0:21

Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial

0:23

Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

0:26

And I'm Sarah Jack.

0:28

Today we speak with author

0:32

and archivist Richard Hite, who's

0:35

written In the Shadow of Salem:

0:37

the Andover Witch Hunt of 1692.

0:41

In the Shadow of Salem takes

0:43

a focused look at

0:45

one community that

0:47

had the

0:49

most accusations.

0:52

More accusations than Salem

0:55

and Salem Village combined.

0:58

And a ton of confessions.

1:02

Confessions and wild accusations,

1:06

full of spectral evidence.

1:10

The confessions featured satanic

1:13

baptisms, the queen

1:16

in hell, and one

1:18

woman said there were 305

1:21

witches in the country, so

1:23

they were looking for them everywhere.

1:27

Andover wasn't a big town. But

1:30

they discovered and

1:32

accused at least

1:35

45 people of witchcraft. Most

1:38

of the accused there confessed

1:41

to witchcraft.

1:43

One of the reasons that I

1:45

think descendants have

1:48

really gravitated towards this book

1:50

and they talk about it on social media is

1:52

because so many names are

1:55

talked about and placed into the

1:57

story, and you see where these different

2:00

families fit in to

2:02

what was happening. Richard

2:05

does a really great job of talking about

2:08

the area, the territory, where

2:10

they were living.

2:13

In spite of the scale of

2:16

the Andover phase of the Salem Witch Hunt,

2:19

there hasn't been a lot written about

2:22

it until Richard

2:24

Hite came along and wrote

2:26

In the Shadow of Salem, and

2:29

it really, for the first

2:31

time, shines the spotlight on

2:34

this particular village in

2:37

Essex County, Massachusetts. He

2:40

looks at the conclusions

2:42

other historians have drawn

2:46

or come to about

2:49

the Andover phase and

2:52

evaluates those critically

2:55

and makes his own determinations

2:57

based on his research. And

3:01

it's very enlightening and enriching

3:05

and there's so many interesting

3:08

things about Andover that

3:10

it's really deserves

3:13

its own limelight

3:17

deserves its own book

3:20

or even. more can be

3:22

written about it because there's

3:25

just so much there and

3:28

we get to learn quite a lot

3:30

from our conversation.

3:33

I was surprised at how

3:35

many people in these families

3:38

were involved that, when you're looking

3:41

at some of the other history of the Salem

3:43

Witch, yes, Rebecca

3:45

Nurse and her sisters are in the

3:48

story. But when you're looking

3:51

at the Andover phase, you've

3:53

got mothers and daughters

3:56

and grandchildren and sons and

3:58

cousins, and they're

4:01

all saying something or accusing

4:04

or confessing, and

4:06

it's just there's a

4:08

lot of voices saying a lot of

4:10

things. And

4:13

if you've read the book, you're

4:15

just gonna really enjoy the

4:17

conversation and details that

4:20

Richard shares with us when we're asking questions

4:22

than discussing what we read.

4:25

If you haven't read the book,

4:28

you're gonna order it right away, cuz you're

4:30

gonna wanna read what he has to say about these

4:33

stories that we talk about in the episode.

4:36

We're gonna learn about the Ingalls family and

4:38

how many of them were accused. Like

4:41

Sarah said, it wasn't just the

4:43

immediate family, it was

4:45

like every branch. There were

4:47

in-laws that got caught up

4:50

in it. There were

4:53

children, grandchildren, so

4:56

many people involved from the Ingalls

4:58

family. The Tyler family

5:00

was another of the big ones involved.

5:04

We're gonna learn about those from our conversation

5:06

with Richard Hite.

5:09

One of the other things that really jumped out

5:11

to me is how long

5:13

it involves some of the conflicts

5:16

that were between families or

5:18

neighbors or community members.

5:21

Anthills became molehills in

5:23

a lot of situations over

5:26

the years. When you look at

5:28

the interactions the Andover

5:31

community members had with each other, there

5:34

was years of disagreements

5:37

or not

5:39

seeing eye to eye, and

5:42

it affected how

5:44

the accusations played out later.

5:48

We're also going to take a look at

5:50

the proposed conflict

5:53

between supporters of Minister

5:56

Francis Dane and supporters

5:58

of Thomas Barnard and

6:01

discuss whether there was a

6:04

North-South clash

6:07

in Andover at the time.

6:09

We're gonna talk about Francis Dane's granddaughter

6:12

Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who

6:15

was just exonerated

6:17

this past summer by the state of Massachusetts.

6:20

We'll learn how middle

6:22

school classes got involved in

6:25

exonerating Elizabeth Johnson Jr.

6:27

and really helped push it through.

6:29

So we'll discuss what

6:31

middle school was involved, who their teacher

6:34

was, how

6:36

Richard was put in contact with

6:38

that teacher, and how

6:40

it all unfolded. We're also going to learn

6:43

about how Andover

6:46

got caught up in this whirlwind

6:48

of accusations, how

6:51

afflicted girls from Salem Village were

6:53

invited to Andover, what

6:56

they did there, and how

6:58

that really got the ball rolling on

7:02

accusation after accusation.

7:04

All of that information enables

7:06

you to visualize how

7:09

much like us they were and sense

7:12

the whole struggle they were in

7:15

and just the fear and

7:18

it's very it

7:21

just brings it that history to life

7:23

when you're reading that.

7:25

The book and learning

7:27

about the different people helps

7:30

you to realize

7:32

that they're basically us

7:35

and we're them, and we

7:37

have the same fears

7:39

and desires and everything.

7:43

And then it also, that dimensional

7:45

piece that I'm thinking of, it

7:47

helps you understand some of

7:49

the Salem Village narrative

7:52

more ,too, because you had the stuff

7:54

coming in from

7:57

Andover impacting. It

8:00

broadens the understanding

8:02

of the scope of the

8:04

community at large. We get the

8:07

Salem and Salem Village pieces

8:11

in our mind, but there was actually all these

8:13

other communities that were

8:15

close but larger.

8:19

It shows

8:21

you the real scale and

8:24

scope of the

8:26

witch-hunt.

8:28

Here's Josh with some history.

8:31

Martha Carrier was born

8:33

in Andover to

8:36

Andrew Allen and Faith Ingalls in

8:38

about 1650. Later

8:40

on, she moved to Billerica, where

8:42

she met Thomas Carrier, a.k.a.

8:45

Thomas Morgan. The two

8:47

were married in 1674.

8:50

They returned to Andover and

8:52

were blamed for a smallpox

8:55

outbreak in 1690

8:58

and warned out of town. Given

9:01

the testimony against her,

9:03

it's possible that she did not have

9:06

the friendliest demeanor. A

9:09

warrant was issued for Martha carrier's

9:12

arrest on May

9:14

28th, 1692.

9:19

Under examination, Mary Lacey,

9:21

Jr. claimed that Martha

9:23

carrier was the queen

9:25

in Hell and that she

9:28

initiated others into

9:30

her coven, and

9:32

she participated in Satanic

9:34

Baptisms. Sometimes

9:37

these occurred in her own

9:40

well. Other times they

9:42

occurred in places. She

9:44

was reported to

9:46

have participated in several broom

9:48

flights. Martha

9:51

was tried, convicted, and condemned,

9:54

and four of her children were also accused.

9:57

Those were Andrew Carrier,

9:59

Richard Carrier, Sarah Carrier,

10:01

and Thomas Carrier Jr. Martha

10:05

Was hanged on August 19th,

10:07

1692.

10:09

Thank you for sharing that history with us, Josh.

10:13

You're welcome. And

10:16

now, before we go to

10:18

Richard Hite, we'll hear

10:20

a word from Virginia Wolf and

10:22

Debra Walsh about their

10:25

play, The Last Night.

10:28

Many people don't know that Connecticut

10:31

has a history of witchcraft

10:33

witch panics in the 17th century.

10:35

In fact the first person to be hanged for witchcraft

10:38

was Alice Young. Arthur Miller, God

10:40

bless him, has made the Salem witchcraft

10:42

panics the standard by which everything

10:45

is considered and people don't even

10:47

realize that the

10:49

history, and it's not necessarily a history

10:51

to be proud of, but it is something that

10:53

it happened. It was an

10:55

outcome of the religious beliefs at the

10:57

time, the patriarchal society of the time,

11:00

and in Connecticut, 1663,

11:04

January 25th was the last

11:06

execution, Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith

11:09

and Mary Barnes. And this is 30

11:11

years before the Salem Witch trials ever happened

11:13

and how. And acknowledging

11:16

that date is so important so that people

11:18

are aware that this did happen.

11:21

How do museums get people

11:23

in to their buildings?

11:26

What are the stories we can tell that

11:28

happened right outside the

11:30

door of the museum? How

11:32

do we appeal to younger people?

11:34

And I think theater can do that

11:37

by having the education or the story

11:40

is done theatrically and

11:42

thoughtfully. I think it for

11:46

me relates to any time someone

11:48

is considered the Other. When

11:50

I think of the immigration crisis, and

11:53

so maybe it will get us thinking

11:56

about how do we treat the Other,

11:58

what do we, what do we think about,

12:01

oh, especially innocent people

12:04

executed for these crimes.

12:06

A hanging? Like where is

12:08

our humanity? And

12:11

those questions are very important to me as

12:13

an educator, as a theater educator,

12:16

and also to stretch out the bonds of

12:18

theater. What else can theater artists

12:20

be doing?

12:22

It's been a really wonderful thing to

12:24

be writing this because aren't a lot of records

12:27

of what happened at the time. There are more records

12:29

based on Rebecca Greensmith in her trial and

12:31

what she said. There's really virtually nothing on Mary

12:33

Barnes. So we work

12:36

from primary sources to write this,

12:38

to make, as factual

12:40

as we can, but then weaving in

12:42

informed conjecture what could have happened,

12:44

since we don't know what happened. And then the

12:47

dramatic arc, which we've

12:49

done the writing, but Andy and our director

12:51

have really helped with that, so

12:53

that the story is alive and it's vibrant,

12:56

but it is based on history, and we are not

12:59

saying anything false, but

13:01

we are taking the

13:03

facts and elaborating

13:06

them to make them an interesting story.

13:10

A stage reading of The Last Night

13:12

will be performed at the Stanley-Whitman

13:14

House at 37 High

13:17

Street in Farmington, Connecticut

13:20

on January 21st at

13:23

7:00 PM. Doors open

13:25

at 6:30 PM. Tickets

13:27

are $20 for members, $25

13:30

for non-members and can be purchased

13:33

at s-wh.org.

13:36

The video premiere is January

13:39

25th at 7:00 PM online

13:42

for free. You can register at

13:45

the Stanley-Whitman House website. Again,

13:47

that's s-wh.org,

13:51

and we will include the link in the show

13:53

description. Thank you.

13:56

I'm excited to introduce Richard Hite,

13:58

state records coordinator at Rhode

14:00

Island State Archive and author

14:03

of In The Shadow of Salem: the Andover

14:05

Witch Hunt of 1692.

14:08

I wondered if you might

14:10

take just a minute or two to

14:14

summarize the Andover

14:16

phase of the Salem Witch Hunt.

14:18

It starts in the middle of July

14:21

of 1692. Now

14:24

one person from Andover

14:26

had already been arrested by that point.

14:28

That was Martha Carrier. She

14:30

had somehow caught the attention

14:32

of the uh, afflicted people

14:34

in Salem Village, probably

14:37

because uh, her own and her family's

14:39

reputation was not the greatest. They'd

14:41

been blamed for starting a smallpox

14:43

epidemic in Andover a

14:45

couple of years earlier. But

14:48

in mid-July, accusations

14:51

had actually ground to a halt

14:53

for about six weeks, because

14:56

the court of Oyer and Terminer had been put

14:58

in place and was trying the people

15:00

who had already been arrested. There were a little over

15:03

60 at that point. But

15:06

there was a woman in Andover who

15:08

was gravely ill, Elizabeth

15:10

Phelps Ballard. Her

15:13

husband took the unprecedented step

15:15

of inviting two of the

15:17

afflicted girls from Salem Village to

15:19

Andover to determine whether or

15:21

not she was bewitched. Apparently,

15:24

it wasn't his own idea. Some others

15:27

had put the idea in his head, but

15:29

of course, once they came,

15:31

obviously they concluded that she was,

15:34

in fact, bewitched. The

15:36

person they initially named was a widow

15:39

named Ann Foster, who was

15:41

quite frail and who had experienced

15:43

several tragedies in recent years,

15:46

worst of which was the murder of her

15:48

daughter by the daughter's husband three

15:51

years earlier. Ann Foster was arrested

15:54

and questioned over a period of four days.

15:56

For two days, she resisted

16:00

admitting guilt, but finally on the third

16:02

day, her will cracked and she confessed.

16:06

But as I said, there were a little over 60 people

16:08

who had been arrested at that point. In her confession,

16:11

she indicated that there were 305

16:14

witches throughout the region, so

16:16

that throws a scare into everybody.

16:19

They go from thinking, yeah, it was very

16:22

possible at that point that there

16:24

could have been no more accusations. They

16:26

may have just gone ahead and tried the ones

16:28

who had already been arrested, but

16:31

then all of a sudden you've got people thinking

16:33

that only 20% of the people

16:35

who were witches had been arrested.

16:39

So that starts a whole new round

16:41

of arrests. As

16:44

had been the case in Salem Village

16:46

but became even more pronounced in Andover,

16:48

once one family member was arrested,

16:51

more others were vulnerable. The

16:54

next two to be arrested were um,

16:56

both Ann Foster's own daughter

16:58

and granddaughter, both of whom were named

17:00

Mary Lacey. Both

17:02

of them also confessed under pressure,

17:05

but the younger Mary Lacey added

17:07

a new wrinkle and um, implicated

17:09

Martha Carrier, and she designated

17:12

Martha Carrier as the future queen

17:14

in hell, so to speak. Martha

17:16

Carrier has not only

17:18

been accused of witchcraft, she's

17:20

expected to be the queen of hell. Well,

17:23

she's likely a recruiter of new witches

17:25

based on that. Who's she gonna recruit?

17:28

Her neighbors in Andover. Before

17:30

the whole thing was over in Andover, 45

17:33

people from that one town were

17:35

accused. Now I should stress

17:37

what was then Andover included at that

17:40

time what's today North Andover,

17:42

at least part of Lawrence, and part of

17:44

the town of Middleton. But then also

17:46

in Martha Carrier's own extended

17:49

family, one

17:51

of her sisters was accused, four

17:53

of her five children, two

17:56

nieces, and then it extended

17:58

even further to cousins and

18:00

the cousins of children. Ultimately,

18:04

17 members of Martha Carrier's

18:06

extended family were accused of witchcraft,

18:08

which was more than any

18:11

other family throughout the region.

18:14

The 45 from Andover, who were accused,

18:16

that was more than any other town, including

18:19

Salem Village, where it all started.

18:21

Salem Village, which is today Danvers,

18:23

had only 26 accused, the

18:26

town of Salem 12. So

18:29

that's those two places combined

18:32

at fewer than Andover. A

18:34

distinct feature in Andover was

18:36

that very early on, people began

18:38

confessing, and

18:40

that was apparently because a rumor had

18:42

spread in Andover that if

18:44

one confessed, one would ultimately

18:46

be exonerated or their life

18:48

would be spared, at the very least. That

18:52

is the way it turned out. It

18:55

was never the intention of the court.

18:58

People who confessed were being kept

19:00

alive longer, in order to provide

19:02

evidence against others. Now,

19:05

initially, the ones primarily testifying

19:07

against suspects from Andover were some

19:10

of the same afflicted people, mostly

19:12

teenage girls from Salem Village.

19:16

But after the first month, the core of

19:18

afflicted girls started forming in Andover,

19:20

and some of them were coming out and testifying

19:22

against suspects. A

19:25

real turning point, I think, came

19:27

on the 10th of September, when

19:30

suddenly they began bringing

19:32

confessors to trial. There were so

19:34

many confessors by that time, they didn't need

19:37

them all anymore to provide evidence.

19:40

A few were brought to trial and convicted

19:42

and sentenced to death just like the others.

19:46

The last round of hangings,

19:48

there were eight people hanged on September

19:51

22nd. Those who had confessed

19:53

were not hanged at that time. It was not

19:55

unusual for someone who confessed to a

19:57

capital crime to be given additional

20:00

time to prepare their souls,

20:02

so to speak, for the afterlife.

20:05

And before any

20:07

of the confessors got around to being

20:09

executed, they got around to introducing

20:12

any of the confessors, executing

20:14

them, Governor Phipps suspended

20:17

all further legal actions, which gave

20:19

them a reprieve. But

20:21

the fact that confessors were being sentenced

20:24

to death scared

20:26

the life outta any, any number of

20:28

people in Andover who had actually encouraged

20:30

loved ones to confess, believing their lives

20:33

would be spared. So a series

20:35

of petitions began circulating in Andover,

20:38

which were ultimately signed by

20:41

72 people in town. A

20:43

large number of them were family

20:45

members of those who had been accused,

20:48

but not entirely. And

20:50

then um, of course, Thomas

20:53

Brattle, a Boston merchant, wrote

20:55

a letter criticizing the trials,

20:57

Increase Mather, a minister in Boston,

21:00

wrote a detailed critique of

21:03

the process, and then a new

21:05

court was constituted that had much stricter

21:08

standards for conviction. It

21:10

started trying people in January

21:12

of 1693. Of

21:15

the 52 came before the court,

21:17

all but three were either acquitted

21:19

or had the charges dropped. Three

21:21

more were convicted, sentenced

21:23

to death, all either

21:26

from Andover or had ties to Andover.

21:29

They and the previous confessors were slated

21:31

for execution on February 1st,

21:34

of 1693, but

21:36

Governor Phipps intervened again,

21:39

not pardoning them, but reprieving them,

21:42

and because the prosecutor had

21:44

said there was really no more evidence against

21:46

those people than there were against

21:48

the ones who had been acquitted. And

21:50

while they were not at that time pardoned,

21:53

they began trying more people. No one

21:55

else was convicted, and, essentially,

21:59

people were just eventually let out,

22:01

and they could pay their expenses and no

22:03

one else was executed.

22:06

I was curious about your

22:09

research and archiving and what started your

22:11

journey into that and what

22:13

that's like for you or anything that

22:15

would be important for us to know about it.

22:18

I've been in the archives profession since

22:20

the late 1980s and have been

22:22

working for the Rhode Island State

22:24

Archive since 2003.

22:27

I had not lived in this region of the

22:29

country prior to that, but

22:31

I've had a very long-time interest

22:33

in the witchcraft trials. I did two term

22:35

papers on them when I was at graduate

22:38

school, and then

22:40

of course, moving to this region gave

22:42

me easier access to material

22:45

on the witch-hunt than I'd ever had. And

22:48

reading nearly all the major publications

22:51

on the whole event, I

22:53

came to realize that very

22:56

little had been written about Andover,

22:58

despite the fact that it obviously had

23:00

a major role in the whole thing,

23:03

but previous authors seemed to just

23:06

treat it as just a practically

23:08

meaningless extension of what had happened

23:10

in Salem Village and the town of Salem.

23:13

But I thought with 45 people having

23:16

accused there, that it seemed that there was

23:18

a separate story to be told

23:20

about it. And the more

23:22

I researched it, the more I realized

23:25

that there definitely was. The

23:27

research into the transcribed

23:30

documents of the witch-hunt, which were

23:33

compiled in 2010

23:35

by a team of editors led by

23:37

Bernard Rosenthal, and

23:40

I should add, Margo Burns played

23:42

a major role in it, was

23:44

really a major source for me.

23:47

But one of the things I should

23:49

point out, though, that it's very much

23:51

worthwhile to mention, mention that

23:54

the path I expected to follow,

23:56

what I thought happened in Andover

23:59

turned out not to really be the case at all.

24:02

There's a very well-known work on the

24:04

Witch Hunt in Salem Village from the

24:06

mid 1970s by historians

24:08

Paul Boyer and Steven Nisenbaum.

24:11

They talk about a factionalism

24:14

that formed in Salem Village over

24:17

the uh, minister in town

24:19

with a significant faction supporting

24:21

him and a significant faction

24:23

opposing him. And they stress

24:26

how it tended to break down on regional

24:28

lines, with people more in the east end

24:30

of the village, who were near the Salem

24:32

town, tending to oppose it, further

24:35

west in the more rural isolated area,

24:38

tending to support him. I already knew

24:40

that Andover had been semi-formally

24:43

divided into north and south

24:45

ends by that time, not not into

24:47

separate towns, although the

24:49

border is fairly close to what now separates

24:52

North Andover from Andover. There

24:54

were two ministers in what was then

24:57

Andover, Francis Dane and

24:59

Thomas Barnard. I was

25:01

expecting to find some kind of a

25:03

north-south divide in Andover

25:05

between accusers and accused.

25:08

And it's well known that Francis Dane

25:10

was an opponent of the witch-hunt from the beginning.

25:13

And some writers had hinted that Thomas

25:15

Barnard, who was actually the younger of the two,

25:17

had offered his support to the process.

25:20

But I didn't find anything like that.

25:24

In terms of the north and south ends,

25:26

of the 45 accused, there

25:29

were 24 from the north end

25:31

and 21 from the south end, so practically

25:33

an even split. And

25:36

people involved in accusations in one

25:38

way or another, 12 from

25:40

the north end, 11 from the south end.

25:42

Again, a practically an even split.

25:45

And although Thomas Barnard's

25:48

attitude toward the witch-hunt was not

25:50

as vocal as Francis Dane's,

25:52

he signed the petitions just

25:55

like Francis Dane and everyone

25:57

else defending the suspects. So he

25:59

didn't support it anymore than Francis

26:01

Dane did. I think in part, it may

26:03

have been because the minister in Salem Village,

26:06

Samuel Parris, played such a major

26:08

role there, had just made

26:10

historians may have just generally thought

26:13

for it to take off in Andover like it did,

26:16

at least one of the ministers had to

26:18

be leading the charge,

26:20

so to speak. That wasn't

26:22

the case at all. I did research the

26:24

lives of people involved in the

26:26

witch hunt afterward, and

26:28

there were people who strongly supported

26:30

Barnard in the first decade

26:33

of the next century, who had

26:35

close family members accused of

26:37

witchcraft, and

26:39

two of 'em were even the sons of Samuel

26:41

Wardwell, who had been hanged for witchcraft.

26:44

And I just can't believe that those

26:46

people would've supported Reverend

26:48

Barnard if he had been a

26:50

major booster of the witch-hunt. It

26:52

just doesn't make sense.

26:55

Certainly different in Salem Village with

26:57

Parris.

26:59

Definitely. And

27:02

it just seemed more in Andover

27:04

to break down along family lines,

27:06

particularly among the accused. I already

27:08

mentioned Martha Carrier's extended family.

27:12

Her maternal grandparents were

27:14

Edmund and Anne Ingalls of Lynn, Massachusetts.

27:18

Of course, they were long dead by the time

27:20

of the witch-hunt. But altogether they had

27:22

17 descendants accused. No

27:25

other family was that

27:27

heavily persecuted. The

27:29

Tyler family, in and around Andover,

27:31

they had 10 members accused.

27:34

Now, unlike the extended Ingalls clan, they

27:36

also had some accusers, as well,

27:38

within the family. But those

27:41

in the family who were accusers were not

27:43

accusing their own family members,

27:46

with the exception of a stepdaughter

27:48

of Moses Tyler named Martha Sprague.

27:51

It seems to me that her accusations

27:53

against some of his family may

27:56

have been a reflection of a negative

27:58

attitude she held toward him,

28:01

and there was just a way of lashing out

28:03

at his family. And I should clarify something

28:06

I said. There were 45 accused from

28:08

Andover, and that's correct. There

28:11

were an additional 18

28:13

from surrounding communities

28:16

who people from Andover played a role

28:18

in accusing. So based on that,

28:21

I would actually say that the Andover phase

28:23

resulted in 63 accusations,

28:27

and 27 out of 63

28:30

came from those two extended family

28:32

groups. So not quite half, but

28:35

nonetheless a significant portion.

28:37

But there were other families who had several

28:39

members accused, the Barker family, for

28:42

instance, they had four who were accused.

28:44

You add those four in, that's 31.

28:49

And then there were a few others who had at least

28:51

multiple members accused as well.

28:53

And was there anything else contributing

28:56

to that number of accusations

28:58

other than thinking,

29:01

oh, confession is going to

29:03

save me? What else would've contributed

29:05

to that many accusations?

29:08

I

29:08

think it was just that once things took

29:11

off there and got some of the

29:13

locals believing in, and of course again,

29:15

the accusation of Martha Carrier

29:17

as Queen of Hell, giving the idea

29:20

that she's one of the ring leaders

29:22

of the whole episode,

29:25

shifted a focus to Andover

29:28

in that way. Now

29:30

the people who were confessing, I should

29:32

point out, were not generally

29:35

accusing new people. They

29:37

were just offering evidence against others

29:39

who had already been accused. It

29:42

was just something like in Salem Village.

29:44

Once it got started, it just

29:46

got out of control in Andover, as

29:48

well. And yes, the fact that people

29:51

were confessing was giving

29:53

added credence to it in

29:55

the minds of the accusers. William

29:58

Barker, for example, gave

30:00

probably one of the more detailed confessions

30:02

of the whole thing. He described how

30:05

the Devil was involved. The Devil

30:07

and his followers had a conspiracy

30:09

to bring down the Church and the region.

30:13

He went on to say that the witches

30:15

were much vexed,

30:17

as he put it, at the judges and the afflicted,

30:20

because they were interfering with their plans.

30:22

And he specifically said, to his knowledge,

30:25

not a single innocent person had been

30:27

accused. That was exactly

30:29

what the judges and the accusers

30:31

wanted to hear. And

30:34

he probably said that thinking it

30:36

would get him off the hook. As it worked out,

30:39

it did. But again, that was

30:41

just a coincidence of timing. Had

30:43

governor Phipps not suspended

30:46

legal actions when he did in October,

30:48

some of those who had confessed

30:51

but then subsequently been convicted

30:54

would probably have been executed before the month

30:56

was over. I think it's

30:58

worth pointing it out that earlier

31:00

in New England witch trials, people

31:03

who confessed were in fact executed.

31:05

So the thing then about

31:07

having their lives spared if they confessed,

31:09

that was just a baseless

31:12

rumor?

31:13

Early on, those who were confessed,

31:16

there were only a handful of those prior to

31:18

Andover, but they were not being

31:20

brought to trial. And so

31:22

that probably just contributed

31:24

to the rumor, because those who were

31:26

being brought to trial were

31:29

not confessing and

31:31

had not confessed previously. But

31:34

confessions throughout really

31:36

helped spread the whole thing.

31:39

At the very beginning of the whole event,

31:41

there were three accused, Sarah

31:43

Good, Sarah Osborne, and the

31:45

Reverend Parris's slave, Tituba, from

31:48

Salem Village. Previous

31:51

witch trials throughout the region, it usually

31:53

would be only one or two, maybe three people

31:55

accused. Those people might be convicted,

31:58

might not, but

32:01

Tituba not only confessed,

32:04

she claimed to have put her mark in a book

32:07

that listed nine other

32:09

names. So that gave a

32:12

hint to the prosecutors.

32:14

We don't have everybody. And

32:17

then by the time they had arrested

32:19

about seven, six or seven more,

32:22

this teenage girl from Topsfield,

32:25

Abigail Hobbs, also

32:27

confesses. Now she doesn't

32:29

provide numbers. But

32:31

yeah, Tituba said she had only signed

32:33

the book a few weeks before. Abigail

32:36

Hobbs said that she had given her soul

32:38

to the devil three or four years earlier. So

32:41

now that's telling them that this has

32:44

been going on a while. It's

32:46

one of the most frustrating things about reading

32:48

the whole episode is realizing

32:50

how many times it

32:52

reached a point where it could have died down,

32:55

and then something else, usually another

32:57

accusation followed by a confession,

33:00

suddenly starts at getting

33:02

out of control again.

33:04

Why would've she and some of the other

33:07

confessors said that

33:09

they had been working with the devil for

33:11

so many years?

33:13

In the case of Tituba, is

33:15

really hard to fathom why

33:18

she confessed. There's a legend

33:20

that her master, the Minister Samuel Parris,

33:24

whipped it out of her, but I don't buy

33:26

that, and I'll tell you why I don't. Because

33:29

she was questioned in court over

33:31

a period of two days. The

33:34

first day she refused to confess,

33:36

and then she spent the next night in jail.

33:39

Parris wouldn't have had a chance to whip her then. The

33:42

way Judge John Hathorne phrased

33:45

his questions, he was always presuming

33:47

guilt. In the case of Sarah Good,

33:49

for example, he did not ask

33:51

her, "Sarah Good, do you have familiarity

33:54

with any evil spirits?" He asked,

33:56

"Sarah Good, what evil spirit

33:58

have you familiarity with?" In

34:01

reading this examination

34:03

of Tituba, it seems that he

34:06

tricked her into confessing, cause

34:08

he would not relent in questioning her about

34:11

that. And then finally, I think she said something

34:13

she thought might get her out

34:16

of trouble, because she did

34:18

at one point finally admit she

34:20

had harmed these children

34:22

through occult means but had recanted

34:25

and would do so no more. But then

34:27

that just caused Hathorne to press even further,

34:30

twisting her words. Of

34:32

course, she was in the courtroom with these shrieking

34:36

afflicted girls. I think she just cracked under

34:38

the pressure. Now Abigail

34:41

Hobbs, she's written about heavily,

34:44

and Mary Beth Norton's book

34:46

titled In the Devil's Snare,

34:48

Mary Beth Norton stresses the importance

34:51

of Abigail Hobbs' confession.

34:54

Abigail Hobbs, she was only in her mid

34:56

teens, apparently quite disturbed.

34:58

She and her family had been on the Maine

35:01

frontier when the wars with the Native Americans

35:04

broke out. They were essentially back

35:06

in the Topsfield area as refugees.

35:09

But Abigail

35:11

Hobbs had some strange habits.

35:13

Apparently, she was talked about

35:15

how she would sleep in the woods at night,

35:18

would publicly talk about having sold

35:21

herself body and soul to the Old

35:23

Boy, which was a way of describing

35:25

the Devil. My suspicion

35:28

is that whatever eccentricity she

35:30

had, she was probably ridiculed

35:33

to a degree by her peers and

35:35

maybe had cultivated the reputation

35:37

of a Witch in a hope of scaring

35:39

them into leaving her alone. And

35:42

so again, I can't be sure

35:44

about that, but that seems as logical

35:47

a reason as any. I think there were only three

35:49

more who confessed

35:51

until the confessions took off in Andover.

35:54

You mentioned earlier that a lot

35:56

of what happened in Andover took off

35:58

because of what the Ballards did. Can

36:01

you tell us a little more about that?

36:04

Sure. Actually, in a way, it almost

36:06

starts, I think, with Samuel Wardwell,

36:10

who ended up being hanged, but

36:13

see, Samuel Wardwell was

36:15

well known among the young people

36:18

in Andover as

36:20

a fortune teller. And he was well liked

36:22

by them because of that. My suspicion

36:24

is, some of Ward well's, things

36:26

that he told were surprisingly accurate.

36:30

What I suspect about him is that he had

36:32

a very keen sense of

36:35

being able to read people's thoughts

36:37

by mannerisms, the way they phrased

36:40

certain things, or by facial

36:42

expressions. For instance, he had

36:44

told one young man named James

36:46

Bridges that he

36:48

knew that he was in love with a

36:50

certain girl in the area. And

36:53

James Bridges admitted it. Yes

36:55

he was. And then other things

36:57

that people believe in 'em strongly enough that can

36:59

become self-fulfilling. Well,

37:01

Samuel Wardwell's wife

37:05

was Sarah Hooper Wardwell. Her

37:08

sister Rebecca was married

37:10

to John Ballard. Now, John

37:12

Ballard was not the husband of the woman

37:14

who was sick. John Ballard

37:17

was the constable of the south end of Andover,

37:19

and he had already arrested Martha Carrier

37:21

and taken her to jail in Salem.

37:25

Wardwell was getting worried when he heard

37:27

that Elizabeth Ballard was sick. He thought

37:29

people were getting suspicious of his

37:32

being a fortune teller. And

37:34

so he was afraid he'd be accused of

37:36

witchcraft. He expressed this to his brother

37:38

John, he was afraid that John's

37:41

brother, Joseph, might be blaming him

37:43

for Elizabeth Ballard's

37:45

illness. John Ballard then went

37:47

and said this to Joseph, and that

37:50

was what put the idea in Joseph Ballard's

37:52

head that maybe my wife is bewitched.

37:56

So he sent for these girls from Salem

37:58

Village, and of course,

38:00

they obviously said, yes she was,

38:04

and Wardwell was not accused immediately,

38:06

but he was about a month later. And

38:08

in a sense, expressing his own

38:10

concerns probably

38:13

led to him ultimately being accused

38:15

and executed. A few days

38:17

after people began being

38:19

accused and arrested in Andover,

38:22

Elizabeth Ballard died. And

38:24

see, that was a first. None

38:26

of the afflicted people in Salem

38:28

Village had died, regardless

38:31

of what might have been wrong with them or

38:33

anybody else. But here,

38:35

for the first time, a supposedly

38:38

afflicted person had actually died. That was

38:40

another hint that there were more people at large,

38:43

and now there was obvious evidence

38:46

these witches could actually kill.

38:48

Bringing the afflicted girls in

38:51

to try to detect some supposed

38:53

witches was a big

38:56

deal. It really affected

38:58

the next circumstances?

39:02

Yeah. So that was the first place

39:04

where that had been, where that was done. Gloucester

39:07

didn't even get involved until very late in the

39:09

game. Gloucester did have

39:11

nine people accused. After

39:14

Andover, Salem Village, and the town

39:16

of Salem, they were number four, but

39:18

none of the accusations there really

39:20

ended up going much of anywhere ,because

39:22

it started so late in the process.

39:25

You talked about Anne Foster's confession,

39:28

305 witches?

39:31

Where she got that number, I have no idea.

