Tag Archives: Mary Warren

by

Aug 4: GUILTY: John and Elizabeth Proctor

Today in Salem: The harsh John Proctor and his pregnant wife Elizabeth are standing trial.

Most of the testimony against John is from the afflicted girls, especially his servant Mary Warren. She’s been accusing him for months, but today her testimony carries more weight. Until now she’s been flip-flopping, sometimes saying she’s being tormented by specters, and sometimes confessing to witchcraft herself. Now she’s saying both at the same time – that she’s afflicted and she’s a witch herself. It’s hard for the judges to argue with that.

John wills his heartbeat to slow down as he presents his last chance. A few days ago, the governor denied his request for more thought, and the ministers from Boston have declined to witness his trial. Now he hands two petitions to the judges; an affidavit signed by 32 friends and family who knew him growing up, and a letter signed by 20 other people, saying none of them has ever suspected the Proctors of witchcraft.

The opinion of 52 people doesn’t outweigh the complaints of the afflicted girls and sickly neighbors. John is declared guilty.

Elizabeth’s accusers are more numerous: the afflicted girls complain about torment and even murder, and one neighbor tells sensational stories of shrieking and fighting at the Proctor home. So it’s no surprise that Elizabeth is declared guilty.

Elizabeth puts a hand on her stomach and pleads for a delay. “I’m with child,” she says. “Please.” It doesn’t change the verdict, but the judges do postpone her execution until after she gives birth.

Tomorrow in Salem: GUILTY: the minister George Burroughs

by

May 12: CLOSING RANKS: the afflicted girls snare the shrew Alice Parker and the healer Ann Pudeator

red and white flowers

Today in Salem: 12yo Ann Putnam and 11yo Abigail Williams are rubbing the palms of their hands where yesterday pins had stabbed them and drawn blood. It was day two of George Jacobs Sr.’s examination, but it didn’t last long. The afflicted girls were convulsing as always, but when Ann and Abigail suddenly screamed and found bloody pins stuck in their hands, the judges quickly ended it and sent Jacobs to jail.

They’d spent the rest of yesterday questioning George Jacobs Sr.’s granddaughter, Margaret. She’d been afflicted for a time, then was “cured.” Now the other girls have accused her of witchcraft – just as they had two other girls. Confess, the judges had said. Confess and save your life. Did they mean her spiritual life, as some would say later? It didn’t matter. Out of pure terror, Margaret confessed. She also agreed with everything else the judges said, accusing her grandfather Jacobs and several others.

That was yesterday. Now, this morning, Ann and Abigail’s hands still itch and sting from the pins. But two more sudden arrests and examinations take up the day.

The shrew Alice Parker is known to scold her husband publicly, and to faint without warning. Now the judges hear testimony from the Proctor’s servant Mary Warren and George Jacobs’ granddaughter Margaret Jacobs. Alice denies the accusations, and says she wishes the earth would open up and swallow her if one word of it is true. The judges send her to jail instead.

The elderly healer Ann Pudeator is a well-to-do widow who’s suspiciously good at her trade. Now the servant Mary Warren accuses Ann’s specter of killing her two husbands, throwing a man from a cherry tree just by looking at him, and trying to bewitch the magistrates’ horses to prevent their reaching court in Salem Village. Ann is also sent immediately to jail.

Meanwhile, the constable can’t find former deputy John Willard anywhere. He’s been carrying Willard’s arrest warrant with him for two days now.

WHY is this important?

Right now there are two broad groups of people: those who are protesting against the witchcraft hysteria (citizens and family members), and those who are pushing back (judges and accusers). The harder one group pushes, the harder the other pushes back.

Everyone knew that George Jacobs Sr. had disrupted a town meeting and shouted that the girls were lying. Now, with him in court, the girls have pushed back. They’re not just fainting and wailing. They’re also being injured by mysteriously appearing objects like pins. Are the girls intentionally upping their game? Maybe not consciously. The girls who were stuck with pins were only 11 and 12.

