LATE SEPTEMBER 1692
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
AFTERNOON
The stone-gray sky sends an ominous message.
A harsh wind is blowing through the village, bringing a sting of winter. Crisp brown and yellow leaves are swirling to the dry ground. The witch hunter Thomas Putnam pulls his coat together for warmth as he bends into the wind, walking rapidly down Meeting House Road toward the courthouse. His shoulders are hunched protectively, his Puritan hat pulled down tight. He clutches two furled depositions from his afflicted daughter, Ann. He has spent much of the night writing them by the flickering light of candlewood.
Demons have been at work again; he knows it is up to him to stop them. It is his great burden.
There are few people on the road. Salemites now avoid straying from their homes unless it is absolutely necessary or if there is a hearing. The court sessions are important—avoiding them can be mistaken for disapproval.
Passersby nod in recognition to Tom Putnam but no longer stop to speak to him. No one wants to draw his attention. Everybody knows what happens to his enemies.
A thick layer of paranoia covers Salem village. The arrests and the hangings have taken a great toll. Families have been ripped apart. Parents are wary around their own children. Friendships have ended.
Past deeds have been remembered and taken on different, darker meanings. Casual words are now used as weapons.
Anyone who has not seen the afflicted girls act out has certainly heard about it. But it is the executions that haunt Salem. These were their friends and neighbors. People they drank beer and cider with, people whose barns they helped raise. But that is long gone. Now, they are lifeless bodies dangling at the end of a rope.
Travelers on their way to Boston no longer stop in Salem. Local farmers stay out of the village as much as possible. Inns and shops are nearly empty. At night, people huddle close to their own fires. There is too much risk. Even church pews remain half-empty for Reverend Parris’s Sunday services.
Only the witch trials themselves draw a crowd.
No one understands the change in Salem better than forty-year-old Thomas Putnam. He is the center of this maelstrom. Three generations of Putnams have lived and prospered here. Like his forebears, Tom is a good Puritan, and that makes him a strong supporter of Reverend Samuel Parris.
However, the affluent farmer’s life until now has been filled with disappointment. Tom Putnam has never achieved the status he expected. His father was a popular selectman, a town leader, but his son has not risen above constable. His older, wealthier uncle, sixty-one-year-old Nathaniel, is well respected and constantly asked for advice.
No one seeks Tom Putnam’s counsel. Now, Putnam’s bitterness has turned to revenge. An accusation from him can end your life.
Putnam controls the four primary accusers: his twelve-year-old daughter, Ann; seventeen-year-old servant Mercy Lewis; eleven-year-old neighbor Abigail Williams; and another seventeen-year-old, Mary Walcott. The girls are too young to draft legal statements, so Putnam does it for them. When Governor Phips creates the Court of Oyer and Terminer to hear the cases, Putnam volunteers: “it [is] our duty to inform your Honors of what we conceive you have not Heard, which are high and dreadful … to prepare you, that you may be a terror to evil-doers.”
Judges Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin welcome his assistance. From the beginning of spring 1692, into the winter, no one is more zealous about hunting down witches than Thomas Putnam. In fact, he personally accuses forty-three people—twelve of them are executed while two others die in prison awaiting trial.
Putnam’s power in Salem is immense. People who once dismissed him now fear him. He has no official position, but he is everywhere. When court is in session, he can be relied on to be there. When an afflicted person wants to make an accusation, he will take it down. If there is a witch in sight, Tom Putnam will crush that person.
But the afflicted girls are the true source of the injustice. They make accusations and identify witches; they are bewitched themselves. For these nine girls, it is the most exciting time of their young lives. Their days are a continuing round of drama.
Putnam’s daughter, Ann, is the leader. She is a lively child, smart and quick. She testifies against sixty-two witches, more than anyone else. More than two hundred accused witches have been arrested. Seventeen of them are executed.
But Ann is now paying a heavy price. The specter attacks on her step up. She says she is in constant pain. She fights back by identifying even more witches. Her father proudly records her statements and takes them to the court.
It is an incredible experience for a twelve-year-old. Within weeks of her first accusations, everybody in the village knows who she is. When she walks down the road, people point her out. Her father, who until now has been preoccupied with his farm and business, lavishes attention on her. Rather than being stuck in a schoolroom or at home doing chores, Ann Putnam has become a star.
Best of all, no one seriously challenges her. One of the first persons she accuses of being a witch is four-year-old Dorothy Good. Ann also names Dorothy’s mother, Sarah Good, “a forlorn, friendless, and forsaken creature,” a beggar whose presence annoys the village.
