4. There is a Witchduck Lane off Lynnhaven Bay in Princess Anne County, Virginia, and a nearby neighborhood is referred to on Google Maps as Salem. Data retrieved March 10, 2012.
5. “Uxor” is Latin for “wife.”
6. Original document reads “Differr,” and might imply that the jury of women is to ascertain if Grace Sherwood’s body has any marked differences from what is expected, which might determine that she is a witch.
7. Anew, that is, to have Grace Sherwood examined again.
8. To look for “images and such like things” suggests that the court wanted Sherwood’s house searched for poppets and other examples of image magic.
9. The first jury of women assembled to search Grace Sherwood for teats actually refused to do so and were then charged with contempt.
10. Grace is to be tossed into water “above a man’s depth” and have her ability to float gauged. However, care is to be taken to keep her from drowning.
11. Grace Sherwood is ducked and searched and found guilty, but instead of being hanged, is committed to prison. By 1705/6 witches were no longer the mortal threat that they had been a mere decade earlier.
MOB JUSTICE IN THE SOUTH, 1712
1. Excerpted from Samuel G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England and Elsewhere in the United States from Their First Settlement. Originally published in New York, 1869, 215–16.
LITTLETON, MASSACHUSETTS, 1720
1. Excerpted from Thomas Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts-Bay, vol. II. Originally published in Boston, 1767, 20–22.
2. Proverbs 19:5, “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.”
3. The key word here being credulity, not only of the girls’ parents, but also of the neighbors who diagnosed witchcraft in the first place. As an explanatory category, witchcraft has persisted to 1720, even though Hutchinson would have his readers see this account as an example of the fallacy of belief in it.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 1728
1. The First Great Awakening was a period of religious revival that took place in the North American colonies from the 1730s until the early 1740s. Whereas ministers of Samuel Parris’s generation delivered intellectual sermons that were dense in their theological underpinnings and argumentation, the leaders of the First Great Awakening emphasized an emotional experience of faith for their congregations.
2. Excerpted from The Weekly News-Letter, Boston, MA, no. 97, October 31, 1728, 1–2.
3. The most popular contemporary representation of the diagnosis of witchcraft via weight doubtless occurs in a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), in which a suspected witch is weighed against a duck, which, if they weigh the same, would mean she floats in water, and is therefore guilty of witchcraft. She is found guilty and hauled away to her death, commenting, “It’s a fair cop.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 1737
1. Excerpted from The New-York Weekly Journal, New York, NY, no. 214, December 12, 1737, 1.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 1741
1. The best account of this grim episode in the history of colonial New York is found in Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth Century Manhattan (New York: Vintage, 2006).
2. Excerpted from The New England Weekly Journal, September 29, 1741, 1–2.
3. Latin for “Though the name changes, the moral stays the same.”
4. The idea of witchcraft as an impossible act underscores what the writer sees as the unreason of the position that a group of conspirators should be responsible for burning the city. Witchcraft has transformed into a rhetorical device, one that will persist well into the twenty-first century, to denote unreason, paranoia, and irrational fear.
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, 1787
1. Excerpted from Old Whig, From the Independent Gazetteer, &c. (Philadelphia, 1787).
2. Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
MOLL PITCHER, LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, 1738–1813
1. For more on the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century, see Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Vintage, 1992).
2. Excerpted from Samuel G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England and Elsewhere in the United States from Their First Settlement. Originally published in New York, 1869, xliv–xlvii.