The afflicted girls have also now closed ranks. Three of them have tried to leave, and each one has had the same experience:

1. She’s afflicted like the other girls.
2. She leaves the circle when she’s cured. Sometimes she says the other girls are lying.
3. Her former friends accuse her of witchcraft.
4. She confesses to witchcraft, then returns to the circle and is afflicted again.

All three girls are occupying a precarious middle ground, confessing to witchcraft and yet being afflicted at the same time. They are the Proctor’s servant Mary Warren, George Jacobs Sr.’s servant Sarah Churchill, and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs.

Note that two of these girls were the main accusers in today’s examinations. Were they panicking?

WHO was Alice Parker?

Alice was about 60, forthright and even aggressive in her speech. She had no children of her own, though her husband had children from an earlier marriage.

Alice may have suffered from catalepsy, an ailment that causes sudden unconsciousness and rigid posture. One month before the first girls began suffering from unknown torments, Alice was found by neighbors, lying in the snow, seemingly dead. A group of men were there, but they were nervous about picking her up. One of the women assured them that Alice had lost consciousness several times before, but it still took a few minutes before one of them was brave enough to pick her up and hoist her over his shoulder. But she didn’t regain consciousness, not even when the man lost his hold and dropped her. At last they got her home and to bed, but while the men were taking off her shoes she suddenly sat up and laughed. Case files: Alice Parker

WHO was Ann Pudeator?

Ann was in her early seventies, a nurse and midwife, as well as a widow with property and means. But her neighbors were suspicious of exactly how she’d attained them. Years before the Trials, she was hired by a prosperous man to look after his wife in her last days. The wife was a drunkard, described as delirious and out-of-control. She died suddenly under what was thought to be mysterious circumstances, and both her husband and Ann were there. Could they have “helped” her die? The case went to court, but nothing came of it.

If that wasn’t enough, Ann then married the widowed husband, who was twenty years younger than she was. He died soon after they were married, and left everything to her — and it was quite a lot. Did she have something to do with his death as well? Case files: Ann Pudeator

Tomorrow in Salem: Summary: Act II Begins: the first death, pins and needles, mounting pressure

by

Apr 20: A minister works for the Devil, and the servant Mary Warren’s story changes again

Today in Salem: A stunned silence has descended on Salem since yesterday’s court appearances. It’s enough that the wild child Abigail Hobbs has confessed to being a witch. But the Devil had recruited her in Maine. And she was accused by someone who used to know her there – the servant and war refugee Mercy Lewis. Just how far afield is the Devil working?

man's shadow

Mercy is a servant in the Putnam family, and has often told stories about the wild child she knew in Maine. So 13-year-old Ann Putnam, the afflicted girls’ leader, has heard all about Abigail’s dangerous behavior. But she’s also heard stories about the minister there, Reverend George Burroughs.

The Putnam family remembers Burroughs well. He’d been the minister in Salem Village until 9 years ago, when the Village stopped paying him and the Putnams had him arrested for an unpaid debt. He’d left for Maine with bitterness on all sides, and has been ministering to a flock that, until recently, included Abigail Hobbs and Mercy Lewis.

This very night, Rev Burroughs’ specter attacks Ann Putnam, and her visions electrify her family. “A minister?” she shouts. ”Recruiting children’s souls for Satan?” The specter boasts that he’s the one who recruited the wild child Abigail Hobbs, not the Devil. Burroughs is more powerful than any witch or wizard. The Putnams are not surprised.

In Salem jail, the Proctors’ servant Mary Warren is picking dirty straw from her hair. Yesterday she’d fainted in terror during the court hearing, but now, after sleeping on the floor of the jail cell for the night, she’s had a chance to think about which side she’s on: afflicted, or accused.

The two magistrates keep their arms crossed when they question her. She did call the afflicted girls liars, she says, but the Devil had forced her to. And yes, she did sign the Devil’s book. But she didn’t know that’s what it was. Her master John Proctor (who was in jail himself) had just handed it to her. In fact, Mary says, it’s impossible for her to be a witch, because she’s still afflicted herself. Why, just last night she was visited by the specter of the cantankerous Giles Corey.

