Speaker 1: None of the remedies had worked. They tried parsnip seeds
Speaker 1: ground up in red wine, and spirits of castor mixed
Speaker 1: with oil of amber. They tried an elixir by taking
Speaker 1: hard shore and oil from the antlers of a deer
Speaker 1: and mixing it with soot. They'd even tried collecting dew
Speaker 1: drops and let them evaporate so they could use the
Speaker 1: minuscule amount of dust to make a tonic, but none
Speaker 1: of it had worked. That was frustrating too, because Samuel's niece,
Speaker 1: Abigail wasn't getting any better. It had begun days earlier
Speaker 1: when he found the eleven year old girl crouched beneath
Speaker 1: a chair, her hands pressed against the signs of her head.
Speaker 1: She was twisting and writhing and complaining loudly about some
Speaker 1: sort of torment. When things got really bad, Abigail would
Speaker 1: collapse onto the floor in a limp heap, as if
Speaker 1: all of her bones had been magically removed from her body.
Speaker 1: She would seize up and contort and panic, and in
Speaker 1: a house as small and packed as theirs, that was
Speaker 1: a frightening sight. Samuel and his wife Elizabeth lived in
Speaker 1: that small house with three of their own children, plus
Speaker 1: abigail close quarters meant that everyone was suffering vicariously alongside
Speaker 1: the young girl, But it also meant that illness was
Speaker 1: likely to spread unless they could treat it fast. Before
Speaker 1: they could manage to do that, however, their worst fears
Speaker 1: came true. In early January of sixteen ninety two. Screams
Speaker 1: from another part of the house pulled Samuel out of
Speaker 1: his frigid upstairs study. He bolted down to see who
Speaker 1: was in trouble and what they might need, only to
Speaker 1: find his nine year old daughter, Betty, suffering through her
Speaker 1: own version of poor Abigail's original symptoms. Elizabeth was crouched
Speaker 1: over the girl, hand on her back to comfort her,
Speaker 1: but when she locked eyes with her husband, there was
Speaker 1: nothing but Hannock in them. The Reverend Samuel Paris felt
Speaker 1: a chill rippled down his spine. He and his wife
Speaker 1: shared a common fear, an assumption about what was really
Speaker 1: going on in their house. There was no doubt either.
Speaker 1: Samuel was a deeply religious man who served as the
Speaker 1: minister of the local Puritan settlement. He understood how things
Speaker 1: worked and had heard similar stories before. All of it
Speaker 1: pointed to an obvious conclusion, but just because it was
Speaker 1: plain to see didn't make it any less frightening. Something
Speaker 1: evil had arrived in Salem and it was just getting started.
Speaker 1: This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankie. This might come as
Speaker 1: a bit of a surprise, but there's nothing inherently special
Speaker 1: about Salem, Massachusetts. Sure, it's old, having been incorporated in
Speaker 1: sixty nine, which, if you do the math, is nearly
Speaker 1: four years ago, but it's not even the oldest city
Speaker 1: in the state. That honor goes to Plymouth, the site
Speaker 1: of the Mayflower landing in Si. Salem began life as
Speaker 1: a fishing town founded by a guy named Roger Conant,
Speaker 1: but after a couple of years of going at it alone,
Speaker 1: the settlement received an infusion of new colonists, one of
Speaker 1: whom was a man named John Endicott, who had been
Speaker 1: sent to take over leadership of the colony. Conan stepped
Speaker 1: as so peacefully that they named the new settlement Salem,
Speaker 1: a word that comes from the Hebrew term shalom, which
Speaker 1: means peace. Soon the area became home to a growing
Speaker 1: population of English Puritans who were tired of living under
Speaker 1: the rule of a king who didn't support them, and
Speaker 1: an Anglican Church that all out attacked them. The New
Speaker 1: World offered them more freedom and less conflict. Here's historian
Speaker 1: Richard Trask, A number of them eventually decided to go
Speaker 1: to the New World. They latched onto an economic device
Speaker 1: of the mass Bay Colony. Once they got here, they
Speaker 1: for a good generation or two were pretty much independent
Speaker 1: to do what they wanted. They looked upon themselves, as
Speaker 1: John Winthrop would later say, establishing a new kingdom upon
Speaker 1: the hill. The first Puritans in Old England and New
Speaker 1: England were very staunch believers. Over the years to come,
Speaker 1: wave after wave of Puritan settlers washed into the new colony.
