USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 26
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William Bond Spraken
xBr. 14.92:
1 Some Few Remarks, p. 42. In another place he says : " This is one of the things that make me think witchcraft will not be fully under- VOL. II. - 20.
Engrossed ano page in to an Act. Die presicf. Read Several times in Council, Noted, Orderedtube
Ofino is consented unto
I William Phips-
THE WITCHCRAFT BILL.2
stood until the day when there shall not be one witch in the world." - Wonders, p. 162. .
2 {This fac-simile shows the heading and con-
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Cotton Mather had no views on the theory of witchcraft which he did not hold in common with all the other ministers of Boston, - his father, Increase Mather, Samuel Willard, Joshua Moody, and James Allen. We find them together at the meetings for prayer and fasting at the house of John Good- win, in 1688. They endorsed the narrative and the principles set forth in his Memorable Providences, 1689. He wrote and they signed "The Return of several [twelve] ministers consulted by his Excellency and the Honorable Council upon the present witchcrafts in Salem Village," June 15, 1692. They are among the fourteen ministers whose names are appended to the preface of Increase Mather's Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcrafts, Oct. 3, 1692 ; and they with him signed " Certain Proposals made [March 5,
clusion of the original document preserved in the "witchcraft volume " of the Mass. Archives. The reading of it "several times" is worth not- ing, though it may be an accidental shortening of a common formula, - "three several times." -ED.] Its date xbr -that is, Dec. 14, 1692- was just after the organization of the Supreme Court under the Province charter, which took place December 7. The law is, with a few omis- sions, almost a literal copy of the English stat- ute on witchcraft enacted in the reign of James I., and was probably passed through the personal influence of the judges of the new court, who were all, with the exception of Danforth, judges in the special court which had tried the witches at Salem. The judges and the magistrates were the last to see the dreadful errors that had been committed at Salem. The special court sat dur- ing the interregnum between the repeal of the Colony charter and the setting up of the Province charter. The witches had been tried without any Colony or Province law on the subject, and presumably under the English statute of James I. It was natural that the judges of the new court - Stoughton, Sewall, Richards, and Winthrop -should seek an early occasion to embody in the Province laws the rules and practice which they had followed at Salem, and which they then had no intention to abandon. It is a strange fact, that after what had occurred at Salem those same judges should have been reappointed, and that Stoughton, whose conduct was most atro- cious of all, should have received the vote of every member present in the Council. Judge Sewall preserves in his Diary, i. 370, an account of the election, which began December 6 and was finished on the succeeding day, as follows : "Tuesday, Dec. 6. A very dark cold day; is the day appointed for choosing the judges. Wm. Stoughton, Esq., is chosen Chief-Justice, 1 5 votes (all then present) ; Thomas Danforth, Esq., 12; Major Richards, 7; Maj .- General Winthrop, 7; S. S. [Samuel Sewall], 7; I last voted for Mr. Hathorn [who, as a local magistrate of Salem, was more responsible for the Salem prosecutions
than any other man], who had 3. When Maj .- Gen. Winthrop [was] chosen, so I counted it probable that he [Hathorn] might now carry it; but now Major Gedney [another Salem magis- trate] had more than he. I esteemed Major Gedney not so suited for the place, because he is judge of the probate of wills. This was in Col. Page's rooms, by papers, on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 1692. Tuesday was spent about Little-Compton business and other interruptions. Were at last 18 assistants present." Judge Sewall did not write much in his Diary about witchcraft, but he records some incidents which show the oppo- sition of the ministers and the people to the po- sition of the Judges : "Oct. 15, 1692. Went to Cambridge and visited Mr. Danforth, and dis- coursed with him about the witchcrafts. [Dan- forth] thinks there cannot be a procedure in the Court except there be some better consent of ministers and people " (i. 367). "Oct. 26, 1692. A bill is sent in [to the council] about calling a fast and convocation of ministers, that [the court or the country] may be led in the right way as to the witchcrafts. The season and manner of doing it is such that the Court of Oyer and Ter- miner count themselves thereby dismissed, 29 noes and 33 yeas to the bill" (i. 367). "Oct. 29. Mr. Russell asked whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of inconvenience by its fall. Governor [Phips] said it must fall. Lieut .- Governor [Stoughton] not in town to-day " (i. 368). " Nov. 22, 1692. I prayed that God would choose and assist our Judges, etc., and save New England as to enemies and witchcrafts, and vindicate the late Judges, consisting with His justice and holiness, etc., with fasting " (i. 370).