Mary chokes on Giles’s name and falls to the floor, gasping and crying, then describes exactly what the specter was wearing. The magistrates send for Corey, who’s in his own jail cell, but no sooner does Mary see him than she convulses again. The real Giles Corey, as all can see, is dressed exactly as Mary had said. Of course, they’d been in court together yesterday. And he’s wearing the same clothes now. But surely he could have found a way to change his clothes since then?

The magistrates just look at each other and turn to the wild child Abigail Hobbs. She fully confessed yesterday, but gives them a few more details about the specters she’s seen and who she herself has tormented. It’s enough to make the trip worth it for the magistrates. But they’re still not sure about Mary’s changing story, and they leave her to spend another night on the jail cell floor.

WHO was George Burroughs?

Age about 42. George Burroughs was the minister of Salem Village until 9 years before the Trials began. He lived in Maine when he was accused of witchcraft, but the people of the Village remembered him well. They’d been dissatisfied with him as the minister, and refused to pay him. So when his wife died suddenly, he had to borrow money to pay for her funeral. With no salary, Burroughs couldn’t repay the debt, so he resigned and left, which would come back to haunt him.

The court ordered them to settle their differences, and the Village agreed to pay him everything it owed, minus the amount of his debt. But when Burroughs arrived with the paperwork, he was arrested instead. Eventually the case was dropped, and the Village paid Burroughs some of what they owed. But it left bitterness for everyone involved. So when he was accused of witchcraft, there was already animosity on both sides.

Burroughs landed in Falmouth, Maine (now Portland), where he lived when an Indian attack destroyed the settlement. It was here that Burroughs met the families of Mercy Lewis and Abigail Hobbs. The attack drove the Hobbs family to Salem. But the Lewis family was killed, so he took Mercy in as a servant for a time, before sending her to another unknown family, and then eventually to Salem. He himself then moved further south to Wells, Maine, where he lived at the time of the accusation.

Burroughs’ history with Salem Village was troublesome enough. But people also suspected his physical traits. He was dark-skinned, very short, and muscular. He was also much stronger than he looked, even preternaturally so. His trial included testimony from people who’d heard that he could lift a 7-foot musket by inserting one finger into the barrel, then raising it to arm’s length. It was also said that he could “take up a full barrll of molasses wth butt two fingers of one of his hands in the bung and carry itt from ye stage head to the door att the end of the stage wth out letting itt downe.” Case files: George Burroughs

George Burroughs’ descendants include Walt Disney.

Tomorrow in Salem: Two wheels and nine arrests

by

Apr 19: A storm of accusations

Today in Salem: The normally cantankerous Giles Corey is swaying in front of the judges, his hands tied, bewildered. Prophesies? Suicide? He was just arrested yesterday afternoon, not knowing why he’s been accused. Now the cruel magistrate Hathorne is leaning in, relentless in his questions.

wheat field

Just last week, Giles had helped escort his gospel woman wife Martha from the jail in Salem to Boston, and promised to visit her next week. Now the judges want to know: Was he really just promising a simple visit? Or was he prophesying his own arrest? Does he realize that prophesies are a kind of magic? Giles protests, saying he’d run out of money for the ferry and was just telling his wife goodbye.

More important, several witnesses testify they’ve heard Giles say he’s tempted to do away with himself. The judges remind him that self-murder is a much greater sin than witchcraft. If Giles is willing to take his own life, wouldn’t he be even more willing to practice witchcraft? Giles denies everything.

The afflicted girls writhe and convulse as usual through more questions about his wife’s criticisms, his lame ox, and what was that ointment Martha had in their house? The judges send Giles to jail to wait for trial.

rainbow trees

Giles had been arrested with three other people, and now the judges turn their attention to the wild child Abigail Hobbs. The afflicted girls are suddenly quiet, staying calm throughout her examination.