3. High Rock is now marked by a tower within a state park in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.
Aires, Samuel, 165
Alexander VI, Pope, 46
Allington, Giles, 50, 51, 251n
Andrews, Ann, 189–90
Andrews, James, 176
Anthony, Allan, 59
Apollonius Tyaneus, 203–4
Aquendero (chief Sachem), 207
Ayres, Widow, 71
Baker, Thomas, 59
Barber, William, 54
Barnes, Elizabeth, 216
Batcheler, John, 198
Bellomont, Earl of, 207
Benedict VII, Pope, 46
Best, John, 165
Beylie, Alice, 52, 251n
Bibber, Goodwife, 170, 171, 172, 180
Bibber, John, 170, 172
Bible, 3–5, 31, 149, 178, 221, 228, 240n, 243n, 244n, 247n, 276n, 280n
Bishop, Bridget, 166, 195, 274n
examination of, 167–68, 274n
Bishop, Sarah, 274n
Blasdell, Harry, 72
Boddie, John Bennett, 250n
Bodin, Jean, 280n
Bonah, Maxmt., 217
Booking, Jane, 85
Book of New England Legends and Folklore in Prose and Poetry, A (Drake), 257n
Booth, Sergeant, 51
Boulton, Nathaniel, 64–65
Boulton family, 255n
Bowen, Elizabeth, 54
Bowen, Thomas, 54
Boyer, Paul, 125–26, 266n, 268n
Bracketts, Captain, 175
Bradbury, Thomas, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68
Bradstreet, Simon, 74
Brattle, Thomas, 193, 194
Braybrook, Samuel, 167, 170
Brentius, Johan, 17
Bridges, Ann, 216
Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft, A (Lawson), 275n
Brigham, John, 163
Brown, Charles, 71, 73, 258n
Bulkley, Mr., 101
Burchard, Henry, 236
Burgess, Mary, 216
Burnham, Nathaniel, 163
Burro, Beno, 215
Burroughs, George, 189, 203, 213, 275n, 280n
Hobbs’s accusation against, 173–77, 276n
Hubbard’s statement against, 182–83
Burroughs, Goodwife, 173, 174, 176–77
Burroughs, J. J., 219
Butten, Mathias, 78
Buxton, Jane, 90
Buxton, John, 168
Calef, Robert, 169, 199–206, 275n, 280n
Carrier, Martha, 186, 213, 278n
examination of, 186–88
Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men (I. Mather), 193
Chandler, Susan, 85
Chapman, Henry, 215, 216, 217, 218
Charles II, King of England, 59, 85, 260n
Cheevers, Ezekiel, 139, 150, 270n, 271n
Churchill, Sarah, 189–90
Clifford, Jon, 68
Clifford, Sarah, 67
Clinton, Laurence, 162, 164
Clinton, Rachel, 273n–74n
Knowlton’s deposition on, 164–65
warrant for, 162–63
Cobbet, Mr., 108
Cobby, Goodman, 73
Cole, Anne, 79–82
Cole, Eunice, 62–68, 70, 255n, 256n–57n, 266n
complaint against, 62–63
depositions against, 63–68
judgment of, 68
Cole, John, 79
Cole, William, 63
Coleman, Mary, 64–65
Coleman, Thomas, 65, 66
Colonial Surry (Boddie), 250n
Corbmaker (old woman), 233
Cornick, John, 215, 216, 217, 218
Corwin, Jonathan, 129, 131, 133, 156, 161, 167, 169, 185, 270n
Cory, Deliverance, 272n
Cory, Giles, 149, 150–51, 154, 156, 169, 272n
examination of, 169–72, 275n
Cory, Martha, 149, 157, 169, 178, 182, 271n, 275n
examination of, 150–56, 271n–72n
Cotle, Mary, 216
Court of Oyer and Terminer, 184–85, 193, 195
Cowman, John, 112
Crosby, Henry, 272n
Crucible, The (Miller), 270n
Cullender, Rose, 85, 90, 91
Cullick, Captain, 94
Currin, Mr., 138
Cushing, J. P., 214
Daemonologie (James I), 16, 30–40, 244n–48n, 276n
Dalton, Samuel, 67, 68
Dane, John, 198
Daniel (char.), 23–29, 243n
Daniels, Cora Linn, 242n–43n