[The witchcraft law of December 14 was pub- lished on December 16, and nearly three years later (Aug. 22, 1695) was disallowed by the Privy Council, for a reason quite foreign to the purport of the law : " Being not formed to agree with the statute of King James the First, whereby the Dower is saved to the widow and the Inheritance to the heir of the party convicted, the same hath
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
1694] by the President and Fellows of Harvard College to the Reverend Ministers of the Gospel in New England," asking for accounts of illustrious and remarkable providences, such as "apparitions, possessions, enchant-
been repealed." The body of the law is in for the trial of the Salem witches had been Ames and Goodell's edition of Provincial Laws appointed, consisting of those whose signatures (i. 90). In the previous May the Special Court follow : -
william stoughton . John Richards : 1 Peter Sergeant Jam Sewall.
Harh: Saltunstall
John Hathorns,
War Winthrop
68ho Newton,
Bartho Cooney Jonathan Porwing
Several of these were Boston men, and so was Newton, the prosecuting officer. He had come over about 1688, then twenty-eight years old, and had very soon taken a prominent place in the practice of his profession. (Wash- burn, Judicial Hist. of Mass.) Their jurisdiction was within the counties of Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex. They opened their court early in June, at Salem, and met by adjournment June 30, and August 5. They caused the execution of twenty persons, and adjourned, never to meet again, September 22. Sewall (i. 361) tells how in one of the intermissions of the Court, he was present at a "fast at the house of Captain Alden upon his account. Mr. Willard Johnson pray'd. I read a sermon out of
Dr. Preston, first and second uses of God's alsufficiency. Cap- tain Scottow pray'd; Mr. Allen came in and pray'd ; Mr. Cotton Mather, then Captain Hill, sung the first part Psalm ciii. ; concluded about 5 o'clock. Brave shower of rain, while Captain Scottow was praying, after much Drought." Alden, who was the eldest son of the Pilgrim
of Plymouth and Duxbury, had been accused of tormenting some of the afflicted. He was now seventy, and had been long a respected citizen; still not so circumspect, when they brought him before the Court at Salem, in May, but he could use the strong language of an old sea-dog, as he was, when he was confronted by a lot of wenches whom he had never before seen, and accused of bewitching them. Perhaps his indignation ren- dered it easier for the magistrates to send him to Boston jail, where he remained fifteen weeks, when he escaped and was concealed by his rela- tives in Duxbury, till the delusion was passed.
Sewall, it is well known, made a public con- fession of his mistake on the Fast-day, Jan. 14, 1697, appointed on account of the late tragedy, standing before the congregation of the Old South, while Parson Willard read the "bill " which he "put up," and which is given in Sewall Papers, i. 445. In 1720, on the publication of Neal's New England, Sewall records: "It grieves me to see New England's nakedness laid open in the business of the Quakers, Ana- baptists, witchcraft. The judges' names are men- tioned, p. 502. My confession, p. 536, vol. 2. The good and gracious God be pleased to save New England, and me, and my family."-ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ments, and all extraordinary things whereby the existence and agency of the invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated." 1
The afflictions of Margaret Rule 2 came upon her on Sept. 10, 1693, - she having the evening before been bitterly treated and threatened by a mis- erable woman living near, who had formerly been imprisoned on the suspicion of witchcraft, and who had frequently cured very painful hurts by mutter- ing over them certain charms. "But the hazard of hurting a poor woman," says Mr. Mather, "that might be innocent, caused the pious people in the vicinity to try whether incessant supplication to God alone might not pro- duce a quicker and safer ease to the afflicted than hasty prosecution of any supposed criminal; and accordingly that unexceptionable course was all that was ever followed." She was assaulted by eight spectres, three or four of which she thought she knew. She was repeatedly charged not to men- tion publicly the names of any she knew, lest the reputation of some good person might be blasted "through the cunning malice of the great accuser." She privately mentioned to Mr. Mather the names of several, who he says " were a sort of wretches that for many years have gone under as violent presumptions of witchcraft as perhaps any creatures yet living upon earth, although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young
