Today in Salem: The minister George Burroughs is pacing in his room, hugging a Bible to his chest. In deference to his status as a man of God, four judges are questioning him in his tavern room before taking him to court.
Two of the judges are newly arrived from Boston, and they are a study in contrasts. While Samuel Sewall’s soft face and open expression look kindly at Burroughs, William Stoughton, with his sharp nose and permanent frown, is zeroing in on the smallest incriminating detail. Now, with the Salem judges Hathorne and Corwin, they tick down the list of rumors that have exploded in every tavern, home, and even the Meeting House.
Some of them are true, Burroughs admits. He hasn’t taken communion, though he’s had several chances. His oldest five children are baptized – but not the youngest three. And he would never be cruel to any of his wives. Never. And is his house full of ghosts, as rumored? the judges ask. Just toads, Burroughs says. No ghosts.
The judges are expressionless as they take him to the mayhem of court, where the afflicted girls are tormented as they offer a flood of details. He wasn’t just cruel to his wives – he murdered them, they say. He has poppets. He works with the Devil, not for him, and gives the Devil’s communion to other witches.
Three military men say they’d heard from others that Burroughs has lifted a heavy gun with one arm. They’d also heard the story about the barrel of molasses. The judges admit the testimonies, including the hearsay, into evidence. With three women who’ve also been indicted today, the judges send Burroughs back to confinement for future trial.
WHY is this important? Burroughs was a Puritan minister, whose role was to promote God’s glory while growing and protecting his flock. For weeks before today, though, the afflicted girls had reported several dramatic visions of a giant gathering of witches in the pasture next to the parsonage. There, 40 or more witches were partaking in a feast that mocked the Lord’s Supper, where they consumed red bread and red liquid, perhaps blood.
Organizing it was the specter of George Burroughs, who delivered a sermon reminding the witches of their one obligation: to help replace God’s church with the Devil’s. And, just to cement Burroughs’ authority, the Devil himself had proclaimed that Burroughs would be the King of Hell.
It was the greatest treason imaginable: that a minister of God’s church would partner with the Devil to destroy it.
It was the real-life Burroughs in particular, though, who was at the crystallized heart of it. 30% of the people accused of witchcraft were either ministers, related to ministers, or somehow connected to ministers. Burroughs, though, was the former minister of Salem, who had left a trail of bad feelings in his wake. Since Salem was the source of the witchcraft explosion, who would be more suspicious than a former minister with a grudge?
Burroughs’ appearance in court today meant the judges had snared the linchpin; the person at the very center of the Devil’s plans. It’s no wonder that more people attended his hearing than any other: His capture was electrifying, sensational, and scandalous all at the same time.
WHO was Samuel Sewall?
Age 40. He was a printer and local politician when he was appointed to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which was created by the governor to try the witchcraft cases. Sewall is perhaps best remembered as a diarist who kept a journal throughout his adult life. His diary during the Witchcraft Trials is one of the most important documents we have, as it isn’t a court record as much as personal observations.
Five years after the Trials, Sewall stood before the congregation of the South Church in Boston while the Rev. Samuel Willard read his confession.
Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the Guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem (to which the order of this Day relates) he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame and shame of it, Asking pardon of men, And especially desiring prayers that God, who has an Unlimited Authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins; personal and Relative.
Sewall was an early abolitionist, and wrote The Selling of Joseph, the first anti-slavery tract published in New England.
Samuel Sewall died in 1730, at age 77. His grave can be found in the Sewall family tomb at Boston’s Granary Burying Ground. Case files: Samuel Sewall
WHO was William Stoughton?
A 61-year-old magistrate in Boston who began his powerful role in the Trials by helping with Salem’s local examinations. When the Governor arrived from England to find an explosion of witchcraft hysteria, he created a new court that was responsible for trials and executions, and appointed Stoughton as Chief Justice.
Stoughton’s approach was controversial because he accepted “spectral evidence” — testimony that a person’s specter had committed evil-doing, not the person themselves. His acceptance of spectral evidence was at least partly responsible for every single execution.
After the 19th hanging, the governor reorganized the courts and told Stoughton to disregard spectral evidence. As a result, many cases were dismissed due to a lack of evidence, and the governor vacated the few that weren’t. He also stopped the executions of several pregnant defendants who’d been convicted before the courts were reorganized. Stoughton, feeling angry and undermined, briefly quit the Court in protest.
Before and after the Trials, Stoughton was the acting governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court for the rest of his life. Unlike some of the other magistrates, Stoughton never admitted that he’d made a mistake in accepting spectral evidence, nor did he apologize for his role in the Trials.
The town of Stoughton, Massachusetts is named after him. Case files: William Stoughton