Witchcraft by J.M. Buckley, reprinted from The Century Magazine, January 1892 (pages 408-422)

 Addison says that among all the poets who dealt with fairies, witches, magicians, demons, and departed spirits, the English are much the best, "and among the English Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. There is something so wild and yet so solemn in his speeches of his ghosts, fairies, witches, and the like imaginary persons, that we cannot forbear thinking them natural . . . . and must confess, if there are such beings in the world, it looks highly probable that they would talk and act as he has represented them."

      As Addison saw his fatal day thirty years before Goethe's natal star arose, he could not compare the prince of German poets with others; but if the ruling sentiment of modern critics may be accepted, Shakespeare's ghosts and witches still maintain their superiority. These are "the secret, black, and midnight hags" that brewed the charm for Duncan's murder, and the familiar but ever aw-inspiring ghost of Hamlet's father:

 I am thy father's spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night.

       But the fancies of poets can give no help to him who deals with one of the darkest tragedies of humanity, the only stain on the ermine of Sir Matthew Hale-whose fame without it would rival that of Daniel for wisdom, as it does for integrity,--and the chief stigma upon the early history of New England. Nor is witchcraft of the past only: for by many theologians it is believed to reappear in modern spiritualism, and by a multitude of Christians to be a reality, because, as they suppose, it is plainly asserted in the sacred Scriptures; and its baleful spell still holds four fifths of the fifteen hundred millions of the human race "fast in its slavish chains."

 Definition.

       From the earliest ages religions, true and false, claimed divine aid, and their production of effects by other than natural causes was considered by all except avowed unbelievers to be lawful. The supernatural is occult; but the latter word is used only to apply to the illegitimate, and to the imaginary sciences of the middle ages. As the terms at first employed were descriptive, rather than definitive, they came naturally to be used promiscuously, one word sometimes standing for everything preternatural exclusive of religion, and at others for a single form of such action. In an English book dating from the middle of the sixteenth century most of these ancient terms are included in a single sentence: "Besides the art magyck, sortilege, physnomye, palmestrye, alcumye, necromancy, and witchery, that was taught there also." (Bale, "English Votaries.")

      Magic, applied by the Greeks to the hereditary caste of priests of Persia, still stands in the East for an incongruous collection of superstitious beliefs and rites, having nothing in common except the claim of abnormal origin and effects. Astrology, divination, demonology, soothsaying, sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, enchantment, and many other systems are sometimes included in magic, but each term is also employed separately to stand for the whole mass of confused beliefs which, outside of the sphere of recognized religion, attempt to surpass the limitations of nature. For this reason the tide of a work on this subject seldom indicates its scope.

      But witchcraft has been restricted by usage and civil and ecclesiastical law until it signifies a voluntary compact between the devil, the party of the first part, and a human being, male or female, wizard or witch, the party of the second party,--that he, the devil, will perform whatever the person may request. The essential element in witchcraft as an offense against religion and civil law is the voluntary nature of the compact. Possession by the devil against the will, or without the consent of the subject, belongs to a radically distinct idea. The sixth chapter of Lord Coke's "Third Institute" concisely defines a witch in these words: "A witch is a person which hath conference with the devil, to consult with him to do some act." English laws in 1655 define witchcraft as "Covenant with a familiar spirit, to be punished with death."

Current Belief.

      Witchcraft is at the present time believed in by a majority of the citizens of the United States. The larger number of immigrants from the continent of Europe are more or less in fear of such powers. To these must be added no inconsiderable proportion of persons of English and Scotch descent; for a strong vein of superstition is discernible in many Irish, Scotch, and some English, whose "folk-lore," diffused in nursery tales and neighborhood gossip, has entwined itself strongly about the fibers of spontaneous, subconscious mental imagery. Among the more ignorant members of the Catholic Church of every nationality the belief produces a mysterious dread, against which men and women cross themselves, and resort to various rites supposed to be efficacious.

