USA > New Hampshire > The history of New Hampshire, from its discovery, in 1614, to the passage of the Toleration act, in 1819 > Part 5
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CHAP. firmament, and set a light in the eastern sky. A II. god resides in the stars, the lakes, and the recesses of the grottos. He sees him in the clouds and hears him in the winds-frowning in the wintry blast-breathing in the zephyrs of spring-smil- ing in the first blush of morning, and the last hue of twilight that lingers above the pines in the western sky. In his undefined ideas of nature, the sentiment of fear is always mingled. He cannot solve the origin of her changes or analyze her laws. Every uncommon appearance excites his amaze- ment and strikes him with terror. With every hidden agency, with every mysterious influence of nature, he blends the idea of a divinity. Super- stition springs up in his mind from all her inexpli- cable relations and remarkable features. Influ- enced by fear, the Indians never ascended the White Mountains. They supposed the invisible inhabitants would resent any intrusion into their sacred precincts. But while they presented an impassable barrier to the Indian, they offered a charm to the mind of the white man, and their supposed mineral wealth allured him to their heights. Such an impression had they made upon the imagination of Neal, that he set out on foot, attended by two companions, to reach them through an unexplored forest. He described them, in the most exaggerated style, to be a ridge Bel- knap. extending an hundred leagues, on which snow lieth all the year, and inaccessible, except by the gullies which the dissolved snow hath made. On one of these mountains the travellers reported to have found a plain of a day's journey over ; whereon nothing grows but moss ; and at the further end
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of this plain, a rude heap of mossy stones, piled up CHAP. on one another, a mile high ; on which one might II. ~ ascend from stone to stone, like a pair of winding stairs, to the top, where was another level of about an acre, with a pond of clear water. This summit was said to be far above the clouds; and from hence they beheld a vapor, like a vast pillar, drawn up by the sunbeams out of a great lake into the air, whence it was formed into a cloud. The country beyond these mountains, northward, was said to be " daunting terrible," full of rocky hills, as thick as mole hills in a meadow, and clothed with infinite thick woods. They had great expec- tation of finding precious stones ; and something Bel- knap. resembling crystals being picked up, was sufficient to give them the name of " Crystal Hills." From hence they continued their route in search of a lake and " faire islands." But their provisions were now well nigh spent, and the forests of La- conia yielded no supply So they were obliged to set their faces homeward, when "the discovery wanted but one day's journey of being finished." Late in the year, depressed with that disappoint- ment which ever treads upon the heels of extrava- gant expectation, they returned from their melan- choly journey across the wilderness. They seemed to expect a treasury underneath every foot of the rude soil. They imagined every rock of yellowish hue to be impregnated with gold. They slept on 1642. the mountains, dreaming of the rich ore lurking in their rocky foundations, and overlaying the roofs and floors of their deep subterranean halls. With fancy's eye they saw through the fissures of the rocks, and beheld yawning caverns starred with
1
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CHAP. gems and rough with gold. Two centuries have II. rolled over the bleak summits of these stupendous mountains without realizing one dream of early adventure. They still stand, the throne of the thunder and the storm; still roar their snow- crowned heads into the sky, unchanged and un- changeable-images of eternal duration.
" Oh! that some bard would rise-true heir of glory, With the full power of heavenly poesy, To gather up each old romantic story That lingers round these scenes in memory, And consecrate to immortality- Some western ScorT, within whose bosom thrills That fire which burneth to eternity, To pour his spirit o'er these mighty hills, And make them classic ground, thrice hallowed by his spells!"*
1650. After the confederation of the colonies, few events claim a notice in history, till the middle of the seventeenth century. The settlements had con- tinued to increase in population ; and Major Richard Waldron, having risen, by his bravery and force of character, to be the most conspicuous man of the province, was occasionally elected speaker of the Massachusetts assembly. Ports- mouth had lost the rustic name of Strawberry 1652. Bank, and assumed its present appellation. Mas- sachusetts had begun that admirable system of 1647. common schools, which has ever been the pride of New England ; and Mayhew Elliot and others had begun to journey on foot through the pathless wil- derness-fording streams-paddling sometimes in canoes on the rivers, lodging in the " smoky week- wams," and suffering every privation, to preach Christianity to the Indians. It was not the least
* Hibbard's description of the Franconia Mountain Notch, Democratic Review of April, 1839, No. 16.
