Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II / With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects

by Charles Wentworth Upham

On the 23d of March, a warrant was issued, on complaint of Edward Putnam, and Jonathan, son of John Putnam, for the arrest of "Rebecca, wife of Francis Nurse;" and the next morning, at eight o'clock, she was brought to the house of Nathaniel Ingersoll, in the custody of George Herrick, the marshal of Essex. There were several distinct indictments, four of which, for having practised "certain detestable arts called witchcraft" upon Ann Putnam, Mary Walcot, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Abigail Williams, are preserved. The examination took place forthwith at the meeting-house. The age, character, connections, and appearance of the prisoner, made the occasion one of the extremest interest. Hathorne, the magistrate, began the proceedings by addressing one of the afflicted: "What do you say? Have you seen this woman hurt you?" The answer was, "Yes, she beat me this morning." Hathorne, addressing another of the afflicted, said, "Abigail, have you been hurt by this woman?" Abigail answered, "Yes." At that point, Ann Putnam fell into a grievous fit, and, while in her spasms, cried out that it was Rebecca Nurse who was thus afflicting her. As soon as Ann's fit was over, and order restored, Hathorne said, "Goody Nurse, here are two, Ann Putnam the child, and Abigail Williams, complain of your hurting them. What do you say to it?" The prisoner replied, "I can say, before my eternal Father, I am innocent, and God will clear my innocency." Hathorne, apparently touched for the moment by her language and bearing, said, "Here is never a one in the assembly but desires it; but, if you be guilty, pray God discover you." Henry Kenney rose up from the body of the assembly to speak. Hathorne permitted the interruption, and said, "Goodman Kenney, what do you say?" Then Kenney complained of the prisoner, "and further said, since this Nurse came into the house, he was seized twice with an amazed condition." Hathorne, addressing the prisoner, said, "Not only these, but the wife of Mr. Thomas Putnam, accuseth you by credible information, and that both of tempting her to iniquity and of greatly hurting her." The prisoner again affirmed her innocence, and said, in answer to the charge of having hurt these persons, that "she had not been able to get out of doors these eight or nine days." Hathorne then called upon Edward Putnam, who, as the record says, "gave in his relate," which undoubtedly was a statement of his having seen the afflicted in their sufferings, and heard them accuse Rebecca Nurse as their tormentor. Hathorne said, "Is this true, Goody Nurse?" She denied that she had ever hurt them or any one else in her life. Hathorne repeated, "You see these accuse you: is it true?" She answered, "No." He again put the question, "Are you an innocent person relating to this witchcraft?" It seems, from his manner, that he was beginning really to doubt whether she might not be innocent; and perhaps the feeling of the multitude was yielding in her favor.

Here Thomas Putnam's wife cried out, "Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God, and die? How oft have you eat and drank your own damnation?" This sudden outbreak, from such a source, accompanied with the wild and apparently supernatural energy and uncontrollable vehemence with which the words were uttered, roused the multitude to the utmost pitch of horror; and the prisoner seems to have been shocked at the dreadful exhibition of madness in the woman and in the assembly. Releasing her hands from confinement, she spread them out towards heaven, and exclaimed, "O Lord, help me!" Instantly, the whole company of the afflicted children "were grievously vexed." After a while, the tumult subsided, and Hathorne again addressed her, "Do you not see what a solemn condition these are in? When your hands are loosed, the persons are afflicted." Then Mary Walcot and Elizabeth Hubbard came forward, and accused her. Hathorne again addressed her, "Here are these two grown persons now accuse. What say you? Do not you see these afflicted persons, and hear them accuse you?" She answered, "The Lord knows I have not hurt them. I am an innocent person." Hathorne continued, "It is very awful to all to see these agonies, and you, an old professor, thus charged with contracting with the Devil by the effects of it, and yet to see you stand with dry eyes where there are so many wet." She answered, "You do not know my heart." Hathorne, "You would do well, if you are guilty, to confess, and give glory to God."—"I am as clear as the child unborn." Hathorne continued, "What uncertainty there may be in apparitions, I know not: yet this with me strikes hard upon you, that you are, at this very present, charged with familiar spirits,—this is your bodily person they speak to; they say now they see these familiar spirits come to your bodily person. Now, what do you say to that?"—"I have none, sir."—"If you have, confess, and give glory to God. I pray God clear you, if you be innocent, and, if you are guilty, discover you; and therefore give me an upright answer. Have you any familiarity with these spirits?"—"No: I have none but with God alone." It looks as if again the magistrate began to open his mind to a fair view of the case. He seems to have sought satisfaction in reference to all the charges that had been made against her. She was suffering from infirmities of body, the result not only of age, but of the burdens of life often pressing down the physical frame, particularly of those who have borne large families of children. The magistrate had heard some malignant gossip of this kind, and he asked, "How came you sick? for there is an odd discourse of that in the mouths of many." She replied that she suffered from weakness of stomach. He inquired, more specifically, "Have you no wounds?" Her answer was, that her ailments and weaknesses, all her bodily infirmities, were the natural effects of what she had experienced in a long life. "I have none but old age."—"You do know whether you are guilty, and have familiarity with the Devil; and now, when you are here present, to see such a thing as these testify,—a black man whispering in your ear, and birds about you,—what do you say to it?"—"It is all false: I am clear."—"Possibly, you may apprehend you are no witch; but have you not been led aside by temptations that way?"—"I have not." At this point, it almost seems that Hathorne was yielding to the moral effect of the evidence she bore in her deportment and language, the impress of conscious innocence in her countenance, and the manifestation of true Christian purity and integrity in her whole manner and bearing. Instead of pressing her with further interrogatories, he gave way to an expression, in the form of a soliloquy or ejaculation, "What a sad thing is it, that a church-member here, and now another of Salem, should thus be accused and charged!" Upon hearing this rather ambiguous expression of the magistrate, Mrs. Pope fell into a grievous fit.