      Where colonies of immigrants have remained isolated, retaining the use of their own language, the influence of witchcraft is more easily traced. The interior of Pennsylvania affords better illustrations of this, and on a larger scale, than any other State. It has been but two or three years since suit was brought by a man against his mother, in one of the counties of Pennsylvania, to recover damages for a dog which he charged her with having killed by witchcraft; and he not only brought suit, but obtained judgment from a justice of the peace. Various witnesses testified as to their experiences with witchcraft, and only one said that he had never had a friend or relative who was bewitched.

      In divers villages in Pennsylvania, some of them in the Dunkard settlement, are women who are supposed to be witches. Some are shrewd enough not to apply their arts for strangers, but to those whom they know, as stated in an article in the New York "Sun" some years ago, they will sell charms to ward off lightening from buildings, dry up the wells of the enemies of the applicants, force cows to give bloody milk, cause sickness in the family, destroy beauty, separate man and wife, and reunite estranged lovers.

      In the interior parts of the Southern States, where a large proportion of the white population cannot read, and there is little admixture of society, there are "witch-doctors," who, assuming that all disease is caused by witches, secure thriving practice in counteracting their influence. The Philadelphia "Times," on the authority of a reputable correspondent, who gives many facts to sustain his representations, says: "For generations the poor whites have believed in witches, and the belief is deep-seated and incurable."

      The African population brought this belief from the Dark Continent, and it persists among them to this day, though the progress of religion and education is doing something to check it.

      I have recently noted in various parts of the United States more than fifty suits instituted by persons against those who they claimed had bewitched them; but under existing laws the accused could not be prosecuted except where money had been obtained under false pretenses, or overt acts of crime had been suggested or committed.

      During pedestrian tours in New England, in various parts of the West, and in every Southern State, I have frequently stayed for the night at the houses of poor farmers, laborers, fishermen, and trappers. In such journeys I have invariably listened to the tales of the neighborhood, stimulating them by suggestion, and have found the belief in witchcraft cropping out in the oldest towns in New England, sometimes within the very shadow of the buildings where a learned ministry has existed from the settlement of the country, and public schools have furnished means of education to all classes. The horse-shoes seen in nearly every county, and often in every township, upon the houses of persons, suggested the old horseshoe beneath which Lord Nelson, who had long kept it nailed to the mast of the Victory, received his death-wound at Trafalgar.

      In Canada the belief is more prevalent than in any part of the United States, except the interior of Pennsylvania and the South. In the French sections, exclusive of the educated-a relatively small number-the belief, if not universal, is widely diffused. But it is by no means confined to Canadians of French extraction. Until within a few years the descendants of the English and Scotch in many parts of British America were more widely separated from each other and from the progress of modern civilization than the inhabitants of the United States, or the settlers of the more recently populated continent of Australia, making due allowance for certain sections of New Zealand and Tasmania. In all  these regions the educated generally dismiss it as a mystery, or repudiate it as an ancient superstition. Nevertheless it is often found in the more isolated communities, hamlets, and rural districts, liable on slight provocation to manifest itself in superstitious fears, insinuations, and accusations.

      In the West Indies this belief prevails among the Negroes, and is not unknown among the more ignorant whites. Of South America and Mexico travelers, missionaries, and foreign residents bring similar accounts.

      In Italy those of the people who are not Protestants or free-thinkers, generally believe in the possibility of witchcraft, and to the peasants it is a living reality. Nor are all who reject the Catholic Church or avow irreligion free from credulity as regards the occult influences. Modern Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, and the neighboring States abound in similar superstitions. The common people of Hungary and Bohemia fear witchcraft, and it still dominates a considerable part of the rural population and the allied classes of Germany, and particularly of Austria.

