Join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack on the ‘Witch Hunt’ podcast for the second episode of their ‘Salem Witch-Hunt 101’ series. Josh narrates the chilling events of February 1692 in Salem Village, focusing on the strange behaviors of Abigail Williams and Betty Parris that ignited fears of witchcraft. He explores the harsh winter, social tensions, and the reactions of the community, including the infamous ‘witch cake’ and accusations against Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. In this unique episode, Sarah hears Josh’s account for the first time, providing fresh reactions and questions that enhance the storytelling. The episode concludes with reflections on the motivations behind the Salem Witch Trials, with additional insights from Mary Louise Bingham. Tune in for an engaging retelling of the early days of the Salem Witch Hunt, based on historical records.
Listen in Your Favorite App
Listen and subscribe wherever you enjoy podcasts:
Follow these links for more:
The Sermon Notebook of Samuel of Samuel Parris
The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem
Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project
Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project
Transcript
[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast bringing you the most in-depth coverage of the Salem Witch Trials. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today we are excited to present the second episode in the Salem Witch-Hunt 101 series.
Josh Hutchinson: We're taking a different approach to this one. I'll be telling a narrative of the events of early 1692.
Sarah Jack: And I'm hearing this telling of the story for the very first time, just like everyone watching or listening.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I've really kept this one under wraps from you, so I can't wait to hear your reactions to it.
Sarah Jack: I can't wait to hear what you've done with your story.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, thank you. I think it's going to be quite a new experience for everyone.
Sarah Jack: I'm going to have some questions for you.
Josh Hutchinson: I sure hope so. The Salem Witch Hunt had its beginnings long before the trials began. [00:01:00] We discussed the precursors to the witch hunt in our last Salem Witch Hunt 101 episode. Today, we will focus on events in Salem Village in February, 1692.
Sarah Jack: I am excited.
Sarah Jack: Yes, now that we have those things out of the way, we get to dive in to some story.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're going to tell some little stories, um, about big events. In these stories we're going to tell in this series, we'll be recreating several major scenes from the Salem Witch Hunt using the facts that are, we get from the records left behind.
Sarah Jack: The records are the story. What we can build out of what is written is all we have.
Josh Hutchinson: And that's what we're working with tonight. So here comes the story. [00:02:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Scene 1, Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony, February 1692. The girl flitters across the room, chirping like a bird. Abigail Williams, the minister's niece and ward, aged 11, has been acting strangely lately. Perhaps a winter's confinement in a frigid house has given her cabin fever. Maybe she's just restless. A preteen in the boring 17th century, Abigail has been orphaned and lives in the care of her relative, Salem Village Minister Samuel Parris, who is known as her uncle, though the exact relationship is unclear. Parris's daughter Elizabeth, called Betty, is at this moment on all fours under a table, barking like a dog, while alternately complaining of terrible pain. Earlier, she had honked like a goose and soared through the air, all the way across the Parsonage's Great Hall. Nobody had seen her toes touching the ground. They'd all been fixated on the [00:03:00] honking and flapping, which would have been hard to ignore.
Josh Hutchinson: Now Samuel Parris paces the floor, following Abigail, constantly praying as he walks behind her. Maybe the girls are ill, but if they are, what manner of illness causes these antics? Whatever it is, the minister has had enough of it. How can anyone expect him to write each week's sermon in this environment? He abruptly stops following Abigail.
Sarah Jack: Two thoughts popped into my mind. Is this truly the first time Betty has been so silly? I think from what we know of what was permitted for behavior, it's possible.
Josh Hutchinson: It is, I'm sure Betty, she's nine years old and Abigail's 11. They're at very silly ages. So probably, but to this extent, it seems like this was the first [00:04:00] time that they were flapping like geese and barking like dogs and mewing like kittens and everything. Um, So it was quite different and everybody was taken aback by it.
Sarah Jack: The other thing I wondered if it went through the minister's mind, is is this affliction? Like, right away.
Josh Hutchinson: Right. He was in Boston at, in 1688 when Goody Glover was arrested and executed for witchcraft towards the Glover children, who behaved in much the same way that Abigail and Betty are described as behaving. And he would have been fully aware, Cotton Mather had written a book about that. And, uh, Samuel Parris definitely was aware, and presumably his children were also aware of that story.
Josh Hutchinson: And this might be something that they [00:05:00] got afflicted, um, through whatever mechanism, and they had imbibed these stories about affliction. So once somebody told them, "oh, you're afflicted" or something, it just triggered these behaviors from them because this is what they have known and heard all their, their lives.
Sarah Jack: All right.
Josh Hutchinson: "I have to get this sermon done, Elizabeth." He says to his wife, the former Elizabeth Eldridge, "I'm going to Ingersoll's. It'll be quieter there."