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of Elliot's labors that he translated the whole Bible CHAP. into the language of the Pawtuckets. An im- II. portant change had occurred in the form of legisla- 1644. tive proceedings. Hitherto the magistrates and representatives, who together constituted the gen- eral court, had acted as one body. From this time their deliberations assumed parliamentary forms. The magistrates met in a separate apartment, constituting an Upper House, and bills were sent from one house to the other for concurrence in a parliamentary way.
The heirs of Mason, in England, now learned 1658. that Massachusetts had extended her jurisdiction over New Hampshire. They could offer no effec- tual resistance. While England was distracted with civil wars, there was no time for legal inves- tigation ; and when Robert Tufton, the heir to whom his estate descended, came over, on the death of Mason's executrix, he found the heirs of Mason already dispossessed of the lands at Ne- wichwannock. To recover possession, he instituted some suits in the county court. This induced Massachusetts to order a survey, which extended to Aquedochtan, the outlet of lake Winnipiseogee. The court decided that a portion of land propor- tionate to Mason's disbursements, with the privi- lege of the river, should be laid out to his heirs. Tufton gave up the remainder for lost, and returned to England, where now centered all hope of re- covering any further portion of his ancestral do- mains. The family of Mason had been too strongly attached to the royal cause to expect any relief from the commonwealth and the Protectorate of Cromwell.
CHAPTER III.
WITCHCRAFT at Portsmouth-In England, and France-In Germany, and Scotland-Trial of a witch-The Salem witchcraft-Conjectures as to the phenomena of witchcraft-Persecution of the Quakers-Execution of Leddra, Robinson, and Stevenson-Reflections.
CHAP. III.
1658.
I HAVE now reached an epoch in the history of New Hampshire, from which I would gladly pass to some other point, if oblivion could cover the space that would lie between. While Old Eng- land was shaken by the earthquakes of two revo- lutions, and a civil war raged, in which an ancient throne passed away and returned again, the people of Portsmouth, in common with the whole of New England, were agitated by convulsions scarcely less terrific. Old women, in the shape of cats, rode the air on broomsticks, and unwonted spectres haunted many a disordered imagination. Some were publicly accused, and many more were pri- vately stamped and known as witches. While accusation and suspicion were confined to the abodes of humble life, the bewildered reason of man submitted in silence, and the mania seemed to admit of no cure. But when some of the principal persons were accused, they assumed the offensive, and brought suits of slander against their accusers. This put a stop to prosecutions ; but a lingering belief in witchcraft still remained with the super- stitious. The trial of " Goodwife Walford," is a
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curious relic of the times .* She was brought be- CHAP. fore the Court of Assistants at Portsmouth, on III. complaint of Susannah Trimmings, and the testi- mony of a number of witnesses was gravely laid before the court. The complainant, the person bewitched, was the first witness, and testified as follows :
March.
" As I was going home on Sunday night I heard a rustling in the woods, which I supposed to be occasioned by swine; and presently there ap- peared a woman, whom I apprehended to be old Goodwife Walford. She asked me to lend her a pound of cotton. I told her I had but two pounds in the house, and I would not spare any to my mother. She said I had better have done it, for I was going a great journey but should never come there. She then left me, and I was struck as with a clap of fire on the back, and she vanished toward the water side, in my apprehension in the shape of a cat. She had on her head a white linen hood, tied under her chin, and her waistcoat and petti- coat were red, with an old gown apron and a black hat upon her head."
Oliver Trimmings, her husband, thus testified : " My wife came home in a sad condition. She passed by me with her child in her arms, laid the child on the bed, sat down on the chest, and leaned upon her elbow. Three times I asked her how she did. She could not speak. I took her in my arms, and held her up, and repeated the question. She forced breath, and something stopped in her throat as if it would have stopped her breath. I unlaced her clothes, and soon she spake and said,
* Adams's Annals of Portsmouth. N. H. Hist. Coll., I., p. 255.
a
ยท
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CHAP. III. Lord, have mercy upon me; this wicked woman will kill me. I asked her what woman. She said Goodwife Walford. I tried to persuade her it was only her weakness. She told me no, and related as above, that her back was a flame of fire, her lower parts were, as it were numb and without feeling. I pinched her and she felt not. She continued that night and the day and night follow- ing very ill, and is still bad of her limbs, and com- plains still daily of it."