1 " But for my own part," says Cotton Mather, " I know not that I ever advanced any opinion in the matter of witchcraft, but that all the min- isters of the Lord that I know of in the world, whether English, or Scotch, or French, or Dutch, -and I know many, -are of the same opinion with me." - Some Few Remarks, p. 42. Again he says : " The name of no one good person in the world ever came under any blemish by means of any afflicted person that fell under my par- ticular cognizance ; yea, no one man, woman, or child ever came into any trouble for the sake of any that were afflicted, after I had once begun to look after them." - More Wonders, p. 11. Hence his services as the comforter and ad- viser of persons accused of witchcraft were much sought for. Mr. Brattle says: "With great affection they [the accused] intreated Mr. C. M. to pray with them;" and mentions no other person as performing that duty. He made many visits to Salem for this purpose, while the dread- ful tragedy was in progress; but he never at- tended an examination or a trial. See Wonders, p. 109, and More Wonders, p. 113. " It may be," he says, "no man living ever had more people under preternatural and astonishing circum- stances cast by the Providence of God into his more particular care than I have had." - Some Few Remarks, p. 39. Isolated passages can be selected from his sermons on Witchcraft which, separated from their connection and the circum- stances under which they were uttered, appear harsh and vindictive. He fought devils, or what he supposed were devils, with fire ; but for poor
afflicted mortals his words and conduct were full of charity and tenderness. [A class of writers, numbering among them Upham, Quincy, and Bancroft, have presented a view of the Salem witchcraft proceedings which makes Cotton Mather, in greater or less degree, a participator in the Salem method. The passages sometimes quoted by those holding that side in the contro- versy, now of long standing, are considered by their opponents as susceptible of a modified meaning if taken in connection with the context, or with what they hold to be the tenor of Math- er's life. Thus, Aug. 4, 1692, after six of the twenty victims had been executed at Salem, Mather says in a Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World, afterward embodied in his book of that title : "They [the judges] have used, as judges have heretofore done, the spectral evi- dences, to introduce their farther inquiries into the lives of the persons accused; and they have thereupon, by the wonderful Providence of God, been so strengthened with other evidences that some of the witch-gang have been fairly exe- cuted." It is answered that the word fairly means in this connection simply completely. Again in his Wonders, introducing the trials at Salem, Mather says (London, 1693, p. 55) : " If in the midst of the many dissatisfactions among us, the publication of these Trials may promote such a pious thankfulness unto God for justice being so far executed among us, I shall rejoice that God is glorified."-ED.]
2 Calef says she was about seventeen years of age.
.
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
woman were evidence enough to prove them so." These names he never revealed. The story runs that her tormentors kept her from taking food for nine days; pinched her so that black and blue marks were visible; thrust pins into her neck, back, and arms; poured scalding brimstone upon her, raising blisters upon her skin, and filling the house with such a scent of brimstone that scores of witnesses could scarcely endure it. Six per- sons testified, over their own names, in three affidavits, that they had seen Margaret Rule lifted from her bed by an invisible force so as to touch the garret floor. Two of the witnesses state that -
" It was as much as several of us could do, with all our strength, to pull her down ; all which happened when there was not only we two in the room, but we suppose ten or a dozen more, whose names we have forgotten."
Another witness says : -
" I have seen her thus lifted when not only a strong person hath thrown his whole weight across her to pull her down, but several other persons have endeavored, with all their might, to hinder her from being raised." - More Wonders, pp. 22, 23.
Besides her black or wicked spectres, she had toward the end of her troubles a white or good spirit, from whom she received marvellous assist- ance in her miseries. "What lately befell Mercy Short," says Mr. Mather, " from the communications of such a spirit, hath been the just wonder of us all; but by such a spirit was Margaret Rule now also visited." This white spirit, whose face she could not see, but only its bright, shining, and glorious garments, stood by her bed-side comforting her, and counselling her to maintain her faith and hope in God, and assuring her of a speedy deliver- ance. After she had been more than five weeks in her miseries, this good spirit said to her that a certain man, who was named, had kept a three days' fast for her deliverance, and bade her be of good cheer, for her release was near. Her tormentors returned to their work, but their power was gone. "She insulted over them with a very proper derision, daring them to do their worst; whereupon they flew out of the room, and she returning per- fectly to herself, gave thanks to God for her deliverance."
