USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 8
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
One remarkable case was that of Mary (Clemance) Osgood, wife of Captain John Osgood (1654-1725), whose name has ap- peared frequently in these pages. His grandfather was the town's first representative in the General Court in 1651. That pioneer's son, the second of twelve children, lived in the home left to him by his father, the house in which Andover's first recorded town meeting had been held. Captain John had been for many years a selectman and an officer in the militia. He had been moder- ator of the town meeting in 1689 and representative to the Gen- eral Court from Andover when the royal governor was making his autocratic demands. In short, he was a local leader of the highest respectability and prominence. Yet although his wife was also a woman of irreproachable character, she was hounded by her brother until she admitted that she had prayed to the Devil instead of God, had seen the Devil in the form of a cat, and had for eleven years been devoted to the service of Satan. Her husband even testified that he believed her absurd confession. Later, after she had recanted, she told the Reverend Increase Mather "that they continued so long and so violently to urge and press her to confess that she thought verily her life would have gone from her." Here was a woman presumably of better than average intelligence who gave way under the strain and thus seemed to justify her prosecution.
In 1692 the Reverend Francis Dane was seventy-six years old and had been minister of the parish for forty-three years. As far back as 1658, when a certain John Godfrey, of Andover, had been accused of witchcraft by Jon Tyler, of Boxford, Dane had expressed grave doubts regarding the validity of diabolical in- fluence. In 1692, he was not at all impressed by the young fa- natics of Salem Village, and his cool judgment remained unim- paired as the frenzy mounted. He was seriously disturbed when
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some of his parishioners and neighbors, like Mary Osgood, con- fessed under stress to crimes which they could not possibly have committed. Mr. Dane, in his long pastoral career, had seen much human nature. It is small wonder that he listened incredulously when William Barker admitted that he had signed the Devil's book in exchange for an agreement that Satan would pay all his debts and give him a comfortable existence to the end of his days. He was astounded when members of his congregation told weird stories of taking midnight journeys through the air and being baptized by the Devil in Five Mile Pond. Doubtless he made no secret of his skepticism, and before long the anonymous instigators of the campaign made attacks on the family of the minister and even on the aged Mr. Dane himself.
Dane's youngest daughter, Abigail, had married "ffrancis ffaulkner," son of Edmond Faulkner, one of the few original proprietors dignified in the records with the title of "mr." The Faulkner family, like the Bradstreets and the Osgoods, was among Andover's best. Nevertheless the Salem Village girls marked Abigail Faulkner out as a suspect, and a warrant was sworn out against her. Nothing that her father or her husband were able to do could prevent her being brought up for exami- nation. In court, her daughters, Dorothy and Abigail, aged ten and eight respectively, were induced to confess that they were witches and that their mother had taught them their iniquity. Her inquisitors at one stage urged her to confess "for ye credit of her Towne," but Mrs. Faulkner valiantly replied, "God will not require me to confess that of which I am not guilty!" She did acknowledge that, when the accusing girls from Salem Vil- lage irritated her, she had struck her hands together; but she added, rather plaintively, that it was "the Devil, not I, that af- flicted them." Although in moments of weariness and weakness she lost her self-assurance, she refused to save her life by admit- ting her guilt, and her father supported her in this resolution.
Searching through the State Archives, the indefatigable Miss Bailey came across the verdict of the court inscribed in huge
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letters on the record, as if somebody had taken a malignant joy in placing it there:
THE JURY FIND ABIGAIL FAULKNER Wife of Francis Faulkner of Andover Guilty of ye Felony of Witchcraft Comited on ye body of Martha Sprague also on ye body of Sarah Phelps SENTENCE OF DEATH PASSED ON ABIGAIL FAULKNER
Copia Vera
Of all the entries relating to Andover in the official files this is the most tragic. I have been unable to trace either Martha Sprague or Sarah Phelps. But Abigail's case was unquestionably one of clear persecution by enemies now unknown. After being detained in a cell for thirteen weeks she was at last released only because of her pregnancy. What happened to her husband dur- ing this long interval of suspense must be left to the imagination. Miraculously she survived all these trials and tribulations and in 1700 presented a memorial to the General Court praying for the obliteration of the verdict against her, which, she declared, was likely to remain "a perpetual brand of infamy upon my family." Not until October 11, 1711, was a reversal of attainder finally obtained. She lived on until 1729, thirty-seven years after her devastating ordeal.
