USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Topsfield > History of Topsfield Massachusetts > Part 32
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"I, John Hale8 of Beverly aged 56 yeares beeing Summoned to appeare & give evidence against Sarah Wiles of Topsfeild July 2, 1692: Testify yt about 15 or 16 yeares agoe came to my house ye wife of John Hirrek of Beverly wth an aged woeman she said was her mother Goody Reddington of Tops- feild come to me for counsel being in trouble of spirit when
7 Where Perkins street now crosses Mile brook.
8 This was the Rev. John Hale, a highly respected man. The girls later ventured to accuse his wife of witchcraft an impossible thing in the minds of all who knew her, and this audacious accu- sation largely contributed to the end of the delusion, as her husband at once became a strong opponent of further proceed- ings by the Court.
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ye said Reddington opned her greifs to me this was one that she was assaulted by witch craft yt Goody wiles her neighbr bewitched her & afflicted her many times greiviously, telling me many particular storys how & when she troubled her, wch I have forgotten. She said allso yt a son in law of said Wiles did come & visit her (shee called him an honest young man named John as I take it) & did pitty her ye said Reddington, signifying to her that he beleived his mother wiles was a witch & told her storys of his mother. I allso understood by them, that this Goody Wiles was mother in law to a youth named as I take it Jonathan Wiles who about twenty yeares agoe or more did act or was acted very strangly insomuch yt I was invited to joyn with Mr. Cobbet & others at Ipswich to advise & pray for ye said Youth: whome some thought to counterfeit, others to be possessed by ye devill. But I re- member Mr Cobbet thought he was under Obsession of ye devil. Goody Reddingtons discourse hath caused me to have farthr thoughts of ye said Youths case whether he was not bewitched."-Essex Institute Mss. Coll.
In the account of "John Harris sherife deputy of sondry charges at ye Corts of ir an terminar held at Sallem in ye year 1692," there is a curious and yet significant item, viz. -"Jtt for pressing of hores & man to gard me with ye wife of John willes & ye widow pudeater from Ipswich to Salem my self & gard, £0.9.6."
All the efforts of her family were in vain, however, and July 19, 1692, Sarah Wilds was hanged on Gallows Hill, Salem. At the same time Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth How and Susannah Martin were executed. It must be understood that these women were not allowed to have legal counsel at their trials, and while in jail were kept in irons, on both hands and legs. They were taken to the place of execution in carts, the people of Salem and other towns being present in great numbers. At Gallows Hill ladders were placed against limbs of trees and the women were compelled to climb these ladders, when the nooses of rope were placed about their necks. The ladders were then pulled away and these unfortunates were left hanging by the neck until they were dead. The spirit of Sarah Good, however, had not been broken by what she had gone through for while standing on the ladder, waiting to be swung into Eternity, the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, minister of the First Church, Salem, standing by told her "she was a witch and that she knew she was a witch." Mrs. Good could not restrain her feelings and burst out with "You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizan : and, if you take
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away my life, God will give you blood to drink." Hutchinson, the historian of Massachusetts, relates that the prediction was strangely verified as Noyes, a very corpulent man, died in 1717 of an internal hemorrhage, bleeding profusely at the mouth.
Mary Easty, like her sister Rebecca Nurse, was a victim of the bitter feeling aroused by the boundary dispute, but in her case there was no other irritant. She must have been a cen- tral figure in the dispute. Not only were all her Towne rela- tives actively engaged, but for four years her husband had been a selectman of Topsfield. She was arrested April 21st, in the usual way and committed to prison, but on May 18th she was released. Two days after, the girls were seized with terrible convulsions and accused Mary Easty again. The com- plaint against her was signed by John Putnam, Jr. A warrant was procured and marshall Herrick rode to Topsfield to secure her. After midnight she was aroused from sleep, chained and taken from her home and family and placed in the prison in Salem.
Aaron Easty, grandson of Mary, and son of Isaac, Jr. was born in 1698, in the house on the hill. He married Esther Richards who lived to be one hundred years old and died in Topsfield in 1805. She told her children that Mary Easty was taken to prison, the second time, from the house on the hill, the sheriff coming for her in the night. This was stated to Mrs. Abbie (Peterson) Towne, by a grandchild of Esther Richards. Mrs. Easty was kept in prison for nearly five months, three weeks of this time in Boston, and during the entire period her husband visited her twice each week, carrying food and what- ever she needed. Not only that, but he was obliged to person- ally pay the costs of transporting her to prison and from one prison to another.