      French peasants are afraid of evil eyes, warlocks, ghosts, spells, omens, enchantments, and witches; not in every part of the country, but in the more primitive sections. In France their persistence is promoted by dialects, kinship, and other influences peculiar to the country. It has been but a few years since the world was shocked by the burning of an old woman as a witch, in the district of Sologne, cupidity and superstition leading to the crime. Having softening of the brain, she did and said strange things, from which her children concluded that she was a witch and determined to burn her to death. When the time decided upon arrived, they sent for a priest, who confessed her. Soon after his departure her daughter screamed, "It is greatly borne upon me that now is the time to kill the hag; if we delay she may commit a sin in thought or deed, and the confession will go for nothing." As she burnt, two of her three children cried, "Aroint thee, witch!" I do not refer to this to intimate that the French people sympathize with such things, for all France was filled with horror, and the murderers were brought to justice, but as an illustration of the persistence of the belief.

      In Norway, Sweden, and Denmark witchcraft still throws a spell over many of the sailors, fishermen, and solitary farmers. In Lapland sorcerers and witches abound, the witches claiming the power of stilling the wind and causing the rain to cease. It has been a comparatively short time since English seamen trading in Archangel were in the habit of landing and buying a fair wind from the witches.

      But it is in Russia that the popular belief more generally resembles that of the whole world many centuries ago. Ralston, in "Songs of the Russian People," states: "But a little time ago every Russian village had its wizard, almost as a matter of course, and to this day it is said there is not a hamlet in the Ukraine that is not reported to keep its witch." When I was traveling in the interior of that country, accompanied by a master of the Russian language, I found that the peasants still believe that witches and wizards can steal the dew and the rain, send whirlwinds, hide the moon and stars, and fly through the air on brooms and tongs. Their chief meetings take place three times a year, on "bald hills," and there are thousands of stories of witches going up chimneys and flying through the air; an analogy exists between these and the ancient German legends on the same subject. They chalk crosses on their huts and windows, hang up stove-rakes for protection, tie knots and wear amulets. Plagues in men and cattle are popularly attributed to witches. Epileptics, and those afflicted with St. Vitus's dance, are supposed to be bewitched. According to popular belief in Russia, witches assume the form of dogs and cats and owls; but the shape they like best is that of a magpie. The Metropolitan Alexis solemnly cursed that bird, "on account of the bad behavior of the witches who have assumed its plumage."

      In Scotland, Ireland, and England the belief it witchcraft lingers, and only those who are at the pains to inquire how far it extends, and how strong the impression is, can form an adequate idea of either.

Looking Backward.

      It is important to notice how late in the Christian era individual belief, popular excitements, and judicial proceedings have been sufficiently conspicuous for permanent record.

      In "Reports of Trials for Murder by Poison," by Browne, a barrister at law, and Stewart, senior assistant in the laboratory of St. Thomas's Hospital, a standard work for physicians, chemists, and jurists, published in London in 1883, I find the case of Dove; and that in the said trial various references were made to the prevalence of the belief in witchcraft among persons of the prisoner's class. It appears from the evidence that his interviews with the witch-man on the subjects of lost cattle, removing strange noises from his house, the bewitching of his live stock, and the deaths of persons inimical to him, and the promise of the witch-man to get him out of all difficulty, which led to the murder, were in the summer and autumn of 1855, and the spring of 1856.

      In 1846 in England, and in 1845 in Scotland, cases of witchcraft attracted much attention.

      The following case of witchcraft occurred in England about fifty years ago, and the son of the subject, now one of the most highly respected and well-informed clergymen west of the Allegheny Mountains, noted for his devotion to the physical sciences, writes me concerning it:

      My father, like many others, fully believed in witchcraft. In a little ancient cottage about a mile from my father's lived an old woman who had the reputation of being a witch. One spring, as my father was planting potatoes in his field, t he old lady came to him to beg a piece for a garden. This he said he could not grant, as he needed all for himself. She left the field muttering something, which I suppose my father understood to mean mischief. That evening, when still in the field, he was seized with a strange nervous sensation, and an utter inability to speak. Later in the evening he had a severe fit. This state of things continued for some years. Mother always sent one of the boys with him to render help or report his condition. Another phase of the witchcraft superstition was a belief in white witches, or those who could neutralize or destroy the work and influence of witches. My father heard of one living many miles away, and at once went to see him. I shall ever remember the interest with which we listened to his story. He said the white witch told him that he had been bewitched, as he supposed, by the old woman, but that her influence could be entirely destroyed. He then gave my father a little piece of paper upon which was written a charm which would in all future time protect him from all influence of witches. This paper must be worn over his breast, suspended by a piece of tape from the neck. It must never be opened, never touch wood, stone, or iron, nor be handled by any one but himself. Said my father in concluding his story: "The white witch told me to always wear this over my breast, and that inside of three days I shall have one fit more, but after that I will never have another symptom of the kind." The following evening when at supper he had another severe attack of his old trouble, but sure enough it was the last. He lived more than twenty years after that, but never had another symptom of fits, or nervous difficulty of any kind. He was absolutely cured, as I know.

      In March, 1831, the case of an old woman in Edinburgh came before the court on account of  her being attacked.

      In 1827 a man was burned as a wizard in southwestern Russia; and in 1815 a person in northern Russia was sentenced by a legal tribunal to undergo thirty-five blows of the knout, as well as a public church penance, for witchcraft.

      In 1815 Captain Samuel Wardwell of Maine, captain of the schooner Polly, desiring to excel all his competitors in the number of trips made between Boston and Penobscot in one season, hired Mrs. Leach, a reputed witch, for a bushel of meal a trip, to guarantee him fair winds.

      "Moll Pitcher," so famous that for more than fifty years "to her came the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant, the accomplished and the vulgar, the brave and the timid," died April 9, 1813, in Lynn, Massachusetts, aged seventy-five years.

      Contemporary with her lived a woman in Newburyport, who came originally from Scotland in 1759 or 1760. Her career for many years was such as to command the respect and fear of the people. Mr. Samuel L. Knapp, who wrote in 1825, speaks of another supposed witch in Massachusetts named Danforth, who lived in a gloomy, hollow glen. On this Mr. Samuel G. Drake, writing in 1869, says:

      The writer is not as old as he from whom the above extracts are made; but it was his fortune in youth to be acquainted in many towns, in nearly all of which there was a reputed witch.

      In 1751, in Hertfordshire, two harmless people were mobbed, the woman beaten to death, the man nearly so. A similar incident happened as late as 1776 in Leicestershire. In Burlington, New Jersey, in January, 1731, a man and woman suspected of bewitching cattle were tried in the presence of the governor, by being weighed against a large Bible.

      In 1728 Rhode Island reenacted its laws against witchcraft, which implies some agitation upon the subject; in 1720 there was a case in Littleton; prosecutions occurred in South Carolina in 1712; in 1706 there were disgraceful scenes, persons being subjected to ordeals and various barbarous tests; and in the year 1700 an execution for witchcraft took place in Albany, New York.

      In noting these events we have reached the period of the dreadful outbreak in New England, which was separated by but a few years from a more dreadful frenzy of human nature in England, Scotland, and on the continent of Europe.

Reversing the Point of View.

      Whence came witchcraft? Writings, pictures, monuments, ruins, and traditions preserve the history of mankind; but man himself in color, configuration, unconscious gesture, language, rites, customs, and unwritten laws, is a true encyclopedia of humanity more valuable than the contents of libraries.

      As a general proposition, the uncivilized tribes of the world may be said to have been, from prehistoric times, what they are now. Mounds and other remains of uncertain date indeed often show a higher degree of development than at present exists among the inhabitants of particular regions; but this is not conclusive proof of degeneration, because of the vastness and complexity of ancient migrations of which no adequate history remains. The state of primitive, uncivilized mankind, when widely scattered and numerous in population, may therefore be inferred from the present condition of barbarous tribes. In all these witchcraft is believed in, punished by death in the most horrible forms. In China, India, and Japan it has always existed and still prevails.

