USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 15
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Besides all this, the occasional stray individuals brought by the prevailing west wind of clear weather are stopped by the ocean, and instead of drifting still further east, remain to be observed. Finally, Essex County lies on one of the principal migration routes of North America. Some birds, with the change of season, come up the Mis- sissippi Valley in the spring and return in the fall along the Atlantic coast. Some reverse the journey, coming up the coast and returning inland. A third group follows the shore both ways. In any case, they all cross eastern Massachusetts. The result of all this is that some three hundred and forty species and sub-species are recorded for the county. Four-fifths of these are either permanent inhabitants or regular visitors to be looked for each year within a week or two of their scheduled dates. The remaining fifth are rare and accidental. Such rare and accidental finds, as well as commoner birds much out of season, are for the most part brought in by West Indies hurricanes which, as they travel up the coast, enlarge into ordinary cyclonic storms, our "north-easters" or "coast storms," which often retain something of their hurricane violence. Such rarities for New Eng- land as the black skimmer and the sooty tern are southern birds blown far north in a hurricane. How far a bird may be transported by a wind is illustrated by a remarkable flight of European lapwings car- ried across to Labrador in 1927. After a northeast storm is one time in Essex County to look for uncommon birds.
Essex County having no real mountains, its avian inhabitants and visitors tend to divide into only two groups, the inland birds and the shore dwellers. In a general way, the swamp-feeders tend to be more typical of the Canadian zone than other forms, for the swamps still remain cold and uncivilized.
Of the varied and numerous land birds of the county, the common rock dove was introduced from Europe as a domesticated fowl; but it long ago become feral and an abundant and permanent resident. It dwells mostly in cities, nesting on the ledges of buildings, but some- times, as at Nahant, it nests on rock ledges like its wild forebear. The eastern mourning dove, which somewhat resembles the extinct pas- senger pigeon, is a rare summer resident and an irregular winter one.
The English sparrow was imported in 1850 with the idea that it would help to keep down the noxious insects on city trees. What it really did was to supplant native birds and add another nuisance to
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city life. Luckily, the passing of the horse cut off its chief food sup- ply, so that it is no longer the pest it was. Starlings, introduced in 1890, have so far redeemed themselves by devouring grubs and wire- worms in the soil that the grass crop of the county has distinctly improved. Both, however, are much too abundant.
On the other hand, the eastern bob-white, once plentiful, has been nearly extirpated by gunners and severe weather; and the purple
LYNN-LOOKOUT TOWER, HIGH ROCK Courtesy of the Lynn Chamber of Commerce
martin which once, by thousands, inhabited the universal martin- houses of county dooryards, is now unknown as a nesting bird, although fairly abundant both to the north and south. The yellow- breasted chat and the white-eyed vireo, formerly rare summer resi- dents, have of late virtually disappeared, with only four records for each in the last ten years. The chat, which used to be seen every
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year in Salem, Swampscott and Lynn, went with the clearing out of underbrush, but there is no explanation for the disappearance of the vireo. The black-throated bunting, which formerly nested here in small numbers, has of late years entirely disappeared. But chimney swifts have increased, possibly with the increased number of chimneys. S. P. Fowler, of Danvers, wrote in 1860 that he could remember when they were rarely seen; but even then they were getting common.
Every New England gardener has seen the ruby-throated humming- bird feeding at his blossoms, and every New England camper has heard the weird cry of the common loon, though neither species is at all common. Even city dwellers know the migrating Canada goose. There are, by the way, records for the county, of some thirty-eight species of the duck family, no fewer than nine being fairly common at some time or other during the year; but only the whistling swan, of that sub-family, appears in the county. Robin and oriole, blue- bird and crow, blue jay, some of our thrushes besides the robin, and at least some of the forty-one species of the sparrow family recorded for the county are common knowledge, along with the black-capped chickadee and our northern mocker, the cat-bird.
But the Acadian chickadee is a very rare and irregular winter visi- tor; the orchard oriole occasionally appears; the Canada jay has been recorded four times for the county; the mockingbird seldom comes so far north; while the varied thrush from the Far West has been recorded but once.