Her husband, while speaking of it nearly twenty years after- wards, called it an hellish molestation. She was tried a second time and condemned to death. On the way to the gallows she was met by her family and friends and of this meeting and her parting words, Calef says, "her words of farewell were as ser- ious, distinct, and affectionate as well could be expressed."
Mary Easty was the most remarkable figure in the history of that terrible time. She seems to have been the only person, man or woman, gentle or simple, who kept her head and knew exactly the thing to do. Women in her station at that time were uneducated. Most of them could not write their names. Yet, we find her in the midst of this great excitement, while in prison and on trial for her life, presenting a petition to the Judges which, as a legal document, equals anything written
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by the leading lawyers of the day. It seems reasonable to conclude that to this document she owed her release.
"The humble Request of Mary Esty and Sarah Cloys to the Honoured Court.
Humbly sheweth, that wheras we two Sisters Mary Esty and Sarah Cloys stand now before the Honoured court charged with the suspition of Witchcraft, our humble request is first that seing we are neither able to plead our owne cause, nor is councell alowed to those in our condicion, that you who are our Judges, would please to be of councell to us, to direct us wher in we may stand in neede, Secondly that wheras we are not conscious to ourselves of any guilt in the least degree of that crime, wherof we are now accused (in the presence of ye Living God we speake it, before whose awfull Tribunall we know we shall ere Long appeare) nor of any other scandalouse evill, or miscaryage inconsistant with Christianity, Those who have had ye Longest and best knowledge of vs, being persons of good report, may be suffered to Testifie upon oath what they know concerning each of vs, viz Mr. Capen the pastour and those of ye Towne and Church of Topsfield, who are ready to say something which we hope may be looked upon, as very considerable in this matter: with the seven children of one of us, viz Mary Esty, and it may be produced of like nature in reference to the wife of Peter Cloys, her sister, Thirdly that the Testimony of witches, or such, as are afflicted, as is sup- posed, by witches may not be improved to condemn us, without other Legal evidence concurring, we hope the honoured Court and Jury will be soe tender of the lives of such as we are who have for many yeares Lived vnder the vnblemished reputation of Christianity as not to condemne them without a fayre and equall hearing of what may be sayd for us, as well as against us, And your poore supplyants shall be bound always to pray &c."-Essex Co. Court Records.
After her sentence and while in prison awaiting death, she presented a second petition to the Judges. This petition stands by itself and is probably one of the most remarkable petitions in the English language.
"The humbl petition of mary Eastick unto his Excellencyes Sr. W. Phips and to the honourd Judge and Bench now Stting in Judicature in Salem and the Reverend ministers humbly sheweth.
That wheras your poor and humble Petition being con- demned to die Doe humbly begg of you to take it in your Judicious and pious consideration that your Poor and humble petitioner knowing my own Innocencye Blised be the Lord for
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it and seeing plainly the wiles and subtility of my accusers by myselfe cannot but Judg charitably of others that are going ye same way of myselfe if the Lord stepps not mightily in I was confined a whole month upon the same account that I am condemed now for and then cleared by the afflicted persons as some of your honours know and in two dayes time I was cryed out upon by them and have been confined and now am con- demned to die the Lord aboue knows my Innocencye then and likewise does now as att the great day will be known to men and Angells-I Petition to your honours not for my own life for I know I must die and my appointed time is sett but the Lord he knowes it is that if it be possible no more Innocent blood may be shed which undoubtidly cannot be Avoydd In the way and course you goe in I question not but your honours does to the uttmost of your Power in the discouery and de- tecting of witchcraft and witches and would not by gulty of Innocent blood for the world but by my oun Innocencye I know you are in the wrong way the Lord in his infinite mercye direct you in this great work if it be his blessed will that no more Innocent blood be shed I would humbly begg of you that your honors would be pleased to examine theis Afflicted Per- sons strictly and keep them apart some time and Likewise to try some of these confesing wiches I being confident there is seuerall of them has belyed themselves and others as will ap- peare if not in this wor [1]d I am sure in the world to come whither I am now agoing and I Question not but youle see an alteration of thes things they say myselfe and others haueing made a League with the Diuel we cannot confesse I know and the Lord knows as will shortly appeare they belye me and so I Question not but they doe others the Lord aboue who is the Searcher of all hearts knowes that as I shall answer it att the Tribunall seat that I know not the least thinge of witchcraft therefore I cannot I dare not belye my own soule I beg you honers not to deny this my humble petition from a poor dying Innocent person and I Question not but the Lord will giue a blesing to yor endeuers."-Essex Co. Court Records.
