10: Gospel Woman

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A PRODUCT OF THE WHISPERFORGE: SOUND & STORY, BROUGHT TO LIFE

[[MUSIC: “Lakeside Path” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

KATE: Hello and welcome to Remarkable Providences, the podcast about saints and sinners, gospel and gossip, and, of course, the Salem Witch Trials. I’m your tour guide, Kate Devorak.

When we last left the good folks of Salem Village, they were still reeling from a startling revelation.

Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba Indian, the three accused witches, had just been questioned by magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, who had gotten a bit more than they had expected. Tituba had not only confessed to witchcraft and named Good and Osborne as co-conspirators, she had also told the Village that they were involved with three other witches- two women and a man who seemed to be their leader. Tituba could not identify any of the coven apart from Good and Osborne, saying that the others were from Boston, and she had been suddenly struck blind at the end of her testimony, leaving the impromptu court with some big questions. Who were these Boston witches? What business did they have in Salem Village? How would they apprehend them if Tituba couldn’t recognize them and the respective Sarahs clung to their innocence? And even if they found them, who’s to say there weren’t more witches waiting to come out of the woodwork?

Part of me wonders what Samuel Parris was thinking throughout all this. As Tituba would reveal in an interview after the trials, her entire testimony was a work of fiction, that she had been beaten by Parris and worn down by the judges until she agreed to confess. Did he give her lines to say, or was she improvising given what she knew about European witchcraft in a desperate attempt to save herself? I would guess mostly the latter, given that Parris seemed as shocked as anyone at the idea that there was a full on witch conspiracy happening right under his nose. Or maybe he watched in horror as this pretrial quickly went off the rails in a way he did not anticipate.

[[MUSIC: Quirky]]

In a terrible attempt to throw water on the fire spreading throughout the community, Parris instead doused himself in gasoline. But in classic Sammy-P style, he’ll roll with the punches and find a way to twist this whole thing in his favor. And by that, I mean do what he always does, which is to totally beef it anyway. I’m not sure if his actions during the trials are a result of malice or stupidity, whether he really thought there were witches in their midst, or whether he used the chaos as a way to win back his congregation. Honestly, I’m going to say it’s probably an “all of the above” situation. Regardless, he likely left the meetinghouse that day with a headache.

After the court had adjourned, the Villagers stayed behind in the meetinghouse to… well… meet. No, not about all that shit that just went down. They agreed to reject an offer made by Salem Town that would exempt them from having to maintain the old town’s roads in exchange for supporting their poor, and pushed again to petition the General Court in Boston to let them fully secede from the Town. These folks really had a one-track mind.

Meanwhile, the prisoners were transferred from the guard house in the Village to a larger jail. Tituba and Sarah Osborne were to be taken to the dungeon in Salem Town, and Sarah Good was sent off to the jail in Ipswitch. I used to be a tour guide in the Salem dungeon, or rather, a recreation of it, long story.

Sarah Good, shackled and pregnant, attempted to throw herself off her horse three times as she was taken to the Ipswitch jail. Whether she was trying to make a break for the woods or kill herself is up to debate, and frankly, not for me to say. But I’ve always had a soft spot for Sarah Good, and either way I respect her tenacity.

The next day, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin visited Tituba in prison to follow up on her story from the pretrial. She further elaborated on her relationship with the devil and his coven of witches, detailing the first few meetings with him and the offers he made her, which I touched on last time. It was here that she specified that the man in black had first appeared to her in mid-January, and that he and his coven of witches had come to her several times since then: it was now March. The man had repeatedly offered her a paper, the agreement that Tituba serve him for six years in exchange for many fine rewards and, presumably, her freedom from the Parris household. But Tituba refused him time and time again, though she admitted to reluctantly helping the witches harm the children of the Village. She loved Betty, she said, and had only tormented her because the witches threatened to do worse to Tituba. I guess she was a bit lukewarm on Abigail, but then I would be too if my ward actively accused me of witchcraft in front of the entire Village.

