The Witches: Salem, 1692 Part 12

"'Whish, whish, whish'": The cry resembled a 1637 German spell for takeoff: "Whoosh! Up the chimney, up the window hole!" Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook, 207.

"ought I know": Calef in Burr, 14853.

"Now stand" to "enough of that": Lawson in Burr, 154.

Quaker women: Earle, The Sabbath, 9697. Women spoke so often at Quaker meetings you might as well call them ministers, CM huffs in Little Flocks Guarded Against Grievous Wolves (Boston: 1691), 94.

"I know no doctrine" to "pathetic prayer": Lawson in Burr, 15455.

"distracting and disturbing": B&N, 296.

"We did not send" to "prove she was a witch": R, 146; Lawson in Burr, 156.

delegation a.s.sembled: R, 162. Roach thinks the Nurse family requested the neighbors call: See Marilynne Roach, Six Women of Salem (New York: Da Capo, 2013), 130. On the family, see Lee Shai Weissbach, "The Townes of Ma.s.sachusetts," EIHC 118 (1982): 200220; RFQC, 5: 341.

Lawson called on Ann Putnam Sr.: Lawson in Burr, 15758. Lawson had reason to hesitate; bibliomancy was strongly discouraged. The pa.s.sage in question offered a sort of litmus test as to where one stood on Judgment Day; it was a text designed to make the impious squirm; e-mail with David Hall, September 24, 2013. Ann was six weeks pregnant. In her trances Mercy Short tended to offer remarkably apt pa.s.sages, CM in Burr, 275.

Rebecca Nurse stood before Hathorne and Corwin: R, 15758, 16061; Lawson remarks on her indifference in Christ's Fidelity: The Only Shield Against Satan's Malignity (London: J. Lawrence, 1704), 109.

shed only three tears: MacKay, The Witch Mania, 510.

He had prepared carefully: Lawson in Trask, "The Devil Hath Been Raised," 65106. He may have added to the sermon after its delivery and before publication, as he would again later.

Martha Corey's husband: The only men convicted of witchcraft in Ma.s.sachusetts prior to 1692 had been married to witches. There was a reason for a husband to offer up incriminating remarks.

the arrest of Dorothy: R, 15556, 163.

"terror, amazement": Lawson in Trask, "The Devil Hath Been Raised," 95; "vile and wicked" to "is a devil": SPN, 19498. On the sudden, sweeping swerve from hypocrisy to devils, interview with David Hall, November 29, 2012. By March, SP did not believe anyone colluded unwillingly with the devil. The door-slamming is from Lawson in Burr, 161, and interview with Richard Trask, November 28, 2012. Cloyce's exit: R, 415.

"thresh the devil": R, 538.

"sport, they must have": R, 537. The reporter had married into the Cloyce family.

rush to narrative: CM wrote his account of the Goodwins' enchantment in real time, which allowed Martha to read it over. She did so repeatedly, ridiculing the work and warning the author that he "should quickly come to disgrace by that history."

Scripture provided the bedrock: David D. Hall, "Toward a History of Popular Religion in Early New England," William and Mary Quarterly 41 (January 1984): 4955. John Dane appealed to the Bible to decide to come to NE, where he would be safer from temptation; "John Dane's Narrative," New-England Historical Genealogical Record (April 1854): 154; the Sewalls retreated to bedrooms with the Bible after harsh words were exchanged. One woman used hers to deck a New Hampshire sheriff's a.s.sistant; Koehler, Search for Power, 372.

seer and watchman: See CM, Midnight Cry; Roger Thompson, "'Holy Watchfulness' and Communal Conformism," New England Quarterly 56 (December 1983): 50422; and Earle, The Sabbath, 7577, for the watchful deacons. To mind other people's business was, a.s.serted Edmund Morgan, to be a good Puritan.

the daughter's bonnet: CM Diary, 1: 369.

"If any people": Cited in Miller and Johnson, The Puritans, 1: 245.

"had willingly risked": Stout, New England Soul, 31. If one reviewed the record, G.o.d had been frowning on NE from the beginning. He would continue to do so; in 1701 you could still t.i.tle a sermon "Prognosticks of Impending Calamities."

"ravening wolves" and "wild boars": Scottow, A Narrative, 28.

revoke their charter: David S. Lovejoy is especially fine on the period, The Glorious Revolution in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972). For the end of prosperity, Timothy H. Breen and Stephen Foster, "The Puritans' Greatest Achievement: A Study of Social Cohesion in Seventeenth-Century Ma.s.sachusetts," Journal of American History 60 (June 1973): 16.