Another of Mr. Dane's children, Elizabeth, had married Ste- phen Johnson, belonging to a family the members of which had been constables, selectmen, and other town officials in Andover. She was imprisoned for five months but ultimately acquitted. Her daughter, also Elizabeth Johnson, had a much more fright- ening experience. Brought up before the magistrates, she was so terrified that she pleaded guilty to every suggested charge, even confessing that "Goody" Carrier, the Queen of the Witches, had persuaded her to be baptized in a well by the Devil. The poor girl admitted that she had afflicted many persons with "poppets" and had pricked Ann Putnam with a "speare of iron."
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She even displayed red spots on her body where she had been sucked by the evil spirit. It seems clear that she was in a mood in which she was directly responsive to the power of suggestion.
In spite of all that her grandfather could do, Elizabeth was condemned; but she was eventually reprieved because it was proved that, in Mr. Dane's words, she was "but simplish at ye best." Her brother, Stephen, only thirteen, was also indicted be- cause he did "wickedly, malitiously & feloniously with the Devil a covenant make, whereby he gave himself soule & body to the Devil and signed the Devil's Booke with his blood and by the Devil was baptized and renounced his Christian baptism." He and his sister, Abigail, were shut up in prison with their mother. One of the extraordinary phenomena of the delusion was the importance attached to children as accusers and victims.
While these younger members of his family were being ar- rested, Mr. Dane played a waiting game, expecting that such a violent hysteria would soon run its course; but he evidently counseled them how to conduct themselves whenever their situ- ation became critical. Some of the more venomous leaders in the witch hunt had apparently marked him for elimination, but he was invulnerable. When Ann Foster was testifying against Mar- tha Carrier, she declared that she had ridden on a stick with Martha to Salem Village and had there met with three hundred witches, among whom were not only the Reverend George Bur- roughs (afterwards executed) but also "another minister with gray hair," who resembled Mr. Dane. But nobody dared take the crucial step of charging him directly with witchcraft.
Andrew Foster, one of the original Andover freeholders, had died in 1685, it was said at the age of 106, leaving to his "deare and living wife Ann Foster the use & sole liberty of living in that end of my house I now live in." In 1692 this aged and infirm widow was accused of witchcraft; and feeble though she was, she was carried from her home to prison and examined four times in the court at Salem. Harassed by the magistrates, she agreed to everything alleged against her and even confessed to a series of
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additional atrocities. Like others before and after her, she ad- mitted that she had employed the traditional practice of making images of people she disliked and running pins through their bodies. Nor did she deny that she had caused the death of one of Andrew Allen's children, probably a niece of "Goody" Carrier.
When, however, Ann Foster's daughter, Mary (Foster) Lacey, and granddaughter, Mary Lacey, were also accused, the widow rose to their defense, crying, "I know no more of my daughter's being a witch than what day I shall die upon." This protest ac- complished nothing. The pliant daughter insisted that both she and her mother were witches and the little granddaughter con- firmed the story. When Mrs. Foster, in her despair, was heard mumbling to herself and was asked what she was saying, she an- swered, "I am praying to the Lord." "What God do witches pray to?" inquired one examiner. The poor woman could only reply hopelessly, "I cannot tell; the Lord help me." Ann Foster was condemned as a "confessing witch," but was later reprieved, and died in prison. Her son, Abraham Foster, in petitioning later for the removal of her attainder, declared that he had been com- pelled to pay the jailer 2 pounds, 10 shillings before he was allowed to remove his mother's dead body. It was probably from this Abraham Foster that Foster's Pond, in the southern part of the township, was named; but where Ann herself lived is a mystery.
