Tag Archives: Abigail Williams

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Feb 26: ACCUSED: Tituba

Today in Salem: Rev Parris thunders as if he’s behind the pulpit. Except he’s not behind the pulpit. He’s in his own kitchen, raging at Tituba, Betty, and Abigail and waving his fist in the air. You’ve opened the door to the Devil, he rages. You’ve used magic to counter-magic, and now God’s wrath will be unleashed!

Several other ministers are standing behind Rev Parris, holding their hats and looking first at Tituba, then at Betty and Abigail as the girls sob and contort their arms and legs into impossible positions. The girls have already choked out the story of the witch-cake, and now they gasp for breath, as if they’re being strangled. “It wasn’t us!” they cry. “It’s Tituba! She’s a witch!”

When Parris demands an explanation, Tituba looks at the floor and confesses to making the witch-cake. “But I am not a witch,” she says. Her owner in Barbados was a witch, she says. That’s where she’d learned how to use counter-magic. “But I am not the cause of evil. I am no witch.”

After yesterday’s visit from the doctor, Rev Parris had invited other ministers to see the girls for themselves and render their opinion. Now they’ve seen the full unraveling, and they step outside with Parris. They agree that the hand of Satan is on the children, but they still aren’t sure if it’s a witch that’s involved. “Be careful,” they say. “Don’t do anything. Just wait and see.”

Lightning

LEARN MORE: What is counter-magic? Was it good or bad?

Page from the book of Charms
The Book of Magical Charms is a handwritten book from the 17th century. It contains charms for things like healing a toothache, recovering a lost voice, and talking to spirits.

Counter-magic can be thought of as “good magic,” or superstitious behavior that prevents or protects against evil. People today practice counter-magic without even realizing it. When you hang a dreamcatcher, throw salt over your shoulder, burn sage, or whisper to a child “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” — you’re keeping evil forces at bay with counter-magic.

In the 17th century, any kind of magic was demonic. That’s what the Puritan ministers believed anyway. Lay people weren’t so sure. In the 20 years before the trials in Salem, witchcraft cases were usually dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence. This left people feeling defenseless against people they knew were witches. Something had to be done, even if it was just to protect themselves. Witch bottles were filled with urine, nails, wine, or other objects and hidden under hearths. Poppets were tucked under floorboards. Horseshoes were nailed to walls.

Those objects are sometimes uncovered in today’s archaeological digs, and can be surprisingly similar to the objects we use today – more than 300 years later.


Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne

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Feb 24: Under an evil hand: the young Betty Parris & tomboy Abigail Williams

Today in Salem: Betty and Abigail are huddling in a corner in a wild panic, gasping and wheezing and unable to speak. The stinking gum has joined the long list of herbs, seeds, roots, and all manner of strange substances that have made no difference whatsoever in the girls’ condition. Even prayer, constant prayer, hasn’t helped.

Rev Parris and his wife are at their wits’ end, and summon the only village doctor. He’s 78, and his horse walks almost as gingerly as he does. His great-niece Elizabeth Hubbard follows on her own horse and carries her uncle’s box, as far behind as is acceptable. She’s 17 and has been living with him as a servant for quite some time. He and his wife are amiable enough, and they treat Elizabeth well, but she’s a teenage girl after all, and always hungry to socialize with other girls.

The parsonage is cold, but the doctor and Elizabeth hardly notice as they turn in circles of their own, watching the spinning and convulsing girls. He grabs their arms and stumbles a little, looking into their eyes as much as he can until he proclaims what the neighbors have been whispering for weeks: The girls are under an evil hand. But why?

LEARN MORE: What were Puritan doctors like?

The Puritans believed that all things were from God: good things like bountiful crops and summer rain, and bad things like disease and affliction. When bad things happened, it wasn’t because the person was sick. It was because they’d sinned and God was displeased. So, while a doctor tried to diagnose illness, he was also asked to find and explain the sin behind the affliction.

This put doctors almost on par with ministers, and their opinions were greatly respected. In fact, sometimes they were the ministers. This could explain why doctors were so poorly trained in medical practices. There were no medical schools or programs in America. Instead, doctors practiced what they knew from British medicine, which was usually passed down through the decades and had become obsolete years before.