The man came again with a book for Tituba to sign- the Devil’s Book.

[[MUSIC: Tense]]

This time, Tituba said that she had marked her name in red in the book, though not with blood. She said the man would return again to have her sign with her own blood, but he hadn’t gotten around to it before she was arrested. She said that she had seen nine names in the Devil’s Book, though the devil only told her two- Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Tituba claimed that Sarah Good confirmed that she had written her name in the Devil’s Book when they were first arrested, but Osborne had refused to answer. Of the nine recorded in the book, the devil told her that some of them lived in Boston, some in Salem Town, but would not give her their names. At this point, Tituba fell into fit like the one that had struck at the end of her testimony, screaming that Good and Osborne were attacking her for speaking against them. The magistrates then had Tituba examined, and noted that she had marks on her body that would have come from a beating. From the Devil, they concluded. Which is a funny way of saying “from Samuel Parris”, but not totally inaccurate in my book.

Despite the fear that there were at least seven witches at large, the afflictions around the Village seemed to calm down a bit. Ann Putnam Jr. and Mercy Lewis- the children in Thomas Putnam’s home- continued to suffer, but no new specters were named until March 6th, when Ann Jr. claimed to identify Elizabeth Proctor as one of her tormentors. If you’ve ever read The Crucible… or seen the court scene I used to act in at the Witch Dungeon Museum in Salem, you’ll recognize her as the third wife of John Proctor, Arthur Miller’s tragic hero. John Proctor’s a real piece of work, and so’s Arthur Miller honestly, so I’ll set him aside for now, which is pretty much what the Putnams did with Elizabeth at this point.

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

Elizabeth technically falls into the category of “usual suspect”, but that’s mostly because her grandmother had been tried and acquitted of witchcraft some thirty years before. Witchery could run in the family, you see. But Elizabeth would not be formally accused until April fourth and not arrested until April eighth, despite the number of informal accusations that were made by several of the afflicted in that month’s time. Why? This is something that deeply puzzles me. If the men of the Village really wanted the witches in custody and the whole ordeal at an end, why weren’t steps taken to confront the Proctors as soon as Ann Jr. claimed to see Elizabeth? It could be because the Proctors didn’t technically live in Salem Village. They lived just over the border in Salem proper, did not pay taxes in the Village, and were not active in Village politics. Maybe there was nothing to be gained from Elizabeth’s arrest at that time. Not to get too conspiratorial. It just makes you think.

Abigail Williams seemed to be faring a bit better, as John Hale noted when he and some other ministers visited the Parris household one evening. She only convulsed a few times, but overall she and Betty were well behaved.

[[Music continues]]

At some point around March eleventh, Samuel Parris sent Betty to stay in the home of Stephen Sewall in Salem Town, where her condition vastly improved. Her name would not be used for any more arrest warrants, nor would she appear in court again. Unfortunately, Abigail was still stuck under her unpleasant uncle’s ill-begotten roof, so her recovery would be a lot lengthier.

Then on March twelfth, Ann Jr. identified one of the spectors afflicting her as Martha Corey. Martha Corey was the second wife of Giles Corey, a wealthy farmer in Salem Village, who you may have heard of as the guy who got squished to death with rocks. It was pretty brutal, but I once had a tourist ask me, “Is that the guy who got squished?” I think about that constantly. Before Giles, she had been married to a man named Henry Rich, with whom she had a son named Thomas. She also had a son named Thomas with Giles, which is super confusing, but they don’t really play a part in this story, so I wouldn’t worry about it. At some point during her marriage to Henry, Martha had a son out of wedlock named Ben, who is described as a mulatto, or of mixed race. Unfortunately, there’s not a ton I can dig up on Ben or his parentage. He was born around 1677, and Martha boarded with him in Salem until he was a teenager and she had married Giles. In 1690, she had joined the church in Salem Village as one of the elect, having decided that God had decided that her soul was saved. The woman was literally a Saint. But now here she was, two years later, being accused of witchcraft by a child. This time, Ann’s family leapt into action.

