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| "The Trail of George Jacobs" (my ancestor) painting by T. H. Matteson, this artwork depicts teenager Margaret Jacobs accusing her grandfather, to save her own life |
As someone with a family tree that goes back to
Salem in the 1630’s, I have many ancestors who lived through the Salem
witchcraft trials. Now, anyone with
colonial Essex County ancestry might have ancestors who lived through this
infamous time period, and believe me, if they were alive in 1692 they were
involved. Everyone had an opinion,
thousands attended meetings, and hundreds were imprisoned. There were hundreds of citizens imprisoned on
witchcraft charges, which meant that many hundreds more gave evidence against
them, as neighbors and witnesses.
Writers
from 1692 tell us that so many people attended the trials and meetings cows were left to wander though the lanes, and children languished at home
unfed and uncared for. In the summer of
1692 farmers left their fields to attend hangings, court testimonies and inquiries,
and their fields were left untended. The
Salem witchcraft hysteria was more popularly attended and gossiped about than
any modern sports event or sensational TV trial, because people were afraid of
their own family members being accused. Like
an insidious plague, the accusations were flying in Essex County, and even
ministers and people from the highest social orders were being found guilty of
witchcraft.
I
can’t imagine what life was like that summer of 1692, and the fear that people
must have felt as their friends and neighbors were being led off to
prison. Very few people spoke against
the trials, nor did they want to stand up in defense of their neighbors’
innocence. Remember that when John
Proctor spoke up for his own wife, he himself was hung as a witch. When the popular Andover minister Frances
Dane spoke against the trials, most of the female members of his extended
family were arrested.
However,
in the end, only 19 people were hung, several others died in prison, and one
was tortured to death. These are the
names you will find in the history books.
By looking further into the trials, at the transcripts of the meetings
and on the lists of the witnesses, you can find thousands of other names. There were jurors, jailors, and even people
who signed their names (bravely!) on petitions against the evidence. Considering that the entire population of
Salem Village (now Danvers) at this time numbered only 600 people, and 200 Essex
county people were jailed. This was a
high percentage of citizens were involved in the hysteria, especially since
this number didn’t include witnesses and complainants.
The
archives of Danvers hold most of the trial transcripts, and you can access some
of them online at http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html The rest are in the Essex County archives. Many good books about the Salem witchcraft
hysteria are available in bookstores, libraries including “Salem Village Witchcraft: a
Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England” by Paul
Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, which is a collection of primary source documents
from 1692. My favorite is “The
Wonders of the Invisible World” by Reverend Cotton Mather, written in
1693. Mather’s book is one of the only
firsthand accounts of the Salem witch trials, written mostly to defend his
position as the chief persecutor of his neighbors, the supposed witches.
By
searching for surnames in the indexes of these databases and books, it is
surprising how many family members and distant cousins I could find were
involved with the trials. Of course, no
one kept track of the audience members and witnesses to the trials and
hangings. If there had been a guest book
at these events, I suppose most of the adult citizens of Essex county would be
found on the lists. Remember that if you had Massachusetts ancestors during this time period, they might have been involved since trial and hearings took place in Gloucester, Andover, and even in Boston. Just like everyone
tuning into their TV sets to see the latest crime news, or just like neighbors
who run downtown to see the latest thing going on in town (the Bruins in their Boston
duck boat parade after winning the Stanley Cup?), our 17th century
ancestors were no different from us.
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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