"the petty differences": "Letter from New England," November 11, 1694, CO 5/858, PRO.

Andros asked John Higginson: Cited in The Andros Tracts (New York: Burt Franklin, 1868), 1: 26. Dunton described Higginson's speech as "a glimpse of heaven" in The Life and Errors of John Dunton (London: J. Nichols, 1818), 127.

"remote, rocky, barren": Edward Johnson, Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence (New York: Elibron Cla.s.sics, 2005), 210.

in a military coup: Historians have happily noted that that revolt took place eighty-six years to the day before Paul Revere's ride. The Tower of Babel: Edward Randolph to the governor of Barbados, May 16, 1689, Edward Randolph: Letters and Official Papers (Boston: Prince Society, 1899), 4: 267.

"that strange agglomeration": Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 39. The annunciation is from Ann M. Little, "Men on Top? The Farmer, the Minister, and Marriage in Early New England," Pennsylvania History 64 (Summer 1997): 134.

great Enlightenment thinkers: See Lawrence Stone, "The Disenchantment of the World," New York Review of Books, December 2, 1971, and David Stannard, "Death and the Puritan Child," American Quarterly (December 1974): 472.

Almanacs sold briskly: John Partridge, Monthly Observations and Predictions for This Present Year, 1692 (Boston: Benjamin Harris, 1692), 4. The almanac's prediction for April was even more ominous: "If there is any roguery now against the government, be sure there is a woman up to the ears in it; but be it what it will, a woman is at the bottom, and the thing is villainous." On the overlap of science and magic, folklore and erudition, Hall's seminal 1990 Worlds of Wonder; Walter W. Woodward, Prospero's America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); John Winthrop et al., "Scientific Notes from the Books and Letters of John Winthrop, Jr.," Isis 11 (December 1928): 32542; Jon Butler, "Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage," American Historical Review 84 (April 1979): 31746; and Ann Kibbey, "Mutations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Remarkable Providences, and the Power of Puritan Men," American Quarterly 34 (Summer 1982): 12548. As a rule, the more intently you immersed yourself in science, the more interest you displayed in the supernatural.

best-educated community: Cremin, American Education, 189207. There were more educated men in Ma.s.sachusetts than in any other colony. There was also more witchcraft.

"prodigious witchcrafts": Harley, "Explaining Salem," 315.

best pig followed him: Michael P. Winship, "Encountering Providence in the Seventeenth Century," EIHC 126 (1990): 35. Luck had not yet entered the picture; it was divine providence when the woodpile collapsed just after you had called the children away from it. Apocalypse practice: SS Diary, 1: 331.

inclement weather: Karen Kupperman, "Climate and Mastery of the Wilderness in Seventeenth-Century New England," in Seventeenth-Century New England, ed. David Hall and David Allen (Boston: Colonial Society of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1984), 9. The overenjoyable s.e.x: Edward Taylor, cited in Koehler, Search for Power, 80. The lame knee: "The Autobiography of Increase Mather," Proceedings of the AAS (Worcester, 1961), 350. See also Kibbey, "Mutations of the Supernatural."

"inquire, instruct, advise": "Records of the Cambridge a.s.sociation of Ministers," October 13, 1690, Proceedings of the MHS, vol. 17 (1880), 264.

"I observe the law": Hull, Diaries, 136.

Cantlebery's wife: RFQC, 2: 101. Cantlebery had paid the call to complain that the neighbor's swine were in his peas. The neighbor's initial response had been to inform him he was a "rogue, whelp and toad."

land grants were defined: George Lee Haskins pointed out that the initial charter was based on two rivers parallel to each other only if you squinted; Law and Authority in Early Ma.s.sachusetts (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 9.

rotten, decomposing fence: SP's October 28, 1690, list of proposals, Simon Gratz Collection, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. CM described the devil as "the make-bait of the world" in "Things to Be Look'd For," 1691, 18.

"she would as soon": RFQC, 3: 5455.

They sought revenge: Lawrence W. Towner, "'A Fondness for Freedom': Servant Protest in Puritan Society," William and Mary Quarterly 19 (April 1962): 212; Roger Thompson, "Adolescent Culture in Colonial Ma.s.sachusetts," Journal of Family History (Summer 1984): 133; RFQC, 3: 66. "Because she was": RFQC, 8: 22224. Maule was Quaker, the servant Irish Catholic; there was no contest. The case was dismissed.

the only explanation: CM in Burr, 95.