Samuel Wardwell, a carpenter by trade, lived with his wife and several small children in the south end of the town. Up to 1692 he was regarded as an eccentric but harmless individual who sometimes told fortunes, played with magic, and perhaps in jesting moods even claimed supernatural powers. His peculiari- ties attracted the attention of the witch hunters, and he was short- ly charged by Martha Sprague, of Boxford-one of those in- volved in the case of Abigail Faulkner-of having practiced up- on her "certain detestable arts called witchcraft and sorceries." In a second and more precise indictment it was alleged that Wardwell had twenty years before made a covenant with the
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"evill speritt," in which he had promised to honor, worship, and believe the "devill." Witnesses against him were not only the familiar group of Salem Village girls but also three respectable citizens of Andover: Joseph Ballard and Thomas Chandler, neighbors of his in the south end, both of whom had been se- lectmen; and Ephraim Foster, who for years had been clerk of the proprietors. This was a formidable array of accusers.
Like many others, Wardwell, in his anxiety and terror, was led to make a complete "confession." While he was in a discontented mood because of a thwarted clandestine love affair with "a maid named Barker," he had seen some "catts" meeting together be- hind Mr. Bradstreet's house. One of them, assuming the form of a black man, told him that if he would only sign the book, he should "live comfortably and be a captain," like Dudley Brad- street. Following the classic example of Faust, Wardwell at- tached his name to the contract, was then baptized in the Shaw- sheen River, and abandoned his church affiliation.
When Wardwell later was released from "brain-storming," he declared that the urgency of his tormentors had persuaded him, under emotional stress, that he must have done the deeds attrib- uted to him. From that hour until his execution he never again weakened. He regretted that he had even once "belyed" himself and announced that even though it might cost him his life, he would stick to the truth. No one of sufficient importance inter- vened in the poor man's behalf, and he was hanged on September 22, 1692, together with seven others. Even as the noose was be- ing adjusted around his neck, Wardwell declared in a firm voice that he was innocent. While he was speaking a puff of smoke from the executioner's pipe blew across his face and some mis- guided girl shouted, "The Devil doth hinder his words!" On this occasion the Reverend Nicholas Noyes, of the First Church in Salem, not content with mere watching, addressed the multi- tude of spectators, saying, "What a sad thing it is to see eight fire- brands of hell hanging there!"
Wardwell's example was used in later trials as a threat to oth-
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ers of what might be their fate if they recanted their confessions. The injustice in his case reached beyond his grave. On January 2, 1693, his wife was brought before the Court of Trials, where a jury delivered the familiar verdict that she was "guilty of cove- nanting with the Devill." Meanwhile the selectmen of Andover notified the Court of Quarter Sessions at Ipswich that the four Wardwell children were in suffering condition, and then pro- ceeded to bind them out to other households in the neighbor- hood until they should be mature enough to pursue some gain- ful occupation. To pay the expenses of Wardwell's trial, the sheriff seized property of his amounting to 36 pounds, 15 shil- lings, including five cows, nine hogs, eight loads of hay, and six acres of corn upon the ground. Furthermore both Wardwells had to provide their own subsistence while they were in prison. Eventually Sarah Wardwell was reprieved and released. In 1712, his mother meanwhile having died, Samuel Wardwell, Jr., re- quested and received compensation for the financial loss which his family had suffered. Unfortunately it was too late to bring his father back to life.
Of Mary Parker, who was hanged with Wardwell, little is known except that she was the widow of Joseph Parker, one of the later Andover proprietors. She was directly accused by Mercy Wardwell, Samuel Wardwell's daughter, and by William Barker of having joined in torturing a certain Timothy Swan with iron spindles, pins, and other instruments, thus causing his death on February 2, 1692. Swan's tombstone is still standing in the North Andover burying ground, but the inscription has no mention of witchcraft as the cause of his demise. After Mary Parker's execu- tion, an officer was sent by the sheriff to seize her property to meet the cost of her imprisonment and hanging. When her sons protested that she had no assets, the officer carried off their cattle, corn, and hay; and they were obliged to make a trip to Salem and spend a considerable sum in order to keep their own household effects from being sold.
