Susanna Martin of Amesbury, a widow, was arrested on a warrant dated April 30, and examined at the Village church May 2. She is described as a short active woman, wearing a hood and scarf, plump and well developed in her figure, of remarkable personal neatness. One of the items of the evidence against her was, that, "in an extraordinary dirty season, when it was not fit for any person to travel, she came on foot" to a house at Newbury. The woman of the house, the substance of whose testimony I am giving, having asked, "whether she came from Amesbury afoot," expressed her surprise at her having ventured abroad in such bad walking, and bid her children make way for her to come to the fire to dry herself. She replied "she was as dry as I was," and turned her coats aside; "and I could not perceive that the soles of her shoes were wet. I was startled at it, that she should come so dry; and told her that I should have been wet up to my knees, if I should have come so far on foot." She replied that "she scorned to have a drabbled tail." The good woman who treated Susanna Martin on this occasion with such hospitable kindness received the impression, as appears by the import of her deposition, that, because Martin came into the house so wonderfully dry, she was therefore a witch. The only inference we are likely to draw is, that she was a particularly neat person; careful to pick her way; and did not wear skirts of the dimensions of our times.
The language reported by this witness to have been used by Susanna Martin created in her, at the time, visible mortification, as well as resentment. A writer at the period, not by any means inclined to give a representation favorable to the prisoners, reports her expression thus: "She scorned to be drabbled." She was undoubtedly a woman who spoke her mind freely, and with strength of expression, as the magistrates found. From this cause, perhaps, she had shocked the prejudices and violated the conventional scrupulosities then prevalent, to such a degree as to incur much comment, if not scandal. There had been a good deal of gossip about her; and, some time before, she had been proceeded against as a witch. But there was no ground for any serious charges against her character. Like Mrs. Ann Hibbens, perhaps the head and front of her offending was that she had more wit than her neighbors. She certainly was a strong-minded woman, as her examination shows. Two reports of it, each in the handwriting of Parris, have come down to us. They are almost identical, and in substance as follows:—
On the appearance of the accused, many of the witnesses against her instantly fell into fits. The magistrate inquired of them,—
"Hath this woman hurt you?"
"(Abigail Williams declared that she had hurt her often. 'Ann Putnam threw her glove at her in a fit,' and the rest were struck dumb at her presence.)
"What! do you laugh at it? said the magistrate.—Well I may at such folly.
"Is this folly to see these so hurt?—I never hurt man, woman, or child.
"(Mercy Lewis cried out, 'She hath hurt me a great many times, and plucks me down.' Then Martin laughed again. Several others cried out upon her, and the magistrate again addressed her.)
"What do you say to this?—I have no hand in witchcraft.
"What did you do? did you consent these should be hurt?—No, never in my life.