      Of the ancient empires, the Magism of the Median court, with its incantations, divining-rods, omen-reading, and dream-expounding, became closely allied to witchcraft, as in Scythia in previous ages, and subsequently in Persia. Many of its practitioners openly avowed the aid of evil spirits. While both Magism and Zoroastrianism had an essentially religious basis, witchcraft hung upon their skirts continually endeavoring to rival them. In Babylon the Magi included the scientists and philosophers of the age; but as quacks and parasites upon modern scientists, deriving from general names held in common with those entitled to them a particular reputation with the common people while practicing the most shameless delusions, so many of the Babylonian astronomers were astrologers, and others of the Magi dealt avowedly with spirits.

      In Egypt, notwithstanding the sublimity of the religion which taught a system of morality based upon a final judgment, a swarm of the basest superstitions and the most demoralizing influences counteracted its influence; and witchcraft prevailed among the people at the very time that Egypt was surpassing the world in science. In Benjamin's sack was found Joseph's cup, "whereby, indeed, he divineth;" and his own words, "Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" reveal the custom in Egypt.

      The various forms of consulting evil spirits, of seeking illegitimately preternatural help or knowledge, were all practiced by the Cannanites and their descendants the Phenicians. Isaiah traces the existence of such things back to the Chaldeans and the Babylonians.

      The answer of the Chaldeans to Nebuchadnezzar showed that throughout the world such a class existed; for they said, "There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer or Chaldean."

The Israelites and Witchcraft.

      The Israelites came from a people surrounded by idolatry, and addicted to sorcery. They appear to have believed for a long time in the reality of the gods of the heathen, considering them inferior, however, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and were continually lapsing form the true faith into idolatry and sorcery. During the hundreds of years that Jacob's descendants were in Egypt their faith was greatly corrupted; when Moses tarried long in the Mount, they compelled Aaron to make a golden image to represent God. Surrounded by the Egyptians, and in the midst of the Cannanites, who were not wholly driven out for centuries, their kings and many of their people frequently relapsed into witchcraft and idolatry.

      Solomon, according to all the traditions of antiquity, as well as the testimony of the Bible, turned both to idolatry and magic. In D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature" (Rabbinical Stories) it is said, "He is a favorite hero of the Talmudists, and the Arabs speak of him as a magician." The son of the godly Hezekiah, Manasseh, "practiced augury, and used enchantments, and practiced sorcery, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards." There never was a time in the history of Israel that among its people were not those who practiced every form of divination, astrology, magic, and witchcraft.

Witchcraft and Christianity.

      Christianity originated among the Hebrews, who were firm believers in the reality of witchcraft. It was immediately brought into contact with the Romans, of whose empire, Syria was a province; and with the Greeks, among whom it spread during the apostolic age. Among the Greeks and Romans the same general belief, with the corresponding practices, existed. Homer is said to have derived many of his verses from Daphne, the daughter of Tyreseis the Soothsayer, who was considered to surpass all women in the art of divination. Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," gives extended extracts, among others the passage in Ovid:

Witches can bleed our ground by magic spell,

And with enchantment dry the springing soil;

Make grapes and currants fly at their command,

And strip our orchards bare without a hand.

 Virgil and Horace make similar references. Lecky affirms that "Sorcery could say with truth that there was not a single nation of antiquity, from the polished Greek to the rudest savage, which did not admit a real art enabling men to foretell the future."

