Today in Salem: The Sheriff pounds on the door of the stubborn Giles Corey’s son-in-law. Now that Corey has been executed, and wife Martha is condemned to die, the Sheriff is to seize everything they owned and sell it for the benefit of the King. But the Sheriff is more interested in quick money, so he gives the son-in-law a choice: surrender the goods, or pay the Sheriff a hefty sum in cold hard cash. The son-in-law chooses to pay, and spends the next few days dredging up the money.
Today in Salem: Thou shalt not kill. The sixth commandment isn’t hard to understand. Except that it is. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
The stubborn Giles Corey is making it even more complicated. The Sheriff is about to put him to death by pressing. And Giles is allowing it. Is he indirectly dying by his own hands? If so, is he breaking the sixth commandment by killing someone — himself? Will God punish him, since the church cannot?
A small crowd of onlookers is standing in the grassy field across from the jail. Most of them were at the meeting house yesterday when Giles was excommunicated, and most of them have the same questions. There won’t be any answers today, though.
At the edge of the crowd, a man is standing with one foot on the ground and one foot on top of a stack of flat stones, each one as large as a man’s torso. He’s holding a large board that seems to swivel as Giles emerges from the jail, shuffling toward the field and shaking off the Sheriff’s hand. Giles is 81. He doesn’t need to be restrained.
The crowd murmurs when Giles once again holds his hand up to the Sheriff and, with the stiff bones of an old man, lays himself down. The man by the stones steps forward and places the board over Giles’ torso, then turns toward the stones. He and the Sheriff grunt as they pick up the top stone together and lay it on the board over Giles’ heart.
“How do you plead?” the Sheriff asks, but Giles remains silent, still refusing to speak. The Sheriff lets a few seconds go by, then gives the smallest of nods toward the officer. They lay a second stone on top of the first. “How do you plead?” the Sheriff says again. “What saith ye?”
“More weight,” Giles wheezes.
Three, four stones. With his dying breaths Giles’ tongue lolls out, and the Sheriff, perhaps to hasten the inevitable, uses the tip of his walking stick to push it back in. Five stones and several minutes later Giles is still, his breath pressed out of him at last.
Today in Salem: Water puddles on the floor and flies circle a piece of stale bread, as a gregarious man enters the prison cell to talk with Giles Corey. The two men have been friends for years, and the judges have asked the man to persuade Giles to enter a plea before it’s too late.
The judges themselves have been in and out of the prison most of yesterday and last night to talk with Giles. His refusal to plead to the charge of witchcraft has stopped his trial, and he’s been sentenced to pressing with heavy stones until he pleads or dies. He can avoid it with just three words: “I plead innocent (or guilty).”
Even now, in private, Giles’ friend agrees. “Don’t be a fool,” he says. “Why are you doing this? Even if you hang, it’s an easier death.” But Giles just grunts and looks away.
“You gain nothing by dying under a heavy stone,” the friend says. “You will lose your life for nothing.”
“Not so,” Giles says. “It will protect my family.” He goes on to explain what he would never tell anyone but a good friend: that he’s written a new will and deeded his property to his sons-in-law. “If I’m convicted, then the Sheriff can take everything away from them. But I cannot be convicted if I don’t enter a plea to begin with.”
“Yes, but you’ve deeded the property to them,” his friend says. “They already own it. The Sheriff can’t take it away, regardless of what happens to you.”
Giles rears up and laughs until he chokes. “Have you met our Sheriff? That is a small distinction for a man like him. Do you truly believe he will abide by it?”
“Yes, but – ” Giles cuts him off. “I am 81 years old. Death will visit me soon enough. I have decided.”
Nine guilty, nine sentenced
By tonight the court has finished the week’s trials. Nine people tried, nine guilty verdicts, and nine sentenced to hang. The judges do, however, delay one execution: the minister’s daughter Ann Faulkner, who, like Elizabeth Proctor, is pregnant.
There are more prisoners behind them who are undoubtedly guilty, but only so many people can be tried and hanged at once. Court won’t be in session again until November 1, so the other trials will have to wait. In the meantime there are eight hangings and the stubborn Giles Corey’s pressing to deal with.
Tomorrow in Salem: ***Sensitive content: mentions death by suicide*** EXECUTED: Giles Corey
Today in Salem: The stubborn Giles Corey is standing stone-cold mute in front of the judges, clenching his jaw and refusing to speak. He is 81 years old and still strong enough to work his farm, a commanding presence even though he is looking up at the judges.
“How do you plead?” the judges ask. But Giles is defiantly quiet.
It’s a dire choice. The trial cannot begin unless he enters a plea. If he continues to stand mute, the court can use “peine forte et dure” (strong and harsh punishment) until he pleads or dies a painful death.
