USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 24
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" The state of things here amongst us seems more troublesome, and we have had sad frowns of the Lord upon us, chiefly in regard of fascinations and witchcraft ; for now God calls his people into near communion with himself in visible and explicit covenant with him, only he doth not love it should be visible. Four in Springfield were detected, whereof one was executed for murder of her own child, and was doubtless a witch ; another is condemned, a third under trial, a fourth under sus- picion."
Mary Parsons, therefore, was without doubt executed on or near the date named, May 29, 1651 ; but whether at Springfield or Boston does not yet appear. A passage in Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World,
1 Vol. II. 399.
2 Mass. Records, iv. pt. i. 47. .
VOL. II .- 18.
3 In the Deputies' Records, iii. 229, the date of the trial is May 22.
.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which has puzzled writers on the subject, refers, I have no doubt, to this case, and fixes Boston as the place of the execution: "We have been advised by some credible Christians yet alive, that a malefactor, accused of witchcraft as well as murder, and executed in this place more than forty years ago, did then give notice of a horrible plot against this country by witchcraft," etc.1
The numerous and very curious depositions in the Springfield witch cases are printed in the appendix to Mr. S. G. Drake's Annals of Witchcraft, 1869. Parsons and his wife had for several years mutually accused each other of practising witchcraft. She testified that he had bewitched their own child to death, and also two children of Henry Smith, who died in June, 1648. "She is the worst enemy I have," he said. He was arrested, tried, and condemned in 1650 for " diverse devilish practices and witchcrafts, to the hurt of diverse persons; " and, among others, Mr. Moxon's children.2 He was a brickmaker, and also a sawyer. He had a dispute with Mr. Moxon about some brick which he had agreed to furnish for building. The price of brick had advanced, and when Mr. Moxon held him to his contract he retorted by saying " he would be even with him [Moxon]." . To this state- ment Parsons replied in court : "I said not ' I would be even with him; ' but this I said: 'I would puzzle him in the bargain.'" Mr. Moxon's children were favorite subjects for bedevilment. In 1649 Parsons was prosecuted for libel by Widow Marshfield, because the wife of Parsons had said that the widow had bewitched Mr. Moxon's children. He was fined twenty-four bushels of corn and twenty shillings. Perhaps these diabolical molestations were the cause of Mr. Moxon's return to England with his family in 1652.8
3. The third execution for witchcraft in Boston was on June 19, 1656, and Mrs. Ann Hibbins was the victim. She was the widow of William Hibbins, a leading merchant of Boston and one of the most honored citizens of the colony, who died in 1654. He was deputy to the General Court in 1641-42, and Assistant from 1643 to the day of his death. He served the colony as its agent in England; and being a man of wealth and high social position, his wife had mingled in the best society of Boston. It is said by Mr. Drake and others that she was the sister of Richard Bellingham, who was Governor in 1641 and Deputy-Governor at the time of her execution. That a woman occupying such a social position should have come to such an ignominious death, is a strange incident in the
1 P. 14, London edition, 1862.
2 The magistrates set aside the verdict of the jury, and the case came before the General Court at Boston, May 27-31, 1652, when he was acquit- ted. Mass. Rec., iii. 273.
3 Governor Hutchinson and several other writers on the subject have erroneously given the date of the Springfield cases "about the year 1645." In the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. for October, 1870, is printed, from an unpublished
manuscript, an early draft of Governor Hutch- inson's account of New-England witchcraft, with notes accompanying the text giving fuller details of all the cases mentioned by him. A separate issue of the same paper appeared, en- titled The Witchcraft Delusion of 1692. 'By Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, . . . with Notes, by W. F. Poole ; 1870, 43 pp. 4to. On page 6 of this issue further information may be found as to the Parsons cases.
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
case. Another is, that not a particle of the contemporary evidence on which she was convicted has been preserved. Governor Winthrop had died, and the two Mathers had not yet come upon the stage, or we should have had copious details. Governor Hutchinson, who wrote more than a century later, gave, partly from Hubbard and partly from tradition or conjecture, some incidents which help to fill out the picture.