      In Asia Minor and adjacent Oriental countries Christianity was saturated with superstitions of every kind, the entire mass directly or indirectly affecting Christians of every nation. The New Testament shows that Christianity did not at once eradicate preexisting superstitions. It required a renunciation of the worship of idols, faith in God as superior to all antagonistic forms, natural and supernatural, and obedience to the precepts of Christ, and his Apostles; but there is no reason to believe that it distinguished concerning the natural or supernatural origin of many superstitious beliefs not essentially incompatible with submission to the Gospel. The credulity of the early Christians is apparent in the writings of most of the ante-Nicene fathers. They believed in the supernatural origin of many of the alleged pagan miracles, some of them in the fable of the phenix (sic), and were prepared to accept any incredible tale which could be credited to the devil or his agents. Extraordinary knowledge, devotion to philosophy, and the practice of arts not understood by the people, especially by persons suspected of heresy, were made the foundation of social persecutions and legal executions for witchcraft.

      Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, was charged with witchcraft on account of his scientific attainments, denounced by name by the Pope, and several times imprisoned. From time to time trials for witchcraft are recorded in Roman history. In the fourth century ecclesiastical decrees against it were made, and at various periods prosecutions took place under them. The whole of Europe was filled with the superstition.

      The early Christian laws partake largely of the nature and of the spirit of the enactments of the same races when in paganism. The Ostrogoths punished it with death; the Visigoths with stripes, shaving the head, and exposure. The pagan Saxons burned witches and sorcerers, and even ate them. The Anglo-Saxons placed them under penalty of death; the ancient law of Scotland burned them at the stake. In Hungary they were first handed over to the bishop, then branded on the forehead, neck, and back in the form of a cross.

      The charge of witchcraft was frequently used against societies, such as the Templars, from 1307 to 1313. It was on this charge that Joan of Arc was burned to death. In 1429 by means of the Stedinger, who had fought for nearly thirty years against the Archbishop of Bremen and the Count of Oldenburg, were with the help of the Pope suppressed.

      In 1488 Pope Innocent VIII, issued a bull establishing commissions of inquisitors, and succeeding popes appointed other commissions. Sometimes the suspects were accused of heresy aggravated by witchcraft, and again of witchcraft leading to heresy. But witchcraft was the charge that especially inflamed the populace, and was pursued with the greatest zeal by the inquisitors. The epidemic raged in France so that by the end of 1320 fires for the execution of witches blazed in nearly every town. The more fires the more witches, accusations, and trials; so that the priests began to despair, wondering how it could be explained that it was impossible to commit "so great a number of the Devil's slaves to the flames, but that there shall arise from their ashes a sufficient number to supply their places." Seldom were there any acquittals.

      Luther and the reformers believed as firmly in the existence of witchcraft as the Roman Catholics, though the latter charged that the Hussites in Bohemia, and the followers of Luther, deceived the people by magic and witchcraft. A Jesuit theological professor declared that Albert of Brandenberg was the king of wizards, a famous magician who laid waste the country with fire and sword. The same Jesuit affirmed that wherever the heresy of Calvin went in England, Wales, or Ireland, the "black and diabolical arts of necromancy kept pace with it." Professor Charlton T. Lewis, in his history of Germany, says, "Protestants and Catholics alike carried on their judicial barbarities, which desolated whole tracts of country. Neither age, sex, nor rank was a protection against this persecution. Counselors and scholars were sent to the stake, though women were the especial objects of vengeance; and the trials did not end until the reign of Frederick the Great."

      In England laws, both ecclesiastical and civil, were enacted against witchcraft. Various changes were made in the phraseology of the law down to the time of Elizabeth, when sorceries, enchantments, charms and witchcraft were made punishable with death when death ensued from their practice; in other cases, for a first offense, a year's imprisonment, and for a second, death. James I. was not satisfied with any previous act, as he was "an expert and specialist in the matter." In his time a law was passed making various distinctions. In Scotland similar acts were passed, the chief of them dating from 1563. In Ireland trials took place as early as 1324 in ecclesiastical courts.

The Problem.

       The history of witchcraft exhibits features common to all forms of mental and moral contagion, and its characteristics are similar everywhere; so that the study of its phenomena in New England, where the information is full, the date recent, and the habits, language, religion, and institutions analogous to those of all English-speaking races, will have special advantages.