Today is Giles’ third chance. He’s been in court twice, and both times stood mute. Even after the judges had reminded him of the consequences, even after his good friend has spent two days trying to persuade him, he will not speak.
The judges have already given him more than he deserves, and now they sentence him to pressing. In two days the sheriff will lay heavy stones on him, adding more and more, until he chooses to speak or dies.
Learn More: Why were prisoners punished — even tortured — for not entering a plea? Why couldn’t a trial start without one?
English law said that a court couldn’t hear a case until the accused person voluntarily asked for its jurisdiction. That request was made by entering a plea.
If an accused person refused to plead, they were refusing to ask for the court’s jurisdiction. The trial couldn’t begin because the court hadn’t been invited to judge it.
If that happened, the court could use a form of torture called “peine forte et dure” (French for “punishment strong and hard”) to force the accused person to enter a plea, and thereby ask for and accept the court’s jurisdiction. In England (and therefore British America), that torture usually consisted of extreme imprisonment (often with starvation), or being pressed with heavy weights.
“Peine forte et dure” was abolished in England 80 years after the Salem Witchcraft Trials. It was replaced by the mandate that “standing mute” was the same as saying “not guilty,” which was voluntarily asking the court to hear the case.
Less than 20 years later, the American Bill of Rights was created and added to the Constitution. Giles Corey’s death was foundational to its prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Today in Salem: The cantankerous Giles Corey is pounding his fist on the jail keeper’s table. He’s ripped his will into the smallest shreds that his calloused hands can, and now, with the help of the Justice of the Peace, he’s making a new one. “Being under great troubles & affliction,” Giles begins, and goes on to proclaim:
To the son-in-law who testified against Giles and his wife Martha: NOTHING.
To another son-in-law, who called Martha a witch: NOTHING.
To Martha herself, his gospel woman wife: NOTHING. The jail keeper sits up at that. She’s been in jail for over a month now, which doesn’t bode well. Does Giles think she won’t survive? Or is she a thorn in his side that he wants to remove?
Everything – every shilling, acre, and cow – is to go to his other two sons-in-law, share and share alike, for “considerations mee at ye present Espetially moveing.”
Meanwhile, Susannah Sheldon joins the ranks of the afflicted girls when, during Sunday meeting, she sees the specter of a wealthy merchant, Philip English, crawl over a pew to torment her.
WHO was Susannah Sheldon?
Susannah was an 18yo traumatized refugee of the Indian Wars in Maine. Her 24yo brother was killed in an Indian attack, and her 10yo brother died of “distraction.” Only four months before she made her first accusation, her father died of an infected wound that he’d received in Maine, and the family farm was taken. Her mother, fours sisters, and brother were reduced to poverty. Her first accusations were against the wealthiest family in Salem. Her visions were among the most disturbing.
Susannah moved to Providence, Rhode Island before the trials were over. According to local records, she was summoned before the Providence City Council two years later. We don’t know why she was summoned, but she was referred to as a person “of Evill repute” and may have been indigent at the time. Some records indicate that she died 4 years after the Trials ended.
Of the people Susannah accused and/or testified against, 15 were hanged. Her legal case files are here.
Today in Salem: The normally cantankerous Giles Corey is swaying in front of the judges, his hands tied, bewildered. Prophesies? Suicide? He was just arrested yesterday afternoon, not knowing why he’s been accused. Now the cruel magistrate Hathorne is leaning in, relentless in his questions.
Just last week, Giles had helped escort his gospel woman wife Martha from the jail in Salem to Boston, and promised to visit her next week. Now the judges want to know: Was he really just promising a simple visit? Or was he prophesying his own arrest? Does he realize that prophesies are a kind of magic? Giles protests, saying he’d run out of money for the ferry and was just telling his wife goodbye.
More important, several witnesses testify they’ve heard Giles say he’s tempted to do away with himself. The judges remind him that self-murder is a much greater sin than witchcraft. If Giles is willing to take his own life, wouldn’t he be even more willing to practice witchcraft? Giles denies everything.
The afflicted girls writhe and convulse as usual through more questions about his wife’s criticisms, his lame ox, and what was that ointment Martha had in their house? The judges send Giles to jail to wait for trial.
Giles had been arrested with three other people, and now the judges turn their attention to the wild child Abigail Hobbs. The afflicted girls are suddenly quiet, staying calm throughout her examination.
