1692. Salem Village, Massachusetts. Early in February, a group of young girls began exhibiting bizarre behavior and symptoms – contortions, crying out in pain, talking incomprehensibly, running about wildly, and seeing specters. Nothing that was attempted relieved their symptoms. Finally, a doctor diagnosed them as victims of “an evil hand”, not ill by natural causes. His diagnosis set off a massive witch hunt and widespread hysteria throughout Salem and the surrounding communities.
The first charges of witchcraft were filed on February 29th. By October, over 150 people (and 2 dogs) had been tried for witchcraft and 24 were dead: 19 hung on Gallows Hill, 1 pressed to death under rocks during interrogation, and 4 from appalling prison conditions. Looking back, it seems senseless to us. But Salem in 1692 was a fertile ground for terror and suspicion. Ongoing fear of attack in the raging frontier wars, a recent outbreak of smallpox, and fervent religious belief in the reality of both God and the Devil made for a terrified population. More prosaically, the witch trials also provided a means for settling old grudges and getting ahead of rivals.
One of the accused was 77-year-old Mary Bradbury, wife to Capt. Thomas Bradbury, the magistrate of Salisbury. Her accusers included two of the key girls in the Witch Trials – Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott – and certain old rivals of her own, the Carr family. Interestingly, the Putnams, Walcotts, and Carrs were all closely related to each other. The charges against Mary included changing into a blue boar, tormenting people, and casting spells on ships. Despite statements of support from 118 of her neighbors and her pastor attesting to her good character, Mary was convicted of witchcraft on September 9th and sentenced to be hung on September 22nd. Her family either bribed or broke her out of prison, smuggling her to Maine for two years. Ironically, September 22nd turned out to be the last day anyone was hung in the Salem Witch Trials; the hysteria was ending and the governor suspended hangings pending review of the situation. Mary survived to the ripe old age of 85 and produced many descendants, including poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and science-fiction author Ray Bradbury.
One of the neatest things about genealogy is finding out that your relatives played a role in history and it’s even nicer when they do the right thing. The following relatives of ours were Mary's neighbors and signed the statement attesting to her good character:
- Onisephorous Page and his wife, Mary Hauxworth Page (my 8th great-grandparents)
- Joseph Page (my 8th great-grand-uncle)
- Elizabeth Jones Getchell (my 8th great-grandmother)
- William Osgood and his wife, Abigail Ambrose Osgood (my 9th great-grand-uncle)
- Benjamin Eastman (2nd husband to my 8th great-grandmother, Naomi Flanders Darling)
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| "Concerning Mary Bradbury's life and conversation, we, the subscribers, do testify, that it was such as became the gospel: she was a lover of the ministry, in all appearance, and a diligent attender upon God' holy ordinances, being of a courteous and peaceable disposition and carriage. Neither did any of us (some of whom have lived in the town with her above fifty years) ever hear or ever know that she ever had any differences of falling-out with any of her neighbors, man, woman or child, but was always ready and willing to do for them what lay in her power night and day, though with hazard of her health or other danger. More might be spoken in her commendation, but this for the present." July 22, 1692 |
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