In appearance the original house might have been transplanted out of old London. Its peaked gables, with pine-apples carved in wood surmounting its latticed windows, and colossal chimney, put it unmistakably in the age of ruffs, Spanish cloaks, and long rapiers. It has long been divested of its antique English character, now appearing no more than a reminiscence of its former self. However, from a recessed area at the back its narrow casements and excrescent stairways are yet to be seen. A massive frame, filled between with brick, plastered with clay, with the help of its tower-like chimney, has stood immovable against the assaults of time. Such houses, and their number is not large, represent the original forest that stood on the site of ancient Salem. [Illustration: THE OLD WITCH HOUSE.] Jonathan Corwin, or Curwin, made a councilor under the new charter granted by King William, was one of the judges before whom the preliminary examinations were held, both here and at the Village. Governor Corwin, of Ohio, is accounted a descendant, as was the author of "The Scarlet Letter" of another witch-judge, John Hathorne. The reader may imagine the novelist on his knees before the grave-stone of his ancestor, striving to scrape the moss from its half-obliterated characters.[143] Other examinations took place in Thomas Beadle's tavern. [Illustration: FRAGMENT OF EXAMINATION OF REBECCA NURSE, In Handwriting of Rev. Samuel Parris.[144]] Knowing the world believed in witchcraft, our horror at the atrocities of '92 is moderated by the probability that nothing less than the shedding of innocent blood could have annihilated the delusion. The king believed in it, the governor and judges believed in it, and the most sensible and learned gave ample credence to it. Queen Anne wrote a letter to Phips that shows she admitted it as a thing unquestioned.[145] The clergy, with singular unanimity, recognized it. [Illustration: THOMAS BEADLE'S TAVERN, 1692.] The revulsion that followed equaled the precipitation that had marked the proceedings. One of the judges made public confession of his error.[146] Officers of the court were persecuted until the day of their death. There is one hard, inflexible character, that was never known to have relented. William Stoughton, lieutenant-governor, presided at these trials. It is related that once, on hearing of a reprieve granted some of the condemned, he left the bench, exclaiming, "We were in a way to have cleared the land of these. Who is it obstructs the course of justice I know not. The Lord be merciful to the country."