Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692

192 Pages·2005·2.44 MB·English

by  Richard Godbeer

Escaping Salem
New Narratives in American History
Series Editors
James West Davidson
Michael B. Stoff
Escaping Salem

The Other
Witch Hunt of 1692
Richard Godbeer
New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

2005
Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Godbeer, Richard.
Escaping Salem: the other witch hunt of 1692 / by Richard Godbeer.
p. cm.—(New narratives in American history)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 0-19-516129-7—ISBN 0-19-516130-0 (pbk.)

1. Trials (Witchcraft)–Connecticut–Stamford–History–17th century.
I. Title. II. Series.
KFC3678.8.W5G66 2004
133.4�3�097469–dc22 2004043399
Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
for all those

falsely accused
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C
ontents
Foreword ix

Acknowledgments xi

Prologue: “A Witch! A Witch!” 1

• One • Katherine Branch’s Fits 13

• Two • Who Is It That Torments Her? 33

• Three • “By the Law of God and the Law of the

Colony Thou Deservest to Die” 51

• Four • Angry Speeches and Strange

Afflictions 70

• Five • Weighing the Evidence 88

• Six • “Persisting in a Non-Agreement” 110

Afterword 127

Select Bibliography 174

vii
• •
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F
oreword
I
n matters of witchcraft, the outbreak at salem village
is the Jupiter of the solar system. It has attracted more notice
in the popular press—and even among scholars—than any
other such episode in American history. Yet the sheer magni-
tude of the outbreak, with its multiple trials, attendant hyste-
ria, and wide geographical spread, has created a kind of grav-
itational distortion that has colored our broader notions of
witchcraft. Although Salem was not typical of most outbreaks
in colonial New England, it remains, by default, the archetype
through which most Americans understand, or misunder-
stand, the subject.
Yet Salem was not the only community to serve up a witch
hunt in 1692. Farther south, another incident roiled the area
around Stamford and Fairfield, Connecticut, without producing
an equally lasting notoriety. As Richard Godbeer demonstrates
in the engrossing narrative presented here, in many ways the
Stamford controversy reveals more about the anguish and am-
biguities of witchcraft than do the more frequently examined
tumults at Salem. Godbeer has drawn upon a rich trove of court
transcripts and depositions to recreate the events arising out of
ix
• •