      The first settlers of New England brought across the Atlantic the sentiments which had been formed in their minds in Great Britain and on the Continent, as well as the tendencies which were the common heritage of such an ancestry. They were a very religious, and also a credulous people; having few books, no papers, little news, and virtually no science; removed by thousands of miles and months of time from Old-World civilization; living in the midst of an untamed wilderness, contending against a climate unlike anything they had experienced, surrounded by Indians whom they believed to be under the control of the devil, and whose medicine-men and soothsayers they accounted wizards. Such a mental and moral soil was adapted to the growth of witchcraft, and to create an invincible determination to inflict the punishments pronounced against it in the Old Testament; but the cooperation of various exciting causes was necessary to a general agitation and a real epidemic.

      Samuel G. Drake's "Annals of Witchcraft in New England and Elsewhere in the United States, from their first Settlement," which I here epitomize, enables us to trace the sporadic manifestations of witchcraft step by step to the fearful explosion of 1692. The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. In 1636 they included in the summary of offenses "lyable to death," "the solemn compaction or conversing with the Divell by the way of Witchcraft, conjuration, or the like." The colony of Massachusetts adopted the Body of Liberties, which contains a similar clause. In 1642 Connecticut included this in its Capital Code: "If any Man or Woman be a witch, that is, hath or conforteth with a Familiar Spirit, they shall be put to death."

      It is believed that the first actual trouble from witchcraft occurred in New Haven, and the first execution was in 1646 in Hartford. In 1647 Rhode Island made the penalty "Felone of Death."

      The first execution for witchcraft in the colony of Massachusetts Bay was that of Mrs. Jones in Boston in 1648. Another woman was executed in Hartford in 1648.

      From the settlement of Springfield in 1636 there was more or less trouble about witchcraft.

      Mrs. Knapp suffered death in the New Haven colony in 1653. The troubles continued through 1654 and 1655. In 1656 Mrs. Ann Hibbens was executed in Boston. In the same year there was a trial at Portsmouth, but no conviction. In East Hampton, Long Island, in 1657, Mrs. Garlicke was tried for witchcraft.

      There were troubles in 1659 at Saybrook, Connecticut, and Andover, Massachusetts. In 1660 at Scituate, Plymouth, and at Oyster Bay, Long Island, there were disturbances, but no convictions. In 1662 Mr. And Mrs. Green Smith were executed at Hartford, and in 1665 the Court of Sessions in the State of New York tried Ralph Hall and his wife Mary. They were finally acquitted after three years' imprisonment. In 1669 Susannah Martin was prosecuted. She was one of those afterward executed at Salem. Catharine Harrison of Wethersfield was convicted, but the special court reversed the decision.

      Mrs. Mary Parsons, of the highest social standing in Northampton, was charged with witchcraft in 1674, kept in prison several months and acquitted. At that time three of the most enlightened men of the age, Governor Leverett and Generals Gookin and Dennison, had charge of the administration.

      In 1675 a queerly worded law was enacted to regulate the Pequot Indians: "Whosoever shall Powau or vfe Witchcraft, or any Worship of the Devill, or any fals Gods, shall be convented punished."

      In 1681 and 1682 in Massachusetts there was much excitement, and cases arose in 1683 which show a descent to the lowest depths of barbaric superstition. In 1684 Margaret Matson was tried in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, before William Penn. Philadelphia was then only three years old. The court brought in the verdict that she was "guilty of having the common fame of a witch, but not guilty in manner and form as she stands indicted." Tradition says that Penn said to her "Art thou a witch?" and "Hast thou ridden through the air on a broomstick?" When she answered yes, he said that she had a right to ride on a broomstick, that he knew no law against it, and thereupon ordered her discharged.

      In 1685 Mary Webster, who had been acquitted in Boston in 1683, was accused of killing William Smith by sorcery. She was acquitted but harassed by the people and often mobbed until her death in 1696. The famous case of the Goodwin children in Boston occurred in 1688. Mary Randall was arrested in Springfield in 1691, and kept in jail for a while, but there was no trial.