She was first tried and condemned in 1655 ; but the magistrates set aside the verdict, and she was brought for trial before the General Court. The Records, under the date of May 14, 1656, give the following : -
"The magistrates not receiving the verdict of the jury in Mrs. Hibbins her case, having been on trial for witchcraft, it came and fell of course to the General Court. Mrs. Ann Hibbins was called forth, appeared at the bar ; the indictment against her was read, to which she answered not guilty, and was willing to be tried by God and this Court. The evidences against her were read, the parties witnessing being present, her answers considered on; and the whole Court being met together, by their vote determined that Mrs. Ann Hibbins is guilty of witchcraft, according to the bill of indictment found against her by the jury of life and death. The Governor in open Court pronounced sentence accordingly, declaring she was to go from the bar to the place from whence she came, and from thence to the place of execution, and there to hang till she was dead.
" It is ordered, that warrant shall issue out from the Secretary to the Marshal- General, for the execution of Mrs. Hibbins on the 5th day next come fortnight, presently after the lecture at Boston, being the 19th of June next, the Marshal-General taking with him a sufficient guard." 1
Governor Hutchinson, in 1765, wrote of the case as follows: -
" The most remarkable occurrence in the colony in the year 1655 was the trial and condemnation of Mrs. Ann Hibbins for witchcraft. ... Losses in the latter part of her husband's life had reduced his estate and increased the natural crabbedness of his wife's temper, which made her turbulent and quarrelsome, brought her under church ' censure,2 and at length rendered her so odious to her neighbors as to cause some of them to accuse her of witchcraft. The jury brought her in guilty, but the magistrates refused to accept the verdict ; so the cause came to the General Court, where the popular clamor prevailed against her, and the miserable woman was condemned and executed. Search was made upon her body for teats, and in her chests and boxes for puppets, images, etc. ; but there is no record of anything of that sort being found. .. . It fared with her as it did with Joan of Arc in France, - some counted her a saint and some a witch, and some observed solemn marks of Providence set upon those who were very forward to condemn her." 3
1 Mass. Rec., iv. pt. i. 269.
2 [A MS. volume by Captain Keayne in the Massachusetts Historical Society's cabinet con- tains reports of Cotton's sermons and some of the proceedings of the church in cases of dis- cipline, particularly that of Mrs. Hibbins .- ED.] 3 History of Massachusetts, i. 173, edition of 1795. " Others have said that Mr. Hibbins, losing {500 at once by the carelessness of Mr.
Trerice the shipmaster, it so discomposed his wife's spirit that she scarce ever was well settled in her mind afterwards, but grew very turbulent in her passion and discontented, on which occa- sion she was cast out of the church, and then charged to be a witch, giving too much occa- sion, by her strange carriage, to common people so to judge." - Hubbard, General History of New England, p. 574:
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
There was doubtless in the case of Ann Hibbins, as there was in that of Margaret Jones, the cruel " searching " and "watching," the finding of witch- marks and imps. The majority of her judges were not Boston men, and would not be carried away by the local prejudice against her as a turbulent and quarrelsome woman. They would have required the proofs prescribed in the law books. Hugh Parsons, though convicted by a local jury, was acquitted by the General Court; and apparently because in the great mass of depositions as to his bad disposition, his ominous shaking of the head, uttering threats, cutting puddings when boiling in the bag, whetting saws at night, and drying up milch cows, there was no testimony as to witch-marks and imps.1