“I have been very wicked,” Abigail says. “I hope I shall be better, if God will help me.” She goes on to admit to everything: signing the Devil’s book, using her specter to hurt the girls, and – most alarmingly – that this began in faraway Maine. The Devil has been operating on a far grander scale than the judges and ministers of Salem had realized. This would change everything. (What the judges don’t know is that Abigail’s statement today will set off a chain of events that, by tomorrow night, will link the witches’ and the Wabanakis’ assaults on New England. During the next seven weeks, fifty-four people will be formally accused of witchcraft, a sharp increase from the ten who’d been complained against in the seven weeks that ended two days ago.)

With the slave Tituba and the 4-year-old Dorcas Good, Abigail Hobbs becomes the third person to confess to witchcraft, and is sent to jail.

cat with shadows

When the third prisoner, the Proctors’ servant Mary Warren, approaches the bar, the afflicted girls – her former friends – are so violently seized that only one of them can speak.

Everyone in the Village knows the story: Mary had been afflicted herself, but soon was cured. Then she said the other girls were lying, and now the girls have turned around and accused her of witchcraft.

How is this possible? The judges demand an answer. How can Mary be afflicted, then an afflicter? She must have been a witch the entire time. Mary crumples to the floor, trying to confess through gritted teeth. The afflicted girls say that specters are trying to prevent Mary from confessing, and her distress is so acute that the judges send her away to recover before they ask more questions.

dying flower

Finally, the unruly Bridget Bishop approaches the bar. If Giles was bewildered, Abigail forthcoming, and Mary paralyzed with fear, Bridget is nothing short of exasperated. She rolls her eyes when the girls convulse, which only makes things worse.

“I am innocent to a witch,” she says. “I know not what a witch is.” But the judges turn it back on her. If she doesn’t even know what a witch is, how does she know she isn’t one? After more shrieking and accusations from the girls, Bridget is sent back to jail to wait for future trial.

Tomorrow in Salem: A minister works for the Devil, and the servant Mary Warren’s story changes again

by

Apr 16: NEW SPECTERS: Mary Warren & Bridget Bishop

Today in Salem: It’s been nearly two weeks since the Proctors’ servant, Mary Warren, said publicly that the other girls were lying. People believed her. She’d been afflicted herself, but after beatings and harshness from her masters, she’d been ”cured,” and posted a note of gratitude on the meeting house door.

The other girls, her former friends, had stood back and listened as she spoke about them. And they’ve shunned her since. But now Mary’s specter is afflicting them, and it’s clear why she said they were lying: she herself is being deceptive. She’s guilty of witchcraft, and using the guise of an innocent person to inflict torment. So today, finally, four of the girls accuse her of using her specter to inflict harm.

Also accused: a Town woman that many had heard of but few in the Village had met: the unruly Bridget Bishop. She’d been in and out of court several times over the years for fighting, calling her husband names on the Sabbath, stealing brass from a local mill owner, and was accused of witchcraft when her abusive husband died and she inherited his large estate (with almost nothing left for their children). That had been several years ago, but the stain has never left her, and now her specter has come back to life.

WHO was Bridget Bishop?

Bridget Bishop, age 60, was an unruly woman who, 20 years earlier, had been brought to court with her husband for fighting. Both of them were fined and ordered to be whipped if they didn’t pay the fine on time. Eight years later they were still fighting, and Bridget was brought to court for calling her husband names like “old rogue” and “old devil” on the Sabbath Day (never mind that he deserved it). This time they were ordered to stand back-to-back in the public marketplace, gagged, with pieces of paper labeled with their offense and fastened to each of their foreheads.

Bridget’s husband died a short time after that, and she inherited his sizable estate, worth about £70. But her daughter and two stepsons received only twenty shillings each. Immediately her stepsons accused her of bewitching their father to death.

Her notoriety continued when repairmen knocked down a cellar wall and found “several poppets made up of rags with hogs’ bristles with headless pins in them with the points outward.” The repairmen never actually produced the poppets – something like today’s voodoo dolls – but their testimony alone was evidence of black magic.

Five years later she was accused by the afflicted girls of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, but history doesn’t tell us what brought her to their attention. The important thing is that no one was surprised, and she quickly became the person the court was most focused on.

NOTE – Bridget is often described as a tavern owner who let loud, young people drink and play “shovel board” until the wee hours. This actually refers to her daughter-in-law, Sarah Bishop, who was also accused of witchcraft.

