Inspired by the mansion, it helped make the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion one of the most famous historic houses in America. A major educational and cultural resource of the North Shore, right here in Salem. In addition: sandwiches, coffee, tea, and cold drinks are available. First public demonstration of a long-distance phone conversation is held in the Lyceum Hall on Church Street.
The House of the Seven Gables opens as a museum and begins its legacy of providing educational opportunities for newly arriving immigrant families in its settlement house. Salem State University has books, pamphlets, and online documents about this tragedy. Salem hosts the first Haunted Happenings festival. It lasted one day. Witch Trials Memorial is dedicated by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel to commemorate the tercentenary anniversary of the trials. Hocus Pocus is released in theatres; it was filmed at numerous locations here in Salem.
Home » History s. The East India Marine Society is founded. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Behind it all is the belief the devil is lurking around every corner, seeking to ignite a moral panic and conspiracy of witches. In this fearful climate, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris suddenly fall ill with strange and frightening symptoms.
By mid-February, a local physician diagnoses this behavior as the result of bewitchment. As word of the illness spreads throughout Salem Village, and eventually Essex County, others begin to fall ill with the same alarming symptoms.
The afflicted complain disembodied spirits stab and choke them and report terrifying visions. Soon, the afflicted identify these specters, naming neighbors, acquaintances, and total strangers as witches. Those who do not act in accordance with accepted social norms, such as outsiders and beggars, are the easiest to suspect. In Salem Village, the first accusations name a slave, a woman who married beneath her station, and a beggar. As fear continues to spread, those who are not obvious suspects are also accused, in many cases driven by old family feuds and rumors.
Because Massachusetts law is still uncertain, an emergency court is established. This special court, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, is led by elite members of the colony. Though the court attempts to conform to existing English law, the legal limbo posed by the freshly appointed charter leaves the court to make determinations based on their own research and judgment. For this reason, the controversial spectral sightings are used as admissible evidence for a conviction. This unique court, combined with the years of infighting in Salem Village and massive tension across the colony, lead to the largest and most intensive witch-hunt to take place in the colonies.
By the time the trials come to an end, 25 people are dead—five die in prison awaiting trial, 19 are executed by hanging, and one man is pressed to death after refusing to recognize the authority of the court.
Controversy also brewed over Reverend Samuel Parris, who became Salem Village's first ordained minister in , and was disliked because of his rigid ways and greedy nature.
The Puritan villagers believed all the quarreling was the work of the Devil. In January of , Reverend Parris' daughter Elizabeth, age 9, and niece Abigail Williams, age 11, started having "fits. Another girl, Ann Putnam, age 11, experienced similar episodes. On February 29, under pressure from magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls blamed three women for afflicting them: Tituba, the Parris' Caribbean slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly impoverished woman.
All three women were brought before the local magistrates and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, Osborne claimed innocence, as did Good.
But Tituba confessed, "The Devil came to me and bid me serve him. She admitted that she signed the book and said there were several other witches looking to destroy the Puritans.
All three women were put in jail. With the seed of paranoia planted, a stream of accusations followed for the next few months. Charges against Martha Corey, a loyal member of the Church in Salem Village, greatly concerned the community; if she could be a witch, then anyone could. Magistrates even questioned Sarah Good's 4-year-old daughter, Dorothy, and her timid answers were construed as a confession.
The village, roughly five to seven miles from the town's meeting house, constituted, in effect, a parish or ward of the town, and served as its agricultural hinterland. The population of Salem Town and Village at the time of the witch trials cannot be stated with precision, but a reasonable estimate for the population of the combined area was about residents, with the population of Salem Village numbering between and residents.
Following the pattern common to other New England communities, as the village grew, it began to develop a distinctive identity and separate interests from the town. Most significantly, by the s, the farmers requested their own church due to their distance from the town.
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