Sarah Jack:
Josh Hutchinson: "Quieter at Ingersoll's? Well, I'm sure he'd let you use one of his rooms. "
Josh Hutchinson: The minister goes to his desk and grabs his material and Bible. Looking at the ice just forming atop the ink, he says, "warmer at Ingersoll's, too."
Josh Hutchinson: "Why don't you see if he has any more wood to spare?"
Josh Hutchinson: "He doesn't. He's already given us our share. It's those unregenerate types that are withholding."
Josh Hutchinson: [00:06:00] Samuel Parris strides to the door and steps out, letting the door swing shut hard behind him. Betty jumps, striking her head on the bottom of the table. She rubs the sore and then crawls out from underneath, now whimpering like a scolded puppy. Maybe she and her cousin are ill, but, strangely, nobody else in the household has been acting anything but normal. Why has the illness not touched Betty's siblings, Thomas and Susannah? Why not Tituba or John? Why not Elizabeth Parris Sr., who seems to always be sick with something or other?
Josh Hutchinson: Maybe the girls have succumbed to the pressures facing the Parris household this long, cold winter. They received a fraction of the firewood they need to live comfortably, and Samuel often finds himself writing his sermons at Ingersoll's or sometimes the nearby Walcott home or even Thomas Putnam's house. With the minister under intense pressure, [00:07:00] that may have rubbed off on some of the children.
Sarah Jack: It's really important to recognize how brutal that cold was on the Parris household. I mean, you don't feel good when you're cold, and he's writing these sermons that are a remedy to, for his people. They have to hear what he's saying from God's word so that they're headed in the right direction. I just wonder if, if, you know, we say fire and brimstone about some of these messages when he was actually experiencing cold and ice. You just wonder, you know, how much he was taking out on his parishioners because he was so mad that they didn't want to keep him warm.[00:08:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there was a point where he said, or wrote down in his sermon notebook, I believe, that he would have, he was going to run out of firewood completely the next day. And so he was trying to get, desperately all the time to get more people to give him more, but of course they need their own firewood for the winter. Um, it's the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. And it's Massachusetts, so it's just brutal, uh, going through this winter. I can hardly imagine living in a house where you're all just like huddled real close because your fire is small and you don't have heat, you know, coming from the central hearth all the way through the house, uh, constantly.
Josh Hutchinson: So I guess they wore a lot of coats.
Sarah Jack: They were just cold. [00:09:00] They were cold.
Josh Hutchinson: They were, it had to have been miserable. And then there's all the stresses facing him. There's other parties in the village who don't want him to be a minister anymore. So he's dealing with that frustration. And I'm sure just the stress level in that household was too much for these girls to bear. Um, I'm surprised that the rest of the household didn't have some kind of reaction to that.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. I was just thinking, there's really no evidence of a reaction of, "hey, cut it out, this is unacceptable." They just reacted to the behavior.
Josh Hutchinson: Right.
Sarah Jack: Although there is somebody who did react to somebody's, that's later in the story. John [00:10:00] Proctor. Isn't he the one that just tells her to cut it out?
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Yeah. He sits her at her spinning wheel and threatens to thrash the devil out of her if she keeps behaving, because he really believes that she's acting and just playing around and it's going to be dangerous and people are going to get hurt.
Sarah Jack: Yeah,
Josh Hutchinson: He recognizes that pretty early. Yeah. As soon as people started getting arrested, John Proctor knew, um, this is going bad. So.
Josh Hutchinson: So, the minister has prayed for weeks, but nothing in the girls' conditions has improved. They still contort into strange shapes, impossible to be caused by any known natural illness. They writhe in agony and cry out of pain.
Josh Hutchinson: Samuel knows many of the villagers have turned their backs on him. But this seems more sinister, more diabolical. Or [00:11:00] is it God's judgment on him? No, it can't be personally against him. He's doing the best anyone can. Maybe it is to address the sins of the community collectively.
Josh Hutchinson: If praying isn't working, maybe a fast will be necessary. He will preach another impassioned sermon on Sunday, reminding his congregation of the constant presence of the devil, who lurks about the village, as he does any place where such a beacon of godliness as Samuel Parris dwells. Monday, Samuel will hold a private fast.
Josh Hutchinson: It is the devil who has poisoned men's minds against Samuel's ministry, and if there were ever a time for evil to gain a foothold in the village, he knows it is in this period of division. Samuel has to keep up his sermons and has to warn the villagers before it is too late. He will have to alert area pastors too, but maybe it's time for them to come over anyways to hold a significant fast.
Sarah Jack: [00:12:00] Samuel.
