Elizabeth How’s daughter is galloping by horse to Salem jail. Her father sits behind her. He’s fully blind, and his daughter has been bringing him to the jail twice a week to visit his wife.
As usual he has a leather bag of bread and butter for Elizabeth, plus money to pay her jail fees. Next time he’ll be empty-handed. What will he say? What can he say, except he’ll visit again, one more time?
Today in Salem: The beggar Sarah Good is pleading with the pregnant Elizabeth Proctor for help. Sarah has always been an angry beggar, as likely to throw a stone as she is to say thank you. But today is different. She will be hanged in five days, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter Dorcas, who is also in jail. Will Elizabeth care for the little girl after Sarah is taken away? Make sure she eats? sleeps? says her prayers?
Sarah has chosen Elizabeth carefully. Being pregnant, Elizabeth is unlikely to be hanged soon. And, unlike most of the women there, she still has young children, and will know the needs of a four-year-old.
Still, Elizabeth hesitates. Dorcas hasn’t once left her mother’s side, hissing and scratching at anyone who draws near. A bite of bread, a wink, a scrap of string – nothing quiets or tempts her. What else can Elizabeth do, though? She gives a small nod. The girl will eat when she’s hungry and sleep when she’s tired. Prayers are unimaginable except on the little girl’s behalf, but Elizabeth can at least do that.
Meanwhile, a few doors down, the Governor is inhaling the aromas of roast fowl and boiled turnips, drumming his fingers on the table and bouncing his knee. He’s still giddy from yesterday’s military displays, impatient and eager to go north to fight the enemies on the frontier.
A feast extends from the head of the table, where he’s sitting, and ends at the other end, where the ponderous Chief Justice Stoughton sits, as still as the Governor is fidgety. Raucous men line each side, guffawing and drunk on rum. It’s a public thanksgiving, declared by the Governor, with gratitude to God for his recent safe return from London, recent victories over the war-mongering French and Indians, and so many other personal blessings in his life.
Tomorrow in Salem: SAYING GOODBYE: the neighborly Elizabeth How receives a visitor
Today in Salem: Governor William Phips is looking down from a small hill in Boston Common, bouncing on his toes, gleeful with anticipation. Eight companies of militia — hundreds of men — are performing military drills below, preparing to fight the French and their Indian allies. He closes his eyes and listens, feels his heart beating in time with their march. Left, right, left, right.
The witchcraft trials and hangings are little more than a mosquito buzzing, an occasional distraction that the Governor has little time and patience for. While men from Salem have been nattering on about someone – Rebecca? Hannah? — the Governor has been attending to the far more enjoyable task of organizing a war expedition to Maine, one he will lead himself.
He’s appointed committees to arrange for food and supplies, and will set sail as soon as the warships are ready. He’ll stay in Maine for as long as it takes to defeat the enemy, trusting his second in command, Chief Justice Stoughton, to deal with smaller problems like Salem.
Tomorrow in Salem: BEGGING and FEASTING: the beggar Sarah Good and Governor Phips
Today in Salem: Revoked. Rebecca Nurse’s reprieve has been revoked. Chief Justice Stoughton unfolds the letter and skims the formalities until he sees the sentence that matters: In their Maj’ties name William & Mary now King & Queen over England etc. you are commanded to cause Rebecca Nurse to be hanged by the neck until she be dead.
The letter is written in someone else’s hand, but it’s the Governor’s signature and wax seal. Someone – who? – has convinced him to undo his earlier decision. No more waiting. With a steady and firm hand, Stoughton signs a warrant for the executions of all five women:
the beggar Sarah Good
the now-friendless Elizabeth How
the sharp-tongued Susanna Martin
the rebellious and flamboyant Sarah Wilds
and finally, the beloved Rebecca Nurse
They will be hanged one week from today.
Today in Salem: Two men take their hats off as they enter the governor’s office. They’ve taken the entire day away from their farms to ride to Boston and back for this 5-minute conversation.