The dramatic execution of the "eight firebrands of Hell"
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marked the climax of the hysteria. Already sensitive persons were shocked at the fury which the noxious girls from Salem Village had let loose in Andover. The wholesale denunciations were arousing much concealed and some open indignation, and the imprisonment of respected citizens was a cause of pain to the relatives and neighbors. Common sense, disregarded for weeks, slowly began to reassert itself, supported by the sane attitude of the venerable Mr. Dane. Before the General Court opened on October 12, in Boston, nine of the relatives of the prisoners pe- titioned for the relief of their wives and children, who were, they said, "a company of poor distressed creatures as full of inward grief and trouble as they are able to bear up in life withal." Even then these petitioners did not venture to ask to have their dear ones taken "out of the hands of Justice," but only to have them released under bonds to their own families, "ready to appear to answer further when the Honored Court shall call for them."
This formal request was accompanied and supported by a pe- tition more resolute in tone, signed by twenty-six citizens, in- cluding the two ministers, Mr. Dane and Mr. Barnard, as well as other conservative leaders of the community. In begging for the redress of their grievances, as they had a legal right to do, the signators asserted that "it is well known that many persons of this town have been accused of witchcraft by some distem- pered persons in these parts and upon complaint have been ap- prehended and committed to prison." The bold use of the ad- jective "distempered" at a moment when eight victims had re- cently been executed has much significance as indicating that Mr. Dane and his allies had resolved to stand their ground. They did not hesitate to say:
We can truly give this Testimony of the most of them belonging to this town that have been accused that they never gave the least occasion as we hear of to their nearest relations or most intimate ac- quaintances as to suspect them of witchcraft.
This plain, courageous talk was badly needed just then and
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helped to clear confused minds. In conclusion the signers minced no words:
Our troubles which have hitherto been great we foresee are likely to continue and increase; if other methods be not taken than as yet have been; for there are more of our neighbors of good reputation and integrity who are still accused and we know not who can think himself safe, if the accusation of children and others who are under diabolical influence shall be received against persons of good fame.
Here, at long last, was the voice of common sense. The appeal, probably composed by Mr. Dane, hurled back the charge of sinis- ter influence on those who had been the accusers, where it prop- erly belonged; for whatever was devilish about the witchcraft hysteria was inherent in the motives and machinations of the foolish girls and those mysterious background figures who abet- ted them. Dane's argument was corroborated by a young man named Thomas Brattle, a graduate of Harvard in the Class of 1676 and shortly to become its treasurer, who wrote a letter un- der date of October 8, 1692, to an unnamed clergyman, in which he spoke out frankly and fearlessly regarding "the delusion called witchcraft." Commenting on the judicial methods of the magis- trates, he said:
This Salem philosophy, some men may call the new philosophy; but I think it rather deserves the name of Salem superstition and sorcery; and it is not fitt to be named in a land of such light as New England is.
In language which Francis Dane and Dudley Bradstreet must have read with joy in their hearts, Brattle pointed out that the courts had accepted as evidence what amounted to little more than malevolent gossip and that it had listened to immature girls who were both mountebanks and liars. "Poor Andover," he added, "does now rue the day that ever the said afflicted went among them." Regarding the contemporary situation in that town, he commented:
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Now I am writing concerning Andover, I cannot omit the oppor- tunity of sending you this information; that whereas there is a re- port spread abroad the country, how that they were much addicted to sorcery in the said town, and that there were fourty men in it that could raise the Devil as well as any astrologer, and the like; after the best search that I can make into it, it may prove a mere slander, and a very unrighteous imputation.
Brattle stressed the fact that many of the victims "denyed their guilt and maintained their innocence for above eighteen hours, after most violent, distracting, and dragooning methods had been used with them, to make them confesse." Amplifying this statement, he wrote:
Such methods they were, that more than one of the said confes- sours did since tell many, with teares in their eyes, that they thought their very lives would have gone out of their bodyes; and wished they might have been cast into the lowest dungeon, rather than be tortured with such repeated buzzing and chuckings and unreason- able urgings as they were treated withal.
These practices seem to anticipate some of the cruelties of twentieth-century Nazis and Japanese. In his letter Brattle in- sisted that some of the best people in the Colony, "men for un- derstanding, judgment, and piety inferior to few if any in New England," utterly condemned the proceedings and felt that the callous inquisitorial procedures might "utterly ruin and undoe poor N.E." Finally, in words which rang out strong and true, he called upon the approaching General Court to counteract the mischief caused by "these blind, nonsensical girls."