So Margaret Rule's afflictions were ended.1 Nobody was brought under judicial accusation, and the name of no person suffered thereby. The nar- rative gives a faithful picture of the popular belief and of the best type of religious activity and experience of that period. The writer of the narra- tive, judged by the standards of modern belief, was very superstitious; but his acts were confessedly unselfish, charitable, and humane.
1 This is the case of which Mr. Bancroft parish. Miracles, he avers, were wrought in Boston. He wished his vanity protected."- History of the United States, Cent. ed. ii. 266.
wrote thus : "To cover his confusion, Cotton Mather got up a case of witchcraft in his own
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT.
The Boston literature of witchcraft deserves a notice in this historical sketch. It comprises nearly all that was written on the subject in this country during the last two decades of the seventeenth century; and it so modified and humanized the theory of witchcraft and diabolical possession, that no person could afterwards be convicted of the crime. The following is the list of books and tracts in the order they were written; the dates show when they were published : -
I. Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences, 1684.
2. Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences, 1689.
3. Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693.
4. Increase Mather's Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcraft, 1693.
5. Samuel Willard's Some Miscellany Observations concerning Witchcraft, 1692.
6. Thomas Brattle's Account of the Witchcraft in the County of Essex, written in 1692, and printed in 1798.
7. Robert Calef's More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700.
8. Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book by one Robert Calef. By the Parishioners of the Second Church of Boston, 1701.
I. Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences has been generally classed as a witch-book, though little less than a third of the volume treats of witch- craft. It is what it purports to be, -"An Essay for the recording of Illustrious Providences, wherein an Account is given of many remarkable and very memorable Events which have happened this last age, especially in New England." The other topics treated are, " Remarkable Sea-Deliver- ances ; " " Other remarkable Preservations; " " Remarkables about Thunder and Lightning ; " "Some Philosophical Meditations; " "Deaf and Dumb Persons ; " " Remarkable Tempests ; " " Remarkable Judgments ; " etc. A passage in the life of the author by his son1 sheds some light on the origin and intent of this book : " A little after this [the Synod of 1679], he formed a Philosophical Society of agreeable gentlemen, who met once a fort- night for a conference upon improvements in philosophy and additions to the stores of natural history." Contributions from this society were sent to a professor 2 at Leyden, and were printed in his Philosophia Naturalis. Other contributions were sent to the Royal Society of London. "But the calamity of the times," the biographer adds, " anon gave a fatal and a total interrup- tion to this generous undertaking." The project, however, of observing and recording remarkable providences was carried out in another form. The preface of Remarkable Providences states that at a general meeting of the ministers of the Colony, held May 12, 1681, it was resolved that it is " for God's glory and the good of posterity that the utmost care be taken to
1 Parentator. Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and Death of the ever-memorable Dr. Increase Mather. Boston, 1724, p. 86.
2 Wolferdus Senguerdius. His " Philosophia Naturalis, quatuor partibus, 4°. Lugd. Bat. 16So," is in the Bodleian Library Catalogue.
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
record and publish all illustrious providences," among which were men- tioned " divine judgments, tempests, floods, earthquakes, thunders as are unusual, or whatever else shall happen that is prodigious, - witchcrafts, diabolical possessions, remarkable judgments upon noted sinners, eminent deliverances, and answers of prayer." Invitation was given to the elders in the neighboring colonies to contribute. It was thought that one or two years would be necessary in which to complete the design, and that a large volume should be printed, that "posterity may be encouraged to go on therewith." If the reader will examine the volumes of the Royal Society of London printed at this period, he will find papers as rudimentary and in- consequential as some contained in this early attempt to establish a similar publication in New England. In one chapter, entitled " Several Cases of Conscience considered," Mr. Mather condemned the vulgar superstitions of the day concerning diabolical agency. He showed that it was unlawful to use herbs and to nail up horse-shoes, to drive away evil spirits, and to practise charms and incantations for curing diseases. These, he said, are heathenish superstitions, and practising witchcraft to detect witches; they that obtain health in that way have it from the Devil. A man in Boston gave to one a sealed paper having these words written upon it, "In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," as an effectual remedy for the tooth-ache. " It is a marvel- lous and an amazing thing," he says, " that in such a place as New Eng- land, where the Gospel hath shined with great power and glory, any should be so blind as to make attempts of this kind; yet some such I know there have been " (p. 185, ed. of 1856).
