Devin stood and stepped forward. “So, leading up to the accusations, arrests and trials, you had dissension in town, with those who were close to town and didn’t want to separate refusing to pay certain taxes—taxes that paid to build the new minister’s house and on Samuel Parris’s property. Now, I don’t think that the young women in his house were horrible people. And why the elders let things go so far, we’ll never know. Somehow a number of books on fortune-telling—prophesy—began to circulate among the young people in the community. I imagine they were greeted with the same enthusiasm as Harry Potter, Twilight or The Hunger Games. Remember, they weren’t allowed to dance, and even hide-and-seek was considered a game for the idle.
“Parris happened to have two slaves, Tituba, and John Indian, her husband. Tituba was often in charge of the girls who lived in or visited the Parris household, among them Parris’s daughter, Betty, and his orphaned niece, Abigail. They began to form secret little circles, reading their books, even going so far as to break eggs into water, then ‘read’ the patterns to tell the future. Tituba was from Barbados, and she brought with her stories about spells and witchcraft. Betty and Abby undoubtedly got carried away.
“The two girls began shouting blasphemies, running around on the floor like dogs and scaring their parents. Dr. Grigsby was immediately called. He found nothing physically wrong with the girls and said it had to be a clerical matter. The community prayed, even fasted, but to no avail. The girls were pressured to name the witches who were tormenting them. They named Tituba and two local women, Sarah Good—who was a homeless beggar—and Sarah Osborne, who was very old and hadn’t been to church in a long time—a grievous sin in the community. The three women—all of low social class—were formally accused of witchcraft. Magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne—no W in the name, Nathaniel put that in to disassociate himself—came to investigate.
“The three women were arrested on March 1 of 1692. Tituba actually confessed to being a witch, though what they did to make her confess isn’t known. Regardless, she told her examiners that she was visited by Satan, sometimes as a large dog, and that there was a coven of witches in Salem. By May, over two hundred people had been arrested on the charge of witchcraft. A court of Oyer and Terminer—from the old English version of the Latin “to hear and determine”—was called, and soon the frenzy had begun in earnest. Many more were accused and arrested, many of high-ranking status—and most of them those who opposed the Putnam family.”
“So they had their own neighbors killed?” one lady said.
“Well, it wasn’t that simple. Remember, the devil was very real to them. And they lived in a time when all of Europe believed in witchcraft. People really believed that witches could harm your livestock and kill your children. So what was really going on with those girls? Were they simply cruel? Deluded? Some think there was ergot, a hallucinogenic fungus, in the wheat, but then the whole town would have been having visions. Or was it something I think we’re all capable of at times? You tell a lie so many times, it becomes the truth. You believe it yourself.” She glanced over at Brent. He had taken a seat and was catching his breath.
“In June,” she said, “one gentleman of the court, Nathaniel Saltonstall, resigned, horrified by the other members’ reliance on the ‘spectral evidence’ that was being presented. But that didn’t bring any rationality to the proceedings. On June 10, Bridget Bishop was the first to be hanged by order of the court. The hysteria had begun.” She indicated Bridget’s bench; Rocky was still sitting there.
He smiled at her and winked. For a moment, she stared back at him blankly, thrown off and far too attracted to him and the way he smiled at her.
But Brent was still sitting down and drinking his water, so she gave herself a mental shake and kept going.
“One of the oddest things—the way we see it today, anyway—was that some of the accused confessed, then accused others, and none of them were hanged. Instead, they were left to rot in jail. Those who were hanged were, in fact, the true Christian believers, the ones who wouldn’t confess to a lie and admit to being witches. That would be against God, and they were intent on saving their immortal souls.
“As time went on, some of the accusers became the accused themselves. A woman named Martha Corey was accused of witchcraft on March 12, and her husband, Giles, spoke against his own wife. Then he himself was accused on April 19. Today we see Giles Corey as a sad old man. But in fact, he was a strong old bugger. He knew that his property would stay in his family if he refused to plead either innocent or guilty, so Magistrate Corwin had him pressed in hopes of forcing him to either confess or claim innocence. Heavy stones were piled on his chest until finally he suffocated. A marker commemorating the event stands at the Howard Street Cemetery. But all Giles would say was...” She paused, smiling. “If you’ve spent time here in Salem, you know.”
“More weight!” a kid called out.
“Exactly,” Devin said. “He might not have been the kindest of men, but he did know the law, and by dying without giving a plea of guilty or not guilty, he kept his land. And in fact, his heirs are still there to this day.”
As she finished speaking, she looked over toward Bridget’s bench and frowned.
Rocky was gone.
*