Today in Salem: The county’s Quarterly Court convenes just in time to help four suffering children. The children’s father, the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell, was hanged five days ago. Their mother and older sisters are all in prison, having been accused of witchcraft themselves. And yesterday the Sheriff confiscated everything the family owned. The four children, ages 15, 13, 5, and an infant, have been left to shift for themselves.
The town selectman are concerned about them and have asked for advice. Now the Court authorizes them to apprentice the children, even the baby, to four different families. They will be safely cared for while also learning trades. And, like any apprentice, each will be rewarded with clothing when their service ends.
Today in Salem: The Sheriff continues to confiscate all earthly goods and chattel from the widows and men who’ve been hanged for witchcraft. Never mind that the families are left with little or nothing. Witchcraft is a capital crime, and it’s the law for those who are convicted and sentenced: forfeiture of all goods and chattel.
Today the Sheriff visits the family of the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell, who was hanged four days ago. His wife and oldest daughters are in prison, so only their younger children can protest. It takes the Sheriff’s men the better part of the day, but by nightfall they’ve seized the family’s personal belongings plus cattle, hogs, a horse, carpenter tools, eight loads of hay, and six acres of corn still in the ground because there’s no one to harvest it.
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.”
Today in Salem: The gospel woman Martha Corey has turned her back on Rev Samuel Parris and the church elders he’s come with. I have nothing to say to you, she announces, and steps closer to the prison’s stone wall.
She is offended, morally offended, by their visit. Never mind that she has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to hang. She is a Gospel Woman, and an innocent one at that. Their entreaties and prayers are meaningless to her.
Her hand grows softer, though, and her shoulders slump when Rev Parris tells her she’s been excommunicated. It’s the first time she’s been quiet.
Tonight, Rev Parris opens the church record book and writes about Martha’s role in the church.
11 September. Lords day. Sister Martha Corey taken into the Church 27 April 1690. was after Examination upon suspicion of Witchcraft. 21 March 1691-2 committed to Prison for that Fact, & was condemned to the Gallows for the same yesterday: And was this day in Publick by a general consent voted to be excommunicated out of the Church; & Lt. Nathanael Putnam, & the 2 Deacons chosen to signify to her, with the Pastor the mind of the Church herein.
Accordingly this 14 Septr 1692 The 3. aforcsd Brethren went with the Pastor to her in Salem Prison, whom we found very obdurate justifying her self, & condemning all that had done any thing to her just discovery, or condemnation. Whereupon after a little discourse (for her imperiousness would not suffer much) & after Prayer, (which she was willing to decline) the dreadful sentence of Excommunication was pronounced against her.
In court, the ill-tempered Wilmott Redd is standing defiantly in front of the judges. She is well-known for wishing that bloody cleavers be found in the cradles of other people’s children, and for selling milk that quickly turns so moldy that it looks like blue wool. Her curses are also legendary: Five years ago she’d cursed a neighbor, saying she wouldn’t “mingere or carcare” (relieve herself or empty her bowels) ever again. Sure enough, the neighbor had suffered a “dry bellyache” for months. Combined with the usual swooning of the afflicted girls, no one is surprised when the judges find Wilmott guilty of witchcraft.
In the second trial of the day, the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell defends his reputation of predicting the future. He’s spent years embracing and crowing about his talents; but now it works against him. Witness after witness describes his foretellings: falling from a horse, a gunshot wound, unrequited love, and the birth to one woman of five daughters followed by one son. He also has a knack for knowing the secrets of the past, and has bragged that he can call cattle to him. An afternoon in court can’t undo years and years of boasting about his abilities. The judges pronounce him guilty of witchcraft. He will hang.
Today in Salem: The judges are grilling three women. The afflicted girls suffer their usual fits, and resentful neighbors make the typical complaints. But this time a small group of confessed witches is here, including the fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell.
Samuel has been in jail since Thursday and will be on trial for his life soon. But everyone knows that confessed witches who can see other witches are usually spared execution, at least for the time being. So he tries to make himself useful.
The accusations against Samuel include a burning house; the one that contained the body of his brother-in-law. Now he pounces. “You had an argument,” he asks the first woman. “Didn’t he fire you as a wet nurse? Were you angry enough to murder him?” he asks sharply. He turns to the magistrates. “Maybe it was she who burned the house. To cover up a murder.”
The woman protests her innocence, but soon confesses to signing a birch bark that the Devil had brought to her. Nothing else though! But Samuel won’t let it go, and brings it up when the second woman is in front of the judges. Once again he describes the blaze, the stolen wine, the gleeful shouting.But like the previous woman she denies it.
The women aren’t quite convincing, but neither is Samuel. The judges send all of them to jail to wait for trial.
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.
Today in Salem: The fortuneteller Samuel Wardwell is choking on the acrid smoke that’s pouring from a burning house. He can feel it in the back of his throat, stinging his eyes, brushing his face with hot ash. He’s seen a house burn once before, when the Proctor’s chimney caught fire. But that was at a distance, and now, close up, he’s surprised by the sharp smell, the sound of wood cracking in the flames, the wind of it in his hair.
It’s night time, but the flames are bright, and he can see his wife’s tears as she hits him with her tiny fists. She’s saying something, but he can’t hear her above the noise of the blaze and the shouts of the others. He doesn’t need to, though. The fire has interrupted the funeral for her brother, who, instead of being buried, is now being consumed by the fire.
Even Samuel, a fortuneteller, doesn’t know how the blaze started. He and the others had just discovered that gallons of funeral wine — gallons — had been stolen, when they heard triumphant shouts, footsteps running, followed quickly by the smell of smoke. But the questions would never be answered. Who started the fire? and why?
WHO was Samuel Wardwell?
Age 49. Dabbled in fortune telling as a young man. To save his life, he confessed & submitted a long and detailed story of his indiscretions. He later recanted and claimed innocence. Case files: Samuel Wardwell