Unfortunately this courageous rejection of the witch hunters and their procedures was not put into print at the time, but was unquestionably circulated in manuscript among selected legis- lators, and its contents were familiar to many persons. The fact that it was prepared by a reputable and responsible citizen indi- cates that the current of public opinion was being reversed and that at least a few intelligent observers were willing to listen to
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arguments. The General Court, swayed as such bodies usually are by political considerations, did little at that session to abate the hysteria. Nevertheless the clouds of fanaticism were clearing.
Meanwhile people were getting a little bored with the flagrant exhibitionism of the Salem Village girls, and some incidents in Gloucester helped towards their discrediting and repudiation.
The General Court had designated special sessions of the Superi- or Court of Judicature to complete the trials of fifty-two alleged witches still incarcerated. Observing signs of a change in senti- ment and pushing their advantage, the relatives of the Andover prisoners sent on December 6 still another petition, complain- ing that many of the victims had been exposed to great suffering from cold and privation and were "in extream danger of perish- ing." Several of them were shortly released, but under heavy bonds. At this time the Reverend Mr. Dane addressed to the Court a respectful but insistent letter, under his own signature, covering the course of events as he was acquainted with it. Part of this highly interesting document reads as follows:
Whereas there have been divers reports raysed, how and by what hands I know not, of the Towne of Andover and the Inhabitants, I thought it my bounden duty to give an account to others as farr as I had the understanding of anything amongst us. Therefore doe de- clare that I believe the reports have been scandalous and unjust, nei- ther will bear ye light. As for that of the sieve and scissors, I never heard of it till this last summer, and the Sabbath after I spake pub- lickly concerning it, since which I believe it hath not been tryed. As for such things of charms and wayes to find their cattle I never heard, nor doe I know any neighbors that ever did so, neither have I any grounds to believe it. I have lived above fortie foure yeares in the Towne and have been frequent among ye inhabitants and in my healthfull yeares oft at their habitations and should certainly have heard if so it had been. That there was a suspicion of Goodwife Car- rier among some of us, before she was apprehended, I know; as for any other persons I had no suspicion of them and had charity been put on, the Devil would not have had such an advantage against us;
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and I believe many innocent persons have been accused and im- prisoned; ye conceit of spectre evidence as an infallible mark did too far prevaill with us. Hence we so easily parted with our neighbors of an honest and good report and members in full communion; hence we so easily parted with our children when we knew nothing in their lives nor any of our neighbors to suspect them, and thus things were hurried on; hence such strange breaches in families; severall that came before me that spake with much sobrietie, pro- fessing their innocency, though through the Devil's subtilty they were too much urged to confess and we thought we did well in so doing; yet they stood their ground professing their innocency.
It was indeed a gloomy story which the old gentleman, the scrupulous shepherd of his spiritual flock, had to recount; and in a postscript he struck an even more pathetic personal note:
Concerning my daughter Elizabeth Johnson I never had any ground to suspect her, neither have I heard any other accuse her, till by spectre evidence she was brought forth; but this I must say, she was weake and incapacious, fearfull, and in that respect hath falsely accused herself and others. . . . The Lord direct & guide those that are in place and give us all submissive wills & let the Lord doe with me and mine what seems good in his own eyes.
By the date of the meeting of the Superior Court on January 3, 1693, reason had been restored to most Andover citizens, thanks largely to the pertinacity of Mr. Dane. One gentleman, whose name has been withheld, when charged by an enemy with witch- craft, sued him for one thousand pounds for defamation of char- acter; and this action made even the "teenagers" more cautious. When the court opened, the judges quickly agreed to eliminate "spectral evidence" as a basis for conviction, thus leaving valid only confessions by the defendants themselves. Of the fifty-three brought up for trial at this session, only three were convicted and sentenced, on the basis of their own foolish statements. Two of these, Sarah Wardwell and Elizabeth Johnson, were residents of Andover. Judge Stoughton also signed death warrants for five
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