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

One of the most enlightened, and perhaps most accomplished, men among the first inhabitants of Salem Village, was Townsend Bishop. He was admitted a freeman in 1635. The next year, he appears on the list of members of the Salem Church. He was one of the judges of the local court, and, almost without intermission from his first coming here, a deputy to the General Court. In 1645, as his attention had been led to the subject, he conceived doubts in reference to infant baptism; and it was noticed that he did not bring forward a child, recently born, to the rite. Although himself on the bench, and ever before the object of popular favor and public honors, he was at once brought up, and handed over for discipline. The next year, he sold his estates, and probably removed elsewhere. He appears no more in our annals. Where he went, I have not been able to learn. It is to be hoped that he found somewhere a more congenial and tolerant abode. It is evident that he could not breathe in an atmosphere of bigotry; and it was difficult to find one free from the miasma in those days.

Five of the most valuable of the first settlers of the village—Weston, Waterman, Scruggs, Alford, and Bishop—were thus early driven into exile, or subdued to silence, by the stern policy on which the colony was founded. It is an error to characterize this as religious bigotry. It was not so much a theological as a political persecution. Its apparent form was in reference to tenets of faith, but the policy was deeper than this. Any attempt to make opposition to the existing administration was treated with equal severity, whatever might be the subject on which it ventured to display itself.

The men who sought this far-off "nook and corner of the world," crossing a tempestuous and dangerous ocean, and landing on the shores of a wilderness, leaving every thing, however dear and valuable, behind, came to have a country and a social system for themselves and of themselves alone. Their resolve was inexorable not to allow the mother-country, or the whole outside world combined, to interfere with them. And it was equally inexorable not to suffer dissent or any discordant element to get foothold among them. Sir Christopher Gardner's rank and title could not save him: he was not of the sort they wanted, and they shipped him back. Roger Williams's virtues, learning, apostolic piety, could not save him; and they drove him into a wintry wilderness, hunting him beyond their borders. It was not so much a question whether Baptists, Antinomians, or Quakers were right or wrong, as a preformed determination not to have any dissentients of any description among them. They had sacrificed all to find and to make a country for themselves, and they meant to keep it to themselves. They had gone out of everybody else's way, and they did not mean to let anybody else come into their way. They did not understand the great truth which Hugh Peters preached to Parliament, "Why," said he, "cannot Christians differ, and yet be friends? All children should be fed, though they have different faces and shapes: unity, not uniformity, is the Christian word." They admitted no such notion as this. They thought uniformity the only basis of unity. They meant to make and to keep this a country after their own pattern, a Congregational, Puritan, Cambridge-Platform-man's country. The time has not yet come when we can lift up clean hands against them. Two successive chief-magistrates of the United States have opened the door and signified to one-eighth part of our whole people, that it will be best for them to walk out. So long as the doctrine is maintained that this is the white man's country, or any man's, or any class or kind of men's country, it becomes us to close our lips against denunciation of the Fathers of New England because they tried to keep the country to themselves. The sentiment or notion on which they acted, in whatever form it appears, however high the station from which it emanates, or however long it lasts in the world, is equally false and detestable in all its shapes. It is a defiant rebellion against that law which declares that "all nature's difference is all nature's peace;" that there can be no harmony without variety of sound, no social unity without unlimited freedom, and no true liberty where any are deprived of equal rights; that differences ought to bring men together, rather than keep them apart; and that the only government that can stand against the shocks of time, and grow stronger and dearer to all its people, is one that recognizes no differences of whatever kind among them. The only consistent or solid foundation on which a republic or a church can be built, is an absolute level, with no enclosures and no exclusion.