Josh Hutchinson: Alas, the cold numbs Samuel Parris's mind as he walks the short distance to Ingersoll's next door. What is he trying to get at in his sermons this week again? Samuel pulls the front door open and steps inside Nathaniel Ingersoll's Ordinary, a tavern that does quite well for itself with its central location in the village and its close proximity to the meeting house. Come Sunday, this place will be absolutely packed between the two services.
Josh Hutchinson: Nathaniel Ingersoll stands at the back of the room, discussing something with his adopted son, Benjamin Hutchinson, who helps out around the tavern. Samuel closes the door behind himself, and the two other men break off their conversation.
Josh Hutchinson: Nathaniel says, Good day, Samuel.
Josh Hutchinson: And Benjamin says, Good morning, Reverend, will you be needing a room again?
Josh Hutchinson: I would be indebted to you.
Josh Hutchinson: Nathaniel says, think [00:13:00] nothing of it, room's just sitting there unoccupied.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Samuel says, there's a ruckus at the house again.
Josh Hutchinson: I figured as much, Nathaniel says.
Josh Hutchinson: Benjamin leads Samuel upstairs and opens a door. Samuel enters and closes the door behind himself. He will be in here all day, except for meals and trips to the privy out in the yard.
Josh Hutchinson: On Sunday morning, with his sermon written, Samuel Parris leads his family the short distance from their home to the meeting house. Entering, they once again find this building even colder than the house they left. There's no fireplace here. There's no grand hearth for cooking and warming. Measuring a modest 34 by 28 feet, the wooden meeting house features a gallery to help fit the many, many people who worship here.
Sarah Jack: And there's a place today that people can visit a replica of the meeting house.[00:14:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. If you go to the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, you get a replica built to the exact dimensions that were recorded in the Salem Village Record Book. It's quite remarkable to go in there and see a pulpit just like the one Samuel Parris would have preached at.
Sarah Jack: I was able to stop by last May, so a year ago, May now, when advocate Dr. Leo Igwe
Sarah Jack: with Advocacy for Alleged Witches was in New England doing a speaking tour and visiting the memorials, and he did his presentation there, standing in front of the pulpit. It was extremely moving to think about what that room symbolizes and, of course, the message today that Leo is giving the world and the work that he's doing to save lives. The other thing that was special to me was [00:15:00] being able to look out of the window at the meeting house and over to the homestead. I just liked looking through that old glass.
Josh Hutchinson: The homestead is such a wonderful place to visit, but getting inside that meeting house for an actual talk was really a great experience.
Sarah Jack: We're so appreciative to the team at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead for hosting him and opening it up to us and, um, all of those who attended.
Sarah Jack: it was very special to, to have him there.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And for you listening, we have done two episodes with Leo Igwe, and I do recommend that you go back and listen to those to hear what's going on in the modern world with witchcraft accusations.
Sarah Jack: The [00:16:00] other thing I wanted to point out is unfortunately we can't, um, go to Ingersoll's. But there is lots of photos and chatter among descendants and locals online about its future.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And we've recently done a bonus episode on "Nathaniel Ingersoll and His Tavern in the Salem Witch Trials" and recommend you go back and take a look at that or listen to that. And there is a very passionate community online that has developed around what the future might hold for that institution there.
Josh Hutchinson: On January 3rd, Samuel had preached that, "Christ having begun a new work, it is the main drift of the devil to pull it all down." Today, February 14th, he will warn the church of the dangers of [00:17:00] division and devilry. " is a woeful piece of our corruption in an evil time when the wicked people and the godly party meet with vexations by and by to lay down divine providence as if God has forsaken the earth and there were no prophet in his service."
Josh Hutchinson: His vitriol is largely directed at those in the village who oppose him. They've challenged his ownership of the parsonage and his role as a minister. The village voted to withhold his pay and firewood, and once Joseph Hutchinson, a village committee member who had donated the land for the meeting house, fenced the building in. Now, for those of you keeping track, Joseph Hutchinson was the birth father of Benjamin Hutchinson, who he'd put in the care of the Ingersolls, who had lost their only daughter. Joseph himself had seven sons and four daughters, so obviously had a kid to spare for the Ingersolls. [00:18:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Today, Parris will also speak of "the present low condition of the church in the midst of its enemies." Non-Christians have inhabited this continent since time immemorial, and now those French Catholics to the north are encroaching again with the aid of their Wabanaki allies.
Josh Hutchinson: Monday morning, Samuel Parris rises well before dawn with the rest of his household. Betty and Abigail persist in their afflictions. Samuel needs medical advice, but first he will turn to the ministers. He sits at his desk and breaks out his writing materials, but the ink has frozen overnight again.
Josh Hutchinson: "Elizabeth," Samuel says, "warm this ink for me."