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

That same day, her uncle Edward and Ezekiel Cheever, one of the court notetakers, headed to the Corey house to confront Martha. Or, more specifically, to see what she was wearing. Again, we see that the Puritan’s best method for verifying spectors at this point was to compare the clothes of the suspect to the afflicted’s description of the spirit allegedly attacking them. Easy peasy, right? No. When asked what the spector was wearing, Ann Jr. was suddenly struck blind, and therefore couldn’t see the spector’s clothes, which is a bizarrely common excuse that implies a lot about the Salemites’ sense of object permanence. Apparently, she had angered the witch by trying to identify her, and she would have to check back on the ghost fashion later once her vision was restored. This was apparently no matter to Edward and Ezekiel, who went right ahead with their plan, hoping to take a look at Martha’s outfit and compare style notes with Ann after.

Which brings me again to my question- why? Why was the accusation against Martha Corey taken seriously, while Elizabeth Proctor’s seemed to be largely ignored? Unlike Elizabeth, Martha was active in the Salem Village community. She and her husband were well off, with children and a good tract of land. They were also both full members of the Village church. They were truly the Elite. Perhaps as fellow members of the church, Putnam and Cheever were hoping to get ahead of the scandal and speak to Martha saint to saint. Or maybe her known disregard for the trials had ruffled some feathers. News apparently spread quickly in Salem Village, so the Putnams were probably aware that, although Giles had attended the questioning of the first three suspects, it was not without a good deal of resistance from Martha. The two had argued that morning, with Martha, I’m guessing, not too keen to encourage this witchy nonsense. At one point, she had ripped the saddle from off of Giles’ horse to keep him home, but he managed to slip out anyway. Giles was kind of a dick like that.

[[Music continues]]

When Edward Putnam and Ezekiel Cheever arrived at the Corey farm, Martha was waiting for them. She pretty much opened the door like, “I heard you were talkin shit, Putnam.” Which Edward and Ezekiel, apparently forgetting that gossip exists, took as a sign that something witchy was afoot. They said, yes, she had been named in this whole witch debacle. She immediately asked them if they knew what the spector was wearing, which of course they did not since Ann was still blind. Martha took this as a good defense of her innocence. The men, of course, found it suspicious that she would be so eager to demand details that would prove her right, so they steamrolled forward, reminding her that this accusation was not just a reflection on her, but of the whole church. That was bullshit, and Martha knew it. She continued denying any involvement with the devil, or any of the jailed suspects, whom she called, quote, “idle slothful persons” who “minded nothing that was good”. I don’t think the pun on Sarah Good was intended, but then again Martha was spicy. She then proceeded to lecture them about how this whole thing was a sign of God’s displeasure until the men were probably awkwardly pushed out of her home.

By the time Edward and Ezekiel returned to the Putnam house, Ann Jr’s sight had been restored, just in time for her to nod along as her uncle described Martha Corey’s outfit. Convenient.

[[MUSIC: Tense]]

Martha Corey was not what the Puritans might call your typical witch. Her accusal was the first major turning point in this whole operation. Together with the allegations against Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey’s arrest is where I would say that the pot finally boiled over. It was one thing for three outcasts to be accused, it was something else entirely for a saint of the church to be called a witch. If Martha Corey could be turned by the Devil, who else could be? Turns out, a lot of people.

The next day, a new Villager was attacked. Mary Warren, the twenty-year-old servant of John and Elizabeth Proctor, claimed that the specter of Martha Corey appeared before her. She reached out to bring the spirit closer for some reason, but when she pulled it into her lap, it had turned into her master! Spooooky. The real John Proctor shouted at her from across the room to pull herself together and get back to work. That was the John Proctor cure for witchcraft- hard work, shutting up, and threats of violence, which is how most Puritan cures worked.