That said, it’s likely that the doctor in Salem had at least some medical training, because he was actually called “doctor” — a title used only for the educated — and used “feseke” (phisic, or medicine). If a person’s illness exhausted all of a doctor’s knowledge, as it did with Betty and Abigail, the sick person was sometimes said to be afflicted by an evil source.

WHO was Elizabeth Hubbard?

Elizabeth Hubbard's mark
Elizabeth Hubbard’s mark

Elizabeth lived as a servant with her great-uncle, Dr. William Griggs. She had a reputation for lying, having a strong imagination, and sometimes denied the Sabbath day.

Like many of the other young women who were servants, Elizabeth’s prospects were uncertain at best, or even non-existent. She was probably an orphan, with no physical or emotional support from direct family members. And she was a servant, with no dowry or connections.

By the end of the trial Elizabeth had testified against 32 people, 17 of whom were arrested, 13 of them hanged, and 2 who died in jail.

History isn’t clear about what happened to Elizabeth after the trials. Records exists for a woman named Elizabeth Hibbert, who married a John Bennett and had four children. But it isn’t known whether this was the same Elizabeth Hubbard. Case files: Elizabeth Hubbard

Tomorrow in Salem: Tituba bakes a witch-cake

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Feb 22: No cure for evil

Today in Salem: Rev Samuel Parris’s wife is also wrinkling her nose and breathing shallowly, trying not to inhale the stench of stinking gum. She’s tried remedy after remedy for 2 months now, trying to help her 9-year-old daughter Betty, but nothing is working. And it’s not just Betty: It’s also her 11-year-old niece Abigail Williams, who’s been living with the family since she’d lost her own parents. The girls were practically sisters.

Betty wails in the next room, and a thud quickly follows. Her crying barely stops, though, and now Abigail joins in. For weeks they’ve been sobbing, moaning, throwing things, crouching under chairs, fainting, and gasping. At times they panic so severely that they cannot breathe, and Abigail has complained constantly of a severe headache. No amount of prayer has helped, though. In fact, praying only seems to make it worse. Could it be something evil?

Today Mrs. Parris has reached the end of her list, and is mixing wine with stinking gum. Betty and Abigail’s eyes water as they drink the foul-smelling concoction, which is supposed to be as powerful as it is obnoxious. But the stench makes them choke until they gasp and fall on the floor as if they are dying.

LEARN MORE: What medicinal herbs were used as remedies for witchcraft?

Like other women of the time, Mrs. Parris would have had a “kitchen garden” that included medicinal herbs, plants, and roots. But the commonly known remedies against evil were more exotic than she would have had at hand. History doesn’t tell us what remedies she tried: only that she’d used several, and none had worked.

Asafetida soaked in wine, as described here, would have been easy to find, and was also known to counteract the “foul vapors of the uterus.”
Folklore also recommended soot or blood mixed with hartshorn (the ground up antler from a deer), blood from a male cat’s ear, dewdrops refined into dust, and amber soaked in castor oil.

Parsnip seeds soaked in wine were also thought to be among the most powerful elixirs, but Mrs. Parris would have had a great deal of trouble finding them. Parsnips were easily acquired, but to produce seed they needed to stay in the ground, unharvested for a full season. Food was too precious to let it go to seed, so it’s unlikely she tried them.

WHO was Betty Parris?

Betty was the 9-year-old daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris. She and her cousin Abigail Williams, who lived with the Parris family, were the first girls to suffer from strange fits and afflictions. Betty was the youngest of the afflicted girls and among those who accused the first three suspects. As the trials began to pick up steam, Reverend Parris grew alarmed and sent her to live with his cousin in Boston.

Betty suffered occasional fits at her new home, but was cared for and went on to lead a healthy and happy childhood. She married and had four children, two of whom she named after her siblings, and lived to the old age of 77. Case files: Betty Parris

WHO was Abigail Williams?

Abigail Williams' mark
Abigail Williams’ mark

Abigail was 11 and lived with her uncle, the Reverend Samuel Parris. History doesn’t tell us, though, who her parents were or how she came to live with the Parris family.

Abigail and her cousin Betty Parris were the first girls to suffer afflictions. Ultimately Abigail testified in 7 cases and was involved in up to 17 of the capital cases.

Abigail’s later life is also a mystery, as she disappears from the records once the trials were over. Case files: Abigail Williams 

Tomorrow in Salem: Another church truant: the fornicating Sarah Osborne