Among birds not so universally known are the black-billed cuckoo; the downy woodpecker and the flicker; the Eastern kingbird and phœbe; the least flycatcher; the brown creeper; two nuthatches; two of the world's three waxwings, though the Bohemian waxwing has only six records for the county; the brown thrasher, which is another of the mockingbird family; and the golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets. There are thirty-two warblers, all useful to man because they live on small insects that attack the foliage of orchard and other trees.
Corresponding water and marsh birds include the Eastern belted kingfisher, which nests in burrows in banks of earth; and the great blue heron, best known of the group, although the black-crowned night heron is much commoner. The county has six other herons. The sora, one of the rails, is often heard from the marshes. There
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are twenty-nine sandpipers; and twenty-one gulls and terns, among them the only specimen for continental North America of the black- headed gull, an accidental from Europe, taken at Newburyport in 1930. The white pelican in the Peabody Museum, from Gloucester in 1886, is the only record for the county.
There are twelve owls known; but the western burrowing owl is represented by only the single individual now at the Boston Society of Natural History. There are five records for the county of the turkey vulture, including a specimen shot in 1898 and in the Peabody Museum. There are nine records of the black vulture and a specimen is in the Peabody Museum from Rockport. There are four falcons; and eleven hawks, most of them distressingly rare. Of two eagles, the bald eagle is rare, and there are only five records of the golden eagle for the county, with a specimen from Marblehead, in 1915, at the Peabody Museum.
Finally, there is the Ipswich Sparrow, an uncommon fall migrant and rare winter visitor along the coast. The first specimen ever found anywhere was shot by Charles J. Maynard, in 1868, at Ips- wich. It inhabits the dunes and beaches, with only an occasional report from inland, and its only known breeding place is Sable Island, Nova Scotia. But Sable Island is a mass of glacial drift, the emerged portion of a fishing bank, that is disappearing under the attack of the waves, and the bird seems doomed to extinction.
Among reptiles in Essex County are a dozen serpents. Besides the banded or timber rattlesnake, we have the familiar and harmless green, black, and brown snakes, the garter snake and the similar but more elongated ribbon snake, the ring-necked and the spotted-neck snakes, the hog-nosed or flatheaded adder, the house adder or milk snake, a water snake, and least of all the tiny brown DeKay's snake, hardly longer than a lead pencil nor so large around.
Specimens of the large leathery turtle, a Southern species, were taken at Nahant Beach in 1852, at Annisquam in 1880, and at Rock- port in 1885. This last is at the Peabody Museum. The same col- lection contains also a loggerhead turtle taken at Rockport in 1910. Both have been seen, though rarely, offshore. The common mud tur- tle does not occur in New England north of southern Connecticut. Abundant local pond forms are the snapper, which grows up to fifty pounds in weight, the red-marked painted turtle, and the spotted
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turtle polka-dotted in yellow. The wood tortoise is common, often encountered wandering far from the water; but Blanding's tortoise, and the box tortoise, which has a hinge in its under shell so that it can shut the opening through which its head and forelegs are with- drawn, are both rare indeed. The musk turtle is more common.
There is also a lizard, the blue-tailed skink, which if it occurs in the county, seems not to have attained to an official record.
Of amphibia, there is always and everywhere the American toad. The spade-footed toad, on the other hand, is extremely rare and sub- terranean. It is, therefore, especially hard to find; but there is a record for Danvers. Fowler's toad was first discovered near Dan- vers and is sometimes called the Danvers toad. That two species, the Danvers toad and the Ipswich sparrow, bear Essex County local names, goes to show how minutely, especially on its east side, the dis- trict has been combed by naturalists.
For frogs, the county has, of course, the green, bull, leopard, and pickerel, and the wood frog, which is terrestrial. There is also the common tree frog, and the piping tree frog. Altogether, there are some ten frogs and toads for the county.
Of tailed amphibians, always interesting as nearest of all local cold-blooded forms to man's ancestral tree, and really looking the part surprisingly, there are no fewer than twelve species. Few per- sons, however, see anything but the common water newt, red eft, green ebbet, or many-spotted salamander, as it is variously called; or possibly the large spotted salamander, amblystoma, a relative of the strange Mexican axolotl, with another near relative in Siam. For all the tailed amphibians are nocturnal creatures, usually aquatic, and most of them small. Listed for the county are the brown triton; and for salamanders, the tiger, ashy, purple, two-striped, blue-spotted, red-backed, and symmetrical. The four-toed salamander is so small and has such minute legs that when seen at all it probably gets mis- taken for a worm. It has been found in Beverly, Gloucester, and Andover. Jefferson's salamander, very scarce, has been seen in Tops- field and Georgetown.