Mrs. Hibbins was a widow, named Moore, when she married her late husband, and had three sons residing in England. The youngest son, hearing of his mother's troubles, embarked for America, and probably arrived before her execution. Her will, dated May 27, 1656, is in the Suffolk Probate records,2 and is a calm, well-worded, and sensible document. She named as the overseers and administrators of her estate (appraised at £344 14s.), Thomas Clarke, Edward Hutchinson, William Hudson, Joshua Scottow, and Peter Oliver. Thomas Clarke was one of the two deputies of Boston in the General Court; Joshua Scottow and Peter Oliver were select- men, and the others were leading citizens of the town. In a codicil to her will she says: "I do earnestly desire my loving friends Captain [Edward] Johnson and Mr. Edward Rawson to be added to the rest of the gentlemen mentioned as overseers of my will, to whom I commit, namely, to Capt. Johnson['s] care and trust my two chests and desk with all things therein, to be kept entirely whole and in kind, till my [eldest] son John, or his order, authenticated by a public notary, shall come and demand the same." Captain Johnson was the deputy from Woburn, and author of Wonder- working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England, London, 1654; and Mr. Rawson was Secretary of the General Court. To Mr. Rawson she delivered the keys of her chests and desk, and also her papers. "My desire is that all my overseers would be pleased to show so much respect for my dead corpse as to cause it to be decently interred, and, if it may be, near my late husband." Three days before her execution, hearing that her son was coming, she added this provision to her will: "I give my son Jona- than twenty pounds over and above what I have already given him, towards his pains and charge in coming to see me, which shall be first paid out of my estate." On the morning of her execution she made this further addi-
1 Thomas Cooper, appointed to watch Mary Parsons, testified that she spoke very bitterly of her husband, and said she could prove he was a witch ; to which Cooper replied : "Methinks, if he were a witch, there would be some apparent sign or mark of it upon his body, for they say witches have teats upon some part or other of their body; but so far as I hear there is not any
such apparent thing upon his body, - which she did not deny." Drake, Annals, p. 245.
2 ['The will is in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1852, p. 283. The inventory is dated April 30, 1657, and shows "a gold weding ring, a diamond ring, a taffety cloake, silk gown and kirtle, pinck colored petticoat," etc., with "money in the desk."-ED.]
-
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
tion : " My further mind and will is (sic), out of my sense of the more than ordinary affection and pains of my son Jonathan in the times of my distress, I give him, as a further legacy, ten pounds."
It is evident from the quality of the persons whom she chose as the overseers of her estate, the reasons she assigns for her choice, and other expressions in her will, that she had friends in her distress who sought to save her from her dreadful doom. Some of this sympathy seems to have found public expression in very positive terms; for Mr. Joshua Scottow, nine months later, found it necessary to apologize Boston this 7: (1) 1655 56 to the General Court for what he had said or done with reference to the matter. His apology is preserved in the Massachusetts Archives, cxxxv. 1.1 He stated that he did not intend to Josh: Scottom oppose the proceedings of the General Court in the case of Mrs. Ann Hibbins : "I am cordially sorry that anything from me, either in word or writing, should give offence to the honored Court, my dear brethren in the church, or any others."
How the two noted ministers of Boston, John Wilson and John Norton, regarded the condemnation and execution of Mrs. Hibbins is shown by a story which Governor Hutchinson relates : -
" Mr. Beach, a minister in Jamaica, in a letter to Dr. Increase Mather in the year 1684, says : 'You may remember what I have sometimes told you your famous Mr. [John] Norton once said at his own table before Mr. [John] Wilson, Elder [James] Penn, and myself and wife, etc., who had the honor to be his guests, -that the wife of one of your magistrates, as I remember, was hanged for a witch only for having more wit than her neighbors. It was his very expression ; she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her, - which cost her her life, notwithstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us'" (i. 173).
Increase Mather, seventeen years of age, was graduated from Harvard College the same month that Ann Hibbins was executed, and Cotton Mather was born seven years later. These names are to appear frequently in the subsequent records. It is evident there was some superstition in the colony before the time of these notable men. That neither of them, in their numerous papers on witchcraft, ever mentioned the case of Mrs. Hibbins may possibly be explained by the feeling they had in common with Mr. Norton and Mr. Wilson, that she had been unjustly condemned.
1 [This paper, the signature to which is here- with given, is the first in a volume labelled " Witchcraft Papers," in the Massachusetts Ar- chives, at the State House. Scottow survived the greater witchcraft folly of 1692, and died Jan. 20, 1697-98. Sewall records : "Jan. 21.
