Children of Salem

“Forget about him—and all of them in the village.”

“And Sarah and Mary? What of my aunts?” Neither Sarah Cloyse or Mary Easty had been in the same jail as Serena.

“I was referring to the evil allowed to go on in the village by the people there. It has always been a place cursed, and never more than now.”

They rode on at a hard pace.

Chapter Eight

The deceased Giles Corey who had died while under torture left three sons and a wife, Martha. Martha Corey learned of her husband’s awful death on the same day she was officially condemned after a court appearance, the day after Giles’ death, September 17^th. Martha Corey had the dubious distinction of being at the top of the execution list. On the list of condemned that day with Martha were Margaret Scot of Rowly, Wilmott Redd of Marblehead, Abigail Hobbs of Topsfield, Mary Parker, Abigail Faulkner, Mary Lacy, and Anne Foster all of Andover— said to be followers of Wizard Wardwell.

Very soon after, on September 22^nd, seven condemned witches were publicly executed at the Watch Hill gallows, one having to watch the other six before they got round to her, Martha Corey. Among the executed, a sister to Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, Alice and Mary Parker, Wilmott Redd, Ann Pudeator, and Margaret Scot. When prisoners became too ill and unable to stand, they lost their place in line at the gallows, and others condemned by the court were set up in their place on the gallows.

Mary Easty, on the stairs to her rope echoed the words of her sister Rebecca. “I dare not belie my on soul by falsely agreeing to your filthy charges! I know my innocence, which means I know you are all in a wrong way. God help you all if the Lord does not step mightily in—and soon.”

The seer children screamed in agony with her every word as if firebrands burned their eyes and bodies, the screams drowning out Mary Easty’s words for all but save those closest to her.

“It’s of no use, Goodwife.” Martha Corey nudged Mary along. “Reverend Burroughs on this gallows said our Lord’s prayer without a single mistake—”

“I heard the story,” added Wilmott Redd.

“—a thing a witch man’s incapable of doing,” continued Martha, “but they hung him all the same.”

“So save your breath,” suggested Ann Pudeator.

In short order, all of the condemned brought to the rope were executed after Mary Easty’s comments to her Maker and to the men and women of Salem, including some in her extended family who thought her guilty.

# # # # #

A Boston news pamphlet with a circulation reaching a third of the population, one which had been keeping Bostonians apprised of all news coming from Salem regarding the arrests, condemnations, and executions surrounding the recent events concerning the dark arts and the search for witches and warlocks had early on warned that such dark proceedings—accusations and arrests for murder by witchery— could, in time, begin anew in Boston. Horatio Sperlunkle, the editor of the paper informed his readers via the dispatches of an itinerant journalist named Silas Smithington that:

On good authority, accusations (not of this paper’s making) have in fact not only reached so far as Boston but the mansion—accusations maligning the character of Mrs. Elizabeth Phipps. The Salem ‘seer children’ of whom we hear so much success in seeing facts of an invisible and spectral nature, have announced against Governor Phipps’ wife, who, like the wife of Waverly’s Reverend John Hale, has been busy at the jails here in Boston showing mercy and offering sweet meats and drink to prisoners. This outrage against Mrs. Elizabeth Phipps is, in the estimation of this paper, the proverbial final straw.

The pamphlet’s message spread throughout Boston, and depending on the reader, this news was either a sensational revelation of truth or a terrible gossip’s lie that had been stretched out of all proportion. But this, of all the accusations, if a lie, then a lie touching on the highest family in the land, and condemning the First Lady of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. What must the people of Essex County think?

The pamphlet went on to say:

Each of these virtuous, Christian women, Mrs. Hale of Beverly, a minister’s wife, and our Mrs. Phipps of Boston, the governor’s wife, have habitually visited those unfortunate and wretched souls jailed on the charge of witchcraft and murder via the dark arts.

While we here in Boston are not so familiar with Minister John Hale and Mrs. Hale of Beverly, we are familiar with William and Mrs. Phipps. We have seen her kneel to extend prayers and bread, feeding the accused—and we know that mere accusation alone has nowadays become the coin of realm in the court system. Now to have Mrs. Phipps accused of these heinous crimes has placed her in the company of degenerates, murderers, thieves, and other lowly types. If some among us have questioned the extremes we see in Salem Farms, what now would authorities have us do with this extreme accusation?

Perhaps at last this insult to him will garner action from our governor, who may well on hearing this nonsense go from being a man of inaction and knowing nothing of witchcraft matters or how accusations have been handled since March to knowing the truth of these matters! For what Goodman in Essex County, indeed the entirety of the present colonies, who knows his wife intimately to be pure of heart can doubt now that many pure of hearts have been arrested, imprisoned, and perhaps executed among the twenty-one thus far hung in Salem? Are we now to imagine Mrs. Phipps at the end of a rope, summarily executed by the state? A state headed by her husband?

Is there any question or doubt in the mind of our governor as to what these recent accusations against his wife mean? We at this ledger do hope that Minister Hale might come to Boston, seek audience with Governor Phipps and compare his Goodwife with Phipps’ own. That the two men might begin with their ladies’ charitable, munificent, and pious natures, which nature precludes any curiosity or interest in the black arts.”

The paper had been quietly speaking out since Jeremiah Wakely’s secret dispatches had begun showing up. The editor however stopped short of printing the libelous theory of how Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village not only instigated and fanned the flames of accusations in the witch hunt for personal gain, along with other ministers and magistrates—including Sir William Stoughton and the Court of Oyer & Terminer. The editor also refused to print the horrid theory that a man of the cloth, Parris, may or may not have killed his own half-breed infant in an abortion performed by a ship’s doctor named Caball docked at Barbados some three or four years before removing himself and his family to Salem.

News of Mrs. Hale’s having been accused had come along with testimonials as to her character. Oddly, the postmark on the news was that of Connecticut—a man named Silas Smithington, but the Sperlunkle knew it was an alias of the outlaw Jeremy Wakely.

Whatever the truth of the matter, all of Boston had this news of Mrs. Phipps’ being a witch now on the tongue. It took the place of concerns of weather, crops, fishing nets and catches, and of cargo coming and going in the harbor, and the normal life of trade in weights and measures and working one’s fields, and clearing woods, and building barns and homes. Concerns that, particularly in Salem, had been let go since the witchcraft panic had begun and snowballed downhill until people were seeing witches everywhere. Now the frenzy, like a disease, had spread to other villages and towns until now it gripped Boston in a most dramatic fashion.

In the Governor’s house, Mrs. Phipps sat her busy husband down, and she insisted he listen to a tale told by a so-called witch and now a reported fugitive and outlaw, a man named Jeremiah Wakely alias Silas Smithington.

“How ever does my lady come by these accounts from this rogue Wakely?” demanded William Phipps, pacing their bedroom.

Elizabeth Phipps sat at her mirror, brushing out her long, golden hair. “By a party who came to me while you were fighting Indians in the territories. A reliable source.”

“That Samuel Parris has played us all for fools, the entire General Court? The Salem judges, Corwin and Hathorne? That Parris’ true intent was land holdings and the court seized on the idea along with vote gathering?”

“You know something of the man I speak of,” she calmly replied and resumed brushing. “A man who has done work for you through Increase Mather, secretive work.”

“Jeremiah Wakely? Who has come under suspicion himself? Who has married into one of the witch families down there?”