In the week since she was reprieved, they say, Rebecca Nurse’s specter has defiantly tormented the afflicted girls, gleeful that the governor was blind to the truth. The reprieve should be revoked, and these letters say why. The men unfold them on the desk, the paper crackling.
The governor skims the letters and thinks for a moment. He’s about to lead hundreds of militia into Maine to fight the French and Indians, and he’s too busy with preparations to be concerned with one case from an outlying village. Fine, yes. He revokes the reprieve and waves them away.
Tomorrow in Salem: REVOKED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse’s fate changes
Today in Salem: The prison is dark and awash in the overwhelming smells of dung and filth. But while the other women lie in the dirty hay or lean against the cold walls, the flamboyant and rebellious Sarah Wilds manages to sashay even as she paces.
The beloved Rebecca Nurse has been reprieved. But Sarah has no illusions about her own fate. She is too pretty, too eager for love. She touches her neck, thinking about the noose that surely awaits her, and the silk scarf she’d worn many years ago. The judges had been so self-righteous about that scarf! But she’d confessed and accepted punishment for it, just as she had for other offenses, even fornication.
She turns and paces back to the other wall. It’s a rich irony, and a difficult choice. If she confesses to witchcraft, like her other sins, the judges will spare her life. If she doesn’t confess, if she clings to innocence, she will die.
Live with a lie? Or die professing innocence? She touches her neck again. She has always told the truth, even when she’s broken the law. And she would confess if she was guilty. But this time she’s innocent. It’s the truth.
Tomorrow in Salem: REVOKED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse’s reprieve
Today in Salem: The sharp-tongued Susannah Martin rubs the inside corners of her eyes and breathes shakily. She’s hardly slept the last two nights.
This is the second time she’s been found guilty of witchcraft. But the first time – more than 20 years ago – the charges were dismissed. Couldn’t that happen again? Especially since Rebecca Nurse has been reprieved?
It’s been nine days since Susannah’s trial, and each day it’s more clear: The answer is no. She and Rebecca Nurse are the same age, but they couldn’t be more different. Where Rebecca is soft-spoken, Susannah is forthright and even rude. Rebecca’s long membership in the church is a rebuke to Susannah, who rarely goes. Rebecca is still cared for by a well-respected husband. Susannah is a widow.
Susannah has no regrets. She’d tried being a good Puritan, but it was like wearing a cap that was too tight. God has already ordained whether she is saved or damned, and nothing she says or does will make a difference. Why put on a show? Why constrict herself?
Tomorrow in Salem: LIFE OR DEATH: the rebellious Sarah Wilds
Today in Salem: The now-friendless Elizabeth How bunches her petticoats under her bruised knees and kneels to pray once again on the jail’s brick floor.
She’s been fasting and praying nearly every moment since she was condemned eight days ago. She knows she must die. God has ordained it. But she doesn’t know when, and the waters are rising fast around her. She has very little time to remove the stone in her heart, to prepare to meet God in peace.
So she prays to understand the judges, who were so quick to believe her accusers. Twelve people have testified on her behalf. How can the judges not see that she is innocent? Why hasn’t she been reprieved, like the beloved Rebecca Nurse?
She prays for the afflicted girls, who, for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, have turned on her so fiercely. Some of them are children, past the age of reason, but children nonetheless. Some are older, and seem to delight in their false accusations. Why? What has she done to wrong them?
Most of all, she prays for her neighbors, who’ve been so convinced for so long that she has hurt them. They are grieving for their young daughter, of course, and perhaps they are too afraid to blame God. But why her?
She cannot make sense of it. But she also cannot meet God with a hardened heart. So she stays on her bruised knees, hungry, seeking forgiveness.
Tomorrow in Salem: RESIGNED: the sharp-tongued Susannah Martin
Today in Salem: The beggar Sarah Good is holding her clay pipe close and peering into its bowl, turning it slowly. She’s had no tobacco for weeks, not so much as a fleck. She was hungry for it at first; hungrier than she was for food. But now she just misses its comfort.