Josh Hutchinson: She takes the inkwell and places it in a pot, which she hangs over the low fire. In a few minutes, she returns the ink to her husband. The inkwell is warm to his touch. He sets it on his desk and draws ink into his pen.
Josh Hutchinson: "John," Samuel [00:19:00] says, now handing John a paper, "take this letter to Nathaniel's, he needs to send messengers to the local ministers to ask them to meet me here as soon as they all can attend to see the girls."
John takes the note and departs. Samuel and family spend the rest of the day, amidst numerous interruptions by the girls, fasting and praying, but the girls do remain unwell and continue to behave strangely.
Josh Hutchinson: On February 24th, Parris sends John on another errand. This time he is to retrieve Salem Village's only physician, William Griggs, who lives some distance down the road.
Sarah Jack: pulls Samuel aside
Josh Hutchinson: After Griggs examines the girl, he pulls Samuel aside for a conversation. "They're under an evil hand," he says.
Josh Hutchinson: "You're sure it isn't anything medical?"
Josh Hutchinson: Absolutely. This affliction is not natural.
Josh Hutchinson: "Then Satan is after me." [00:20:00]
Josh Hutchinson: "I'm afraid so."
Josh Hutchinson: In the parsonage and around the village, talk turns to witches. Perhaps the girls were bewitched by one of Satan's agents. Christ knew there were devils in his church. On February 25th, Samuel and Elizabeth Parris travel for the Thursday lecture, a weekly event hosted by various neighboring communities on a rotating schedule.
Josh Hutchinson: While they are away, a neighbor, Mary Sibley, stays with the children. Mary Sibley speaks with Tituba and John.
Josh Hutchinson: "Here's what we're going to do," she says. "Tituba, you collect some urine from Betty and Abigail. John, get the rye flour."
Josh Hutchinson: "What do you have in mind?" Tituba asks.
Josh Hutchinson: "We're going to stop a witch."
Josh Hutchinson: "With urine."
Josh Hutchinson: "By baking a special cake, the girl's urine is needed so we can burn off some of the magic that the witch put in them."
Josh Hutchinson: Soon, Tituba collects the urine of the girls, and John retrieves the heavy sack of rye flour, while [00:21:00] Elizabeth gathers the rest of what they'll need. The three adults meet at the hearth and bake the cake, with the girls wailing in agony behind them, contorting again into several bizarre shapes. After John removes the cake from the oven, Mary calls for the family dog, who eagerly devours the morsel. According to English custom, this witch-finding technique will reveal the identity of the woman who has afflicted the girls. Mary isn't exactly sure how, but her own mother taught her to do this. Maybe the witch will be hurt, or maybe she'll turn up at the door.
Sarah Jack: The witch cake is not voodoo.
Josh Hutchinson: The witch cake was English, and Mary Sibley instructed Tituba and John how to bake it, because they hadn't done anything like that before using English [00:22:00] countermagic.
Sarah Jack: How great if that had burned the magic off. What a great quick intervention that would have been.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, if only that had worked, could have spared months and months and months of trials and, um, all those deaths.
Josh Hutchinson: Now, the same day the witch cake is baked, two more village girls become afflicted. Ann Putnam Jr. is the daughter of Parris ally Mr. Thomas Putnam Jr. and Mrs. Ann Carr Putnam. Thomas and the two Anns have made several visits to the parsonage since Betty and Abigail have been ill. And I want to throw in that Thomas Putnam was also a sergeant in the local militia, serving under Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersoll and Captain Jonathan Walcott, who are [00:23:00] also important characters in the Salem Witch Hunt story.
Josh Hutchinson: Now, another visitor who's taken ill is Elizabeth Hubbard, an orphan teenage girl living with her relatives, the Griggses. She has also visited the parsonage along with the physician, whom she serves as maid. At 17, Hubbard is five years older than Ann Putnam Jr., making her the oldest person yet afflicted and the first of legal age to be able to bear witness in court. Her age lends credence to witchcraft accusations against villagers Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, whom Hubbard accuses of attacking her spectrally, which is to say the shapes of the women appear to her. They do not visit bodily. Everyone knows witches have the ability to leave their bodies and travel great distances to torment their victims.
Sarah Jack: There's some things, like, here where you say, everybody knows. [00:24:00] There were, this is one of the things that everybody knew. It was like, not a question. They believed it. Just as much as they believed the devil was visiting them.
Josh Hutchinson: Um, when I say everyone, of course, I mean, virtually everyone, um, believed in witchcraft. And if you didn't believe in witchcraft, that led people to call you an atheist, because how could you believe in God, not believe in his adversary, the devil, and then the devil's ability to, uh, contract with witches to do his work?