Darcy, Brian, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Darlington, Oscar G., 250n
Davies, Owen, 239n
Davis, Ephraim, 71
Davis, James, 71
Davis, Winifred, 216
Dawson, Thomas, 238n
Decanniffore (Onondaga Indian), 207
De Mill, Anthonio, 59
Deming, Sarah, 93
Demos, John Putnam, 256n, 258n, 273n–74n
Denny, Amy (Amy Duny), 85, 86, 87–91, 260n–61n
Devil, xiii, 17, 18, 20, 21, 50, 66, 70, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 81–82, 91, 112, 202–3, 207, 220, 225, 228, 230, 265n
ability to assume shape of innocent person of, 61, 157, 178, 193, 194, 254n
absolute belief in, 182–83, 263n
covenants with, 81, 84, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104–6, 109, 111, 120, 145–47, 148, 154, 155, 159, 167, 170, 176, 189–90, 194, 200, 201, 212–13, 262n, 263n, 270n, 271n, 272n, 280n
in Daemonologie, 30–31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 244n, 245n, 246n, 247n, 248n
in Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 243n
in Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 42, 44, 45, 46, 249n, 250n
in Knapp possession, 95–111, 114, 262n, 263n
in Salem witch trials, 125, 126, 132, 133, 135–39, 140, 141, 145–48, 149, 152, 154, 155, 157, 159–60, 164, 165, 167, 170, 173, 174, 176, 178, 180, 182–83, 186, 187, 189–90, 195, 210, 211, 212–13, 268n, 269n, 271n, 272n, 275n, 276n, 277n, 278n, 280n
speaking through others by, 97, 98, 107–8, 109, 110–11
Tituba’s description of, 132, 141, 269n, 278n
Devil in Massachusetts, The (Starkey), 267n
Devil in the Shape of a Woman, The (Karlsen), 126, 255n, 257n, 261n
Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft, A (Gifford), 22–29, 241n–43n
Dimis, Hannah, 216
Dimond, John, Jr., 235
Dimond, John, Sr., 235
Discouerie of Witchcraft, The (Scot), 7, 15–21, 240n–41n
Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, A (Perkins), 41–46, 132, 248n–50n
Dolman, Mrs., 93
Dow, Henry, 63, 64
Drake, Abraham, 66, 255n
Drake, Robert, 66
Drake, Samuel, 257n
Durent, Ann, 85
Durent, Dorothy, 85–88
Durent, Elizabeth, 85, 87–88
Durent, William, 85–87
Durston, Gregory, 237n–38n
Dutton, Samuel, 67
Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 7, 41
Elliott, Andrew, 198
Encyclopaedia of Superstitions (Daniels and Stevans, eds.), 242n–43n
English, William, 63
Entertaining Satan (Demos), 256n, 258n, 273n–74n
Epistemon (char.), 31, 32–40, 245n
Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, An (I. Mather), 95
Estabrooke, Mr., 101
Eve, 37, 246n, 249n
Evelith, Joseph, 198
Everyday Life in Early America (Hawke), 269n
Faith No More, 256n
Feavor, Dr., 89
Felgate, Mr., 51
Ferrall, John, 18–19
Fisk, Thomas, Jr., 198
Fisk, Thomas, Sr., 198
Fiske, William, 198
Fits, Richard, 163
Foster, Ann, 213
Fowler, Rebecca, 112–13, 264n
Francis, Joan, 92–93
Frazer, James George, 242n
Fuller, Joseph, 163
Fuller, Lieutenant, 138
Fuller, Mary (junior), 163
Fuller, Mary (senior), 163
Fuller, William, 63
Garland, John, 59
Garret, Goodwife, 93
Gaul, Mr., 205
Gedney, Bartholomew, 185
Gidney, Major, 171
Gifford, George, 22–29, 241n–43n, 244n, 248n, 249n, 250n, 252n
