Tag Archives: Martha Corey

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Mar 16: The cantankerous Giles Corey suspects his wife

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

Tomorrow in Salem: Giles Corey Swaggers

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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