Josh Hutchinson: The girl writhes, twisting and turning, shouting at the top of her lungs, "they got me!"
Josh Hutchinson: "Who got you?" Thomas Putnam Jr. asks.
Josh Hutchinson: I don't know, but it hurts. It hurts. Make it stop.
Josh Hutchinson: Shh. [00:25:00] It's okay, Annie. You'll be fine. God is with you always.
Josh Hutchinson: It's not okay. I won't be fine.
Josh Hutchinson: What makes you say that?
Josh Hutchinson: I feel like my bowels are being torn out.
Josh Hutchinson: We are praying as hard as we can.
Josh Hutchinson: It's not enough.
Josh Hutchinson: Then we'll fast.
Josh Hutchinson: No, I'm being pinched and pricked and choked right now. Don't you see that? How do you fast that away?
Josh Hutchinson: I'm sorry, Annie, but you know the best weapon is prayer, the best weapon that we have in this spiritual battle.
Josh Hutchinson: What's wrong with me, Father?
Josh Hutchinson: I wish I knew.
Josh Hutchinson: Is it natural?
Josh Hutchinson: No, there is something very dark in this village.
Josh Hutchinson: The spectral figure of a woman approaches Ann, holding out a little red book and a red pen. Take it, she says. Sign the book and you'll be freed from your troubles. And if I don't, then we'll kill you.
Josh Hutchinson: Father, save me!
Josh Hutchinson: If father won't save you, nobody will.[00:26:00]
Josh Hutchinson: God, preserve me.
Josh Hutchinson: Just sign the book and you'll be free from your guilt, worry, and pain.
Josh Hutchinson: What book is that?
Josh Hutchinson: My God gave it to me.
Josh Hutchinson: And who is your God?
Josh Hutchinson: You know who I mean, girl.
Josh Hutchinson: A stabbing pain tears through Ann's chest. God save me, she says. Annie, Annie, Thomas Putnam is calling.
Josh Hutchinson: After a moment, Ann snaps too. The spectral woman has gone away with her book, but Ann just knows she'll be back.
Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Putnam shakes his daughter. "Are you all right?"
Josh Hutchinson: "No, father. A woman came to me with a book and said she'd kill me if I didn't sign it."
Josh Hutchinson: "What woman?"
Josh Hutchinson: "I don't know, but it is none of God's book. It is the devil's book for ought I know."
Josh Hutchinson: "What woman?"
Josh Hutchinson: "I couldn't make out her face."
Josh Hutchinson: But you must have seen her before.
Josh Hutchinson: She had a familiar aspect.
Josh Hutchinson: How did she get in here? I didn't see anyone come in.
Josh Hutchinson: She appeared spectrally from [00:27:00] thin air.
Josh Hutchinson: A witch.
Josh Hutchinson: I think so.
Josh Hutchinson: I knew it.
Josh Hutchinson: But how?
Josh Hutchinson: This explains everything. Mercy!
Josh Hutchinson: Panting, maid Mercy Lewis enters the room. "Sir," she says.
Josh Hutchinson: "Run and get my brother Edward. Tell him a witch has assaulted Annie."
Josh Hutchinson: Mercy turns and strides away to the stairs. A moment later, the front door squeaks open and promptly slams shut. Footsteps ascend the stairs, and Mother ducks into the garret.
Josh Hutchinson: "What's all this about a witch, then?" she asks.
Josh Hutchinson: Annie twists and winds.
Josh Hutchinson: "Look at Annie, Thomas says. A witch has done this."
Josh Hutchinson: How do you know it's a witch?
Josh Hutchinson: She saw a shape.
Josh Hutchinson: What shape?
Josh Hutchinson: A woman.
Josh Hutchinson: Annie groans.
Josh Hutchinson: What do you think this means? Witchcraft in our village?
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and they say the minister's girls are bewitched as well.
Josh Hutchinson: Oh dear, after they've been sick for so long, why do they suddenly suspect a [00:28:00] witch?
Josh Hutchinson: I don't know, but that's all anyone can talk about when I was over this morning. I suppose we'd better fetch Griggs and Parris to tell us if I'm right.
Josh Hutchinson: I'll send Mercy as soon as she gets back from Edwards.
Josh Hutchinson: No, I want to go now. I'll saddle the horse.
Josh Hutchinson: What shall I do while you're gone?
Josh Hutchinson: Pray, he says and mind she doesn't hurt herself.
Josh Hutchinson: God send you back to us safely.
Sarah Jack: So much fear.