Nicholas Rowe testified, that " Jane Walford, shortly after she was accused, came to the depo- nent in bed, in the evening, and put her hand upon his breast, so that he could not speak, and was in great pain till the next day. By the light of the fire in the next room, it appeared to be Goody Walford, but she did not speak. She repeated her visit about a week after, and did as before, but said nothing."
Eliza Barton deposed that she " saw Susannah Trimmings, at the time she was ill, and her face was colored and spotted with several colors. She told the deponent the story, who replied that it was nothing but fantasy ; her eyes looked as if they had been scalded."
John Puddington deposed that "three years since, Goodwife Walford came to his mother's. She said that her own husband called her an old witch ; and when she came to her cattle, her own husband would bid her begone ; for she did over- look the cattle, which is as much as to say in our country, bewitching."
Other cases occurred at Portsmouth, of a simi- lar character. But in no instance was the accused
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condemned to suffer death. Yet the scenes which CHAP. were enacted in New Hampshire would be worthy III. of notice, as instances of remarkable delusion, if they had not been far exceeded by the multitude of witch trials at Salem, Braintree, Andover and Topsfield, in Massachusetts ; which trials were also far surpassed, in enormity and absurdity, by cases which occurred in almost every country in Europe. In France and Germany, in England and Scotland, witchcraft was recognised as a crime in courts of justice, and by sovereigns and legis- lators. The most learned judges of the day, infected by the popular belief, gravely listened to the testimony of witch-finders, passed judgment, in the forms of law, upon the condemned, and inflicted punishment in every form of death and torture. Thus Europe, the land of the arts and sciences, the world of civilization and learning, was echoing with authority on the subject of witchcraft. Ac- counts were arriving constantly of its horrors in the old world and the trials and executions of witches. The same excitement began to prevail in America ; until, at length, witchcraft broke out at Salem in its most malignant form. Twenty persons were condemned and perished by the hands of the executioner. They protested their inno- cence to the last, and died for a crime which modern intelligence declares never existed but in the imagination of man. The public excitement rose to such a pitch that all legal principles seem to have been as effectually destroyed as were the Jewish laws at the trial of Christ .*
* See the "Trial of Jesus," translated from the French of M. Dupin, by a member of the American Bar.
1692, 1693.
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The judges partook of the frenzy which bore the multitude away. Thus it happened that this most undefined of all crimes, witchcraft, was established by the most absurd modes of proof that ever insulted a judicial tribunal. No punishment was decreed against false witnesses .* During all this delusion, no such thing as perjury was suspected. The magistrates seem never to have thought of im- posture, fraud, or mistake. Cross-examination of witnesses, one of the great shields of innocence, was prohibited. The judges, whose duty it was to protect the innocent, obeyed the popular clamor, and sought to elevate themselves in public estimation by entrapping the prisoner into confes- sions of guilt. The most diabolical witch evidence and hobgoblin cant were greedily listened to from the bench, and the testimony of impartial, substan- tial witnesses was suspected and frowned upon. Revolting and ingenious modes of torture were often resorted to, and insults were offered to the prisoner in open court, by the bystanders, and by the judges and officers of the court.
While the laws were forgotten, or trampled upon, the ties of nature seemed to be loosened and dissolved. It was not uncommon for young chil- dren to be witnesses against their parents, and parents against their children. Contrary to the laws of nature and the laws of civil society, hus- bands were permitted to accuse their wives, and wives to bear witness against their husbands. What can be more revolting than a superstition thus deaf to the voice of humanity; arming itself with supernatural terrors; striding with icy foot
* Upham's Lectures on Witchcraft.
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over the family hearth; sundering the sweet kindred CHAP. ties, and making husband and wife, parent and child, III. the blind instruments of each other's doom!
So bitter was the public hatred against witches, and with such a terrible zeal did the multitude pursue all suspected persons, that many confessed themselves guilty, that they might either be ac- quitted, or suffer death and find in the grave a refuge from their tormentors. But this was not to be their lot. All who confessed were acquitted. This is directly at war with the principles of the common law, under which the witch magistrates professed to act. By the common law, when a crime has been committed, free, voluntary confes- sion is deemed the best evidence of guilt. Yet all those who had been proved guilty by what is usually deemed the best evidence, were acquitted ; while those were executed, to procure whose con- viction all justice had been violated and every principle of law broken down. Fifty-five persons confessed that they were witches, and had formed a compact with the devil. By maintaining their innocence, they had before them the certain pros- pect of an ignominious death. They knew that the delusion had full control of their accusers, and of the magistrates and jurors. It was in vain to breast the torrent of excitement. A simple confes- sion would save them from a horrid death. Should they hesitate ? Self-preservation, the first law of nature written on man's heart, was the law upon which they acted. Some instances doubtless occurred of persons really believing themselves guilty, and confessing under that belief. Nor need this excite wonder. Confused by the terrors
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CHAP. of an arrest, cut off from their friends, overwhelmed III. by evidence wholly new, and which they did not suppose to exist, heart-broken and bewildered in mind, they ceased to distinguish between things suggested by their own knowledge and memory, and things poured into their ears by their accusers, and echoed and re-echoed by the popular cry. To increase their embarrassment, there was a class of professed witch-finders, who had various devices for finding out witches. These creatures were per- mitted to give their spectral evidence in court, and make oath to what they had discovered by the use of charms. To this detestable jugglery the mag- istrates lent a ready ear.
The effect of accusation upon the accused some- times resembled the effect of epidemic disease ; for they immediately fancied themselves possessed of, and exhibited, all the demonish witch symptoms which the ignorance or malice of their accusers attributed to them. When superstition has thus become contagious, it reigns in its most appalling aspect. It prostrates its wretched victims like the blasting touch of the plague. It moves like a spreading disease, and strikes both the heart and the intellect, like the touch of the torpedo. It in- vades the bench, and manhood seems to be lost in the magistrate. Unable to summon energy of mind to resist or mitigate this merciless scourge, he seems prepared, under its baneful influence, to inflict upon his fellow-men the greatest of evils.
The mode of examination and trial pursued by the Salem magistrates, sufficiently explains the control it had gained over them. It was this. A warrant being issued out to apprehend the person
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complained of by " the afflicted children," the said CHAP. person is brought before the justices. "The af- III. flicted children" are present. The justices ask the accused, why she afflicts these poor children. To which she answers, "I do not afflict them." Unavailing is this- artless plea of " not guilty," tendered to the magistrate in the simplest language that insulted human nature could utter-I do not afflict them. The justices next order the accused to look upon "the said children ;" which she accordingly does. The afflicted are then cast into fits. The accused is next commandede to touch the afflicted ; whereupon the afflicted ordinarily come out of the fits, and then proceed to affirm that the accused has bewitched them. The accused is straitway committed to prison, on suspicion of witchcraft. In the solitude of her dungeon she awaits her trial, wholly unconscious of the crime which must seal her doom, and unable to fathom the mystery which brings suspicion and punishment upon an innocent head.
This process was called " the evidence of ocular fascination ;" and in order that it might have its perfect work, the accused and the accusers were confronted face to face, in the presence of the court. When the supposed witch was ordered to look upon the afflicted persons, instantly, upon coming within the glance of her eye, they would scream and fall down in convulsions. It was thought by the magistrates of Salem, that an in- visible and impalpable fluid darted from the eye of the witch, and penetrated the brain of the bewitch- ed .* By bringing the witch so near that she could
* Upham's Lectures on Witchcraft.
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CHAP. touch the afflicted persons with her hand, it was III.
supposed that the malignant fluid was attracted back into her hand, and that thus the sufferers recovered their senses. It was a favorite theory of the Salem magistrates that a witch, or a person in confeder- acy with the devil, could not weep. The "callous spot," also, was an infallible proof of guilt. They believed that Satan affixed his mark to the bodies of those in alliance with him, and that the spot where this mark was made became callous and dead. Thus, upon the testimony of witch-finders, many aged women were condemned, because some spot could be found upon their old and palsied frames, insensible to a throb of pain ; or, because they were so overwhelmed, when brought before their tormentors, by the horrors of their situation and approaching fate, that the fountain of grief was dry.
The public mind had become so inflamed that it was unsafe to express a doubt of the reality of witchcraft. Accused persons were accordingly without defence. But the extremity of an evil sometimes suggests its cure. It is a fact that the first check given to the Salem witchcraft arose from an accusation brought against the wife* of one of "the principal men of the town." This has generally been considered accidental. But it may be that there were, amongst the poor and unpro- tected, some bright minds, whose keen perception discovered that the only way to check this fatal delusion was to bring it home to the firesides of the clergy, the magistrates, and the rich men of the colony. It may be that these poor persons pur-
* Mrs. Hale .- See Upham's eloquent Lectures on Witchcraft.
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posely accused some of " the principal citizens," CHAP. in order to awake others from their trance, in time to avert the impending calamity from their own
III. - humbler dwellings.
It would perhaps be difficult to offer a solution of all the phenomena of witchcraft, upon scientific principles. Most of them, however, point to diseases of the nervous system ; and particularly to an affection of the optic and auditory nerves. To the afflicted, the air, the darkness, and all space were full of strange sights and sounds. Drums beat in the air at dead of night, and guns, swords, and armed men appeared in the darkness. The minds of all were oppressed with the most distress- ing apprehensions of coming evil. Every uncom- mon sight was construed into a preternatural sig- nal of approaching dissolution. Death bells tolled through their dreams, and a departed spirit seemed to shriek on every rushing blast. Their visions were disturbed by the forms of their deceased
friends, walking before them in their grave-clothes. Every village teemed with legends of haunted houses, where ghosts looked out from the windows. The simple guide-post, and the tavern signs were transformed into ghosts, stretching out their hands to the travellers, like supernatural assassins. The withered tree, red with autumnal foliage, often took the form of a murderer, giving in the con- fession of guilt by holding out his gory hands. The strange twitchings, and spasmodic action, with which whole families were seized, the fits and con- vulsions, the settled melancholy, and occasional insanity of others, are all symptoms of nervous affections ; and when we consider that the witch-
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CHAP. craft excitement spread gradually over Europe, III. and reached America, (while other portions of the world were untouched,) reigning for a brief season, and then disappearing, it is not an improbable conjecture that the whole mystery of witchcraft may be solved, by ascribing it to an epidemic disease of the nerves ; which, like the cholera and the plague, overspread vast portions of the earth, and passed away ; leaving mankind in doubt, as to the cause of its origin and the mode of its fearful progress.
1658.
While the magistrates of Portsmouth were busy with the witches, religious intolerance broke out fiercely against the Quakers. During the whole period of this persecution, New Hampshire was but an appendage to Massachusetts, and the laws by which Quakers were whipped and led through the streets of Dover, tied to carts, were laws of Massachusetts. The stain of that vindictive persecution attaches itself to New Hampshire, because she had a small representation in the assembly of Massachusetts when those laws were enacted.
The civil authorities at Boston justified their proceedings, with the specious pretence of securing the peace and order of society. They declared the " vagabond Quakers" to be " capital blas- phemers," seducers from the glorious Trinity, open enemies to government, and subverters both of church and state .*
Accordingly, a law was published, prohibiting the Quakers from coming to the colony, on pain of the house of correction. "Notwithstanding
* Sewall's Hist. Quakers, p. 462.
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CHAP. III.
which, by a back door they found entrance."* The penalty was then increased to cutting off the ears of those who offended the second time. This barbarous punishment was inflicted in several in- stances ; for which the public safety was the ready apology. But even this proved ineffectual; and the offenders were next banished, upon pain of death, for returning. But this availed nothing. The Quakers returned and sealed with their blood the testimony of their faith. Of all the wrongs which man has inflicted upon his fellow-man, is there one which has not been perpetrated in the name of reli- gion and for the public good ? On the twenty- seventh of October, Robinson and Stevenson were Oct. 27. 1659. led to execution, attended by two hundred armed men, besides many horsemen. When they had come near the gallows, a coarse and vulgar priest cried out tauntingly to Robinson, "Shall such jacks as you come in before authority with their hats on?"f To which the martyrs made a mild reply. The prisoners then tenderly embraced each other, and ascended the ladder. When Rob- inson signified to the spectators that he " suffered not as an evil-doer," the voice of the priest was again heard,-" hold thy tongue ; be silent ; thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth."} The sufferers were soon launched off; their last words were silenced by the beating of drums. When William Leddra was brought to the gallows, he 1661. March 14. began a speech, which "took so much with the people that it" " wrought a tenderness in many."
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