"The Deposition of Benjamin Hutchinson, who testifieth and saith, that my wife was much afflicted, presently after the last execution, with violent pains in her head and teeth, and all parts of her body; but, on sabbath day was fortnight in the morning, she being in such excessive misery that she said she believed that she had an evil hand upon her: whereupon I went to Mary Walcot, one of our next neighbors, to come and look to see if she could see anybody upon her; and, as soon as she came into the house, she said that our two next neighbors, Sarah Buckley and Mary Whittredge, were upon my wife. And immediately my wife had ease, and Mary Walcot was tormented. Whereupon I went down to the sheriff, and desired him to take some course with those women, that they might not have such power to torment: and presently he ordered them to be fettered, and, ever since that, my wife has been tolerable well; and I believe, in my heart, that Sarah Buckley and Mary Whittredge have hurt my wife and several others by acts of witchcraft.
"Benjamin Hutchinson owned the above-written evidence to be the truth, upon oath, before the grand inquest, 15-7, 1692."
The evidence is quite conclusive, from considerations suggested by the foregoing document, and indications scattered through the papers generally, that all persons committed on the charge of witchcraft were kept heavily ironed, and otherwise strongly fastened. Only a few of the bills of expenses incurred are preserved. Among them we find the following: For mending and putting on Rachel Clenton's fetters; one pair of fetters for John Howard; a pair of fetters each for John Jackson, Sr., and John Jackson, Jr.; eighteen pounds of iron for fetters; for making four pair of iron fetters and two pair of handcuffs, and putting them on the legs and hands of Goodwife Cloyse, Easty, Bromidg, and Green; chains for Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn; shackles for ten prisoners; and one pair of irons for Mary Cox. When we reflect upon the character of the prisoners generally,—many of them delicate and infirm, several venerable for their virtues as well as years,—and that they were kept in this cruelly painful condition from early spring to the middle of the next January, and the larger part to the May of 1693, in the extremes of heat and cold, exposed to the most distressing severities of both, crowded in narrow, dark, and noisome jails under an accumulation of all their discomforts, restraints, privations, exposures, and abominations, our wonder is, not that many of them died, but that all did not break down in body and mind.
Sarah Buckley and her daughter were not brought to trial until after the power of the prosecution to pursue to the death had ceased. They were acquitted in January, 1692. Their goods and chattels had all been seized by the officers, as was the usual practice, at the time of their arrest. In humble circumstances before, it took their last shilling to meet the charges of their imprisonment. They, as all others, were required to provide their own maintenance while in prison; and, after trial and acquittal, were not discharged until all costs were paid. Five pounds had to be raised, to satisfy the claims of the officers of the court and of the jails, for each of them. The result was, the family was utterly impoverished. The poor old woman, with her aged husband, suffered much, there is reason to fear, from absolute want during all the rest of their days. Their truly Christian virtues dignified their poverty, and secured the respect and esteem of all good men. The Rev. Joseph Green has this entry in his diary: "Jan. 2, 1702.—Old William Buckley died this evening. He was at meeting the last sabbath, and died with the cold, I fear, for want of comforts and good tending. Lord forgive! He was about eighty years old. I visited him and prayed with him on Monday, and also the evening before he died. He was very poor; but, I hope, had not his portion in this life." The ejaculation, "Lord forgive!" expresses the deep sense Mr. Green had, of which his whole ministry gave evidence, of the inexpressible sufferings and wrongs brought upon families by the witchcraft prosecutions. The case of Sarah Buckley, her husband and family, was but one of many. The humble, harmless, innocent people who experienced that fearful and pitiless persecution had to drink of as bitter a cup as ever was permitted by an inscrutable Providence to be presented to human lips. In reference to them, we feel as an assurance, what good Mr. Green humbly hoped, that "they had not their portion in this life." Those who went firmly, patiently, and calmly through that great trial without losing love or faith, are crowned with glory and honor.