Josh Hutchinson: So much fear. There's talk about, um, we recently, in an interview, our guest Francis Bremer talked to us about Chadwick Hansen's book, Witchcraft in Salem, and in there, he posits the theory that if you truly believe in witchcraft, as soon as you believe that you've actually been cursed, your body and mind [00:29:00] takes all that in, and psychogenically you have reactions. You can have psychosomatic symptoms of bewitchment that basically are just brought on by your intense fear. And I believe that's something that is plausible that the girls experienced.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. I mean, they're scared. Their parents are expressing their fear by their response to what's happening to the kids and what they're saying. And yeah, it's just, they have to find the witch.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Imagine if your children were behaving this way, screaming about pain, being twisted up like pretzels and, you know, do just randomly rolling around the room, writhing in agony, [00:30:00] screaming, get off me, get off me, you know, you would think that somebody's attacking them. You can't. I mean, what else do you think at that point?
Sarah Jack: Yeah. If, you know, the cure, the only cure is finding the witch, then that's what has to be found. With the littles that have been in my house, sometimes when they get hurt, they need an ice pack for the injury. They're in pain, you can see the bump on their leg, what's happened, ice is going to make it feel better. It's such a comfort to them that often they might have a bump that they might get bumped and there is no wound. But they want the ice, because it comforts them. And so the ice is an actual remedy for inflammation and swelling, but other times [00:31:00] just knowing that they can go to the freezer and grab an ice pack, and they do it for each other too. I think there's this element of community that, you know, it's a family and you're trying to help each other. And you see that in your own interactions with, um, people in your life. You, you try to solve each other's problems and find the remedy.
Josh Hutchinson: And it's interesting, I had mentioned that Parris had prayed for weeks. He fasted, uh, several times over January and February and the girls, they got sick in the middle of January and this, now we're towards the end of February. It's so interesting to me that it took basically six weeks for them running through all those measures that they normally take when somebody's ill, um, and doing the past, the fasting and the prayer. [00:32:00] You know, nursing the children as, you know, their mothers would have nursed them. Um, others from the community would have pitched in and come to the houses to see how they could help. Um, but after that, they run out of ideas. And basically you're left with, it must be a witch, it must be diabolical, especially after Dr. Griggs says it's nothing natural, uh, at that point, what's left. And like you said, when you know there is something that could cure or help the person in pain, then that's what you do. And when you believe that, that thing that you can do is to stop a witch, you put your whole heart into that. And I think that's what we see, uh, later on in upcoming episodes. We'll see all that playing out that these [00:33:00] people put their hearts in it because they really wanted to stop the afflictions from happening.
Josh Hutchinson: Sometime later, Thomas returns home to find his brother Edward and neighbor Henry Kinney in the Great Hall, praying over Annie, while Ann Sr., Mercy Lewis, and Mercy's sister, Priscilla Kinney, hover over the afflicted girl. When the door shuts, the people in the room stop and turn to Thomas.
Josh Hutchinson: What's the news? Edward Putnam says.
Josh Hutchinson: Where's the minister? Ann Putnam Sr. asks.
Josh Hutchinson: Where's Griggs? Henry Kinney asks.
Josh Hutchinson: Griggs girl is afflicted too. She also complains of women assaulting her.
Josh Hutchinson: Has she named them?
Josh Hutchinson: No.
Josh Hutchinson: And what of the minister?
Josh Hutchinson: He's tied up with his own girls, but he's added Annie to his prayers, says he'll come visit when his man gets back from some errand at Ingersoll's.
Josh Hutchinson: Dear God, Henry says, four of them afflicted now?
Josh Hutchinson: [00:34:00] It's spreading, Edward says.
Josh Hutchinson: The following two days, February 26 and 27, 1692, will prove pivotal, as these are the days the girls begin naming the names. Not one, but three women will be accused by the end of these days. Tituba, the enslaved indigenous woman in the Parris household, is the first accused when Betty and Abigail cry out against her, the woman who has cared for them as much as their own mother has, who will go on to profess much love for them during her examinations by the magistrates. Born in South America or the Caribbean, Tituba may have been an Arawak or a Carib Parris likely purchased her during his time in Barbados, where he tried to run his father's sugar business before his return to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he had for a time attended Harvard College, his academic career cut short by his [00:35:00] father's death in Barbados. To say Samuel was a poor businessman is quite an understatement. The man seems to never quite settle into a profession at which he will be able to succeed.
Josh Hutchinson: At any rate, he had Tituba in Barbados, and he brought her to Boston in 1680 or 1681. Except while he served as temporary minister in Stowe in 1685, Samuel remained in Boston working as a merchant until men from Salem Village approached him about being the town's minister in 1688. When he accepted the call in 1689 and moved his family to Salem Village, he brought Tituba with him. It's unclear when he acquired the man known as John Indian, a man of undetermined Indigenous background. And for a time, a third enslaved person, an African American teenage boy, also resided in the parsonage with the Parrises. However, Parris recorded the boy's death in March 1689. [00:36:00] While Tituba's exact origin is unknown, Elaine G. Breslaw's book, Tituba: the Reluctant Witch of Salem, posits one plausible theory and is very well worth a read.