Ben Gould: R, 188.

A roll call: R, 17273.

"stupendious revolution": CM, Midnight Cry, 21. The sermon-in which CM referred to devil's compacts and lawful convictions for them-was published immediately.

less rustic, better-lit town meetinghouse: Perley, History of Salem, vol. 3, 43034.

blots on the page: See Meredith Marie Neuman, Jeremiah's Scribes: Creating Sermon Literature in Puritan New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 66.

Thomas Danforth: See Roger Thompson's expert sleuthing, especially "The Transit of Civilization: The Case of Thomas Danforth," in The Transit of Civilization, ed. Winfried Herget and Karl Ortseifen (Tubingen: Gunter Narr, 1986), 3744, and Thompson, Cambridge Cameos.

Salem town meetinghouse: Town Records of Salem, MA, vol. 3 (Salem: Ess.e.x Inst.i.tute, 1934), 2012. Interview with Richard Trask, January 21, 2015.

On the imperfect records: Rosenthal, Salem Story, 125; Doty, "Telling Tales"; Gibson, Reading Witchcraft, 1249. SP later acknowledged his mistakes.

"When did" through "dying fainting fit": R, 17374.

"visionary girls": Letter appended to Deodat Lawson, A Further Account of the Trials of the New England Witches (Boston, 1693), 1.

"he would soon": R, 182.

He lurched forward and bit: Calef in Burr, 348.

"Oh you old witch": R, 181. Rosenthal thinks Procter may have been arrested; Salem Story, 11011. No warrant survives.

Constable Herrick rounded up four more witches: R, 71011.

Corey was an obvious target: RFQC, 1: 152, 172; RFQC, 7: 9091, 134. The stinking water episode: RFQC, 1: 2089. The "evil hand": RFQC, 7: 90. For some marvelous Corey detective work, David C. Brown, "The Case of Giles Corey," EIHC 121 (1985): 28299; also Spiller, "Giles Corey."

"Which of you" to "temptation to witchcraft": R, 18788.

Bridget Bishop: R, 18485. In 1679 she had also appeared before someone who pointed to her and swore she had bewitched him "as now she stands before the court," RFQC, 7: 329; RFQC, 4: 90, 386. On the two Bishops, David L. Greene, American Genealogist 227 (July 1981): 13138. It did not help that-as Marilynne Roach points out-there were no fewer than four Edward Bishops in the area. Even JH could not keep them straight.

"You were a little": R, 197; "torn in pieces": R, 203.

"I will speak": R, 18994. Abigail does not mention Burroughs until her subsequent examination; see Rosenthal, Salem Story, 4243. She had attended a great witches' a.s.sembly: R, 198.

"great care" to "high and dreadful": R, 204. Benjamin C. Ray, in Satan and Salem (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015), calculated that Thomas Putnam wrote over 120 depositions and complaints, or one-third of the total; according to Ray, the signature Putnam phrase "most grievously" occurs 172 times in his doc.u.mentation. Putnam filed the first complaint as well as the last, on September 17.

V: THE WIZARD.

"In the terror": Charles d.i.c.kens, Great Expectations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 65.

Any number of discrepancies: Breslaw, t.i.tuba, 118, points out that one court reporter did not think t.i.tuba's tall man from Boston even worthy of mention. Abigail and Deliverance Hobbs produced different versions of the witches' Sabbath, with different presiding deacons.

"not a tooth": Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (London: Nath. Hillar, 1700), 165. Edward J. Ward was not impressed with Ma.s.sachusetts dentistry; see Ward, Boston in 1682 and 1699, 53.

"managed in imagination": CM to John Richards, May 31, 1692, Cotton Mather Letters, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Reverend Nicholas Noyes: Dunton, Dunton's Letters, 255; Higginson Family Papers, MHS. On his verse, see Sibley, 245. The burning poppets: R, 464.

"cross and swift questions": CM to Richards, May 31, 1692, Cotton Mather Letters, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

"with the doleful shrieks": WOW, 14. Joshua Scottow reported that the shrieks made it appear "as if h.e.l.l and his furies had been let loose," A Narrative, 47.

"It is no rare thing": Bernard, Guide to Grand-Jury Men, cited in Trask, "The Devil Hath Been Raised," 135. On the twofold importance of confession, Hall, A Reforming People, 86.

he designed an experiment: R, 211. The "tall black man": R, 213.

b.l.o.o.d.y battle waged: R, 207.