      Thus it appeared that, from the settlement of New England, wherever unaccountable events took place,--if horses and cattle were sick in an unusual manner, or acted strangely; if adults or children were attacked by incurable or mysterious diseases; if lightening struck men, animals, or buildings, or storms disturbed sailors,--the cause was attributed to witchcraft. Under such circumstances any woman who had incurred the animosity of neighbors, especially if she had made threats against "afflicted" persons, was liable to the suspicion of complicity with the devil. But as there had been only two or three executions at most in any one part of the country, and intelligence of the trials spread slowly, no great excitement arose until 1692.

      In view of the preceding history, the events in Salem, Salem Village, and vicinity might have been expected in any community in New England where many social feuds existed, and where strong superstition, great energy, and force of will, with an entire want of discretion, were united in the character of the minister of the parish. All these conditions existed in Salem Village, where the epidemic originated.

      Upham, in "Salem Witchcraft," has portrayed in a masterly and convincing manner the influence of local feuds upon the investigation of charges. But if the people of New England had not believed in the reality of witchcraft, and if their laws had not decreed the penalty of death, personal, social, and ecclesiastical animosities could not have caused such terrible deeds.

      Salem witchcraft thus arose: The Rev. Mr. Parris, minister of the church in Salem Village, had formerly lived in the West Indies, and brought some Negro slaves back with him. These slaves talked with the children of the neighborhood, some of whom could not read, while the others had but little to read. In the winter of 1691-92 they formed a kind of circle which met at Mr. Parris's house, probably unknown to him, to practice palmistry and fortune-telling, and learn what they could of magic and necromancy. This circle consisted of two or three Negro slaves; Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Parris, aged nine; his niece Abigail Williams, eleven; Ann Putnam, twelve (Upham says that the last-named was the leading agent in all the mischief that followed); Mary Walcot, seventeen; Mercy Lewis, seventeen (she was one of the worst, and fairly reveled in murder and misery); Elizabeth Hubbard, seventeen (almost as bad); Elizabeth Booth and Susannah Sheldon, each eighteen; and two servants, Mary Warren and Sarah Churchill, each twenty years of age. These servants hated the families of John Proctor and George Jacobs, with whom they lived. Besides these there were three married women, one the mother of Ann Putnam.

      Before the winter was over some of them fully believed that they were under the influence of spirits. Epidemic hysteria arose; physicians could not explain their state; the cry was raised that they were bewitched; and some began to make charges against those whom they disliked of having bewitched them. In the end those of stronger mind among them became managers and plotters, directing the rest at their will. By the time public attention was attracted Mr. Parris had come to the conclusion that they were bewitched, and, having a theory to maintain, encouraged and flattered them, and by his questions made even those who had not believed themselves bewitched think that they were.

      From March, 1692, to May, 1693, about two hundred persons were imprisoned. Of these some escaped by the help of friends, some by bribing their jailors, a number died in prison, and one hundred and fifty were set free at the close of the excitement by the proclamation of the Governor. Nineteen were executed, namely: On July 19, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, Elizabeth Howe, George Jacobs, Susannah Martin (who had been tried and acquitted in Boston about twenty years before), and Rebecca Nurse; on August 19, John Proctor, Bridget Bishop, George Burroughs, minister of the gospel, Martha Carrier, and John Willard; on September 22, Martha Corey, Mary Eastey, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Ann Pudeater, Willmet Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell. Giles Corey, a man eighty years of age, when charged refused to plead, and was pressed to death-the only instance of this application of this ancient law on this continent.

      When it is remembered that a number of these persons were among the most pious and amiable of the people of Salem, Salem Village, and other parts of Essex County; that they were related by blood, marriage, friendship, and Christian fellowship to many of those who cried out against them, both as accusers and supporters of the prosecutions, the transaction must be classed among the darkest in human history.