It seems Capt. Scottow died the last night. Thus the New England men drop away. Jan. 22. Capt. Joshua Scottow is buried in the old burying- place. Extream cold. No minister at funeral ; nor wife nor daughter." Sewall was one of the bearers (ii. 467). - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
4. The fourth and last execution for witchcraft in Boston was on Nov. 16, 1688,1 when Goody Glover was hung for the charge of bewitching the children of John Goodwin. The story is told at length in, and furnishes the main theme of, Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences, 1689.2 As Governor Hutchinson has made an excellent abstract of the facts in the case, and as he knew some of the persons who were concerned in it, we will allow him to relate the main incidents: -
"In 1687 or 16888 began a more alarming instance than any that had preceded it. Four of the children of John Goodwin, a grave man and good liver at the north 4 part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard persons who were in the neighborhood speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remarkable for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, and were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh language ; soon after which she fell into fits which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sisters and two brothers 5 followed her example, and, it is said, were tormented in the same part of their bodies at the same time, although kept in separate apartments and ignorant of one another's complaints. ... Sometimes they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind ; and sometimes all these disorders together would come upon them .. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make the most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, etc., and the marks of wounds were after- wards to be seen. The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house ; after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others persevered, and the magistrates then interposed, and the old woman was apprehended ; but upon examination would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be disordered in her senses. Upon the report of physicians that she was compos mentis, she was executed, declaring at her death the children should not be relieved " (ii. 24-26).
A narrative of the case, wholly independent of Cotton Mather's account, which Hutchinson followed, is found in a letter of Joshua Moody, minister
1 The date of the execution is mentioned in none of the contemporary narratives ; it appears, however, in Judge Sewall's Diary, i. 236: " Nov. 16, 1688. About II o'clock the Widow Glover is drawn by to be hanged. Mr. Larkin seems to be marshal. The constables attend, and Justice Bullivant there."
2 The book was reprinted in London in 1691, with a commendatory preface by Richard Baxter, in which he says: "This great instance cometh with such full, convincing evidence, that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will not believe it." The four ministers of Boston and Charles- town - Samuel Willard, Joshua Moody, James Allen, and Charles Morton -prefix a note "To the Reader," in which they, as eye-witnesses, vouch for the truth of the extraordinary state-
ments contained therein, and they concur in its principles. "It is needless," they say, "for us to insist upon the commendation either of the author or the work ; the former is known in the churches ; the latter will speak sufficiently for itself." An abstract of the narrative appears in Mather's Magnalia, ii. 456-465, edition of 1853.
3 Mr. Mather says, "About midsummer in the year 1688." In Hutchinson's first draft he was not in doubt as to the date, and gave it cor- rectly : "In 1688 began," etc.
4 Mr. Mather says "the south part of Bos- ton," and describes Mr. Goodwin as " a sober and pious man, whose trade is that of a mason."
5 The names and ages of the children were, Martha, thirteen ; John, eleven; Mercy, seven ; and Benjamin, five ..
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of the First Church, addressed to Increase Mather in London, who was then residing there as agent of the colony. The letter is dated Oct. 4, 1688, when the affair was in progress, and before the Glover woman was convicted : -
" We have a very strange thing among us, which we know not what to make of, except it be witchcraft, as we think it must needs be. Three or four children of one Goodwin, a mason, that have been for some weeks grievously tormented, crying out of head, eyes, tongue, teeth ; breaking their neck, back, thighs, knees, legs, feet, toes, etc. ; and then they roar out, ' Oh my head !' ' Oh my neck !' and from one part to another the pain runs almost as fast as I write it. The pain is doubtless very exquisite, and the cries most dolorous and affecting ; and this is notable, that two or more of them cry out of the same pain in the same part at the same time ; and as the pain shifts to another place in one, so in the other, and thus it holds them for an hour together and more ; and when the pain is over they eat, drink, walk, play, laugh, as at other times. They are generally well a nights. A great many good Christians spent a day of prayer there. Mr. Morton came over, and we each spent an hour in prayer ; since which, the parents suspecting an old woman and her daughter living hard by, complaint was made to the justices, and compassion had so far, that the women were committed to prison, and are there now. Yesterday I called in at the house, and was informed by the parent that since the women were confined the children have been well while out of the house ; but as soon as any of them come into the house, then taken as formerly ; so that now all their children keep at their neighbors' houses. If they step home they are immediately afflicted, and while they keep out are well. I have been a little larger in this narrative, because I know you have studied these things. We cannot but think the Devil has a hand in it by some instrument. It is an example, in all the parts of it, not to be paralleled. You may inquire further of Mr. Oakes [Edward, Jr., the bearer of the letter], whose uncle [Dr. Thomas Oakes],1 administered physic to them at first, and he may probably inform you more fully." 2