Tomorrow in Salem: The wild child Abigail Hobbs

by

Apr 3: The servant Mary Warren says the afflicted girls are lying

Today in Salem: It’s the Sabbath, and Rev Parris is reading Mary Warren’s note to the confused congregation. Thanking God for deliverance is one thing. But from affliction? Why would God deliver her from being able to see and point out evil?

From the corner of her eye, Mary can see Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard touching each other’s hands, hissing as they whisper and look at her sideways. They are fellow servants, also afflicted, and Mary spends the rest of the interminable sermon looking down and clutching her Bible.

When it’s finally over, she tries to hurry away, but the parsonage neighbors stop her.

“How is this possible?” they ask. “Why?”

Mary looks to the side, but there’s no escaping it. “The girls are acting in deception,” she says, but the neighbors just stare at her in silence. Does that mean the girls are deceiving people? Or are they themselves being deceived by the Devil?

The other afflicted girls are standing to the side with their arms crossed, watching Mary in silence. The specters have told them many times to touch the Devil’s book and they’ll be free of torment. And here’s Mary Warren, touching God’s book, claiming she’s free – and that they are lying.

Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: Sarah Cloyce & Elizabeth Proctor

by

Apr 2: RELEASED: The maid Mary Warren is free of affliction

Today in Salem: The maid Mary Warren winces as her master, the harsh John Proctor, waves hot fire tongs at her. Mary has been half-dazed all day, tormented by unseen specters.

“Go ahead!” he shouts. “Run into that fire, throw yourself into water, and I won’t stop you! You say you’re afflicted – I wish you were even more so.”

“Why would you say that?” Mary asks, still cringing.

“Because you’re lying. All of you,” he says. “You’re accusing innocent people, and I won’t stand for it.”

John’s quarrelsome wife Elizabeth refills the wool basket and puts Mary hard to work at the spinning wheel. It isn’t long before Mary says she’s feeling much better, that the specters have left her entirely alone. Finally, she can breathe.

After supper Mary rides a mile and a half to the Meeting House and tacks a note on the door, thanking God for deliverance from afflictions. It’s a common practice, and tomorrow Rev Parris will read the note to the congregation. But when Mary returns, it’s Elizabeth who’s angry this time.

“How can you thank God for delivering you from something that never existed?” she asks. “You are telling lie upon lie!”

Tomorrow in Salem: The servant Mary Warren says the afflicted girls are lying

by

Mar 25: The harsh John Proctor and the Devil’s pitchfork

Map of Wooleston River and Salem

Today in Salem: Just over the Town border, the long Wooleston River splits into three tributaries and points like the Devil’s pitchfork straight at Salem Village. At the sharp point of one tine sits a tavern, where the harsh John Proctor has just walked in.

Proctor settles at a table with a younger man named Sam. It was Sam’s wife who’d convinced Tituba to make a witch-cake last month. And his niece is Mary Walcott, the latest girl to claim affliction by showing bite marks on her arms. Sam also lives just a stone’s throw from the Meeting House, and another throw from Ingersoll’s Ordinary. In short, Sam sees and knows everything.

Already impatient, Proctor asks a single question: What condition were the girls in last night? They had testified at yesterday’s examination and stayed overnight at Ingersoll’s, where Sam would have noticed them. Sam shakes his head and says they were in a bad way, including Proctor’s maid, Mary Warren.

wooden bridge

Proctor slams his mug onto the wooden table. He’s on his way now to fetch the little bitch, Proctor says rudely, and beat the devil out of her if he needs to. As for the other girls, hang them!

Sam sucks in his cheeks. Hang them? Including Sam’s niece?

Meanwhile Sam’s wife is crying in Rev Parris’s study. He’s just found out about her role in making the witch-cake, and is lecturing her at length about using “diabolical means.” He writes an explanation of what happened, followed by her confession and apology. The entire congregation will hear it read this Sabbath Day.