39:34

The only one of the things I

39:36

find myself thinking about the whole process,

39:38

both in terms of confessors and

39:40

accusers, is I really

39:43

wondered to what extent nightmares

39:45

played a role in whatever

39:47

caused this. Because we have

39:49

to remember that,

39:51

and even 19th century writers

39:53

had trouble accepting this, I think

39:56

because, so many have tried to point to some

39:58

kind of conspiracy in this whole

40:00

thing. We have to remember these

40:03

people genuinely believed

40:05

in it. Believing in witchcraft

40:07

and that witches could bring harm to people

40:10

that, that era, it was every

40:13

bit as normal as believing in God

40:15

is today. But I think even 19th

40:17

century writers had a hard time

40:19

accepting that in some of their writings

40:22

about it, because you'll run into all

40:24

kinds of accounts, and I think it's based

40:26

partly on fiction, that one of the reasons

40:28

people were accused was because the accusers

40:31

wanted the land of the people they were accusing.

40:34

And that's not the case at all, because they wouldn't,

40:36

it wasn't going to get them any land

40:39

because it's, again, and I think this was made

40:41

popular by Nathaniel Hawthorne's

40:43

novel, The House of the Seven Gables,

40:45

because that's the reason that the judge

40:47

there accuses the victim of witchcraft,

40:50

is because he wants his land, and he ends

40:52

up getting it. But in reality,

40:54

even if someone is hanged for witchcraft

40:57

in that era, their heirs are still

40:59

going to inherit their land. Two

41:02

of the people who were executed, John Proctor

41:04

and George Jacobs, neither from Andover,

41:07

but yeah, they wrote their will while they were

41:09

in jail awaiting execution, and

41:11

the terms of their wills were honored.

41:14

So there, there were nightmares in the surviving

41:17

testimony. At what point

41:19

in the Andover phase was

41:21

that, was it throughout? Did

41:23

several confessor or accusers

41:27

talk about nightmares?

41:29

They didn't describe it as such. I can't

41:31

help but believe that's where some of the testimony

41:34

came from, was people

41:36

had dreamed something and dreams

41:39

and reality became blurred,

41:41

because they so strongly believed

41:44

what was happening.

41:46

So even outside a trial

41:49

scenario, those individuals

41:51

would've been considering

41:54

dreams real experiences?

41:57

It's possible. But some would have. Yes.

42:00

Yes. Through much of human

42:02

history, dreams have often been seen

42:04

as portents of some sort.

42:06

And in reality, too, some of the

42:08

confessors and Ann Foster comes

42:10

to mind with this, because she had experienced

42:13

so much tragedy in recent years.

42:15

She could have come to actually

42:17

believe she had, without realizing

42:19

it, become a witch and was being punished

42:22

for it. It's just as

42:24

people who are devoutly religious

42:26

today might have doubts about,

42:29

okay, whether their souls have been saved,

42:31

so to speak, or not. When

42:33

one so devoutly believes

42:36

in something such as witchcraft, they may

42:38

actually come to believe themselves to have become

42:41

witches.

42:42

Sarah and I were talking about the nightmares

42:45

and dreams thing the other night,

42:47

and I went through a phase in my

42:49

life where I had sleep paralysis

42:52

several times, and it very

42:54

much resembled to me some of the

42:57

accuser testimony, especially, of

43:00

people coming into your room at night,

43:02

because you wake up, but you're still in a dream

43:04

state, so everything feels very

43:07

real.

43:08

I occasionally had dreams as a child

43:10

of, and occasionally as an adult,

43:13

of falling off of something

43:17

and waking up as I was falling, and it felt

43:19

as though I landed on my bed. And

43:21

then other symptoms can manifest

43:24

themselves, too. If you believe very strongly

43:26

in witchcraft, and

43:28

if you think that someone has

43:31

a poppet that they are using a poppet

43:33

that they're identifying

43:35

as you and sticking pins at

43:37

it, you're probably going to experience

43:40

some symptoms. A personal

43:42

experience, when I've led tours, I

43:44

have sometimes cited, I grew up in a

43:46

religious tradition, in

43:48

which 12 was considered the age

43:50

of accountability for one's sins,

43:53

so that, anything you did

43:56

prior to age 12 was not going

43:58

to be held against you, so to

44:00

speak. But once you're

44:02

12, you're responsible for everything.

44:05

Three weeks after my 12th birthday,

44:09

I broke out in a severe case of hives.

44:12

My mother took me to the doctor, and they

44:15

were assuming I had some sort of allergy.

44:17

The doctor concluded, I think, because

44:19

I had probably recently started taking

44:22

adult aspirin instead of baby

44:24

aspirin when I needed it, that

44:26

I was allergic to aspirin. For

44:28

over three decades, I believed

44:31

that I was allergic to aspirin. But then, learning

44:33

some of the potential medical benefits of

44:35

it, I decided to go to an allergist and undergo

44:38

what's called a drug challenge. I'm

44:40

not allergic to aspirin, probably never

44:42

was. I

44:45

firmly believe that breaking out in hives

44:47

was probably a nervous reaction

44:49

over the idea that I was

44:52

suddenly responsible for my own sins.

44:55

That's a great example. You talked in

44:57

the book, this is about the psychosomatic

45:00

symptoms that people feel?

45:03

Yes, absolutely. I think that was a major

45:05

factor. Now, I can't help

45:07

but think that some of the performances by

45:09

the afflicted in the courtroom, those

45:13

probably were to some degree staged,

45:16

because it wouldn't be the sort of thing that someone

45:18

could just easily turn

45:20

on and off. But

45:22

even if the ones in the courtroom were staged,

45:25

what happened at home, probably

45:28

psychosomatic, and by testifying

45:30

as they did in the courtroom,

45:32

I'm sure that many of them thought that they

45:35

were bringing criminals

45:37

to justice, even if they did exaggerate

45:39

what was actually happening at that

45:41

moment.

45:43

When you talked about Abigail Hobbs and like a

45:45

perceived purification process,

45:47

they were maybe exaggerating

45:51

to help accomplish getting rid

45:53

of the evil.

45:55

Yes. I, that's what I, but

45:58

that, that doesn't mean that some of what

46:00

they experienced was

46:02

not real. But again, for psychosomatic

46:04

reasons.

46:06

I I also wonder when they got

46:08

into the courtroom and they were facing

46:11

the people who they believed were witches,

46:14

could they have had stress reactions

46:17

then as well?

46:18

That's absolutely a possibility, very

46:22

much a possibility, because they were deathly

46:24

afraid of these people, even

46:26

though, you know, they did not have to be in that

46:28

person's presence for the person to afflict

46:31

them according to their belief, to

46:33

actually be in their presence would

46:36

be, would've been a frightening experience.

46:39

I wanted to talk some more

46:41

about Martha Carrier, because

46:44

she seems to play a very prominent role

46:46

in the Andover situation.

46:49

What more can you tell us about her

46:51

as a person?

46:53

She was she had been born in Andover

46:55

and grown up there. Then, as a young

46:58

adult, she, or possibly even

47:00

in her late teens, she went to the neighboring

47:02

town of Billerica and lived

47:04

with her older sister, who was married

47:06

to a man from there, and

47:09

she found her husband there,

47:11

Thomas Carrier, and they were married.

47:13

But they were not too secure

47:15

financially, and in the late 1680s,

47:19

they were warned out of town. It's

47:21

not clear why. Now

47:23

warning someone out of town

47:25

did not automatically mean you had

47:27

to leave, but if you were

47:29

warned out of town, it meant if you fell

47:31

into difficult financial circumstances,

47:34

the town had no obligation

47:37

to help support you. Martha seems to

47:39

have been of a bit of a turbulent

47:41

spirit. She got into a quarrel with

47:43

a neighbor of hers named Benjamin Abbott,

47:45

and this was once they moved back to Andover

47:48

over a property line. And

47:51

it was after Benjamin Abbott later

47:53

testified against her, saying that after

47:55

this quarrel, he had become seriously

47:57

ill and developed some

48:00

type of soar on his foot, which

48:02

upon being lanced, oozed,

48:05

as he described it, gallons of corruption.

48:08

Most bizarrely, he also claimed to

48:10

have gotten some boils on his manhood,

48:12

which only left after she was arrested.

48:16

Now whether or not she

48:18

really was as quarrelsome as she's

48:21

been portrayed or

48:23

just was very quick

48:25

to defend her family,

48:27

who knows? There were things

48:29

that made people frightened of her. And

48:32

there was a smallpox epidemic that

48:34

started Andover shortly after

48:36

they moved there in 1690,

48:38

which led to 13 people dying

48:40

in Andover, and that

48:42

was apparently known in the region,

48:45

because one of the young girls who testified

48:48

against her, who was not from Andover but Salem

48:50

Village, described an encounter

48:52

with 13 ghosts,

48:55

who blamed their deaths

48:57

on Martha Carrier. No

49:00

coincidence, the exact number of people who died

49:02

in the smallpox epidemic. Now

49:04

there are legends about Martha

49:07

Carrier's husband, which I seriously

49:09

do not believe are true. The

49:12

one aspect of it that apparently is

49:14

true is that he apparently changed

49:16

his last name for some reason. Their

49:18

marriage record even describes him as

49:20

Thomas Morgan alias Carrier.