Mrs. Pope was the wife of Joseph Pope, living with his mother, the widow Gertrude Pope, on the farm shown on the [map]. She had followed up the meetings of the circle, been a constant witness of the sufferings of the "afflicted children," and attended all the public examinations, until her nervous system was excited beyond restraint, and for a while she went into fits and her imagination was bewildered. She acted with the accusers, and participated in their sufferings. On some occasions, her conduct was wild and extravagant to the highest degree. At the examination of Martha Corey, she was conspicuous for the violence of her actions. In the midst of the proceedings, and in the presence of the magistrates and hundreds of people, she threw her muff at the prisoner; and, that missing, pulled off her shoe, and, more successful this time, hit her square on the head. Hers seems, however, to have been a case of mere delusion, amounting to temporary insanity. That it was not deliberate and cold-blooded imposture is rendered probable by the fact, that she was rescued from the hallucination, and, with her husband, among the foremost to deplore and denounce the whole affair. But, when a woman of her position acted in this manner, on such an occasion, and then went into convulsions, and the whole company of afflicted persons joined in, the confusion, tumult, and frightfulness of the scene can hardly be imagined, certainly it cannot be described in words.

Quiet being restored, Hathorne proceeded: "Tell us, have you not had visible appearances, more than what is common in nature?"—"I have none, nor never had in my life."—"Do you think these suffer voluntary or involuntary?"—"I cannot tell."—"That is strange: every one can judge."—"I must be silent."—"They accuse you of hurting them; and, if you think it is not unwillingly, but by design, you must look upon them as murderers."—"I cannot tell what to think of it." This answer was considered as very aspersive in its bearing upon the witnesses, and she was charged with having called them murderers. Being hard of hearing, she did not always take in the whole import of questions put to her. She denied that she said she thought them murderers; all she said, and that she stood to to the last, was that she could not tell what to make of their conduct. Finally, Hathorne put this question, and called for an answer, "Do you think these suffer against their wills or not?" She answered, "I do not think these suffer against their wills." To this point she was not afraid or unwilling to go, in giving an opinion of the conduct of the accusing girls. Infirm, half deaf, cross-questioned, circumvented, surrounded with folly, uproar, and outrage, as she was, they could not intimidate her to say less, or entrap her to say more.