Twelve species of tailed amphibians from Essex County, out of fewer than one hundred and fifty species for the entire world !
Fishes of Essex County offer nothing unusual. Alewives and smelts, which at spawning time made the local rivers alive, still return
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each spring. There is even an occasional salmon; and once within this decade there was taken at Lawrence a sturgeon as large as a man. Five sharks are known; but two of them are only dogfish, and the thresher and mackerel sharks are only a dozen feet long at the most, and uncommon. Out of some hundred and thirty or forty fishes, only the cod has made history.
Of insects, the county has quite all it needs, some 4,500 species. Apparently, there are about one hundred crustaceans, about thirty echinoderms, and not far from one hundred seventy molluscs, the great majority fresh water and land snails.
Seashore life alters suddenly at Cape Cod, comparatively few even of the shoal-water fishes of the Atlantic border getting into the Gulf of Maine. But the larger rivers tend to make warm spots in the sea, where a few Southern forms find refuge, so that quahogs were once fairly abundant in Danvers River and a few are still left here and there. Toadfish and red perch, both salt water forms and South- ern, have been taken within the county. One wonders how soon dwellers of Essex County will be driven to feeding on the really deli- cious edible mussel, as Europeans have done since paleolithic times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY -- Babcock, Harold L., "The Snakes of New Eng- land." Boston Society of Natural History, Guide No. 1, 4 plates, 30 pp., Boston, 1929.
Boston Society of Natural History, "Fauna of New England," Occasional Papers, Vol. VII. Published by the society. "List of the Aves," by Glover M. Allen. Part II, 230 pp., 1909. "List of the Batrachia," by Samuel Henshaw. Part 2, 10 pp., 1904. "List of the Crustacea," by Mary J. Rathbun. Part 5, 117 pp., 1905. "List of the Echinodermata," by Hubert Lyman Clark. Part 4, 13 pp., 1905. "List of the Mammalia," by Glover M. Allen. Part 3, 35 pp., 1904. "List of the Mollusca," by Charles W. Johnson. Part 13, 231 pp., 1915. "List of the Reptilia," by Samuel Henshaw. Part 1, 13 pp., 1904. "List of the Pisces," by William C. Kendall. Part 8, 152 pp., 1908.
Brown, C. Emerson, "Pocket List of Mammals of Eastern Mas- sachusetts." 4 plates, frontispiece, 53 pp., Salem, 1913.
Chapman, Frank M., "Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America." 29 plates, 166 figs., map, XXXVI, 581 pp., New York, 1932.
Essex-12
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Forbush, Edward Howe, "Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States." Issued by authority of the Legislature. Part I, "Water Birds, Marsh Birds, and Shore Birds." Plates I-33, figs. I-35, many maps and cuts, XXXI, 481 pp., 1925. Part II, "Land Birds from Bob-whites to Grackles." Plates 34-62, figs. 36-67, many maps and cuts, L, 461 pp., 1927. Part III, "Land Birds from Spar- rows to Thrushes." Plates 63-93, figs. 68-97, many maps and cuts, XLVIII, 466 pp., 1929.
Leavitt, Robert Greenleaf, "The Forest Trees of New England." Frontispiece, 78 figs., 12 charts, 175 pp. The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1933.
Leonard, Henry C., "Pigeon Cove and Vicinity." Illus., VIII, 193 pp. Boston, 1873.
Morse, Albert P., "Pocket List of Birds of Eastern Massachu- setts." Frontispiece, 92 pp., Salem, 1912.
Robinson, John, "The Flora of Essex County, Massachusetts." 200 pp., Salem, 1880.
Townsend, Charles Wendell, "The Birds of Essex County, Mas- sachusetts." Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, No. III. Frontispiece, map, 352 pp., Cambridge, Mass., 1905.
Townsend, Charles Wendell, "Supplement to the Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts." Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, No. V. Frontispiece, map, 196 pp., Cambridge, 1920.
Tracy, C. M., "Studies of the Essex Flora." 88 pp., Lynn, 1858.
Witchcraft Hysteria
CHAPTER VI
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Witchcraft Hysteria
By Miner W. Merrick.
