Six Women of Salem (56 page)

Further inland the Procter farm is unaccustomedly quiet for lack of livestock. The diminished family—master and mistress and siblings gone—move about their chores, a wary eye always on the road, to tend the few cows and pigs and hens left them.

Upcountry on the Nurse farm, beyond the house and barn, down across the fields, Rebecca’s grave has had time to green over, the earth no longer as raw as grief. While her family continue their lives, keeping apart from the rest of the Village, falling snow blankets her grave, concealing the disturbed earth and obscuring the evidence of what the family will never forget.

(
18
)

Blowing on stiff fingers, Reverend Samuel Parris continues writing a draft of his next Sacrament sermon.

“The Author & Institute of this holy Supper is our Blessed Saviour, our Lord Jesus, who is both the Nourisher, & the nourishment”—Parris dips his quill in the inkwell, which has not yet frozen—“Hence learn we that this great & holy ordinance is not to be slighted or neglected.” Because Christ Himself invites us to it, “we ought not to disdain, slight, or neglect it.”

But,
he thinks, rubbing his hands together to try to warm them,
the Nurse kin will probably slight the ceremony again.
He hardly saw any of them now, except for Tarbell at the baptism.
That
was a surprise. Apparently, old Francis still clings stubbornly to his wife’s innocence. How the man could have been so blind to what was going on in his own house is difficult to believe. (Although Satan’s deceits are continuously inventive, Parris has to admit, hiding evil in unexpected places. He thinks of Tituba, the invading serpent amid his own family.)

Parris stands stiffly and moves to the study window just to stir his blood. He sees John Indian down in the barnyard, ax in hand, heading for the scanty woodpile. His man no longer suffers fits as he had the summer before, so at least John is capable of getting work done. Parris has had to hire a maid to take over Tituba’s tasks, money he can ill afford, especially with the slave’s jail bills mounting ever higher. What he will do about
her
in the future, he does not yet know.

Nearly a year, a
whole
year since this miserable business began—and what? Some of Satan’s recruits have been dealt with, but others remain—and many of
those
have confessed. That it all began in his own household is a thorn and a mortification. His critics overlook the fact that the courts subsequently
proved
the guilt of those who were tried.

It is not just
my
opinion
.

Months have passed since he or any of his household attended any court proceeding. Whereas most of the fractious community had once stood against common enemies, Salem Village is now more divided than ever. Moreover, he has yet to be paid, with no resolution of
that
in sight either.

Parris edges his chair closer to the meager hearth fire and flips open his Bible. His eye falls on random scripture: “Verily I say unto you, in as muche as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.” Unto Christ, that is. An uncomfortable verse followed by the exhortation: “Depart from me ye cursed, unto everlasting fyre which is prepared for the devil and his angels”—the accursed in that passage being guilty of sins of omission, of doing nothing when they had a chance to do good. But there is always the difficulty of discerning who is blessed and who is cursed, of how to tell what is really in a person’s heart.

He turns again to his sermon and takes up the quill. He should not have to
urge
church members to participate in the central ceremony of membership, this
privilege
of Christians that Christ Himself granted, even if some members still make earthly quarrels a stumbling block. “Believers,” he writes, “you are not to slight this call of him who has instituted & appointed this holy Ordinance.”

Working downstairs by the hall’s hearth would be warmer, but—a muffled thump and moan rise from below—concentrating would be harder there. Fits still trouble Abigail sometimes, and that is only one of his problems.

Just
see
what Tituba’s continuing malignancy cause.

That cursed woman!

____________________

A
s the year began, Salem, which included Salem Village, chose the required jurors, including Job Swinnerton, one of the people who had signed the petition on behalf of Rebecca Nurse. Other Essex County jurors included Rebecca’s nephew, Ensign Jacob Towne of Topsfield, and two Marblehead men, Richard Read (brother-in-law of the late Wilmot Read) and William Beale (who was still certain that Philip English’s specter had haunted him after a business deal turned sour). Beverly chose Robert Cue, stepfather of the formerly afflicted Mary Herrick.

Court met in Salem’s town house, cold this time even with the windows shut, so unlike the sweltering press of the long summer before. The first day was concerned with one probate case and swearing in jurors. Swinnerton and Read were sworn as part of the grand jury, with Robert Payne of Ipswich, a former minister with past ties to Maine as the foreman.

The second day, Wednesday, January 4, inaugurated the next round of witch trials.

Again, as in the summer past, a batch of prisoners was taken from the jail and, stepping over snow and slush and huddling together against the wind, led around the streets to the town house. Those left behind could only hope that matters would be different during this session—a modest hope, frail as it was. News that spectral evidence was no longer acceptable had to have reached the prisoners.

The day’s defendants returned to the jail with news that
this
grand jury had dismissed
all
of the day’s cases but four for lack of evidence, with
ignoramus
(we do not know) written at the end of each indictment. And the four—two sets of mothers and daughters—were all found not guilty even though two of them had confessed earlier: Margaret Jacobs, her recantation believed at last, with her mother, Rebecca Jacobs, known to be distracted, and old Sarah Buckley with her widowed daughter Mary Whittredge, neither of whom had confessed. Now all of them were to be free or at least free as soon as their rising jail bills could be paid. On the third day the grand jury dismissed even more cases, and only two people stood trial, Job Tookey and Hannah Tyler, both found not guilty.

On Friday more were declared
ignoramus,
including Candy, the Barbadian slave, and Elizabeth Procter’s son William. Only Mary Tyler was tried, and she too was found not guilty. At this the court broke for the Sabbath.

Mary Warren had been absent from the constant round of hearings and trials. Now back in court, she reacted as before to the movements of the accused, but the justices and even the audience failed to respond with approval or sympathy. Under such conditions it is likely that the spasms no longer felt the same—a different reality or not real at all. Because spectral evidence was not to be accepted, regardless of the actual cause of the convulsions, the court viewed them as either physical ills or the Devil’s deceptions.

