may suppose, as related by Mrs. Jacobs and Mrs. Mansfield, that the place of burial was pointed out to them from the high land on the Jacobs place south of Lowell Street, where the "rocky hill" and the bars leading into the Marsh pasture on the north side of Lowell Street could be plainly seen. Subsequently Mrs. Mansfield's aunt took her to the rocky hill itself and pointed out the exact spot, probably close to where the bars lead into the Marsh pasture, now the Saunders place. In going home from the Jacobs farm they would turn into Lowell Street at the old way near the house marked "White" on my map, and some ten rods westerly from the way above mentioned leading from the opposite side of Lowell Street to the Saunders place. This way from the Jacobs place is a very old way. Mr. Felton tells me: "I recollect that my father said over forty years ago that the gate posts of locust were nearly one hundred years old then."
Two hundred years ago the Saunders place, formerly the Marsh pasture, was part of the large tract of homestead land owned by Anthony Needham. This Needham land included eight acres of land conveyed by Anthony Needham to his son-in-law, Thomas Gould, 26 Sept., 1705, and conveyed to Thomas Gardner 27 Jan., 1743, by George Gould, the son of Thomas Gould. The eight acre lot descended to John Gardner and from him to John Gardner Walcott, and is where John G. Walcott, Jun., now lives.
The land which I find to be identical with the fifteen acre lot owned by John Procter is on the north side of Lowell Street between the above mentioned eight acre lot, now the home of John G. Walcott, Jun., and the lot marked "Flint Pasture" on my map, the Procter lot being enclosed by heavy black lines. The westerly part of the Flint Pasture was conveyed, 17 Sept., 1898, to John D. Dennis, who lives there now.
The uniform family tradition that John Procter was
buried in the locality I have thus described, is confirmed in my mind from a consideration of certain facts, bearing with more or less definiteness upon the question, which I will endeavor briefly to recite.
It is well known that the victims executed as witches on Gallows Hill in Salem, in 1692, were thrown into mere shallow graves or crevices in the ledge under the gallows, where the nature of the ground did not allow complete burial, so that it was stated at the time that portions of the bodies were hardly covered at all. It was natural that the relatives of those thus cruelly put to death and left practically without burial, should, where they were able and courageous enough for the dangerous undertaking, remove the bodies to their homes for interment. It is the tradition that this was done in several cases, secretly and during the night, that it might not incur the opposition of the frenzied and deluded people. This removal was made by the children of Rebecca Nourse, and a beautiful monument now marks the spot to which her body was removed. There is a similar tradition in the Procter family, and there is good reason to believe that his body was removed in a similar manner. But if so, the necessary secrecy with which the sad duty was performed has caused the place where he was buried to be known only by the slender thread of tradition which I have mentioned.
The boulder inscribed to the memory of John Procter, which was dedicated this past year at the junction of Lowell and Summit Streets in Peabody, must be considered to have been placed there not as indicating the locality of his burial, but because that was the most suitable and available ground in the near neighborhood of the house where for so many years and at the time of his death he lived as the tenant of the great Downing Farm. There was the entrance to the Farm from Salem, and from that spot one obtains a full view of the farm house where he lived,
believed to be in part still standing on the same site, and of the fine and far extending tillage land which probably first attracted the admiration of Emanuel Downing two hundred and seventy years ago, and is now found so attractive and admirably suited to the purposes of a golf ground by the Salem Country Club.
What is now known as the Procter Tomb on the north side of Lowell Street at the southeastern corner of the Downing Farm is of modern origin. We cannot believe that John Procter's family would have deposited his body in ground to which they then had no title except as tenants. At the time of the imprisonment of John Procter and his wife Elizabeth the family was no doubt broken up and the house stripped of everything that could be taken away to pay the fees of arrest and imprisonment. The great farm was no longer their home and they were not again in a position to return to and occupy it as their own until nearly a decade had passed, when, through the efforts of Thorndike, one of the sons of John Procter, the Downing Farm in its entirety was purchased from Charles, the grandson of Emanuel Downing and son of Sir George Downing, then deceased.
At the time of his death in 1692 John Procter owned, except what land in Ipswich he may have inherited from his father, only the fifteen acres with a house upon it, which, as I have said, was just west of the Downing Farm on the north side of Lowell Street. This fact alone would render it entirely probable that when the body was removed, in 1692, it would be carried to this place. In fact, in view of the peculiar circumstances of the necessity of secrecy and the otherwise homeless condition of the family, no other place would have been chosen.