49:23

The legend about him is that

49:26

he had ended up fleeing England,

49:28

because he was the executioner of King

49:30

Charles I in 1649.

49:33

But for one thing, by the time he died

49:35

in 1735, he would've

49:37

had to have been well over

49:40

a hundred years old. His

49:42

death record actually does say he was

49:44

109, but

49:47

death records at that time with exaggerated

49:49

ages like that are, weren't unusual

49:51

in New England, particularly for people

49:53

who had been born in England and come over.

49:56

I have an ancestor myself who's own

49:58

grave indicates he died

50:01

in 1694 at age

50:03

97, which

50:05

would place his birth in 1597,

50:08

but his baptism in England gives

50:10

his year of birth as 1611, so

50:12

he was actually only 83. But

50:15

even regardless of whether that story

50:17

about her husband is true or not,

50:20

if people around thought that it was,

50:23

that wouldn't have helped the family's reputation.

50:26

Was that legend, when

50:29

did it develop? Did it develop during

50:31

their lifetime or did we hear about

50:33

it after?

50:35

To my knowledge, it only appears in

50:37

print in the 1880s with a published

50:39

history of Andover. Whether

50:42

it was told verbally during his lifetime

50:44

or not, no. A couple

50:47

of historical novels have been written

50:49

about it as if it was an absolute

50:51

fact. One of the bad things about historical

50:54

novels is that so many people

50:56

are inclined to believe that they are

50:59

actually factual, and

51:02

you know that, but you can take

51:04

a historical novel and write anything.

51:07

He's also said to have been stood

51:09

well over seven feet tall, for

51:12

instance. And combination

51:14

of that and living to be over a hundred years

51:16

old, even today,

51:19

extraordinarily tall people

51:22

have lower life expectancies than

51:24

the average person, because

51:26

being that extraordinarily tall is a

51:28

strain on one's circulatory system.

51:31

The fact that Boston Celtics legend

51:33

Bill Russell, who died earlier

51:35

this year at age 88, the fact

51:37

that he lived that long is nothing short

51:39

of miraculous. And

51:41

Thomas Carrier was said to have lived 20

51:44

years longer than he did. So

51:46

it's just a combination of things

51:49

that are just really not believable. Now,

51:51

I know I've strayed away from Martha herself

51:53

and talked about her family. Whether

51:56

she was genuinely just a

51:59

disagreeable person, which there's evidence

52:01

to suggest that she was, her

52:03

children ended up being accused along

52:05

with her, and they ended

52:08

up confessing and implicated their

52:10

mother in the confessions. But

52:13

I'm quite certain if there was a rumor of

52:16

your life being spared if they

52:18

did confess, she

52:20

might very well have told them to

52:23

implicate her, to save them

52:26

and probably was willing to die herself,

52:28

as long as they could be spared.

52:31

Now she had an interesting

52:33

brother-in-law, Roger

52:35

Toothaker, right? And

52:37

he talked about using folk magic

52:40

to actually kill a witch.

52:43

That's true. He said he had taught his daughter

52:45

how to do it, and his daughter Martha,

52:47

who was married to a man named Emerson,

52:49

ended up being arrested as well. But

52:52

the way that was supposedly done

52:54

was, and I don't know how they did this,

52:56

was to procure the urine

52:58

of a witchcraft suspect and boiling

53:01

it, which would supposedly

53:03

kill the witch. Now,

53:05

I don't count Roger Toothaker as among

53:07

the ones who was as part of the Andover

53:09

Witch Hunt for the simple reason

53:12

that he had been arrested, and he died in jail

53:15

before anybody other than Martha

53:17

was accused from Andover. But that's

53:19

true. Her connection to him probably

53:22

didn't help her case at all. Ultimately,

53:24

I think the rest of the family being accused was

53:26

because of her. But

53:29

her own dubious reputation and

53:31

her family's dubious reputation.

53:33

It wasn't helped by the connection to him

53:35

by any means.

53:37

Samuel Wardwell and Roger

53:39

Toothaker both seemed

53:41

to be comfortable openly talking

53:43

about magic. And

53:45

why would they have felt comfortable talking

53:48

about that openly before the

53:50

Witch hunt?

53:52

There was certainly folk magic

53:54

of various types was often practiced,

53:56

and generally it

53:59

didn't really always aros suspicion.

54:03

And I think, now Roger Toothaker probably

54:05

thought that, okay, if he used counter

54:07

magic to kill a witch, that was

54:10

maybe a positive thing. Obviously

54:12

he calculated wrong. But

54:15

Samuel Wardwell had

54:17

apparently done this for years without suspicion.

54:20

And, in times like this, when suddenly

54:22

all these accusations start happening,

54:25

people who are known for things like

54:27

that suddenly fall under suspicion, whereas

54:30

maybe they didn't before. I

54:32

think that was why he started

54:34

becoming nervous that he would fall

54:36

under suspicion, but by voicing

54:39

his suspicions to his brother-in-law,

54:41

John Ballard, it ended up becoming

54:43

a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

54:46

And so likewise, Martha

54:49

Carrier would've been

54:52

fine being a little bit turbulent,

54:56

because the accusations hadn't become

54:59

such a problem. Cause I was thinking

55:01

she has this reputation, possibly

55:05

she wasn't hesitant to be rude.

55:08

She didn't hesitate to speak her mind, but

55:12

she wasn't worried about witch

55:14

trial, not until this all

55:16

came about. I mean there were previous cases,

55:19

of course, when only one or two

55:21

people in an area would be accused,

55:23

and, in fact, there were people who ultimately

55:25

were accused in Salem who had

55:28

fallen under suspicion previously.

55:31

That was not true of Martha Carrier,

55:33

but there were certainly others, but

55:36

some previous examinations,

55:38

not only did the accused person

55:40

get off the hook, that

55:43

person could then sue the accuser

55:45

and in some cases even won the suit.

55:48

Susanna Martin of Amesbury was

55:50

hanging in 1692, but in 1669

55:54

in her home community of Amesbury,

55:56

she had been accused. Not

55:58

only did the accusation not go anywhere,

56:00

but her husband sued

56:03

the man who accused her and

56:06

won the suit. But Susanna Martin

56:08

was another one who didn't hesitate to speak

56:10

her mind, but not everybody was accused

56:13

was like that.

56:15

When she later was accused,

56:17

her husband was gone, and it

56:19

was men accusing her. Am I right?

56:23

Men would file the formal complaints,

56:26

but one mistaken idea about

56:28

the whole thing, though, is that in general,

56:31

the widows were more vulnerable in Salem.

56:33

That was not the case. In fact,

56:36

of the 19 who were hanged,

56:39

see it was 14 women and 5

56:41

men. 10 of those

56:43

women had living husbands,

56:46

only 4 were widows. There

56:49

were 45 who were accused in

56:51

Andover, of which

56:53

34 were women Of those 34,

56:57

only 4 were widows.

56:59

Then of course, I should also point out

57:02

one thing that was different about Andover was you had

57:04

a lot of younger people being accused,

57:07

because among the other, and I should say females,

57:09

because some of them were girls, of

57:11

the 30 others, 12 of

57:13

them had living husbands, and

57:16

eight of the other 18

57:18

were women and girls

57:20

under the age of 30 who were not

57:22

yet married. A lot of them,

57:24

most of them had living fathers.

57:28

So it's the idea

57:30

that women who did not

57:32

have a man to protect

57:34

them were more vulnerable than

57:36

others. The statistics don't

57:38

bear that out.

57:41

It doesn't seem like the men were able

57:43

to do much to protect them

57:45

when they did have the men.

57:48

Not in Salem in 1692.

57:50

And I should say all of Essex County. There

57:52

really seems to have been very little

57:55

that they could do. And in fact there were some,

57:57

a few men who attempted to, who

57:59

ended up being accused themselves. John

58:02

Proctor in Salem Village,

58:04

along with Giles Corey, both their wives

58:06

were accused. They ended up being accused themselves.

58:09

Andover had a unique situation

58:12

in that Samuel Wardwell was accused.

58:15

And then in the wake

58:17

of that, his wife, one

58:19

of his daughters, and a stepdaughter

58:22

were all accused as well. But in

58:24

that particular case, the accusation

58:26

started with a male member of the family.

58:29

And that was that was not the norm.

