Tag Archives: Mary Parker

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Sep 24: SEIZED: the property of the hanged widow Mary Parker

Today in Salem: The Sheriff’s officer is shaking his fist and arguing with the widow Mary Parker’s sons. Two days have gone by since her hanging, and the Sheriff wants to seize everything. Everything. There’s money to be made, and who knows how much longer this will go on?

“This is mine!” the oldest son says, clenching his jaw and pointing past the house and fields. “First my father’s, and now mine!” His father had died years ago and willed his belongings to his children, effective when Mary died. “My mother had nothing!”

It makes no difference. The officer takes the cattle, plus all of the hay and the recently harvested corn. Later the sons complain directly to the Sheriff, but he demands £10 to stop the confiscation. It’s more than the sons have. The Sheriff finally agrees to £6, payable within the month, most of it to pay the bill for Mary’s time in jail.

Tomorrow in Salem: SEIZED: the property of the hanged fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell

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Sep 22: HANGED: Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Martha Corey, Mary Esty, Mary Parker, Samuel Wardwell, Wilmot Redd

Today in Salem: Just as there can be too much of a good thing, the people of Salem are beginning to think there’s too much of a bad thing. Of the 16 people who’ve been condemned, 8 are now squeezed into an ox cart, packed so tightly that they can only stand, not sit.

8 people, 8 nooses, 8 ladders.

This is the fourth hanging the crowd has witnessed, and the people are restive and unsure. So when the pious Mary Esty says an affectionate goodbye to her husband and children, nearly everyone begins to cry. Most of her children are grown, but her 14-year-old son is there, looking manly, breathing heavily and standing tall next to his father.

Next to her, the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell tries to say he’s innocent, but he chokes on the executioner’s pipe smoke before he can finish.

The know-it-all Gospel Woman Martha Corey, with her husband Giles pressed to death only 3 days ago, is suddenly pitiable as she pleads her innocence once more, then prays sincerely.

The others – the fainting shrew Alice Parker, the widow Mary Parker, the nurse Ann Pudeator, the ornery Wilmot Redd, and the elderly beggar Margaret Scott – have scarcely finished their last words when the executioner pushes the ladders out from each one, all 8, until they’ve stopped kicking and are swinging slowly, lifeless.

“What a sad thing it is,” says the minister, “to see eight firebrands of Hell hanging there.”

Tomorrow in Salem: A clearing in the sky