She brings the bowl to her nose and inhales gently. The faint scent of tobacco is too wispy to fill her lungs, but it’s still there. She thinks about her life before prison. Was it really any better than this? Back then she’d had to beg for tobacco, never mind food, clothes, and sometimes even a place to sleep. And not just for herself, but her children, too.
Baby Mercy is gone now. But who will look out for Dorcas? She’s only 4 and in prison, too, having confessed to being a witch herself. Her father is a drunkard and a rogue, and once Sarah has met with the hangman, who will protect the girl from the same fate?
Sarah hits the pipe against the stone wall. She can barely bring herself to think about Rebecca Nurse’s reprieve. Rebecca has kin who are fighting for her. She has a long history with the church, and respect from her neighbors. Sarah has none of those things. She hits the pipe again, harder this time. It’s old, made of clay, and well used. But it doesn’t break. It never will.
Today in Salem: The Reverend Cotton Mather stands in the door of his Boston church and stares, unspeaking, at the charred ruins just one block away. It was midnight last night when a blazing fire had escaped from the hearth in a nearby tavern, burned through its wooden walls, then rode on glowing embers to some twenty other buildings nearby. Men shouted through the smoke and passed water in leather buckets from hand to hand, until finally, mercifully, the fire was gone.
Rev Cotton Mather had despaired of the church, built of wood and only one street away from the fire. So he’d risen early this morning, forgoing his usual bread and cheese, and hurried to the church, prepared for destruction. But, except for a sharp smell that permeates the walls, the benches, and even the pulpit, it’s been spared.
What does it mean? Cotton pauses and says a silent prayer of gratitude for God’s protection. But still he wonders. Why would God allow a fire to burn so closely to the church, and yet not harm it? Is it a warning? What evil is creeping toward him and his flock?
Cotton looks to the sky, where ashes float like soft gray snow, swirling as the air is stirred. He can taste them, feel them in his throat, his eyes, his nostrils. He turns away and enters the church. The ashes will be gone by Sabbath day, he’s certain. But the acrid smell will stay.
WHO was Cotton Mather?
The Reverend Cotton Mather was 29 at the time of the trials, and one of the most conservative and influential Puritan ministers in colonial America. He’s remembered today for setting the extreme moral tone of Puritan New England, for his prolific writing (more than 450 books and pamphlets), and for his scholarship in science. He’s also known for his involvement in the events surrounding the Salem Witchcraft Trials.
Little is written about Cotton Mather’s severe stutter as a child and young man, and although he claimed to have been cured, it’s more likely that he learned to mask it. In public he was a careful and deliberative speaker. When not in the pulpit, he was quiet, which only added to his reputation of arrogance. Regardless, his speech defect might be one reason he was such a prolific writer. It could also explain his deep interest in science as an alternative career to the ministry.
Three years before the Trials, when he was 26, Mather published a book about several afflicted children who were bewitched by a local washerwoman. Mather himself had been deeply involved with the families, observing and recording the children’s activities, and played a role in the washerwoman’s ultimate hanging. Some say the book helped lay the groundwork for the Salem Witchcraft Trials.
Mather was highly influential in the ministry, offered conflicting and calamitous advice about using specters as evidence, and publicized (and even celebrated) the trials as they were happening. He witnessed at least 5 hangings, calling one accused woman a ”rampant hag,” and an accused minister a “puny man.“ Later he congratulated the Chief Justice for “extinguishing as wonderful a piece of devilism as has been seen in the world.”
Cotton Mather never expressed remorse or regret for his role in the witchcraft hysteria. In fact, for several years after the trials, he continued to defend them and seemed to hold out a hope for their return.
In a more scholarly vein, he went on to make legitimate contributions to the sciences of plant hybridization and disease inoculation, and became a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He promoted Newtonian science in America, and wrote extensively to unify the fields of science, philosophy, and religion.
Cotton Mather died 36 years after the trials. He was twice widowed, and only two of his 15 children outlived him. His grave can be found in the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in Boston. Case files: Cotton Mather