58:31

It would usually be a woman who would be accused

58:33

first. Really the men really

58:35

could do little protective. Plenty of the men

58:38

who signed the petitions in Andover

58:40

starting in October of 1692

58:43

were men who had

58:45

wives or daughters that had been

58:47

arrested. And you know that by

58:49

then it did start to have some effect.

58:53

In talking about Thomas Carrier's reputation,

58:56

I've always found it very interesting

58:59

that he didn't sign the petitions,

59:01

and I can't help but wonder if he was not,

59:03

if he was shrewd enough to know that

59:06

maybe his signing a petition, because

59:09

if he had a bad reputation, might have

59:11

done more harm than good. Now,

59:13

granted, his wife Martha, had already been

59:15

executed. But 4 of

59:18

his children were still in jail under

59:20

suspicion. It's a little surprising

59:22

he was not accused himself. Why

59:24

he wasn't, I don't know.

59:27

You talked about the

59:29

confession of Abigail Hobbs and

59:32

how significant that was. And

59:34

in the book you mentioned that she

59:36

said that she gave the devil

59:39

her permission to

59:41

afflict. Why was that important?

59:45

That was related to spectral evidence.

59:48

See, one of the real controversies

59:50

of the whole thing was the use of spectral

59:53

evidence. The idea

59:55

that if someone's specter

59:57

attacked a person, whether

1:00:00

that was acceptable as evidence of guilt

1:00:02

or not. And the reason

1:00:06

that was controversial was there

1:00:08

were those who believed that the

1:00:10

devil could not take one's shape to

1:00:12

attack a person without

1:00:14

that person's consent, but

1:00:17

there were others who thought that the devil could

1:00:19

take anyone's shape with

1:00:21

or without permission. The

1:00:23

court initially ultimately

1:00:25

decided that it could only

1:00:27

be done with

1:00:30

the person's consent, so therefore,

1:00:32

spectral evidence was considered acceptable.

1:00:35

Now, when the original court was disbanded

1:00:37

in October and a new court was created,

1:00:40

that new court did not allow

1:00:42

that type of evidence. Increase

1:00:45

Mather wrote that it was impossible

1:00:47

to know that the devil could not take the shape

1:00:49

of an innocent person, and also

1:00:51

said it was better for 10 witches

1:00:53

to go free than for one innocent

1:00:55

person to be put to death, so in the following

1:00:58

January, when the new court began trying

1:01:00

people, of the 52 people they brought

1:01:03

to the court, only three were

1:01:05

convicted. And all

1:01:07

those three, two of them actually lived

1:01:09

in Andover, and the other one had family

1:01:11

ties to Andover. But there

1:01:14

were unique things about all three

1:01:16

of them that made it more likely

1:01:19

that they would be convicted. I can elaborate

1:01:21

on that, if you like. One of

1:01:23

'em was, in fact, Samuel Wardwell's

1:01:26

widow, Sarah. Her husband had been hanged

1:01:28

soon before that. Most of the confessors

1:01:31

describe squeezing puppets or cloth

1:01:33

or even their own hands and imagining the

1:01:36

people they wish to harm. Sarah

1:01:38

Wardwell claimed a very shocking thing.

1:01:40

She had a child, who was not quite a year

1:01:43

old yet at the time. One

1:01:45

of the people she was accused of afflicting was

1:01:47

Martha Sprague, who was the Tyler's

1:01:49

stepdaughter I spoke of earlier. In

1:01:52

her confession, she actually described

1:01:55

picking up her own child in an

1:01:57

attempt to hurt Martha Sprague and

1:01:59

squeezing her own child, effectively

1:02:02

using her own child as a weapon

1:02:04

of witchcraft, so to speak. That

1:02:07

was quite a shocking thing to say.

1:02:09

The other two, Elizabeth

1:02:12

Johnson and Mary Post, they were both

1:02:14

apparently mentally challenged in some

1:02:17

way. Robert Calef, who wrote about

1:02:19

the trials three years later,

1:02:21

and, of course, people were much less diplomatic

1:02:24

then in describing people who were mentally

1:02:26

challenged, he described

1:02:28

Elizabeth Johnson and Mary

1:02:30

Post as two of the most senseless

1:02:32

and ignorant creatures who could be found.

1:02:36

Now Elizabeth Johnson was one of the extended

1:02:39

Ingalls clan. She was the granddaughter,

1:02:41

in fact, of the town minister,

1:02:44

Francis Dane, whose late wife had

1:02:46

been an Ingalls. Francis Dane,

1:02:48

in writing his letter condemning the trials

1:02:51

and describing his granddaughter, Elizabeth

1:02:53

Johnson, who was in her early twenties, stated

1:02:55

that she is but simplish at the best.

1:02:59

And it's noteworthy that Elizabeth

1:03:01

Johnson and Mary Post, both of whom

1:03:03

went on to live long lives, neither

1:03:06

of them ever married, which was obviously

1:03:09

unusual in that era. It's

1:03:11

evident from the other younger people who were

1:03:13

accused that being accused of witchcraft

1:03:16

in 1692, that there's

1:03:18

no evidence that it really hurt anybody's

1:03:20

marriage prospects later. If

1:03:23

anything, it probably hurt the marriage prospects

1:03:26

of the accusers more. Elizabeth

1:03:29

Johnson, being one of the ones who was

1:03:31

convicted, she was the one whose

1:03:33

conviction actually remained on the

1:03:35

books until just this past July,

1:03:39

when she was finally exonerated by

1:03:41

an action of the Massachusetts General

1:03:43

Assembly.

1:03:45

We'd love to hear about your noticing

1:03:48

that in your research, and you did note

1:03:50

it in your book. Tell us about that, and

1:03:53

did you expect her to be exonerated

1:03:55

already?

1:03:56

There were so many things I learned in this course

1:03:58

of researching the book. With the exception

1:04:01

of Elizabeth Proctor, who was only

1:04:03

ended up surviving because she was pregnant,

1:04:05

I didn't know that there were people who had

1:04:08

actually been convicted but not executed.

1:04:11

But one of the things I wanted to research

1:04:13

and with Andover was the aftermath

1:04:16

of the witch hunt for people involved, both accusers

1:04:18

and accused. And in reading about it, I learned,

1:04:20

of course, that there were people who were convicted,

1:04:23

but not hanged. And that even

1:04:25

as soon as eight years after

1:04:27

started petitioning for exoneration.

1:04:29

And those who had been convicted and survived,

1:04:32

all except Elizabeth Johnson

1:04:35

were ultimately exonerated

1:04:37

in one way or another by 1711.

1:04:41

Elizabeth Johnson did submit

1:04:43

a petition for it, but somehow, some

1:04:45

way it just never happened.

1:04:47

Now, the fact that she was unmarried,

1:04:51

apparently mentally challenged in some way,

1:04:54

and probably lived out her life in the care

1:04:56

of various relatives. Maybe it just

1:04:58

wasn't considered as pressing for her.

1:05:01

But then of course there were some,

1:05:04

there were also, because of the efforts of family

1:05:06

members, some of those hanged in 1692

1:05:09

were exonerated at that time. Those

1:05:12

hanged who had not been exonerated

1:05:15

then, one was exonerated in 1957,

1:05:18

the rest in 2001. Elizabeth

1:05:21

Johnson was probably missed at that time, because

1:05:23

she wasn't hanged. When I realized,

1:05:25

okay, this one person

1:05:28

has never been exonerated, all the rest have,

1:05:31

and I thought maybe the Massachusetts

1:05:33

General Assembly should actually address

1:05:36

this. But I'm not a resident

1:05:38

of Massachusetts. I

1:05:40

live in Rhode Island now. Had I been

1:05:42

a resident of Massachusetts, I probably would've

1:05:44

just reached out to my own senator

1:05:46

or representative. So

1:05:48

I started asking around at the North Andover

1:05:50

Historical Society about it. One of their

1:05:53

boards of trustees thought getting this

1:05:55

person exonerated would probably be a good

1:05:57

eighth grade civics project. There

1:05:59

was a retired teacher there named Greg

1:06:01

Pasco, and he put

1:06:03

me in touch with Carrie LaPierre,

1:06:06

who teaches at North Andover Middle School.