Little Dorothy thinks it’s a game—until she is chained in prison. Her young age does not stop the jailing; a witch is a witch. As the constable takes her away, an observer notes, “The child looked hail, as well as other children.” But, after being locked up for several weeks and being questioned continually, Dorothy confesses. Her mother is a witch, she tells prosecutors; she gave her a snake—a witch’s tool. The snake bit her—she shows them a red mark on her finger. That testimony is enough to convict Sarah Good, who is hanged shortly thereafter.
The four-year-old remains chained in Boston for nine months. Her father finally raises the money to pay her prison fees and she is released. She has turned five in jail. She has survived, but the experience has driven her insane. The little girl is changed forever; she will never function normally.
Often, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam and her mother testify together. When people find out the Putnams will be appearing at a hearing, the meeting room is packed with excited spectators. It is the most astonishing show they have ever seen.
Some other children get the message. Whatever happens to Ann begins happening to them. For example, seventeen-year-old Mary Walcott, Ann’s stepcousin, joins the afflicted group and testifies against more than thirty people. Sixteen of them are executed.
The Salem girls’ reputation quickly spreads throughout New England. In July, they are invited to Andover, fifteen miles to the northwest, to help identify witches. Ann and Mary Walcott find numerous suspects but are unable to identify those who are “attacking” them because they don’t know the names of people living in that town.*
Eventually, sixty-seven witches are arrested in Andover—more than Salem. But just three are hanged as political complications arise with the executions. Andover does not have the same fervor for death as Salem.
A month later Ann Putnam and other afflicted girls visit Gloucester, an oceanside town north of Salem. More witches are discovered and arrested. Wherever the girls go, they are feared.
Cotton Mather watches all this with satisfaction. Personally, he makes no accusations—that’s not his job. He never encounters a specter. His responsibility is to support the girls. In his typically stern language, he convinces New England that these children are telling the truth. They are being attacked by the Devil. Even though their words can be lethal, they must be believed.
Mather knows this from his own experience. In 1688, he alerts Boston that the Devil is on the attack. When the four children of mason John Goodwin burst into fits for no obvious reason, he writes in his widely read book Memorable Provinces, “They were cut with Knives and struck with Blows that they could not bear. Their necks would be broken … their Heads would be twisted almost round.”
Mather’s gruesome tales spread throughout the colony, bringing him more notoriety and wealth. In the book, he vividly describes the Goodwin children’s fits, including having nails driven into them.
Of course, it is Cotton Mather’s job to save the children.
Massachusetts Bay Colony is the first place in America to pass laws forcing parents to teach their children to read and write. But minors are mostly considered valuable assets. As soon as they are capable, usually about twelve years old, they are put to work at home or at a trade. Families are large; Tom and Ann Putnam have twelve children. Governor Phips is one of twenty-six children—that means more young workers. Minors are often treated harshly. Survival is a constant struggle, and there is little room for sentimentality. New Englanders follow the admonition “spare the rod, spoil the child.”
Inevitably, some children turn on their parents.
After that, many parents begin looking differently at their own children. Sometimes with abject fear.
Confessed witches are often confined together in a Boston cell, where they have nothing to do but talk to each other. They quickly figure out that if they accuse others, they may avoid the noose. So the incarcerated witches provide a steady stream of new names. One of these prisoners is fourteen-year-old Abigail Hobbs; she is the youngest person to be sentenced to death.
A lot of people are pleased by Hobbs’s conviction. The teenager is out of control; she’s a “wild child,” a bad influence on other children. She is disrespectful to her parents; she mocks their Puritan values—once she threw water on her mother and yelled that she was baptizing her.
Realizing she is in grave danger, Abigail apologizes for her behavior from her Boston cell: “I have seen sights and been scared. I have been very wicked. I hope I shall be better.”
More is required if she is to live. So, almost immediately, Abigail Hobbs accuses her stepmother and father. Deliverance Hobbs confesses, but William Hobbs does not. He can’t believe his daughter would betray him like this. The Hobbs family are questioned separately: Deliverance admits her daughter and her husband are bewitched. Again, William Hobbs denies everything. “My soul is clear,” he says. Asked if his only child is a witch, he hesitates, then shakes his head and replies, “I do not know.”
Three members of the Hobbs family are convicted of witchcraft. But because of the huge backlog of cases, they are never executed. William Hobbs disappears, leaving his wife and daughter. History does not record what happens to them.
By the winter of 1692, Salem is completely devastated. Nineteen “witches” have already been executed. Scores remain in prison awaiting their probable executions.
However, the Devil has not been defeated. In fact, it looks as if he is growing stronger.