She is called "Mary Easty, the self-forgetful." She was more than this for she spent her last days in an earnest effort to save others from her own terrible fate. She was executed Sept. 22, 1692, on Gallows hill in Salem. Upham in his His- tory of Witchcraft at Salem Village, has this to say of Mary Eastey. "The parting interview of this admirable woman with her husband, children and friends, as she was about proceeding to the place of execution, is said to have been a most solemn, affecting, and truly sublime scene."
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In 1702, twenty-one of the relatives and friends of the sufferers petitioned to the General Court that the names of those who were executed might be cleared of odium, so that none of their sorrowing relatives, nor their property, might suffer reproach upon that account. A year later the ministers of Essex County asked the General Court to consider the peti- tion of the "relatives of the sufferers" because "there was not as is supposed sufficient evidence to prove the guilt of such a crime." But it was not until 1711, that the General Court passed an Act to clear the names of those condemned on "in- sufficient evidence," and at the same time appropriated suffi- cient money to repay the relatives and heirs of the imprisoned for money expended in the support of the prisoners and for their expense of removal from one prison to another.
In examining these later petitions, one is impressed with the anxiety of the relatives that the names of those who were executed should be cleared from the stain of a terrible crime. The belief in witchcraft yet existed but those executed in 169? were convicted upon insufficient evidence.
CHAPTER XX POOR AND STRANGERS
The early settlers of Topsfield were not greatly blessed with worldly goods. Most of them were tillers of the soil and labored diligently to supply their families with the neces- saries of life. There were few luxuries. In the struggle, however, there were few among them who were not able to earn their own living. The first family who looked to the town for help was that of Luke Wakeling. Savage says he was of Rowley in 1662. He must have been in Topsfield be- fore 1663, for he was living there when he sold six aeres of land and dwelling house to Daniel Clark, March 25, of that year.1 It was bounded by Wakeling's land on the west and other land of Daniel Clark on the south. Mr. Wakeling must have owned or built another house which he sold, with thirteen acres of land, in 1674 to John How for £50.2 Little is known about him but he was probably well along in years. At a town meeting April 29, 1679, the selectmen were ordered to buy a cow for his use. He died Feb. 18, 1682 and his wife Catherine, a year later. In 1685, the town "made a reckon- ing" with Thomas Hunter, attorney for "prizzilah Throw alias Hunter, heir to the estate of Luke Wakeling." The selectmen gave him their account and delivered "all the muabell Estate . . . taken into there hands, all but what ye Selectmen was out about in maintaing Luke Waklein during his naterall Life and at his buerill."
In order that the towns in the colony should not become burdened with poor people settling within their limits and becoming public charges, the General Court passed an order allowing the selectmen to notify such persons that the town was not willing that they should remain as an inhabitant amongst them. If they did not leave after they were warned out of town, a complaint could be made to the county clerk. Should they continue to stay, the town was under no obliga- tion to help support them. Taking advantage of this law,
1 Ipswich Registry of Deeds, book 4, page 461.
2 Ipswich Registry of Deeds, book 3, page 371.
(343)
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the selectmen wrote John Hunkin in 1680 "to fore warn him of Coming to be an inhabitant of oure towne." He was of Ipswich in 1673 when the constable warned Joseph Lee not to entertain John Hunkin. He was also living there in 1697 when he had horses on the common. He may have been the tenant on Governor Bradstreet's farm when the latter sold it in 1692 to John and Nathaniel Averill. Likewise, the widow of Edmond Bridges and her children were ordered out of Topsfield by the constable, Sept. 12, 1682. She was Sarah Towne, daughter of William, and had probably returned to Topsfield after the death of her husband which had occurred a few months earlier. She soon became the second wife of Peter Cloyse and was accused of witchcraft but was not executed.
