden herbs when people need a healer. If the Proctors are successful, it’s in good part due to Elizabeth.

Thomas is a Village farmer and has never liked the Proctors, whose tavern is open only to merchants and other well-to-do people from Salem Town. It wouldn’t surprise him if their prosperity was ill-gotten, through earthly means or not.

LEARN MORE: What was the difference between Salem Town and Salem Village?

Salem was divided into two distinct parts: Salem Town and Salem Village. Although they were part of the same entity, they were distinct in economy, social class, and values. The Village was inland, and most of its people were farmers. But the Town was a prosperous seaport, and most of its residents were merchants (many of them wealthy). But even though it was more prosperous, the Town still collected taxes from the Village, and depended on its farms for food.

map of accused and accusers

As much tension as there was between Town and Village, there was also division within the Village itself. Those who lived near Ipswich Road, close to the Town, made more money as merchants and tavern keepers (like the Proctors). But those who lived farther away weren’t as prosperous, and believed the Town’s worldliness threatened their Puritan values.

In the early days of the witchcraft hysteria, most of the supposed witches and those who accused them lived on opposite sides of the Village, with the “witches” living closer to the Town.

WHO was Thomas Putnam Jr.?

Thomas, age 40, was a third-generation resident of Salem Village. Some of the most active accusers were his daughter Ann, his niece Mary Walcott, and his servant Mercy Lewis. He gave their accusations tremendous legal weight by seeking arrest warrants, transcribing depositions, swearing out complaints, and writing letters to the judges.

Thomas was seen as a resentful and bitter man, for reasons that boiled down to a family feud between Thomas’s family (the Putnams) and the Porters.

The feud began 20 years before the Trials, when a dam and sawmill run by the Porters flooded the Putnam farms, with the Putnams then suing the Porters. The Putnams lived in the rural Village, while the Porters lived in the urban, mercantile 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.

The feud continued when Rev Samuel Parris arrived, and a Village committee dominated by the Putnams gave him a generous offer of house and lands. Later the Putnams were ousted from the committee and replaced by the Porters and others who were hostile to the Putnams.

The feud exploded personally for Thomas when his father died and disinherited him, leaving his estate instead to a half-brother who’d married into the Porter family.

Now, as the Trials set in, many of those accused of witchcraft were connected to the Porter family, with many of the accusers connected to the Putnams.

And Thomas had more than a few axes to grind.

WHO was Elizabeth Proctor?

When Elizabeth was about 10, her grandmother was tried (and acquitted) for witchcraft. Like her grandmother, the adult Elizabeth also grew medicinal herbs, had a significant knowledge of folk medicine, and was sometimes consulted as a healer.

Elizabeth was the third wife of John Proctor, a somewhat harsh man who rented a large farm just south of the Village. They also ran a tavern from their home, serving patrons only from the Town (not the Village), and while John ran the farm, Elizabeth ran the tavern. She was confident and quarrelsome, always insisting on payment, even if it was in the form of goods rather than money.

Elizabeth and John had 6 known children, one of whom had died. She was pregnant with a seventh when she and John were arrested. When she was tried and sentenced, her execution was stayed until after she gave birth. The executions came to an end before the birth of her son, whom she named John Jr.

Tomorrow in Salem: PAYING FOR THEIR SINS: the slave Tituba, the beggar Sarah Good, & the sickly Sarah Osborne