A Witch in the Family: The Salem Witch Trials Re-examined in Light of New Evidence by Stephen Hawley Martin

Author:Stephen Hawley Martin [Martin, Stephen Hawley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Oaklea Press
Published: 2017-03-29T04:30:00+00:00

Reverend Deodat Lawson Witnesses the Afflicted

On Saturday, March 19, two days before Martha Corey was scheduled to take the witness stand to be examined, the Reverend Deodat Lawson arrived in Salem Village. He’d been Salem’s minister from 1684 to 1688 and would be its visiting preacher on his visit. But he came this time for personal reasons as well. The afflicted girls had said Lawson’s wife and daughter, whom he had buried there, had been killed by witchcraft.

His writings indicate that by the time he arrived there were ten individuals who claimed to be afflicted—three girls from nine to twelve years old, Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam, and three adolescent girls—Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, and Elizabeth Hubbard. Also, there were four married women, Goodwives Putnam, Pope, Bibber, and Goodall.

Reverend Lawson conducted both the morning and the afternoon services on Sunday, March 20, during which several of the afflicted persons were present. Lawson wrote that they had fits during the first service, which interrupted him during his first prayer. After psalm was sung, Abigail Williams said to Lawson, “Now stand up and name your text.” This was hardly something you’d expect from an eleven-year-old girl, especially in a seventeenth century Puritan church.

After the text was read Abigail piped up again. “It is a long text,” she said.

At the outset of his sermon, Goodwife Pope, one of the now afflicted adults, said, “Now there is enough of that!”

And in the afternoon service, Abigail Williams told him when he referred to his doctrine—she knew of no doctrine he had.

“If you did name one I have forgot it,” she said.

Goodwife Corey was present in the meeting house, and during the sermon. Abigail Williams called out, “Look where Goodwife Corey sits on the beam, suckling her yellow bird between her fingers.”

Then Ann Putnam Junior said a yellow bird was sitting on the preacher’s hat where it hung on a pin in the pulpit.

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