Evan Morris caused considerable annoyance to the officials. Apparently he was a shiftless, indolent fellow and frequently in difficulty. His name first appears as an undesirable inhab- itant in December, 1681, when the selectmen warned him out of town and told him to go to Newbury where he had lived previously. He was not wanted in Newbury either, and in March of the following year, he was warned out of that town. The case was taken to the court at Ipswich. The testimony showed that he went to Newbury summers to tend sheep. The authorities there said they objected to his coming as "he was an ould man and would be chargeable to the town." He told them he was provided for in Topsfield and they agreed to let him "keep sheep for so much a week and go take his pay and be gon out of town." It was claimed that he took all the money he earned back to Topsfield, not even buying "one shuit of clothes" in Newbury, so that Topsfield, "was better for what he did" in Newbury. Topsfield again took the mat- ter to the court that his place of residence might be settled by law but no other reference is found in the records, and just where the old man spent his last days is not known.
Another person whose place of residence was in dispute was Philip Welch. In 1676 he was living in Marblehead when the selectmen of that town petitioned the court for re- lief. He may have been the Philip Welch who was taken from England and sold as a servant in 1654. He had married in Ipswich in 1666 and had several children born in Ipswich and Topsfield. The officials of Marblehead said he was reputed a very poor man and had come from Topsfield into their town without leave. They had warned him either to depart or give bond but he refused to do either.3 In Novem-
3 Essex County Court Files, Vol. XXV, leaf 89.
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ber, 1684, some men from Topsfield requested the Court to grant relief to the widow of John Knowlton of Ipswich and her children. He had died the month before leaving his family very low in estate. The woman had only a little corn for food and no clothing and with winter coming on would be exposed to "unsuportable suffering." In 1694, persons find- ing rams at large on common land were ordered to give half to the poor and keep the rest.
By 1700 so much difficulty had arisen over the support of the poor in the towns, the General Court passed another act for their relief. This provided that no town should be charge- able with the support of a person residing therein, who had not been approved as an inhabitant unless he had lived there twelve months and not been warned out. If after being ordered to depart, he remained or came back, he was to be proceeded against as a vagabond. Shortly after this, in 1707, the selectmen of Topsfield made an agreement with Daniel Waters about the care of his mother. If he would support her and clear the town from any charge, they would free him from being impressed into service in the army, and he agreed to this.
William Averill and his wife Mary, because of his intem- perate and indolent way of living, were forced to look to the town for assistance. He was given a half acre of land and the benefit of the fruit of the parsonage orchard in 1706 for which he was obliged to sweep the meeting house and dig graves. In 1719 he was paid for this service but the town paid John Howlett and John Hovey for "keeping the wife of William Avriel and phisick," and for repairing "ye towns house that Willm Avriel now lives in." He died before July, 1722, when Rev. Joseph Capen was allowed 3s. a week from the 15th of that month to Jan. 2, 1722-3 for "keeping ye widow Mary Averill." Dr. Samuel Wallis of Ipswich was paid £5. 16s. 6d. by the town of Topsfield "for curing ye widow Mary Averills knee" in 1726. Hannah Averill also attended her as a nurse for eight days at that time. She con- tinued to be supported by the town until she died March 14, 1728-9. Receipts are found in the town records from time to time from various people for keeping the widow Mary Averill. After her decease, the selectmen turned over the remains of the estate to her daughter, Mary Jackson, who was also a poor widow. After all accounts were settled the daughter received "Eight shillings and six pence and one sute of silk crape cloths for a woman; two pairs of old stockins and an old boulster, one Bible & severall pieces of Books."
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In 1702-3 James Holdgate married Maudlin (Madeline) Dwinnell, the daughter of Michael. On May 14, 1715, "Doc- tor" James Holdgate and his family were warned to depart having been in town about nine weeks. The widow Rea was warned to depart and leave the town Oct. 25, 1716. Accord- ing to the records of Sessions of the Peace, on that date constable William Towne had warned the widow Joan Reed forthwith to depart out of the town of, Topsfield, she having been in town one month. In February 1718-19, Mary Coot, alias Snellin, was warned out after a residence of nearly two months. She was still living in town a year later when she was summoned to court to answer a charge of assault on Abraham Foster, her name then being spelled "Kute."