He recommends that "white witches," which profess to cure diseases, be treated like "black witches." " A good witch is a more horrible and detestable monster than a bad one. Balaam was a black witch, and Simon Magus was a white one. The latter did more hurt by his cures than the former by his curses."
In the chapter " Concerning Things Preternatural which have happened in New England," he gave, as an annalist, abridged accounts of several cases of bedevilment, fuller details of which had been sent to him by his corre- spondents : (1) The case of Ann Cole, of Hartford, Conn., which resulted in the execution of Goodman Greensmith and his wife, in 1662. The account was sent to him by Mr. John Whiting, minister of Hartford. (2) The case of Elizabeth Knap, " the ventriloqua," of Groton, Mass., in 1671, from an account furnished by Mr. Samuel Willard, then minister of Groton. (3) The troubles preternatural in the house of William Morse, at Newbury, Mass., in 1679, for which Mrs. Morse, in 1680, was sentenced to be hung. She was finally released from prison, though never acquitted nor pardoned. (4) A similar disturbance in the house of Mr. Mompesson, in Tedworth, County of Wilts, England. (5) The molestations of Nicholas Desborough, of Hartford, in 1683, described by Mr. John Russell, minister of Hadley, Mass. (6) The diabolical curiosities in the house of George Walton, of Portsmouth, N. H., in 1682, furnished by Mr. Joshua Moody, then minister
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of that town. (7) Uncanny proceedings in the house of Antonio Hortando, near Salmon Falls, N. H., furnished by Mr. Thomas Broughton, of Boston. Then follow two chapters, one on "Demons and Possessed Persons," and another on "Apparitions," which embody the views common at that day on these subjects. These three chapters fill eighty of the two hundred and sixty-two pages of the London reprint of 1856.1
The theory of the English courts at the time was, that, if a spectre prac- tising diabolical molestations appeared to any one, it was conclusive and legal evidence that the person so represented was a witch. This theory, accepted by Sir Matthew Hale, was adopted at the Salem trials, and the executions went on till it was supplanted by the more humane doctrine of the Boston ministers, - that the Devil himself, and not the person accused, caused the representation. Mr. Mather, in this paper, condemns the barbar- ous theory of the English courts. He says: "The Devil does not only him- self afflict diseases upon men, but represents the visages of innocent persons to the phansies of the diseased, making them believe that they are tormented by them [the persons represented], when only himself does it." This doc- trine he elaborated in his Cases of Conscience, 1692.
2. Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences, 1689, has already been described (p. 142).
3. Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693.2 This most notable book on New-England witchcraft is a miscellaneous collection made up of brief reports of the trials of five of the witches executed at Salem; two discourses on diabolism, by Mr. Mather, and " several remarkable curi- osities " connected with the subject. The book was written in the autumn of 1692, while the colony was in an uproar in consequence of the dreadful scenes which were occurring at Salem, and "by special command of his Excellency the Governor of the Province." As Mr. Mather attended none of the examinations or trials at Salem, the reports are, he says, " an abridg- ment collected out of the court papers, on Stephon Swale this occasion put into my hands. I report these matters not as an
1 Several of the original narratives, from which Mr. Mather made his abridgments, are printed in the Mather Papers (4 Mass. Hist. Coll. viii.), and, as they give fuller details, are worthy of examination by persons interested in compar- ing the earlier phenomena with modern spiritual manifestations. Mr. Whiting's account of the Ann Cole case is on pp. 466-469; Mr. Willard's, of the Knap case, pp. 555-571 ; Mr. Russell's, of the Desborough case, pp. 86-88 ; and Mr. Moody's, of the Walton case, p. 361. Further information concerning all these cases will be found in my notes to Governor Hutchinson's Witchcraft Delusion of 1692, 1870.
2 [Of Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisi- ble World, it is thought that the first Boston edition, though dated 1693, was really printed in 1692, as the imprimatur of the London edition of 1693 is dated Dec. 23, 1692. Samuel Mather puts it 1692, and the attestation of Stoughton and Sewall is dated Oct. 11, 1692. There were differences in the titles of these editions. Mr. Charles Deane has what is called a "second" edition, London, 1693; and Harvard College Library has a "third" edition, London, 1693, -both showing some changes in the title, and both abridged from the earlier edition. - ED.]
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