Townsend Bishop's grant of three hundred acres was made on the 16th of January, 1636. When he sold it, Oct. 18, 1641, it appears by the deed, that there were on it edifices, gardens, yards, enclosures, and meadows. A large force must have been put and kept upon it, from the first, to have produced such results in so short a time. Orchards had been planted. The manner in which the grounds were laid out is still indicated by embankments, with artificial slopes and roadways, which exhibit the fine taste of the proprietor, and must have required a large expenditure of money and labor. Although the estate has always been in the hands of owners competent to take care of it and keep it in good preservation, none but the original proprietor would have been likely to have made the outlay apparent on its face, on the plan adopted. The mansion in which he resided stands to-day. Its front, facing the south, has apparently been widened, at some remote intermediate date since its original erection, by a slight extension on the western end, beyond the porch. It has been otherwise, perhaps, somewhat altered in the course of time by repairs; but its general aspect, as exhibited in the [frontispiece] of this volume, and its original strongly compacted and imperishable frame, remain. No saw was used in shaping its timbers; they were all hewn, by the broad-axe, of the most durable oak: they are massive, and rendered by time as hard to penetrate almost as iron. The walls and stairway of the cellar, the entrance to which is seen by the side of the porch, constructed of such stones as could be gathered on the surface of a new country, bear the marks of great antiquity. A long, low kitchen, with a stud of scarcely six feet, extended originally the whole length of the lean-to, on the north side of the house. The rooms of the main house were of considerably higher stud. The old roadway, the outlines of which still remain, approached the house from the east, came up to its north-east corner, wound round its front, and continued from its north-west corner, on a track still visible, over a brook and through the apple-orchard planted by Bishop, to the point where the burial-ground of the village now is; and so on towards the lands then occupied by Richard Hutchinson, also to the lands afterwards owned by Nathaniel Ingersol, towards Beaver Dam, and the first settlements in that direction and to the westward. In general it may be said, that the structural proportions and internal arrangements of the house, taken in its relations to the vestiges and indications on the face of the grounds, show that it is coeval with the first occupancy of the farm. But we do not depend, in this case, upon conjectural considerations, or on mere tradition, which, on such a point, is not always reliable. It happens to be demonstrated, that this is the veritable house built and occupied by Townsend Bishop, in 1636, by a singular and irrefragable chain of specific proof. A protracted land suit, hereafter to be described, gave rise to a great mass of papers, which are preserved in the files of the county courts and the State Department; among them are several plots made by surveyors, and adduced in evidence by the parties. Not only the locality but a diagram of the house, as then standing, are given. The spot on which it stood is shown. Further, it appears, that in the deeds of transference of the estate, the homestead is specially described as the house in which Townsend Bishop lived, called "Bishop's Mansion." This continues to a period subsequent to the style of its architecture, and within recent tradition and the memory of the living. In the old Salem Commoner's records, it is called "Bishop's Cottage," which was the name generally given to dwelling-houses in those early times. Having, as occasion required, been seasonably repaired, it is as strong and good a house to-day as can be found. Its original timbers, if kept dry and well aired, are beyond decay; and it may stand, a useful, eligible, and comely residence, through a future as long as the past. It may be doubted whether any dwelling-house now in use in this country can be carried back, by any thing like a similar strength of evidence, to an equal antiquity. Its site, in reference to the surrounding landscape, was well chosen. Here its hospitable and distinguished first proprietor lived, in the interims of his public and official service, in peace and tranquillity, until ferreted out by the intrusive spirit of an intolerant age. Here he welcomed his neighbors,—Endicott, Downing, Peters, John Winthrop, Jr., Read, and other kindred spirits.[A]

In the course of a mysterious providence, this venerable mansion was destined to be rendered memorable by its connection with the darkest scene in our annals. As that scene cannot otherwise be comprehended in all the elements that led to it, it is necessary to give the intermediate history of the Townsend Bishop farm and mansion. In 1641, Bishop sold it to Henry Chickering, who seems to have been residing for some time in Salem, and to whom, in January, 1640, a grant of land had been made by the town. He continued to own it until the 4th of October, 1648; although he does not appear to have resided on the farm long, as he soon removed to Dedham, from which place he was deputy to the General Court in 1642, and several years afterwards. He sold the farm at the above-mentioned date to Governor Endicott for one hundred and sixty pounds. In 1653, John Endicott, Jr., the eldest son of the Governor, married Elizabeth, daughter of Jeremiah Houchins, an eminent citizen of Boston, who had before resided in Hingham, which place he represented as deputy for six years. The name was pronounced "Houkins," and so perhaps was finally spelled "Hawkins." By agreement, or "articles of marriage contract," Endicott bestowed the farm upon his son. "Present possession" was given. How long, or how much of the time, the young couple lived on the estate, is not known. Their principal residence was in Boston. The General Court, in 1660, granted John Endicott, Jr., four hundred acres of land on the eastern side of the upper part of Merrimac River. After the purchase of the farm from Chickering, the Endicott property covered nearly a thousand acres in one tract, extending from the arms of the sea to the centre of the present village of Tapleyville. On the 10th of May, 1662, the Governor executed a deed, carrying out the engagements of the marriage contract, giving to his son John, his heirs, and assigns for ever, the Bishop farm. Governor Endicott died in 1665. A will was found signed and sealed by him, dated May 2, 1659, in which, referring to the marriage gift to John, he bequeathes the aforesaid farm to "him and his heirs," but does not add, "and assigns." Another item of the will is, "The land I have bequeathed to my two sons, in one place or another, my will is that the longest liver of them shall enjoy the whole, except the Lord send them children to inherit it after them." Unfortunately, there were no witnesses to the will. It was not allowed in Probate. The matter was carried up to the General Court; and it was decided Aug. 1, 1665, that the court "do not approve of the instrument produced in court to be the last will and testament of the late John Endicott, Esq., governor." In October of the same year, John Endicott, Jr., petitioned the General Court to act on the settlement of his father's estate; and the court directs administration to be granted to "Mrs. Elizabeth Endicott and her two sons, John and Zerubabel," and that they bring in an inventory to the next county court at Boston, and to dispose of the same as the law directs. Upon this, the widow of the Governor, and his son Zerubabel, again appeal to the General Court; and on the 23d of May, 1666, "after a full hearing of all parties concerned in the said estate, i.e., the said Mrs. Elizabeth Endicott and her two sons, Mr. John and Mr. Zerubabel Endicott, Mr. Jeremiah Houchin being also present in court, and respectively presenting their pleas and evidences in the case," it was finally decided and ordered by the court, that the provisions of the document purporting to be the will of Governor Endicott should be carried into effect, with these exceptions: that the Bishop or Chickering farm shall go to his son John "to him, his heirs and assigns for ever;" and that Elizabeth, the wife of said son John, if she should survive her husband, shall enjoy during her life all the estate of her husband in all the other houses and lands mentioned in the instrument purporting to be his father's will. The court adjudge that this must have been "the real intent of the aforesaid John Endicott, Esq., deceased, who had during his life special favor and respect for her." They give the widow of the Governor "the goods and chattels" of the said John Endicott, Esq., her late husband, provided that, if "she shall die seized to the value of more than eighty pounds sterling" thereof, the surplus shall be divided between her two sons: John to have a double portion thereof. Finally, they appoint the widow sole administratrix, and require her to bring in a true inventory to the next court for the county of Suffolk, and to pay all debts.