The first mention of overseers of the poor was found in the town records under date of May 15, 1719 when Quartermaster Ephraim Wildes was chosen for the office. The next year Deacon Samuell Howlett and Deacon Daniel Redington were chosen overseers. There were no other overseers named in the records until the town meeting in 1728-9, when Joseph Boardman and Thomas Gould were chosen. Sometime before 1786, the number of overseers had been increased to three. In that year an attempt was made to have five members on the board but it was not until about 1810 that this was done. The next year, however, when two of the men elected to the board refused to serve, it was decided to let the former number of overseers make up that body.
One of the articles mentioned in a town meeting called for April 30, 1720, was to see if the town would vote to prosecute any person who harbored a transient for more than two months without giving notice to the selectmen. Such inhab- itants would then be liable to maintain the transients if they should be in need. No action seems to have been taken, how- ever, nor was any vote recorded the following year when one of the questions put before the people at the town meeting was to see if the town will' pass a vote for the preventing of any person coming into town to be a town Charge. Never- theless on Feb. 8, 1748, Joshua Balch notified the selectmen in writing that he had taken Benjamin Bayley and his wife, Sarah, to live with him. On July 12, 1749 they were ordered to return to Middleton. The following year Thomas Perkins notified the selectmen he had taken in Henry Stibs to live with him. Some fifteen years later it was voted to prosecute the persons believed responsible for the maintenance of the Bay- leys as they were not able to support themselves. Jacob Dor-
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man seems to have been the man sucd for reimbursement of the charges. The Bayleys later lived in Boxford.
John Hood notified the town clerk in November, 1776, that he had taken into his house a child named Israel Putnam Saf- ford, son of Moses, of York and a few months later Asa Cree informed him that he had taken in Nathaniel Tyler of Box- ford, his wife Abigail and four children. March 28, 1720, Jesse Dorman, constable, ordered Sarah Greenslit to depart to Salem the place where she doth belong. At a town meeting on November 4 of that year, Lieut. Joseph Gould and Eph- raim Wildes were allowed 8s. for going to Ipswich about Sarah Greenslit, and Jesse Dorman, 5s. for carrying her out of town. Ebenezer Slingsbe with his family was ordered to Wenham where he belonged, Oct. 20, 1721. Constable Jacob Robinson ordered John Pickit and wife Elizabeth to leave town Aug. 8, 1723, after they had made their abode there about two months.
The next year Clerk Elisha Perkins was reimbursed for entering a warrant in the court records for warning Nathan- iel Ramsdell out of town and at the same time constable Eliezer Lake was paid for serving notice to Mr. Ramsdell and Francis Johnson to leave town. Nathaniel Wood and his wife Luce were ordered "to return to Brookfield or Lister where they do properly belong" or from whence they came. His death is recorded in Topsfield in 1731. Births of some of his children are also given in the local records. In 1729, the town allowed Benjamin Towne one shilling for entering the warning of Rebecca Thorp out of town on the court record. John Wildes was allowed 6s. in 1733 for "Gitting Some War- rants Entered of persons being warned out of town," and in 1734 Nathaniel Porter was paid 3s. for doing the same.
Although active measures were being taken to relieve the town of any danger of supporting persons who might become public charges, it did not follow that such people left the town. Samuel Masters was warned out in 1741 but his rates were abated from 1740 to 1754. He was born in Manchester, Mass., Sept. 28, 1706, and had married Hannah Gould of Topsfield in 1732. They, with their four children, Samuel, Ruth, Anna and Elizabeth, were ordered to return to Wenham, the place they last came from, but apparently did not do so. Their two daughters, Anna and Elizabeth, died in Topsfield in Sep- tember, 1741. He was a soldier in the French and Indian War and according to the record's he went to Cape Breton in 1745 and enlisted from Capt. John Baker's Company into Capt. Andrew Fuller's Company in 1756. He was at Fort Edward
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and was listed as a husbandman, aged forty-eight and then a resident of Topsfield. He died in the war in 1756-7. Later Topsfield had to settle with Boxford for nursing and doctor- ing his widow who was then living in the latter town. Another soldier in the French and Indian War who became a public charge was Samuel Tutoos, an Indian. He was taken sick either during his service in the army or soon after his dis- charge. The widow Hannah Herrick was paid £2. 10s. 4d. for taking care of him ten weeks in his last sickness in 1750 and Dr. Dexter, 3s. for doctoring him during the same period. The selectmen were allowed 10s. 8d. for the digging of a grave and coffin for him.
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