Josh Hutchinson: On February 27th, Ann Putnam Jr. accuses Sarah Good of bewitching her. Elizabeth Hubbard, meanwhile, names both Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as her, her tormentors. In a dramatic incident, Elizabeth claims to be followed by a wolf, which is supposedly directed by Sarah Good, or may even be the shapeshifting Sarah herself.
Josh Hutchinson: In 1692, Sarah Good is an impoverished woman with no permanent housing or reliable income. But things hadn't always been that way. Born Sarah Soulart in about 1654, she was raised by respectable parents in Wenham.
Sarah Jack: Her father, John Soulart, was likely French by birth and may have been [00:37:00] Huguenot by faith. He worked as an innkeeper and left behind a healthy estate, but he took his own life in 1672. And unfortunately Sarah was left in the lurch, inheriting only three acres of meadow. So Sarah married Daniel Poole. Who promptly ran up an eye-watering debt, which Sarah was forced to pay from his meager estate after his death, leaving Sarah destitute.
Josh Hutchinson: She next married William Good by 1683.
Josh Hutchinson: William was a weaver and a laborer who never seemed to stay employed long. He and Sarah had to sell off the meadow to pay additional debts owed by Sarah's first husband. William Good's origins are unknown, but he had two children with Sarah. The first, Dorothy, was born in about 1687. The second daughter, whose name is unknown, was born in December 1691. And we have much more with, about Dorothy in our episode with Rachel [00:38:00] Christ-Doane, that you can refer back to learning what happened to Dorothy after the witch trials. At the time she was accused, Sarah Good was in the habit of going house to house, seeking charity. She evidently was given something at least once by the Parrises, but she left the house muttering, raising suspicions.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah Osborne had caused a scandal when, following the 1674 death of her husband, Robert Prince, she married Alexander Osborne, her young indentured servant. She was also involved in a dispute over her husband's first estate with his kin, Thomas and John Putnam, who were the executors. By February 27th, 1692, Osborne had been sick in bed for at least a year and not been able to attend worship at the meeting house all that time.
Josh Hutchinson: All three accused women [00:39:00] were markedly different from the New England Puritan ideal of what a woman should be. All three were outsiders in key ways. Tituba was most clearly an outsider, being indigenous in a period when Massachusetts English settlers were at war with the Wabanaki Confederacy, an alliance of Algonkian-speaking peoples who had chosen to ally themselves with the French over the British.
Josh Hutchinson: But Sarah Good from Wenham was also a relative newcomer to Salem Village. Being indigent placed her further outside the norms of the community. Requesting charity was itself a risky business in the age of witch hunts, as people who refused to give what was asked for felt guilt, and then resented the one who asked. If something shortly went wrong for the refuser, say a child took ill, or a livestock died, perhaps, then the person who refused the gift would suspect the [00:40:00] one they'd refused was seeking revenge through witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: Aren't there some things in the record where those who were turned away for a favor or a handout were mad when it was refused and they wished something ill on the refuser?
Josh Hutchinson: There are a number of cases exactly like that where someone, say, refused to give milk and the requester then said, "your cow will never give you milk or something to that effect in their irritation and anger and, you know, those words come back to haunt them. Definitely.
Josh Hutchinson: Uh, in the case of Sarah Good, though, she's just accused of muttering. And in the next episode, we'll discuss her examination by the [00:41:00] magistrates and what she says about her muttering.
Josh Hutchinson: Lastly, Sarah Osborne had transgressed social norms by wedding a younger man and indentured servant and by failing to attend meetings on Sundays. With three women accused of witchcraft, the witch hunt was ramping up and would soon be in full swing. We'll cover the first arrests and examinations in our next 101 episode.
Josh Hutchinson: And now we'd like to summarize the facts that we covered in today's stories and help separate fact from fiction. In January 1692, Salem village minister Samuel Parris's daughter, Betty, and his niece, Abigail Williams, began displaying strange symptoms and behaviors. Now, there are many, many theories about what caused the girl's symptoms, and many of these theories, such as ergot, have been disproven. [00:42:00] But I believe it's more important to understand the motivations of the adults who filed the complaints that we'll discuss beginning in our next installment. As I mentioned, so many theories about what caused it. Some theorize that the girls ate bad bread and got ergot poisoning. Others point to encephalitis, meningitis, and other physical ailments, while others point to mental health conditions such as mass psychogenic illness. In several instances, fraud was clearly perpetrated. Were the girls and the other people who were known as afflicted lying about everything? Or were they perhaps trying to strengthen their cases against people they truly believed were bewitching them? That's the big question.