Then another line of criminating questions was started by the magistrate: "Why did you never visit these afflicted persons?"—"Because I was afraid I should have fits too." On every motion of her body, "fits followed upon the complainants, abundantly and very frequently." As soon as order was again restored, Hathorne, being, as he always was, wholly convinced of the reality of the sufferings of the "afflicted children," addressed her thus, "Is it not an unaccountable case, that, when you are examined, these persons are afflicted?" Seeing that he and the whole assembly put faith in the accusers, her only reply was, "I have got nobody to look to but God." As she uttered these words, she naturally attempted to raise her hands, whereupon "the afflicted persons were seized with violent fits of torture." After silence was again restored, the magistrate pressed his questions still closer. "Do you believe these afflicted persons are bewitched?" She answered, "I do think they are." It will be noticed that there was this difference between Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey: The latter was an utter heretic on the point of the popular faith respecting witchcraft; she did not believe that there were any witches, and she looked upon the declarations and actions of the "afflicted children" as the ravings of "distracted persons." The former seems to have held the opinions of the day, and had no disbelief in witchcraft: she was willing to admit that the children were bewitched; but she knew her own innocence, and nothing could move her from the consciousness of it. Mr. Hathorne continued, "When this witchcraft came upon the stage, there was no suspicion of Tituba, Mr. Parris's Indian woman. She professed much love to that child,—Betty Parris; but it was her apparition did the mischief: and why should not you also be guilty, for your apparition doth hurt also?" Her answer was, "Would you have me belie myself?" Weary, probably, of the protracted proceedings, her head drooped on one side; and forthwith the necks of the afflicted children were bent in the same way. This new demonstration of the diabolical power that proceeded from her filled the house with increased awe, and spread horrible conviction of her guilt through all minds. Elizabeth Hubbard's neck was fixed in that direction, and could not be moved. Abigail Williams cried out, "Set up Goody Nurse's head, the maid's neck will be broke." Whereupon, some persons held the prisoner's head up, and "Aaron Way observed that Betty Hubbard's was immediately righted." To consummate the effect of the whole proceeding, Mr. Parris, by direction of the magistrates, "read what he had in characters taken from Mr. Thomas Putnam's wife in her fits." We shall come to the matter thus introduced by Mr. Parris, at a future stage of the story. It is sufficient here to say, that it contained the most positive and minute declarations that the apparition of Rebecca Nurse had appeared to her, on several occasions, and horribly tortured her. After hearing Parris's statement, Hathorne asked the prisoner, "What do you think of this?" Her reply was, "I cannot help it: the Devil may appear in my shape." It may be mentioned, that Mrs. Ann Putnam was present during this examination, and, in the course of it, went into the most dreadful bodily agony, charging it on Rebecca Nurse. Her sufferings were so violent, and held on so long, that the magistrates gave permission to her husband to carry her out of the meeting-house, to free her from the malignant presence of the prisoner. The record of the examination closes thus:—

"Salem Village, March 24th, 1691/2.—The Reverend Mr. Samuel Parris, being desired to take in writing the examination of Rebecca Nurse, hath returned it as aforesaid.

"Upon hearing the aforesaid, and seeing what we then did see, together with the charges of the persons then present, we committed Rebecca Nurse, the wife of Francis Nurse of Salem Village, unto Her Majesty's jail in Salem, as per mittimus then given out, in order to further examination."

The presence of Ann Putnam, the mother, on this occasion; the statement from her, read by Mr. Parris; and the terrible sufferings she exhibited, produced, no doubt, a deep effect upon the magistrates and all present. Her social position and personal appearance undoubtedly contributed to heighten it. For two months, her house had been the constant scene of the extraordinary actings of the circle of girls of which her daughter and maid-servant were the leading spirits. Her mind had been absorbed in the mysteries of spiritualism. The marvels of necromancy and magic had been kept perpetually before it. She had been living in the invisible world, with a constant sense of supernaturalism surrounding her. Unconsciously, perhaps, the passions, prejudices, irritations, and animosities, to which she had been subject, became mixed with the vagaries of an excited imagination; and, laid open to the inroads of delusion as her mind had long been by perpetual tamperings with spiritual ideas and phantoms, she may have lost the balance of reason and sanity. This, added to a morbid sensibility, probably gave a deep intensity to her voice, action, and countenance. The effect upon the excited multitude must have been very great. Although she lived to realize the utter falseness of all her statements, her monstrous fictions were felt by her, at the time, to be a reality.

In concluding his report of this examination, Mr. Parris says, "By reason of great noises by the afflicted and many speakers, many things are pretermitted." He was probably quite willing to avoid telling the whole story of the disgraceful and shocking scenes enacted in the meeting-house that day. Deodat Lawson was present during the earlier part of the proceedings. He says that Mr. Hale began with prayer; that the prisoner "pleaded her innocency with earnestness;" that, at the opening, some of the girls, Mary Walcot among them, declared that the prisoner had never hurt them. Presently, however, Mary Walcot screamed out that she was bitten, and charged it upon Rebecca Nurse. The marks of teeth were produced on her wrist. Lawson says, "It was so disposed that I had not leisure to attend the whole time of examination." The meaning is, I suppose, that he desired to withdraw into the neighboring fields to con over his manuscript, and make himself more able to perform with effect the part he was to act that afternoon. "There was once," he says, "such an hideous screech and noise (which I heard as I walked at a little distance from the meeting-house) as did amaze me; and some that were within told me the whole assembly was struck with consternation, and they were afraid that those that sat next to them were under the influence of witchcraft." The whole congregation was in an uproar, every one afflicted by and affrighting every other, amid a universal outcry of terror and horror.