Deputy-Governor Stoughton was appointed chief justice, and Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, who declined to serve, and was succeeded by Jonathan Corwin, of Salem; Major John Richards, of Boston; Major Bartholomew Gedney, of Salem; Mr. Wait Winthrop, Mr. Peter Sargent, and Capt. Samuel Sewell, of Boston, Associate Justices.
The panel of the Jury of Inquest was Thomas Fisk, foreman; William Fisk, John Bachelor, Thomas Fisk, Jr., John Dane, Joseph Eveleth, Thomas Perley, Sr., John Peabody, Thomas Perkins, Samuel Sayer, Andrew Eliot, and Henry Herrick, Sr.
The commissions of the court were dated Friday, May 27th; the court convened Thursday, June 2d; Bridget Bishop, of Salem, was convicted Wednesday, the 8th, and hanged Friday, the 10th. The court, by adjournment, next sat Wednesday, the 29th of June; then by several adjournments, it was to sit the 1st of November.
The day on which Bridget Bishop was hanged, June 10th, the General Court enacted a law of the old charter for capital cases, and under it presumably the subsequent witch trials were held, while the personnel of the court remained the same.
Trials Arrested, Court Suspended
List of Those Hanged
The General Court in October established the Superior Court of Judicature and gave it jurisdiction in witch cases. Governor Phipps immediately arrested the witch trials, and suspended the court. Oyer and Terminer was dissolved. These were hanged:
Friday, June 10th
- 1. Bishop, Bridget, wife of Edward, of Salem.
Tuesday, July 19th
- 1. Good, Sarah, of the village.
- 2. Wildes, Sarah, daughter of Wm., of Topsfield.
- 3. Howe, Elizabeth, wife of James, Jr., of Ipswich Farms.
- 4. Nourse, Rebecca, wife of Francis, of the village.
- 5. Martin, Susannah, of Amesbury.