[[Music continues]]

On March 13th, the Sabbath, Bethsua Pope, a married woman and the maternal aunt of Benjamin Franklin, was struck blind in the meetinghouse. It was caused, she said, by her neighbor, Martha Corey. Meanwhile, Ann Putnam Jr. saw the shape of a woman sitting in her grandmother’s chair. She didn’t know who it was, but thought she remembered where the woman sat in the meetinghouse. At this point, either Ann’s mother or the family’s servant, Mercy Lewis, suggested that it could be Rebecca Nurse. It’s unclear who gave the name, since both women turned on each other when questioned about it later, and Ann, predictably, couldn’t remember. Rebecca Nurse was the matriarch of the Nurse family, who owned a good deal of land in the Village. Her husband, Francis, served on the Village council. At 71-years-old, she was a mother and grandmother several times over, and she and Francis were recognized saints in the church, though both belonged to the congregation in Salem Town. If accusations against Martha Corey were surprising, the notion that Rebecca Nurse could be a witch was downright shocking.

The next day, the Putnams invited Goody Corey to their home in an attempt to settle things between her, Ann, and Mercy. It went about as well as you’d expect. Martha was surrounded by Putnams and off her home turf. She was barely able to get a word in before Ann fell to the floor, writhing and screaming the Goody Corey was the source of her torment. She pointed to Martha’s hand, crying that she saw a yellow bird feeding between her middle and forefinger. She went on to explain that Martha was also behind the blinding of Bethsua Pope, putting her hands over her eyes to demonstrate. It took several people to pry them away again. When she could finally lower her hands, Ann was greeted by the sight of a man being roasted alive on a spit in her parents’ fireplace. He, too, was a victim of Martha Corey. Now Mercy Lewis leapt into action. Being from the frontier in Maine, she had heard stories of colonist captives being roasted alive by the Wabanaki. All these people who blame the afflictions on Tituba’ supposed stories of the supernatural ought to take note of this. Mercy struck at where Ann pointed with a stick, only to be hit from behind by Martha Corey’s spector. She fell to the floor, describing the room full of women urging her to sign the Devil’s book. The real Martha saw herself out.

Meanwhile, in the parsonage, Abigail Williams reported being attacked by the spectors of Martha Corey and Elizabeth Proctor. By the end of the week, Elizabeth Hubbard had also named Goody Corey as a witch, and Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam Sr. both claimed to have been attacked by Rebecca Nurse. On March 19th, Edward Putnam and Mercy’s brother-in-law, Henry Kenney, travelled to Salem Town to make a formal complaint against Martha Corey before John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin.

Word of the arrests and confession was spreading past the Village borders.

[[MUSIC: Tense]]

In Boston, Salem Village’s former minister, Deodat Lawson, caught wind that Tituba had told the magistrates that Lawson’s wife and child had been killed through magical means, so he decided to return to his old stomping grounds to scope out the scene. Heck yeah, Deodat’s back in the saddle! And he’ll be sticking around for a while. He would write an account of the first few months of the trials that same year, titled A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village. Sounds like a great beach read. On his first night at the Ingersoll Inn, Mary Walcott, the 17-year-old daughter of Village militia captain Jonathan Walcott, came to visit him. Mary was also the great-niece of Nathaniel Ingersoll, and the maternal niece of Mary Sibley, who was behind the witch cake debacle. She and Deodat exchanged pleasantries, but when she turned to leave, Mary suddenly screamed, crying that something had bit her on the wrist. When Lawson held a candle close to her arm, he saw clear bite marks on her flesh. So either Deodat was lying, which I don’t buy, or Mary bit herself hard enough to leave a mark in order to sell him on the validity of the witch panic. Absolutely terrifying? Yes. Hardcore? Also yes. That right there’s commitment to the bite.