Sarah Jack: It's a big question.
Josh Hutchinson: Whatever caused the ailments, we all know how this story ends. By the end of the saga, at least 156 people had been accused of witchcraft. So why did the men file the complaints and make the accusations they did? [00:43:00] That's something we'll be looking at in our future episodes.
Josh Hutchinson: Continuing with the facts, on February 14th, 1692, Samuel Parris did preach that the godly "must war a good warfare to subdue all our spiritual enemies." And the other lines that I quoted that he said in his sermon, he did say as recorded in his sermon notebook. And it is known that Samuel Parris did observe several private fasts. However, we don't have the specific dates for those, so we don't know whether he held one on February 15th, like I said in the story.
Josh Hutchinson: On February 24th, a physician thought to be Salem Village's William Griggs, though there's no record stating a name of a physician, what we have is that from John Hale who wrote a book in [00:44:00] 1697 that was published after his death. We know from his book that this happened with the doctor saying that they are under an evil hand, but we don't know exactly who that doctor was.
Josh Hutchinson: But on February 25th, Mary Sibley instructed Tituba and or John Indian to bake a witch cake to determine who was afflicting the girls, and Ann Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard joined Betty and Abigail in displaying symptoms of affliction.
Josh Hutchinson: February 26th, Betty and Abigail did name Tituba as their tormentor.
Josh Hutchinson: And sometime between February 25th and February 29th, several Salem gentlemen and area ministers visited the Parris household and concurred that the hand of Satan was in the girl's afflictions. Under questioning, Tituba admitted to baking the witch cake, but did not implicate [00:45:00] Mary Sibley.
Josh Hutchinson: February 27th, Ann Putnam Jr. claimed that Sarah Good was afflicting her, and Elizabeth Hubbard blamed both Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.
Josh Hutchinson: The four girls continued to be sick on February 28th, a Sunday. As of that point in time, there were four people believed to be bewitched and three people suspected to have bewitched them. And we can't wait to be able to tell the rest of this story to you.
Sarah Jack: That was great, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: Now Mary Louise Bingham is back with another excellent Minute with Mary.
Mary Louise Bingham: According to historian Dr. Emerson Baker, in the early 1690s, the ministers complained of the decline of moral values, which resulted in an angry God, who sought revenge. Their solution was to seek a [00:46:00] moral reformation through the court and strictly enforce laws, which served as moral codes that had not been punished to the fullest extent. The ministers feared the community would fail if there was not a return to God.
Mary Louise Bingham: One of the magistrates at the court in 1690, when this reformation was put into effect, was John Richards, who also served on the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692. One of the concerned ministers was Cotton Mather. According to author Marilynne Roach, John Richards was a church member held in high esteem at the North Church in Boston. So Cotton penned a letter dated February 13th, 1692, asking John to approve a commitment renewal service. According to Marilynne, John, and I quote, "apparently showed no enthusiasm." [00:47:00] Marilynne also wrote that this was not the only time that John Richards ignored the advice given to him by Cotton Mather in 1692.
Mary Louise Bingham: Thank you.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with another informative edition of End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for joining us today for this episode. Your unwavering support and the way you share our message are invaluable to us. We're excited to announce a new fundraiser that we hope you'll consider supporting. This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts.
Sarah Jack: We have the opportunity to attend a conference at Lancaster University focused on the human rights issue of witch hunting, hosted by the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. This event will debut a powerful photo exhibit focusing on harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and [00:48:00] the humanity of people who are accused of being witches globally today.
Sarah Jack: Josh has three photos in the exhibit, and it would be incredibly meaningful for him to be present at its reveal. This exhibit will travel internationally to raise awareness about these important issues, and your support can help make our participation possible.
Sarah Jack: Additionally, we will be gaining valuable knowledge and making invaluable connections, which will advance our interviews and research we do for our education and advocacy projects.
Sarah Jack: We will also have the opportunity to present on our recent exoneration and memorial work in New England, particularly the historic and landmark legislation in Connecticut that formally absolved the witch trial victims of the Connecticut colony. That bill was H. J. 34, a resolution concerning certain witchcraft convictions in colonial Connecticut.
Sarah Jack: If you'd like to contribute to this upcoming opportunity, please donate on our website, endwitchhunts. org. We appreciate anything you can give. Thank you once again for listening, sharing, and supporting us. [00:49:00] Together we can make a difference. Until the next time, take care and stay engaged.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt. We hope you enjoyed today's stories.
Sarah Jack: Join us every week.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Leave a Reply