An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts and Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions / Also, an Account of the Witchcraft Delusion at Salem, in 1692

Author:James Thacher [Thacher, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

John Willard was another who suffered about the same time. He had been employed in looking up witches, but at last refusing to fetch in more, as he deemed it unjust, he was accused. He at first made his escape to a distance of forty miles, but was overtaken and condemned. Giles Corey, aged about 80 years, was brought to trial, but refused to plead, being unwilling to be tried by a jury that cleared no one; he was therefore pressed to death. When in the agonies of death, the victim thrust out his tongue, and the officer pushed it into his mouth with his cane. This was the first, and I believe the only one, who was pressed to death in New England, though there had been examples of it in Old England. Corey’s wife suffered at the gallows, where she made an eminent prayer.

September 22d, eight were executed, the horse carrying them together in a cart to the gallows, failed for a short time, and the accusers said the devil hindered it; but it may be asked, if he had power to arrest the cart for a moment, why not stop it altogether, and prevent the executions? But they shew no signs of confidence or hope in his power to save them. One Wardwell, having formerly confessed himself guilty and afterwards denied it, was brought upon his trial. His former confession and spectre evidence were adduced against him; but his own wife and daughter accused him and saved themselves. ‘There are,’ says Hutchinson, ‘many instances of children accusing their parents, and some, of parents accusing their children. This is the only instance of a wife or husband accusing one the other, and surely this instance ought not to have been suffered. I shudder while I relate it.’ Besides these irregularities, there were others in the course of these trials. At the execution of Wardwell, while he was speaking to the people, protesting his innocence, the executioner being at the same time smoking his pipe, the smoke coming in his face interrupted his discourse, the accusers said the devil hindered him with smoke.

Mrs English was a woman of superior mind, and an excellent education; but was thought not to be very condescending or charitable to the poor; and by some of them she was accused of witchcraft. The officer read to her the warrant in the evening, and guards were placed round her house. In the morning, after attending the devotions of the family, she kissed her children with great composure, proposed her plan of education, and took leave of them, and told the officer she was ready to die, being confident that would be her fate. After being examined, she was by indulgence committed to custody in a public house, where her husband frequently visited her, and this occasioned an accusation against him. Being a man of large property, a merchant in Salem, and having considerable influence, he fortunately obtained permission to be confined with his wife in a prison in Boston, till the time of trial.

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