While the woman was on trial her house was searched, and several small images or puppets, made of rags and stuffed with goat's hair, were found; and being produced in Court, the woman acknowledged that her way of tormenting the objects of her malice was by wetting her finger and stroking these images. She did this in the presence of the Court, and one of the children present fell into fits before the whole assembly. "This the judges had their just apprehensions at; and causing the repetition of the experi- ment, found again the same event of it." She was asked whether she had any one to stand by her. She replied, she had; and looking into the air, she added, "No, he is gone." She then confessed that she had one, who was her prince, with whom she maintained some sort of a communion. That night she was heard expostulating with a devil for deserting her, and serving her so basely and falsely; and hence she had confessed all. At the
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1 "Skillful physicians were consulted for their help, and particularly our worthy and prudent friend, Dr. Thomas Oakes, who found himself so affronted by the distempers of the children that he concluded nothing but hellish
witchcraft could be the original of these ınala- dies." - Mem. Prov., p. 3, ed 1691. A "skill- ful physician " seems to be in the ground-plan of nearly every witch case in New England.
2 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., viii. 367, 368.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
trial one Hughes testified that the woman accused had bewitched to death a woman named Howen six years before, and that the Howen woman on her death-bed had stated this to her. Hughes had sometimes seen Glover come down her chimney. While Hughes was preparing to give her testi- mony, her boy was afflicted in the same woful manner as the Goodwin children had been. She accused Glover of doing this, to which Glover replied that she did it because of the wrong done to herself and daughter. Hughes denied that she had done her any wrong. "Well then," said Glover, " let me see your child, and he shall be well again." On her seeing the boy he recovered.
While the condemned woman was in prison Cotton Mather visited her twice, that he might pray with her and give her spiritual advice. He states that she never denied the guilt of witchcraft, but confessed very little about the circumstances of her confederacies with the Devil. She said that she used to be at meetings where her prince and four more were present. She told him who these four were; but as to her prince, her account plainly was that he was the Devil. He asked her many questions, to which, after long silence, she replied that she would fain give full answers, but they would not give her leave. " They, who are they ?" She answered that they were her spirits, or her saints. At another time she spoke of her two mistresses, and on being asked who they were she fell into a rage. Mr. Mather advised her to break her covenant with hell. She replied that he spoke a very reasonable thing, - but she could not do it. He asked if she had a desire, or would consent, to be prayed for, to which she replied : " If prayer would do her any good, she could pray for herself." The question being repeated, she said she could not consent unless her spirits would give her leave. " However," says Mr. Mather, "against her will I prayed with her, which, if it were a fault, was in excess of pity." When he had finished she thanked him " with many good words ; " but he was no sooner out of her sight than she took a long, slender stone, and "with her finger and spittle fell to tormenting it."
While on the way to her execution, she said that the children should not be relieved by her death, for others had a hand in it as well as she, and she named her own daughter as one of them. "It came to pass, accordingly," says Mr. Mather, " the three children continued in their furnace, which grew seven times hotter than before; " and they "gave more sensible demonstrations of an enchantment, growing very far towards a possession of evil spirits."
These Goodwin children performed some very strange pranks, which resemble those reported at the séances of modern Spiritualists. "They would fly like geese, and be carried with an incredible swiftness through the air, having just their toes now and then upon the ground, and their arms waved like the wings of a bird. One of them, at the house of a kind neighbor and gentleman (Mr. Willis), flew the length of the room, about twenty feet, none seeing her feet all the way touch the floor." They com-
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