Glover, Goodwife, 114–21, 264n–65n
execution of, 121
imprisonment of, 117–18, 119–21
trial of, 118–19, 264n
Goddard, Jon, 65
Goddard, Sarah, 216
Godfrey, John, 70–78, 258n, 259n, 260n
court list of witnesses against, 71
testimonies against, 71–77
trial verdict for, 77–78
Goff, Phillip, 94
Gold, Benjamin, 170
Gold, Nathan, 72, 73
Gold, Thomas, 171, 275n
Golden Bough, The (Frazer), 242n
Good, Sarah, 135, 166, 174, 211, 265n–66n, 267n–68n, 271n, 272n
examination of, 132, 133–35
in Tituba’s confession, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143–44, 145, 147, 148, 270n
warrant for, 127–28
Good, William, 128, 129, 135, 168, 268n
Goodwin, John, 114, 115, 117, 210
Gould, Nathan, 72
Gragg, Larry, 41
Gray, Rebecca, 51, 251n
Greensmith, Goody, 94
Greensmith, Nathaniel, 79
Greensmith, Rebecca, 79
Griggs, William, 143, 144, 266n, 270n
Griswold, Michael, 93
Haart, Bethazar D., 59
Haggai (prophet), 18
Haile, Mary, 93, 262n
Hale, John, 56–57, 84, 193, 209–13, 253n, 281n–82n
Hale, Matthew, 85, 212
Hall, David, 254n–55n, 258n, 259n, 260n, 275n
Hall, Mary, 58–59, 60–61, 253n, 254n
Hall, Ralph, 58–61, 253n, 254n
Hancock, George, 215, 216, 217
Harper, Jonathan, 218
Harris, Thomas, 51
Harrison, Katherine, 92–94, 262n
Hathorne, John, 129, 131, 185
Bishop examination by, 167–68, 274n
Giles Cory examination by, 169–72, 275n
Good examination by, 133–34
Martha Cory examination by, 150–56, 271n, 272n
Nurse examination by, 158??
?61, 273n
Osburn examination by, 135–36
Tituba examination by, 136–39
Hawke, David Freeman, 269n
Hayne, Thomas, 71–73
Haynes, Joseph, 81
Helmet, Mr., 59
Henley, Ursula, 216
Herrick, Henry, 198
Herrick, Joseph, 131
Herrick, Marshal, 166
Heseltine, John, 71
Heseltine, Jane, 71
Hibbens, Ann, 257n
Higgins, Ann (Ann Huggins), 66–67, 68
Hill, Luke, 215, 216, 217, 218
Hinnom, 5
Historical Collections of Virgnia (Howe), 282n
History of Massachusetts-Bay (Hutchinson), 283n
History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, The (Hutchinson), 221–23
Hobbs, Abigail, 173–77, 276n
Hobbs, Deliverance, 212–13
Holdred, Isabell, 71, 72–73
Holdridge, Goodwife, 71–72
Homer, 204
Hooker, Samuel, 81
Horace, 204
Howe, Henry, 282n
Howen (Glover neighbor), 119
Hubbard, Elizabeth, 138, 139, 143, 145, 159, 161, 167, 170, 179, 180, 187, 266n, 269n, 270n, 273n
statement against Burroughs of, 182–83
Hubert, Elizabeth, 128, 131
Hughes (Glover neighbor), 119–20
Hutcheson, Joseph, 128, 130
Hutchinson, John, 168
Hutchinson, Thomas, 221–23, 283n
Hutton, Ronald, 237n
Icarus, 281n
In the Devil’s Snare (Norton), 126, 266n, 267n, 268n, 274n
Ingersoll, Joseph, 174
Ingersoll, Nathaniel, 129, 131
Ingersoll, Sarah, 189–90
Jacob, Doctor, 86, 260n
Jacobs, George, Sr., 189
James, Jane, 53–54
James I, King of England, 16, 22, 30–40, 84, 220, 226, 228, 244n–48n, 249n, 250n, 263n, 276n
James II, King of England, 278n
Jesus Christ, 17, 18, 34, 37, 40, 57, 72, 91, 105, 107, 120, 200, 245n, 247n, 249n, 265n
Job, 31, 38, 39, 240n, 248n
John Indian (Tituba’s husband), 178, 179, 180, 281n
Johnson, Goodwife, 93
John XX, Pope, 46
John XXI, Pope, 46
Jones, Margaret, 55–57, 252n–53n
Jones, Thomas, 51