John and his father-in-law had it all their own way. The decision of the court was perhaps correct, according to legal principles; although it is not so certain that it was, in all respects, in conformity with the intent of Governor Endicott. Undoubtedly, as the language of the deed shows, he had made up his mind to give to his son John and "his assigns" absolute, full, and final possession of the Bishop farm. But it seems equally certain, that he meant to have the rest of his landed estate, including the Orchard Farm and the Ipswich-river farm, go directly and wholly to the survivor, if either of his sons died without issue. The facts and dates are as follows: His son John was married in 1653. The Governor's will was made in 1659. It had then become quite probable that John might not have issue. The will gives him and his heirs, but not his assigns, the Bishop farm. In the event of his death without issue, his widow would have her dower and legal life right in it, but the final heir would be Zerubabel. In 1662, the Governor, who had, some years before, removed to Boston, where he resided the remainder of his life, executed a deed, giving to his son John, "his heirs and assigns," a full and permanent title to the Bishop farm. This was a variation of the plan for the disposition of his estate as shown in his will. He probably designed to make a new will, securing to his natural heirs, so far as his other landed property was concerned, what he had thus permitted to pass away from them in the Bishop farm; that is, the full and immediate possession by the survivor, if either of the sons died without issue. It was a favorite idea, almost a sacred principle, in those days, to have lands go in the natural descent. The sentiment is quite apparent in the tenor of the Governor's will. When he deprived, by his deed to John in 1662, Zerubabel's family of the right to the final possession of the Bishop farm, it can hardly be doubted that he relied upon the provisions of his will to secure to them the immediate, complete possession of all his other lands, without the incumbrance of any claim of dower or otherwise of John's widow. But the pressure of public duties prevented his duly executing his will, and putting it into a new shape, in conformity with the circumstances of the case. The troubles that followed teach the necessity of the utmost caution and carefulness in that most difficult and most irremediable of all business transactions,—the attempt to continue the control of property, after death, by written instruments.

John Endicott, Jr., died in February, 1668, without issue; leaving his whole estate to his widow, "her heirs and assigns for ever." His will is dated Jan. 27, 1668, and was offered to Probate on the 29th of February, 1668. His widow married, Aug. 31, 1668, the Rev. James Allen, one of the ministers of the First Church in Boston, whose previous wife, Hannah Dummer, by whom he received five hundred acres of land, had died in March, 1668. His Endicott wife died April 5, 1673, leaving the Townsend-Bishop farm and all her other property to him; and on the 11th of September, of the same year, he married Sarah Hawlins. By his two preceding wives he received twelve hundred acres of land. How much he got by the last-mentioned, we have no information. Besides these matrimonial accumulations, the accounts seem to indicate that he was rich before.

It may well be imagined, that it could not have been very agreeable to the family at the Orchard Farm to see this choice and extensive portion of their estate, which was within full view from their windows, swept into the hands of utter strangers in so rapid and extraordinary a manner, by a series of circumstances most distasteful and provoking. But this was but the beginning of their trouble.

On the 29th of April, 1678, Allen sold the Bishop farm to Francis Nurse, of the town of Salem, for four hundred pounds. Nurse was an early settler, and, before this purchase, had lived, for some forty years, "near Skerry's," on the North River, between the main part of the settlement in the town of Salem and the ferry to Beverly. He is described as a "tray-maker." The making of these articles, and similar objects of domestic use, was an important employment in a new country remote from foreign supply. He appears to have been a very respectable person, of great stability and energy of character, whose judgment was much relied on by his neighbors. No one is mentioned more frequently as umpire to settle disputes, or arbitrator to adjust conflicting claims. He was often on committees to determine boundaries or estimate valuations, or on local juries to lay out highways and assess damages. The fact that he was willing to encounter the difficulties connected with such a heavy transaction as the purchase of the Bishop farm at such a price at his time of life proves that he had a spirit equal to a bold undertaking. He was then fifty-eight years of age. His wife Rebecca was fifty-seven years of age. We shall meet her again.