The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's DreamStowe, Harriet Beecher
History
The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's Dream
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Spiritualism; Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875. Salem witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Massachusetts -- Salem
"Sarah Good appears to have been an unfortunate woman, having been
subject to poverty, and consequent sadness and melancholy. But she was
not wholly broken in spirit. Mr. Noyes, at the time of her execution,
urged her very strenuously to confess. Among other things, he told her
'she was a witch, and that she knew she was a witch.' She was conscious
of her innocence, and felt that she was oppressed, outraged, trampled
upon, and about to be murdered, under the forms of law; and her
indignation was roused against her persecutors. She could not bear in
silence the cruel aspersion; and although she was about to be launched
into eternity, the torrent of her feelings could not be restrained, but
burst upon the head of him who uttered the false accusation. 'You are a
liar,' said she. 'I am no more a witch than you are a wizard; and if you
take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.' Hutchinson says
that, in his day, there was a tradition among the people of Salem, and
it has descended to the present time, that the manner of Mr. Noyes'
death strangely verified the prediction thus wrung from the incensed
spirit of the dying woman. He was exceedingly corpulent, of a plethoric
habit, and died of an internal hemorrhage, bleeding profusely at the
mouth." (Vol. ii. p. 269.)
When she had been in her grave nearly twenty years, her
representatives--little Dorcas perhaps for one--were presented with
thirty pounds sterling, as a grant from the Crown, as compensation for
the mistake of hanging her without reason and against evidence.
THE TOWNE SISTERS.
In the early part of the century, a devout family named Towne were
living at Great Yarmouth, in the English county of Norfolk. About the
time of the King's execution they emigrated to Massachusetts. William
Towne and his wife carried with them two daughters; and another daughter
and a son were born to them afterward in Salem. The three daughters were
baptized at long intervals, and the eldest, Rebecca, must have been at
least twenty years older than Sarah, and a dozen or more years older
than Mary. A sketch of the fate of these three sisters contains within
it the history of a century.
On the map which Mr. Upham presents us with, one of the most conspicuous
estates is an inclosure of 300 acres, which had a significant story of
its own--too long for us to enter upon. We need only say that there had
been many strifes about this property--fights about boundaries, and
stripping of timber, and a series of lawsuits. Yet, from 1678 onward,
the actual residents in the mansion had lived in peace, taking no notice
of wrangles which did not, under the conditions of purchase, affect
them, but only the former proprietor. The frontispiece of Mr. Upham's
book shows us what the mansion of an opulent landowner was like in the
early days of the colony. It is the portrait of the house in which the
eldest daughter of William Towne was living at the date of the Salem
Tragedy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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