“I have been very wicked,” Abigail says. “I hope I shall be better, if God will help me.” She goes on to admit to everything: signing the Devil’s book, using her specter to hurt the girls, and – most alarmingly – that this began in faraway Maine. The Devil has been operating on a far grander scale than the judges and ministers of Salem had realized. This would change everything. (What the judges don’t know is that Abigail’s statement today will set off a chain of events that, by tomorrow night, will link the witches’ and the Wabanakis’ assaults on New England. During the next seven weeks, fifty-four people will be formally accused of witchcraft, a sharp increase from the ten who’d been complained against in the seven weeks that ended two days ago.)
With the slave Tituba and the 4-year-old Dorcas Good, Abigail Hobbs becomes the third person to confess to witchcraft, and is sent to jail.
When the third prisoner, the Proctors’ servant Mary Warren, approaches the bar, the afflicted girls – her former friends – are so violently seized that only one of them can speak.
Everyone in the Village knows the story: Mary had been afflicted herself, but soon was cured. Then she said the other girls were lying, and now the girls have turned around and accused her of witchcraft.
How is this possible? The judges demand an answer. How can Mary be afflicted, then an afflicter? She must have been a witch the entire time. Mary crumples to the floor, trying to confess through gritted teeth. The afflicted girls say that specters are trying to prevent Mary from confessing, and her distress is so acute that the judges send her away to recover before they ask more questions.
Finally, the unruly Bridget Bishop approaches the bar. If Giles was bewildered, Abigail forthcoming, and Mary paralyzed with fear, Bridget is nothing short of exasperated. She rolls her eyes when the girls convulse, which only makes things worse.
“I am innocent to a witch,” she says. “I know not what a witch is.” But the judges turn it back on her. If she doesn’t even know what a witch is, how does she know she isn’t one? After more shrieking and accusations from the girls, Bridget is sent back to jail to wait for future trial.
Tomorrow in Salem: A minister works for the Devil, and the servant Mary Warren’s story changes again
Today in Salem: Rev Parris’s dog is under the table, resting his head on his front paws and lying on Parris’s feet. The dog is the only spot of calm in the room, though, as Parris tries to transcribe the court’s proceedings.
It’s impossible, though. Parris’s own niece, Abigail Williams, is shrieking and convulsing and crying so dramatically that Parris can’t concentrate. She’s 11 years old, and yet somehow she’s louder than the teenage girls. The only person who’s even louder is the slave John Indian. Yesterday the schoolmaster had threatened him fiercely, and John had promised that his fits wouldn’t happen again. But now he’s back, more forcefully than before, and it takes 4 men to control him.
The harsh John Proctor was arrested yesterday during his wife’s examination, and less than 24 hours later the magistrates have brought him here for his own. But he’s hardly spoken when John Indian shouts that Proctor’s specter is on the dog’s back. The girls contort and gasp, pointing as the specter moves from the dog to the magistrate’s lap.
The judges have barely questioned Proctor, but they don’t need to. His specter is obviously tormenting people, right here and now. They send him back to jail to wait for a trial.
By now the Salem jail is so crowded that several prisoners are sent to Boston. Among them: the gospel woman Martha Corey. Her husband, the cantankerous Giles Corey, promises to visit her next week. And he will, but not in the way he thinks.
LEARN MORE: Why did Rev Parris have a dog with him in court? Did people in early colonial America have pets?
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower brought with them two dogs: a mastiff and an English spaniel, who not only survived the journey, but feasted during the first Thanksgiving. But they probably weren’t coddled the way pets are today. Still, Massachusetts published the first laws in America preventing cruelty toward animals, saying that “No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man’s use.”
The mastiff continued to be the most popular dog during colonial times. Often, the family dog was tied up outside a front door and used as a guard dog. But many family dogs were treated more companionably and went everywhere with their owners, even to church.
Cats also arrived on the Mayflower (and every ship thereafter), and were expected to earn their keep by hunting pests and vermin. They came and went as they liked and were treated more like working animals than pets. Today, cats are the second most popular pet in the United States … behind dogs, with mastiffs being the 33rd most popular breed.
Today in Salem: Elizabeth Proctor is a large woman, and the small pillion saddle is hardly comfortable. But she is a suspected witch after all, and her comfort isn’t of great importance to the Marshall, who has arrested her and is now transporting her to jail.
He’s already arrested and delivered Sarah Cloyce, who cried when she saw her sister, the beloved Rebecca Nurse. They’re now sharing a cell with the officious gospel woman Martha Corey, and will soon be joined by Elizabeth.
The men’s cell is empty, but not for long. For the last two nights a 23-year-old farmer has been tormented by the specters of the harsh John Proctor and his wife, along with the cantankerous Giles Corey and his wife. Neither man has heard about it yet, but their specters have hurt the farmer’s foot so badly that he can’t even put his shoe on.
Tomorrow in Salem: INDICTED: Sarah Cloyce & Elizabeth Proctor. ARRESTED: John Proctor.
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.
“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?
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.
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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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