"I can deny it" to "are bewitched": R, 215. William Hobbs too hesitated to interpret the epidemic at hand.

"How did you know": R, 205. David C. Brown, in A Guide to the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692 (self-published, 2000), suggests the girls did this on purpose to bolster their credibility.

agreed but steadily increased: R, 237; Lawson in Burr, 163; R, 555, 56163.

"red bread": R, 220. Ten days later, Deliverance added roast and boiled meat; R, 237.

"What, are ministers witches": R, 5056. In The Country Justice, Dalton recognized the distinction between conjurers and witches. The former claimed they could actually raise the devil.

little black man: R, 243. Elizabeth Hubbard was yet more helpful. He was "a little black-haired man" who wore "blackish apparel." 129 "as if the blood": Lawson's appendix to Christ's Fidelity, 99; cf. R, 246. If Burroughs failed to confess, the two women threatened they would reappear in court; see Magnalia, 1: 189, for the greater fear of ghosts. IM had said the difference between ghosts and specters was unclear; IP, 204. On Burroughs's wives, David L. Greene, "The Third Wife of the Rev. George Burroughs," American Genealogist 56 (1980): 4345.

"a child of G.o.d": R, 24344.

the devil promised: I am indebted to David Hall for a copy of his unpublished September 12, 2012, Huntington Library talk.

For the spelling: Upham, Salem Witchcraft, 143; Roach, Six Women of Salem, 29; "sublimely unaware": Henry Alexander, "The Language of the Salem Witchcraft Trials," American Speech 3 (June 1928): 392; Grund, "Editing the Salem Witchcraft Records," 158.

"did most grievously": R, 33637.

tireless industry: CM, Ornaments, Eureka: The Virtuous Woman Found; the "prince and judge": Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (London: Weidenfeld, 1965), 190; "Well; and what if I am": CM in Burr, 270. Margaret Rule detains the young men, Burr, 327; "come to the gallows": Cited in Michael Hall, The Last American Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 143. "Charm the children": Cotton Mather, Small Offers, 48; "penal and wrathful": SPN, 117. Steven Mintz, Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 732. Also see Thompson, "The Case of Thomas Danforth," 34.

work diligently: The 1680 mother is cited in Earle, Child Life, 100.

"When the devil finds": CM, "A Discourse on the Power and Malice of the Devils," in MP, 15.

"put away childish": Ross W. Beales Jr., "In Search of the Historical Child," American Quarterly 27 (October, 1975): 384.

Betty's first yelp of terror: SS Diary, 1: 34546, 34849, 355, 35960. Dunton on the furnishing, Dunton's Letters, 254. Stannard, "Death and the Puritan Child," 473. Betty would go on to marry, bear seven children, and die at thirty-four.

"I had rather": Thomas White, A Little Book for Little Children (Boston: 1702), 13; Faber, "Puritan Criminals," 91. Or as James Janeway had it, "They are not too little to die, they are not too little to go to h.e.l.l." For the Sewall maid: SS Diary, 2: 731. For "that she was in the dark": MP, 46. Apocalyptic scenes could sound oddly like black Sabbaths, as women flew into the wilderness to wrangle with mythical beasts, Stout, New England Soul, 48. The blood-vomiting dragons: Cited in Joyce, Printing and Society in Early America, 42.

"To fail to be": Stannard, Puritan Way of Death, 70.

"lively and pungent": CM Diary, 2: 359. He fretted that the admonitions were not pungent enough. From the evidence, the children had more occasion to fear their birthdays than their father.

Indians did childhood differently: Peter Charles Hoffer, Law and People in Colonial America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 71; Mintz, Huck's Raft, 8; James Axtell, "The White Indians of Colonial America," in Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development, ed. Stanley N. Katz and John M. Murrin (New York: Knopf, 1983), 43. "Let not English": Cotton Mather, Small Offers, 44; Stannard, "Death and the Puritan Child," 476; James E. Kences, "Some Unexplored Relationships of Ess.e.x County Witchcraft to the Indian Wars of 1675 and 1689," EIHC 120 (July 1984): 186.

"entertain any frightful": Samuel Mather, "The Home Life of Cotton Mather," in A Library of American Literature, ed. Edmund Stedman and Ellen Hutchinson (New York: Charles Webster, 1891).

grisly tales: See Kathryn Zabelle Derounian, "The Publication, Promotion and Distribution of Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative in the Seventeenth Century," Early American Literature 23 (1988): 23961. David Hall thinks these tales had seeped into the groundwater; interview with Hall, October 19, 2012.