The examination and commitment of Mary Easty, on the 21st of April, have already been described. For some reason, and in a way of which we have no information, she was discharged from prison on the 18th of May, and wholly released. This seems to have been very distasteful to the accusing girls. They were determined not to let it rest so; and put into operation their utmost energies to get her back to imprisonment. On the 20th of May, Mercy Lewis, being then at the house of John Putnam, Jr., was taken with fits, and experienced tortures of unprecedented severity. The particular circumstances on this occasion, as gathered from various depositions, illustrate very strikingly the skilful manner in which the girls managed to produce the desired effect upon the public mind.
Samuel Abbey, a neighbor, whether sent for or not we are not informed, went to John Putnam's house that morning, about nine o'clock. He found Mercy in a terrible condition, crying out with piteous tones of anguish, "Dear Lord, receive my soul."—"Lord, let them not kill me quite."—"Pray for the salvation of my soul, for they will kill me outright." He was desired to go to Thomas Putnam's house to bring his daughter Ann, "to see if she could see who it was that hurt Mercy Lewis." He found Abigail Williams with Ann, and they accompanied him back to John Putnam's. On the way, they both cried out that they saw the apparition of Goody Easty afflicting Mercy Lewis. When they reached the scene, they exclaimed, "There is Goody Easty and John Willard and Mary Whittredge afflicting the body of Mercy Lewis;" Mercy at the time laboring for breath, and appearing as choked and strangled, convulsed, and apparently at the last gasp. "Thus," says Abbey, "she continued the greatest part of the day, in such tortures as no tongue can express." Mary Walcot was sent for. Upon coming in, she cried out, "There is the apparition of Goody Easty choking Mercy Lewis, pressing upon her breasts with both her hands, and putting a chain about her neck." A message was then despatched for Elizabeth Hubbard. She, too, saw the shape of Goody Easty, "the very same woman that was sent home the other day," aided in her diabolical operations by Willard and Whittredge, "torturing Mercy in a most dreadful manner." Intelligence of the shocking sufferings of Mercy was circulated far and wide, and people hurried to the spot from all directions. Jonathan Putnam, James Darling, Benjamin Hutchinson, and Samuel Braybrook reached the house during the evening, and found Mercy "in a case as if death would have quickly followed." Occasionally, Mercy would have a respite; and, at such intervals, Elizabeth Hubbard would fill the gap. "These two fell into fits by turns; the one being well while the other was ill." Each of them continued, all the while, crying out against Goody Easty, uttering in their trances vehement remonstrances against her cruel operations, representing her as bringing their winding-sheets and coffins, and threatening to kill them "if they would not sign to her book." Their acting was so complete that the bystanders seem to have thought that they heard the words of Easty, as well as the responses of the girls; and that they saw the "winding-sheet, coffin," and "the book." In the general consternation, Marshal Herrick was sent for. What he saw, heard, thought, and did, appears from the following:—
"May 20, 1692.—The Testimony of George Herrick, aged thirty-four or thereabouts, and John Putnam, Jr., of Salem Village, aged thirty-five years or thereabouts.—Testifieth and saith, that, being at the house of the above-said John Putnam, both saw Mercy Lewis in a very dreadful and solemn condition, so that to our apprehension she could not continue long in this world without a mitigation of those torments we saw her in, which caused us to expedite a hasty despatch to apprehend Mary Easty, in hopes, if possible, it might save her life; and, returning the same night to said John Putnam's house about midnight, we found the said Mercy Lewis in a dreadful fit, but her reason was then returned. Again she said, 'What! have you brought me the winding-sheet, Goodwife Easty? Well, I had rather go into the winding-sheet than set my hand to the book;' but, after that, her fits were weaker and weaker, but still complaining that she was very sick of her stomach. About break of day, she fell asleep, but still continues extremely sick, and was taken with a dreadful fit just as we left her; so that we perceived life in her, and that was all."
Edward Putnam, after stating that the grievous afflictions and tortures of Mercy Lewis were charged, by her and the other four girls, upon Mary Easty, deposes as follows:—
"I myself, being there present with several others, looked for nothing else but present death for almost the space of two days and a night. She was choked almost to death, insomuch we thought sometimes she had been dead; her mouth and teeth shut; and all this very often until such time as we understood Mary Easty was laid in irons."
Mercy's fits did not cease immediately upon Easty's being apprehended, but on her being committed to prison and chains by the magistrate in Salem.