1:06:09

She was certainly willing to get

1:06:11

her class interested in undertaking this

1:06:13

project just a week

1:06:16

before everything shut down in 2020

1:06:18

because of the pandemic. I went up there one

1:06:20

day and addressed her class. And

1:06:22

of course it ended up taking, I think two,

1:06:25

if not three years worth of her classes

1:06:27

to finally get it done. But they took

1:06:29

the process from there through their own

1:06:31

state Senator Diane DiZoglio. The

1:06:33

initial bill was committed

1:06:36

to further study, so to speak,

1:06:38

early in 2022. But

1:06:40

then these two people from California

1:06:43

began working on a documentary on

1:06:45

it, which got some more attention, although the

1:06:47

documentary has not been released in final form

1:06:50

yet. And so they ended up just

1:06:52

adding it to the budget bill, which

1:06:55

was approved by both chambers of

1:06:57

the assembly and was signed by the governor

1:06:59

on July 28th this year. Elizabeth

1:07:02

Johnson, after nearly

1:07:04

330 years has finally

1:07:06

been exonerated, and

1:07:09

media, not only all over the country,

1:07:11

but it was reported in news media throughout

1:07:14

the world. So all

1:07:16

kinds of references to it in other languages,

1:07:19

countries all over the world.

1:07:22

Thanks so much for doing this for her.

1:07:25

I'm so glad this class undertook

1:07:27

it. I give credit where credit is due.

1:07:29

I, yes, I discovered that it hadn't been

1:07:32

done. I thought it should be. Once

1:07:34

I called their attention to, the

1:07:36

teacher's attention to it, and her

1:07:38

students, and she did the same, they really

1:07:40

took it from there. At least

1:07:43

two, maybe three years worth of classes

1:07:45

worked toward it by collecting signatures,

1:07:48

writing their own letters to members

1:07:51

of the committee. I wrote letters to the committees

1:07:53

myself, how much do they care what a Rhode

1:07:55

Island resident has to say about something?

1:07:58

It's not like I can vote for or against

1:08:00

any of 'em, but

1:08:02

I'm just so glad that a away was found

1:08:05

to get around the fact that I don't live in

1:08:07

Massachusetts and to get that

1:08:09

many people involved, and I'm

1:08:11

just so happy for these students. It's

1:08:13

going to be something that they'll remember

1:08:16

their involvement in. This is gonna be something they'll remember

1:08:18

for the rest of their lives, and

1:08:20

if it spurs some of them own to

1:08:23

take up other worthy causes

1:08:25

in the future, so

1:08:27

much the better.

1:08:29

We're actually working on a project

1:08:31

to exonerate the accused

1:08:34

in the state of Connecticut, and

1:08:36

we're hoping to follow suit. There's a

1:08:38

middle school class that's interested

1:08:41

in doing the same thing.

1:08:43

Yes, I've been reading about that, and I very

1:08:45

much hope that happens. Although of course now everybody

1:08:48

associated with the Salem Witch Hunt has

1:08:50

been exonerated, but

1:08:52

yet there were witchcraft trials earlier

1:08:54

in Massachusetts, and with some people

1:08:57

convicted and hanged, I

1:08:59

don't know if those people have ever been exonerated

1:09:01

or not.

1:09:03

We've looked at it, and there's

1:09:06

no indication that they ever were,

1:09:09

those other five individuals from

1:09:11

Massachusetts.

1:09:13

And I don't recall all, I don't recall all

1:09:15

their names. I know Alice Jones

1:09:17

was the first one was hanged on Boston

1:09:20

Common in 1648.

1:09:22

The last one was Goody Glover,

1:09:24

whose first name, as far as I know, is

1:09:26

lost to history in 1688.

1:09:30

There was one named Elizabeth Morse in

1:09:32

Newbury, who like Elizabeth Johnson

1:09:35

was convicted but for some reason

1:09:37

never hanged. I also

1:09:39

know that a few others were hanged in Massachusetts

1:09:42

prior to 1692,

1:09:45

but I don't recall their names at the top

1:09:47

of my head. The

1:09:49

source I know of I can refer to

1:09:51

for that is John Demos's

1:09:53

work from the early 1970s called

1:09:55

Entertaining Satan, because that

1:09:57

work is totally focused on the New

1:10:00

England witch trials, apart

1:10:02

from the events in Salem.

1:10:05

That's what we've used primarily

1:10:07

to gather the names of the New

1:10:10

England accused. And there

1:10:12

were a total of five in Massachusetts

1:10:14

before Salem and

1:10:17

11 hanged in Connecticut.

1:10:20

Now here's Sarah with an important update.

1:10:23

Here is Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration

1:10:26

News. The Connecticut

1:10:28

Witch Trial Exoneration Project, an organized

1:10:31

effort for the state exoneration of the 17th

1:10:33

century accused and hanged witches of the

1:10:35

Connecticut colony has been led by

1:10:37

retired police officer Tony Grego, author

1:10:40

Beth Caruso, descendant and advocate

1:10:42

Sarah Jack, and advocates Mary Bingham

1:10:44

and Joshua Hutchinson. After years of educating

1:10:47

Connecticut residents locally and online, Tony

1:10:49

and Beth of the CT Witch Memorial joined

1:10:51

up with fellow advocates Sarah, Mary, and Joshua,

1:10:55

together with state representative Jane

1:10:57

Garibay. The exoneration project now

1:10:59

includes many witch trial victim descendants

1:11:01

and other advocates, both in the state of Connecticut

1:11:03

and countrywide. The Connecticut

1:11:06

Witch Trial Exoneration Project now brings

1:11:08

an exoneration bill to the Judiciary

1:11:10

Committee for the 2023

1:11:12

winter session of Connecticut's General

1:11:15

Assembly. Did you know this

1:11:17

podcast was born from this exoneration

1:11:19

effort? It was initially created as a

1:11:21

social and educational tool to amplify

1:11:23

and project an overlooked history.

1:11:26

This obscure history needed to be offered

1:11:28

in a package that educated the state, country,

1:11:30

and the world about the known individuals that were

1:11:32

executed by a court of law in New England's

1:11:35

Connecticut Colony for witchcraft crimes.

1:11:38

This colony hanged the first accused witch

1:11:40

in the American colonies in 1647.

1:11:43

Her name is Alice Young. She had one

1:11:45

daughter. Her one daughter, Alice

1:11:47

Young Beamon had eight children. She

1:11:49

has many, many descendants,

1:11:52

but no family association for her descendants.

1:11:55

Her story is relatively unknown by even

1:11:57

Connecticut residents. We are now

1:11:59

at the winter session of 2023,

1:12:01

getting ready to testify for an exoneration

1:12:04

bill, asking for the exoneration of

1:12:06

Alice Young, america's first executed

1:12:09

witch, along with the other known accused

1:12:11

witches of Connecticut colony. Dozens

1:12:14

of individuals were accused, outcast from

1:12:16

their lives, family and community, or killed

1:12:18

by the courts. Those convicted of witchcraft

1:12:21

crimes found themselves proven guilty by spectral

1:12:23

evidence. It was acceptable to take their

1:12:25

lives based on unseen or

1:12:27

unexplained misfortune, sickness, and

1:12:29

unexplained or sudden deaths of family and neighbors.

1:12:32

Now you are aware of the history. Have

1:12:35

you been tuned into our robust lineup of episodes

1:12:37

teaching about Alice Young and the other victims, as

1:12:40

well as Connecticut Colony's governor,

1:12:42

John Winthrop, Jr.'s, influence on the trials?

1:12:45

If you haven't, when you download those episodes

1:12:48

now, you'll learn so much and be able to share

1:12:50

more about the Connecticut witch trial history.

1:12:52

The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project

1:12:55

is asking the judiciary committee to vote

1:12:57

yes on this exoneration bill. The

1:12:59

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project

1:13:01

is asking you to take action with us by

1:13:04

writing letters to the legislature. You

1:13:07

can find out more by going to our Discord

1:13:09

community through the link in the show notes.

1:13:11

Use your social power to help Alice Young,

1:13:13

America's first executed witch, to

1:13:15

finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants

1:13:18

by acknowledging and sharing their ancestor's

1:13:20

stories. Please use all your communication

1:13:22

channels to be an intervener and stand with

1:13:24

them. The world must stop hunting

1:13:27

witches. Please follow our project

1:13:29

on social media @ctwitchhunt,

1:13:32

and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org.

1:13:35

The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project

1:13:37

is a project of End Witch Hunts movement.

1:13:40

Thank you, Sarah for educating

1:13:43

us on real world

1:13:45

events occurring

1:13:47

as we speak.

1:13:49

You're welcome.

1:13:51

Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer:

1:13:54

The Witch Trial Podcast.

1:13:56

Join us next week.

1:13:59

Subscribe to Thou Shalt Not Suffer wherever

1:14:01

you get your podcasts.

1:14:03

Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.

1:14:06

Remember to tell all your friends and

1:14:08

family and colleagues and

1:14:11

everybody who you see about

1:14:14

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: the Witch Trial Podcast.

1:14:18

Continue to support our efforts to End Witch Hunts.

1:14:20

Visit endwitchhunts.org to

1:14:22

learn more.

1:14:24

Have a great today and a beautiful

1:14:26

tomorrow.