The feelings and attitude of the people of Salem village toward witchcraft was based on the popular religious, moral, political, and intellectual background of the late seventeenth century. All through the ages there has been a gradual growth of the belief in superhuman agencies at work to help or hinder mankind. Good had been on one side and evil on the other. Man has come to believe that these forces have manifested themselves in spirits with human shapes, and as man is apt to look on the dark side of things, the evil spirits, the negative or destructive side, have attracted his attention more than the good spirits, the positive or constructive side. If he has had a particularly hard time trying to keep his head above water, of course these evil spirits have been to blame. This contest between the good and the evil was formulated very well by Zoroaster of Persia long before the Christian era began. He admonished man to keep on the side of the good as it was obvious that the forces of the evil one were ever present and ever ready to seize him and use him. By 1484 the belief in the devil had become more prominent, and the whole doctrine of witch- craft was expounded in a book called "Malleus Malificarum," which was prepared at the request of and received the official sanction of Pope Innocent VIII. Therefore, there was nothing unnatural about the belief in witchcraft of our forefathers in the seventeenth century. It had received the approval of the ages.
In England in the seventeenth century the belief in witches was especially prevalent. In 1604, during the reign of James I, a law had been enacted against witches, and a new impetus was given to their prosecution. In the period 1645 to 1647, one Matthew Hopkins,
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"TRIAL OF GEORGE JACOBS FOR WITCHCRAFT"
From painting by Matteson. Essex Institute Collection
Courtesy of The Essex Institute
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with the self-assumed title of "Witch-finder General," did his best to rout out the witches, and he had the full backing of the government. His methods of detecting a witch were extremely cruel if he was com- pelled to go the limit. First he would prick the suspected person to find the witch mark, and then he would require the victim to sit on a high stool with her legs crossed. If a confession were not forthcom- ing, he would drag the "witch" barefoot over the rough ground. His favorite method was to tie the thumb of the right hand close to the big toe of the left foot and draw the suspect through a river or pond. If she-or it might have been he-floated, she was guilty, for even the water would not claim her. This fellow procured the deaths in a little over a year of three times as many people as were executed in Salem during the whole delusion of 1692. It is interesting to note that this "witchfinder" was treated to some of his own medicine. He was subjected to the water test, and he did not sink. He was con- demned on his own principles. The Hopkins' persecutions show how far the government was willing to go to stamp out witchcraft, but it also shows that there were some in England who realized there was folly in going so far.
Outbreaks of persecution are likely to occur whenever there are troublesome times. The period of Matthew Hopkins coincides with the Civil War in England, as the year in which these persecutions began was the year of Laud's execution and of the battle of Naseby. The mention of Laud brings to mind the religious difficulties of the time. The Long Parliament thought that Laud was aiming to restore the practices of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and it was determined that this should not take place.
However deluded and misled the men of Essex County may have been in their witchcraft proceedings, the fact remains that they were led by great ideas. They believed in God and they also believed in Satan. They worshipped God and they defied the Devil. Witches were manifestations of the Devil, and as such they must be routed out. Our forefathers believed that the very existence of the Church of Christ was at stake. Is it any wonder that the fight reached such proportions ? The Devil had once waged war with God and had been cast out of heaven. Now, as was natural, he was desperately trying to regain what had been his. It was thought that Salem Village had been chosen as the final battle ground.
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The Mosaic Law commanded : "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." A minister of the time could not fail to adhere to this law and remain in the good graces of the people. The doctrines of demon- ology were essential to the gospel, and if a minister did not believe in them he was guilty of being unfaithful to God. Satan was viewed as the head of the forces that were opposing an improvement in knowl- edge and civilization. Little did those clergymen realize that later generations might look back on the Salem witchcraft episode as a blight on civilization. More will be said later of the prominent part taken by some of the ministers in this war against Satan.
