One or two points in the evidence adduced against her, in addition to those mentioned heretofore, deserve consideration. The position taken, at her trial, by the Rev. John Hale of Beverly demands criticism. The charge of witchcraft had been made against her on more than one occasion before; particularly about the year 1687, when she resided near the bounds of Beverly, at Royal Side. A woman in the neighborhood, subject to fits of insanity, had, while passing into one of them, brought the accusation against her; but, on the return of her reason, solemnly recanted, and deeply lamented the aspersion. In a violent recurrence of her malady, this woman committed suicide. Mr. Hale had examined the case at the time, and exonerated Bridget Bishop, who was a communicant in his church, from the charge made against her by the unhappy lunatic. He was satisfied, as he states, that "Sister Bishop" was innocent, and in no way deserved to be ill thought of. He hoped "better of said Goody Bishop at that time." Without any pretence of new evidence touching the facts of the case, he came into court in 1692, and related them, to the effect and with the intent to make them bear against her. He described the appearance of the throat of the woman, after death, as follows:—
"As to the wounds she died of, I observed three deadly ones; a piece of her windpipe cut out, and another wound above that through the windpipe and gullet, and the vein they call jugular. So that I then judged and still do apprehend it impossible for her, with so short a pair of scissors, to mangle herself so without some extraordinary work of the Devil or witchcraft."
If this was his impression at the time, it is strange that he did not then say so. But there is no appearance of any criminal proceedings having been had, by the grand jury or otherwise, against "Sister Bishop" on the occasion. On the contrary, Mr. Hale seems to have acquiesced in the opinion, that the derangement of the woman was aggravated, if not caused, by her being overmuch given to searching and pondering upon the dark passages and mysterious imagery of prophecy. The truth, in all probability, is, that Mr. Hale's suspicion was an after-thought. The effect produced upon his mental condition by the statements and actings of the "afflicted children" in 1692 was unconsciously transferred to 1687. The delusion, in which he was then fully participating, led him to put a different interpretation upon the suicidal wounds and horrible end of the wretched maniac, five or six years before.
A piece of evidence, which illustrates the state of opinion at that time, relating to our subject, given in this case, is worthy of notice. Samuel Shattuck was a hatter and dyer. His house was on the south side of Essex Street, opposite the western entrance to the grounds of the North Church. Before her removal to the village, Bridget Bishop was in the habit of calling at Shattuck's to have articles of dress dyed. He states that she treated him and his family politely and kindly; or, as he characterized her deportment after his mind had become jaundiced against her, "in a smooth and flattering manner." He tells his story in a deposition written by him, and signed and sworn to in Court by himself and wife, June 2, 1692. It is as follows:—
"Our eldest child, who promised as much health and understanding, both by countenance and actions, as any other children of his years, was taken in a very drooping condition; and, as she came oftener to the house, he grew worse and worse. As he would be standing at the door, would fall out, and bruise his face upon a great step-stone, as if he had been thrust out by an invisible hand; oftentimes falling, and hitting his face against the sides of the house, bruising his face in a very miserable manner.... This child taken in a terrible fit, his mouth and eyes drawn aside, and gasped in such a manner as if he was upon the point of death. After this, he grew worse in his fits, and, out of them, would be almost always crying. That, for many months, he would be crying till nature's strength was spent, and then would fall asleep, and then awake, and fall to crying and moaning; and that his very countenance did bespeak compassion. And at length, we perceived his understanding decayed: so that we feared (as it has since proved) that he would be quite bereft of his wits; for, ever since, he has been stupefied and void of reason, his fits still following of him. After he had been in this kind of sickness some time, he has gone into the garden, and has got upon a board of an inch thick, which lay flat upon the ground, and we have called him; he would come to the edge of the board, and hold out his hand, and make as if he would come, but could not till he was helped off the board.... My wife has offered him a cake and money to come to her; and he has held out his hand, and reached after it, but could not come till he had been helped off the board, by which I judge some enchantment kept him on.... Ever since, this child hath been followed with grievous fits, as if he would never recover more; his head and eyes drawn aside so as if they would never come to rights more; lying as if he were, in a manner, dead; falling anywhere, either into fire or water, if he be not constantly looked to; and, generally, in such an uneasy, restless frame, almost always running to and fro, acting so strange that I cannot judge otherwise but that he is bewitched: and, by these circumstances, do believe that the aforesaid Bridget Oliver—now called Bishop—is the cause of it: and it has been the judgment of doctors, such as lived here and foreigners, that he is under an evil hand of witchcraft."
The means used to give this direction to the suspicions of Shattuck and his wife are described in the notice of Bridget Bishop, in the [First Part] of this work.
Shattuck was a son of the sturdy Quaker of that name who, thirty years before, had given the government of the colony so much trouble, and seems to have inherited some of his notions. In his deposition, he mentions, as corroborative proof of Bridget Bishop's being a witch, that she used to bring to his dye-house "sundry pieces of lace," of shapes and dimensions entirely outside of his conceptions of what could be needed in the wardrobe, or for the toilet, of a plain and honest woman. He evidently regarded fashionable and vain apparel as a snare and sign of the Devil.
The imaginations of several persons in Shattuck's immediate neighborhood seem to have been wrought up to a high point against Bridget Bishop. John Cook lived on the south side of the street, directly opposite the eastern entrance to the grounds of the North Church, on its present site. John Bly's house was on a lot contiguous to the rear of Cook's, fronting on Summer Street. One of Cook's sons (John), aged eighteen, testified, that,—
"About five or six years ago, one morning about sun-rising, as I was in bed, before I rose, I saw Goodwife Bishop, alias Oliver, stand in the chamber by the window: and she looked on me and grinned on me, and presently struck me on the side of the head, which did very much hurt me; and then I saw her go out under the end window at a little crevice, about so big as I could thrust my hand into. I saw her again the same day,—which was the sabbath-day,—about noon, walk across the room; and having, at the time, an apple in my hand, it flew out of my hand into my mother's lap, who sat six or eight foot distance from me, and then she disappeared: and, though my mother and several others were in the same room, yet they affirmed they saw her not."
Bly and his wife Rebecca had a difficulty with Bishop in reference to payment for a hog they had bought of her. The following is from their testimony at her trial. After stating that she came to their house and quarrelled with them about it, they go on to say that the animal—