Tomorrow in Salem: 4-year-old Dorcas and her little snake

by

Mar 12: NEW GIRL: the servant Mary Warren joins the afflicted; Martha Corey makes things worse

wool

Today in Salem: A 20-year-old servant named Mary Warren is feeding wool through a spinning wheel when suddenly she pulls back, and puts her hands in the air. “It’s Martha Corey,” she shouts. “Her specter is in my lap.” Her master, the harsh John Proctor, looks up from his tools.

Mary reaches out to pull the specter closer. Wait. It isn’t the gospel woman Martha Corey. Mary opens her hand and sits back sharply. “It’s you!” she cries, and looks across the room at her master, the harsh John Proctor.

John is a large man, impatient by nature, and Mary provokes him like no one else. “It’s my shadow,” he says, and raises his fist. “Enough lying.” John’s wife, the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor, dumps another pile of wool in Mary’s basket. Elizabeth has already been accused, but doesn’t know it yet.

John steps down and leans down into her face. “Any more specters and you’ll feel it from me.”

Meanwhile, the girls’ leader, 12-year-old Ann Putnam, is pale with exhaustion. She’s been tormented for days now by the raging specter of the gospel woman Martha Corey. It’s hard to believe it’s Martha, though. She’s a full church member. How can this be?

The church deacons already know from Tituba’s testimony that specters wear the same clothes as their owners. So the deacons agree: if Martha and her specter are dressed alike, it’s proof that Martha is in league with the Devil.

black cat

They visit Ann Putnam to ask what the specter is wearing, but unfortunately Ann can’t see the specter today. The specter is furious with her and won’t let her see into the Invisible World until tonight.

The deacons can’t prove anything without that information, but they visit Martha anyway to tell her what she’s been accused of and to ask what she thinks. But they’ve hardly said hello when she interrupts them. “You’re here to ask if I’m a witch,” she says, and smiles. “Does the girl know what clothes I’m wearing?” she asks, and leans forward. “Well? Does she?” The deacons can hardly speak. How did Martha know they’d visited Ann at all, never mind that they’d asked her what Martha was wearing? How does Martha know she’s been accused?

LEARN MORE: Why did people believe that witches and their specters dressed alike? Why was that important?

When Tituba confessed, she described in detail the clothes worn by the specters she’d seen: a tall, white-haired man wearing black or woolen clothing, a woman wearing two silk hoods, and another woman wearing a wool coat with a white cap. That established fact #1: Specters actually wear clothes.

The day after Tituba’s confession, Elizabeth Hubbard saw the specter of the beggar Sarah Good. The specter was barelegged and barefoot, with her dress pulled down to reveal one breast. Later Elizabeth’s neighbors were shocked to find out that the real Sarah Good had been in exactly the same state of undress. This established fact #2: Specters were dressed like their “owners.”

In court, some testimonies mention what a specter was wearing or how their hair looked. It was considered proof that a particular person had a specter, and that it had been seen doing evil.

WHO was Mary Warren?

A servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor. She may have been an orphan when she started working for them, and at age 20 was beginning to lose any prospect of marriage and family.

When Mary was young she witnessed a heated argument between her father and their neighbor, Alice Parker. Shortly after that, her mother and sister became ill, possibly with smallpox. It killed her mother, and her sister became deaf (and eventually mute). Mary blamed Alice Parker for her family’s tragedies and indeed, when Alice Parker was accused of witchcraft, Mary was happy to testify.

Mary herself was accused of witchcraft, and in turn accused others. Of the people Mary testified against, eight were hanged, one was tortured, and one died in prison. Case files: Mary Warren  

WHO was John Proctor?

The first male to be accused of witchcraft during the trials.

John was a forthright and practical man who could also be harsh. He’d been known to enjoy rum a little too much and often quarreled with his wife. But he was also respected throughout the community as an intelligent and upstanding citizen.

When the trials began, John was leasing a 700-acre farm and running a tavern from his home. By all accounts it was successful, in part because his wife Elizabeth always insisted on payment, even if it was with pawned goods. It’s possible some of the Village residents were jealous of his prosperity and success. Case files: John Proctor

Tomorrow in Salem: NEWLY ACCUSED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse