The Salem Witch Trials
Examination of a Witch, by T.H. Matteson 1853.
Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum
The events which led to the Witch Trials actually occurred in what is now the town of Danvers, then a parish of Salem Town, known as Salem Village. Launching the hysteria was the bizarre, seemingly inexplicable behavior of two young girls; the daughter, Betty, and the niece, Abigail Williams, of the Salem Village minister, Reverend Samuel Parris.
The Witch House
The Witch House
In February, 1692, three accused women were examined by Magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Corwin's home, known as the Witch House, still stands at the corner of North and Essex Streets in Salem, providing guided tours and tales of the first witchcraft trials. John Hathorne, an ancestor of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, is buried in the Charter Street Old Burying Point.By the time the hysteria had spent itself, 24 people had died. Nineteen were hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town, but some died in prison. Giles Corey at first pleaded not guilty to charges of witchcraft, but subsequently refused to stand trial. This refusal meant he could not be convicted legally. However, his examiners chose to subject him to interrogation by the placing of stone weights on his body. He survived this brutal torture for two days before dying.
It is remarkable 552 original documents pertaining to the witchcraft trials have been preserved and are still stored by the Peabody Essex Museum.
Eerie memorabilia associated with the trials, such as the "Witch Pins" used in the examination of witches and a small bottle supposed to contain the finger bones of the victim George Jacobs can be found in the Clerk's Office in the Essec Superior Court House, Salem.
* These short paragraphs are intended only as an introduction to a complex subject about which much has been written
A more provoking commemoration, the Salem Witch Trials Tercentenary Memorial dedicated in 1992, can be found adjacent to the Charter Street Old Burying Point.
Witch Trials Reference Materials
Many of these books are available in Salem Book Stores, and some may be found in your local library. You may click on the title to order from Amazon.com
- A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials,
Frances Hill - Cotton Mather On Witchcraft: The Wonders on the Invisible World,
Cotton Mather - Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England,
Elizabeth Reis - The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials,
Marion L. Starkey - The Devil in the Shape of a Woman Witchcraft in Colonial New England
Carol F. Karlsen - The Devil Hath Been Raised: A Documentary History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Outbreak of March 1692,
Richard B. Trask - Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England,
John Putnam Demos - Guide to the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692,
David C. Brown - Records Of Salem Witchcraft V2: Copied From The Original Documents,
W. Elliot Woodward - Rebecca Nurse: Saint But Witch Victim,
Charles Sutherland Tapley - Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft,
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum - Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture),
Bernard Rosenthal - Salem-Village Witchcraft: A Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England,
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum - Salem witchcraft: With an account of Salem Village and a history of opinions on witchcraft & kindred subjects,
Charles Wentworth Upham - The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692 (Civil Liberties in American History) (out of print),
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum - Salem Witchcraft Trials,
Katherine W. Richardson - Salem Witch Museum Miscellany,
purchase this title from the Salem Witch Museum - Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies (The American Social Experience Series),
Elaine G. Breslaw - Witchcraft at Salem,
Chadwick Hansen - The Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692 Volume I (New England's Historical),
Leo Bonfanti - The Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692 Volume II (New England's Historical),
Leo Bonfanti - Witchcraft, Magic and Religion in 17th Century Massachusetts,
Richard Weisman - Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693, Second Edition,
David Hall - Witches & Historians: Interpretations of Salem,
Marc Mappen - Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England,
David Hall