Mary might wonder if she were like the girl in Beverly who had been duped into believing a disguised devil was actually the minister’s wife—until Mary Esty’s ghost set her straight. Had Mary Warren herself believed the Devil all along? Far back, months before, she had thought her afflictions were distractions, but the court refused to believe her then, had suspected
her
when she tried to deny it, until she thought she must have been truly bewitched after all. Her master and mistress had not believed her afflictions, not for a moment. Now Goodman Procter was dead and his wife under a death sentence.

When questioned, the most she could safely attest to was that the defendant looked like the specter she
thought
she saw. And in this manner, acceptance of Stoughton’s unrelenting judgment continued to crumble.

Court resumed in Salem Tuesday, January 10, minus Wait-Still Winthrop. The grand jury sent Sarah Wardwell, widow of the executed Samuel, and her two daughters to the trial jury, which declared the young women not guilty but found the widowed Goodwife Wardwell guilty as charged. She, her daughters, and her late husband had confessed to witchcraft, and all recanted their self-damning stories, but for some reason the trial jury did not believe Sarah.

Now the mood of the returning prisoners was far more subdued, with hope sharply qualified if not extinguished. Something had changed over the Sabbath break. Perhaps Wait-Still Winthrop, now absent, had been a moderating presence. Perhaps the afflicted girls seemed more believable to the court this time.

On the following day Reverend Dane’s niece Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was tried and also found guilty.

That evening Mercy Lewis suffered afflictions, plagued, she claimed, by several specters. Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was one; the Englishes both also pressed their diabolical demands, especially Mary, who pushed the Devil’s book at her to sign.

Had the Englishes returned as Alden had? Philip and Mary were likely both present on Thursday, January 12, to face the grand jury unless, unlike any of the others, their cases were handled
in
absentia
. Mercy Lewis swore to her account of the previous night’s torture and said, “Mrs English s[ai]d she might bring the Book now she thought ever one of them would bee Cleared.” The girl recoiled as if struck on the breast and gagged as if choked. Specters were hitting her, she said, English and his wife and old Pharaoh—Thomas Farrar, whose case would be declared
ignoramus
today. They were
there
in the room, right in front of the grand jury, threatening to strangle her!

William Beale, part of the jury pool, also swore to his visions of Philip English after a disagreement with the man and during Beale’s bout of smallpox.

But the grand jury recognized all this testimony as deriving from spectral evidence and thus discounted it. The surviving indictments are for Mary English tormenting Elizabeth Hubbard on April 22 among other times and for Philip English tormenting Mary Walcott and Elizabeth Booth, “singlewoman,” on May 31 and other times.
All
of these charges were dismissed as
ignoramus
. Yet the grand jury sent five Andover women to trial, and of these, Mary Post was found guilty.

On Friday more prisoners, suspects who would still be alive to face a later court, were freed on bail, and suspects already cleared were freed on payment of fees. Fathers and husbands banded together with concerned neighbors to post the £100 bonds (somehow able to cover sums much more than some ministers’ £60 yearly salary).

Perhaps Rebecca Nurse’s family attended the legal proceedings for her sister Sarah Cloyce, who was brought down from the Ipswich jail to face another grand jury on January 13. They would have joined her husband, Peter Cloyce, who stood by her, frequently visiting the Ipswich jail.

The grand jury may have considered the statement from Boston jailer John Arnold and his wife, Mary, that, while Sarah Cloyce and her sister Mary Esty were in their care, both women behaved in a “sobere and civell” manner.

The grand jury certainly saw the indictments against Goodwife Cloyce for tormenting her niece Rebecca Towne on September 9 and for spectrally assaulting Mary Walcott and Abigail Williams on April 11 at the first hearing. (Oddly no indictment survives for tormenting Annie Putnam on that same April day.) For some reason, perhaps the change in public opinion, her grand jury hearing in September had been continued or postponed.

They weighed the accounts along with whatever actions afflicted witnesses who were present in court may have exhibited, if any—and disregarded them all. Foreman Robert Payne wrote
ignoramus
on each document. Sarah was free to go as soon as her jail and court expenses were paid. The family must have settled her bill quickly, for Peter removed them both to Boston, away from her accusers, as soon as he could.

Mary Lacey Jr., her grandmother dead in jail of illness a month ago and her mother found guilty and awaiting execution, returned to fulfill the condition of her own October release. As she had been a confessor and energetic accuser, the grand jury passed her case along to the trial jury despite her later recantation. She pled not guilty to the charges—of signing the Devil’s book and of tormenting Timothy Swan—and once again the jury passed a verdict of not guilty. And that was the last of the Essex County trials until the next Superior Court, which would reconvene in May.

Stoughton, however, signed a death warrant for the three found guilty in the January session: widow Sarah Wardwell and the two young women (described by one of the trials’ critics as “senseless and ignorant creatures”). Then, relentlessly methodical, he added the names of the others found guilty in the earlier trials: Mary Bradbury (if they could find her, for she was still in hiding), Abigail Hobbs, Dorcas Hoar (her month’s reprieve to settle her soul long over), Mary Lacey Sr., Abigail Faulkner Sr., and widow Elizabeth Procter. The hangings were apparently scheduled for February 1, the same day that the Superior Court’s next session would begin in Charlestown for Middlesex County. In the meantime workmen dug graves in the frost-hard ground near the gallows site.

Goodwives Faulkner and Procter, both with child, might find their deaths delayed, but Elizabeth was nearer her time, and before the day scheduled for the next execution, the pangs of birth gripped her and she delivered her latest child in the Salem prison on January 27.