Many strange things were happening in Essex County which were beyond the power of the people to comprehend. It was easy to say that these things were due to the evil forces that were at work. Ani- mals and even people died in a mysterious way, crops were destroyed, and children were crippled. What better way could the Devil take to show his presence and power? It was obvious that the Evil One had to have human help, and so helpless and oftentimes infirm old women were picked on as his agents. Were they not known to be queer and "out of step" with the other "normal" individuals? Guileless little children would be first to come under their spell and to obey their commands. A witch was regarded as a person who had made a com- pact with the Devil "by which it was agreed that she should become his faithful subject and do all in her power to aid him in his rebellion against God and his warfare against the gospel and the Church of Christ; and in consideration of such allegiance and service, Satan, on his part, agreed to exercise his supernatural powers in her favor and communicate to her those powers, in a greater or less degree, as she proved herself an efficient and devoted supporter of his cause. Thus a witch was considered as a person who had transferred alle- giance and worship from God to the Devil." A witch could do any- thing she wanted to a person or to his property. She could rend his clothing or kill his children after making them suffer from an unknown disease. She could make any person pine away or subject him to the most violent convulsions. A witch possessed the power of appear- ing in the form of an apparition in any place she chose, no matter how far it was from her actual location at the moment.
The first suspicion of witchcraft in New England arose in Spring- field on the Connecticut River in 1645. It will be remembered that this was the year that Matthew Hopkins began his vigorous routing
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out of witches. Several persons, including two of the Springfield min- ister's children, were said to be possessed of the Devil, but there was not evidence enough for a legal process, though repeated but unsuc- cessful attempts were made to get certain suspected persons to admit their guilt. The first person to be actually executed as a witch was Alse Young, who was hanged in Connecti- cut in 1647. Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, was executed in 1648. In 1651 Mary Par- sons, of Springfield, was ac- quitted of witchcraft, but was found guilty of killing her child and was hanged. Ann Hibbins, of Boston, was exe- cuted for witchcraft in 1656. The main evidence against her in her trial was her own evidence that two of her prosecutors, talking together in the street, were talking about her. This was natural enough, but in the minds of the people of the time, blinded by the current superstitions, Ann Hibbins was possessed, with the aid of the Devil, of superhuman insight. The body of this woman was searched for witch marks, and her belongings were searched for puppets. These puppets were pieces of cloth made into a doll by the witches. They were thought to be made in the likeness of the person whom the witch wished to harm. By harming the puppet the witch could inflict injury upon the person.
EXECUTION OF MRS. HIBBINS (Witchcraft). From an engraving Courtesy of The Essex Institute
In order to show something of the popular belief in witchcraft, I shall quote the account of Increase Mather, in his "Remarkable Provi- dences," of the case of Ann Cole, of Hartford :
"She was, and is accounted, a person of real piety and integrity; nevertheless in the year 1662, then living in her
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father's house ( who had likewise been esteemed a godly man), she was taken with very strange fits, wherein her tongue was Improved by a daemon to express things which she herself knew nothing of ; sometimes the discourse would hold her for a considerable time ; the general purpose of which was that such anu such persons (who were named in the discourse which passed from her) were consulting how they might carry on mischievous designs against her and several others, mention- ing sundry wayes they should take for that end, particularly that they would afflict her body, spoil her name, etc. The general answer made amongst the daemons was, 'She runs to the rock.' This having continued some hours, the daemons said, 'Let us confound her language, that she may tell no more tales.' She uttered matters unintelligible. And then the dis- course passed into a Dutch tone (a Dutch family then lived in the town), and therein an account was given of some afflictions that had befallen divers; amongst others, what had befallen a woman who lived next neighbor to the Dutch family, whose arms had been strangely pinched in the night, declaring by whom and for what cause that course had been taken with her. The Reverend Mr. Stone (then teacher of the church in Hart- ford) being by, when the discourse happened, declared that he thought it impossible for one not familiarly acquainted with the Dutch (which Ann Cole had not in the least been) should so exactly imitate the Dutch tone in the pronunciation of Eng- lish. Several worthy persons (viz. Mr. John Whiting, Mr. Samuel Hooker, and Mr. Joseph Haines) wrote the intel- ligible sayings expressed by Ann Cole, whilst she was amazingly handled. The event was that one of the persons (whose name was Greensmith, being a lewd and ignorant woman, and then in prison on suspicion for witchcraft) mentioned in the discourse active in the mischief done and designed, was by the magistrate sent for; Mr. Whiting and Mr. Haines read what they had written, and the woman being astonished thereat, confessed those things to be true, and that she and other per- sons named in this preternatural discourse, had had familiarity with the devil. Being asked whether she had made an express covenant with him, she answered, she had not, only as she
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