That same night, Deodat walked to the parsonage to visit with Samuel Parris and the ailing Abigail Williams. I imagine it would have been at least a little awkward for the two of them to hang out, Deodat wearily looking into the face of his ordained successor, sitting in the common room of the house he used to live in with his family. The family, he had just been told, that had been murdered by witches. Deodat’s aura is a deep sigh.

[[MUSIC: Quirky]]

I just wish I could be a fly on the wall for their conversation. Deodat says something like, “Sooooo do the villagers still suck?” And Sammy P’s like, “So hard, man!”

“I’m surprised they haven’t run you out of town yet.”
“Yeah, well they can’t because they gave me the house.”
“Wait, they gave you the HOUSE?”

And so on. I just like to think about it.

During all this, Abigail darted around the room, flapping her arms, crying, “Whish, whish, whish!” She stopped short, staring at the air, and yelled that Goody Nurse had come to make her sign the Devil’s book. She resisted, then ran into the fireplace as though she aimed to run up the chimney. This wasn’t the first time she had pulled that stunt, Samuel Parris explained, I imagine while sighing deeply and staring into space as he reflected on his life and choices.

[[Music continues]]

The afflicted spent the next Sabbath roasting poor Deodat. Reverend Lawson was back in the pulpit, which must have been weird for him, seeing as how he’d been essentially ousted by the Salem villagers when they’d last had him as a preacher, and also because of all the witch stuff. I bet Deodat was mostly relieved that things had gone to hell in a handbasket after he’d left. To add to the awkwardness of the situation, both the afflicted and Martha Corey were present at that meeting, which I’m sure led to a lot of side-eyes and whispering. And both parties were intent on making themselves known. At the beginning of the service, when Lawson was about to read the text before his sermon, Abigail Willaims spoke up, demanding that Deodat, quote, “Stand up and read [[his]] text”. When he did, Abigail responded, “It is a long text.” As Lawson launched into his sermon, Bethsua Pope interrupted, announcing, “Now there is enough of that!”

It’s incidents like these that lead people to say that the girls (and women) made it all up maliciously for attention or power. I don’t agree with that. I do think that being in the main group of accusers awarded an intoxicating bit of power, and that the afflicted sometimes exploited that for their own amusement. I also see it as a rebellion of sorts. Normally, no one in this society would think twice about a woman, specifically a young woman. They were expected to keep their heads down and stay quiet, waiting for the day they would be married off and start birthing lots of babies. And now when they speak, everyone listens. Even the men were listening. Whether they were believed or not, these afflicted were being heard by their society. So in cases like this, I’m just like, “Go OFF, Abigail!” I probably would have done the same thing.

[[MUSIC: Tense]]

As poor Mr. Lawson drudged through the rest of his lecture, probably wondering why he even bothered at this point, several of the afflicted, including Abigail, Mrs. Pope, Sarah Bibber, Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard, claimed to see Martha Corey’s spirit leave her body, accompanied by a yellow bird, to sit on a beam above the congregation. The congregation, for their part, were able to keep things from completely flying off the handle by shushing or comforting the afflicted, and to her immense credit, Martha Corey kept her composure until the end of the service. Before she left the meetinghouse, she announced that she would clear up this whole business, that she would open the eyes of the magistrates, and that it was clearly all some sort of horrible mistake that anyone should think that she, Gospel Woman that she was, could possibly be tangled up in anything as sordid as witchcraft.

By the next morning, she was arrested.

[[MUSIC: “Our Names Engraved” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

Remarkable Providences was written, researched, and performed by me, Kate Devorak. It was produced by Dan Manning, and recorded by Chad Ellis. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on Twitter @RemarkablePod, and everywhere else @RemarkableProvidences. For transcripts and links to everything, visit us at whisperforge.org/remarkableprovidences

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Thanks for listening, and remember, the devil’s in the details.