Certain documents by and about all of these strange matters were available at the Essex Institute, the Court House, and the Registry of Deeds, and included both harmless commonplaces such as land titles and bills of sale, and furtive fragments of a more provocative nature. There were four or five unmistakable allusions to them on the witchcraft trial records; as when one Hepzibah Lawson swore on July sixteenth, 1692, at the Court of Oyer and Terminen under Judge Hathorne, that “fortie Witches and the Blacke Man were wont to meete in the Woodes behind Mr. Hutchinson’s house,” and one Amity How declared at a session of August eighth before Judge Gedney that “Mr. G. B. (George Burroughs) on that Nighte put the Divell his Marke upon Bridget S., Jonathan A., Simon O., Deliverance W., Joseph C., Susan P., Mehitable C., and Deborah B.” Then there was a catalogue of Hutchinson’s uncanny library as found after his disappearance, and an unfinished manuscript in his handwriting, couched in a cipher none could read. Ward had a photostatic copy of this manuscript made, and began to work casually on the cipher as soon as it was delivered to him. After the following August his labors on the cipher became intense and feverish, and there is reason to believe from his speech and conduct that he hit upon the key before October or November. He never stated, though, whether or not he had succeeded.
But of greatest immediate interest was the Orne material. It took Ward only a short time to prove from identity of penmanship a thing he had already considered established from the text of the letter to Curwen; namely, that Simon Orne and his supposed son were one and the same person. As Orne had said to his correspondent, it was hardly safe to live too long in Salem, hence he resorted to a thirty-year sojourn abroad, and did not return to claim his lands except as a representative of a new generation. Orne had apparently been careful to destroy most of his correspondence, but the citizens who took action in 1771 found and preserved a few letters and papers which excited their wonder. There were cryptic formulae and diagrams in his and other hands which Ward now either copied with care or had photographed, and one extremely mysterious letter in a chirography that the searcher recognized from items in the Registry of Deeds as positively Joseph Curwen’s.
Providence,
Brother:
My honour’d Antient friend, due Respects and earnest Wishes to Him whom we serve for yr Eternall Power. I am just come upon That Which you ought to knowe, concern’g the Matter of the Laste Extremite and What to doe regard’ yt. I am not dispos’d to followe you in go’g Away on acct. of my yeares, for Providence hath not ye Sharpeness of ye Bay in hunt’g oute uncommon Things and bringinge to Tryall. I am ty’d up in Shippes and Goodes, and cou’d not doe as you did, besides the Whiche my Farme, at Pawtuxet hatht under it What you Knowe, that Wou’d not Waite for my com’g Backe as an Other.
But I am not unreadie for harde fortunes, as I have tolde you, and have longe Work’d upon ye Way of get’g Backe after ye Laste. I laste Night strucke on ye Wordes that bringe up Yogge-Sothothe, and sawe for ye Firste Time that face spoke of by Ibn Schacabac in ye ⸻. And it said, that ye III Psalme in ye Liber-Damnatus holdes ye Clavicle. With Sunne in V House, Saturne in Trine, drawe ye Pentagram of Fire, and saye ye ninth Verse thrice. This Verse repeate eache Roodemas and Hallow’s Eve, and ye thing will brede in ye Outside Spheres.
And of ye Sede of Olde shal One be borne who shal looke Backe, tho’ know’g not what he seekes.
Yett will this availe Nothing if there be no Heir, and if the Saltes, or the Way to make the Saltes, bee not Readie for his Hande; and here I will owne, I have not taken needed Stepps nor founde Much. Ye Process is plaguy harde to come neare, and it uses up such a Store of Specimens, I am harde putte to it to get Enough, notwithstand’g the Sailors I have from ye Indies. Ye People aboute are become Curious, but I can stande them off. Ye gentry are worse than ye Populace, be’g more Circumstantiall in their Accts. and more believ’d in what they tell. That Parson and Mr. Merritt have talk’d some, I am fearfull, but no Thing soe far is Dangerous. Ye Chymical substances are easie of get’g, there be’g II goode Chymists in Towne, Dr. Bowen and Sam. Carew. I am foll’g oute what Borellus saith, and have Helpe in Abdool al-Hazred his VII Booke. Whatever I gette, you shal have. And in ye meane While, do not neglect to make use of ye Wordes I have here given. I have them Righte, but if you Desire to see him,