Speaker 1: They built new lives there in a strange land, but
Speaker 1: did so upon the familiar foundations of their religious beliefs
Speaker 1: and a common vision for a brighter future. Over the
Speaker 1: coming decades, though this vision of a city on a
Speaker 1: hill would begin to waver a bit. Some people had
Speaker 1: called for the loosening of rules around church membership, a
Speaker 1: concept that became official in sixteen fifty two under an
Speaker 1: agreement known as the Halfway Covenant. Mary Beth Norton is
Speaker 1: a professor of American history at Cornell University. The Halfway
Speaker 1: Covenant allowed people who had been baptized as children but
Speaker 1: had not yet experienced saving faith to in effect be
Speaker 1: members of the church, to be under the church at supervision,
Speaker 1: and to have communion, and to have their babies baptized.
Speaker 1: But as the population of Salem grew, it also spread westward,
Speaker 1: creating pockets of smaller communities far from Sale Harbor and
Speaker 1: original settlements. They called these the Salem village to avoid
Speaker 1: confusion with the older, more wealthy Salem Town. During the
Speaker 1: early years, though, some of these smaller communities managed to
Speaker 1: break off and become recognized independent towns of their own,
Speaker 1: places like marble Head and Manchester, Wenham and Beverly. It
Speaker 1: was as if Salem Town was having babies and they
Speaker 1: were moving out and growing up. One other thing. When
Speaker 1: these towns became independent, they also earned the right to
Speaker 1: collect their own local taxes, as well as build and
Speaker 1: staff their own local churches. They became their own authority
Speaker 1: in a sense, rather than depending on Salem Town for everything,
Speaker 1: which was a healthy development. The fields and woods farther inland,
Speaker 1: about a dozen miles west of Salem Town, were parceled
Speaker 1: out to a handful of families who were ready to
Speaker 1: settle down and farm there. Families with names like Putnam
Speaker 1: and Porter, Hutchinson and ing U Saul. They might sound
Speaker 1: unfamiliar to you now, but give it some time. You're
Speaker 1: going to hear a lot about them soon enough. But
Speaker 1: as these families moved west to set up their farmsteads,
Speaker 1: they encountered a few problems. Namely, they became disconnected socially
Speaker 1: from the thriving community in Salem Town. They didn't feel
Speaker 1: like they were part of the popular crowd anymore, but
Speaker 1: more like outsiders instead. To make matters worse, though, they
Speaker 1: were still required to contribute to the responsibilities of their
Speaker 1: former home, having to serve in Salem Town's militia, but
Speaker 1: also travel the twelve miles each week to attend church
Speaker 1: and participate in the night Watch. As you can imagine,
Speaker 1: that was more than a little frustrating. So it probably
Speaker 1: won't shock you to learn that a few of the
Speaker 1: prominent farmers in Salem Village banded together in sixteen sixty
Speaker 1: six to petition Salem Town for their independence. Salem Town, however,
Speaker 1: refused to comply. If you look at a map, Salem
Speaker 1: Town is right on the coast. That's Richard Trask again,
Speaker 1: it's a fairly large community. In sixteen nine two they
Speaker 1: have about dred residents. It looks more to the commercial
Speaker 1: ventures to fishing. People there tend not to be Yeoman farmers,
Speaker 1: but people who have occupations besides farming. The center of
Speaker 1: Salem Village is about seven miles from the center of
Speaker 1: Salem Town, and Salem Village was looked at kind of
Speaker 1: as the bread basket for Salem Town. A year later,
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty seven, these same farmers traveled south to
Speaker 1: Boston to petition the General Court. They didn't get the
Speaker 1: independence they wanted, but they did walk away with a
Speaker 1: smaller victory. Anyone living outside of a four mile circle
Speaker 1: would no longer be required to serve in the Salem
Speaker 1: Town Watch. It was enough to keep a lot of
Speaker 1: people happy for a while. At least. Every movement has
Speaker 1: two things, supporters and detractors, and the push for Salem
Speaker 1: Village to become a community independent from the rule and
Speaker 1: oversight of Salem Town was no exception. On the side
Speaker 1: in favor of breaking off. Was the second wealthiest family
Speaker 1: in the area, the Putnam's. Their dynasty had begun decades
Speaker 1: earlier when Old John Putnam arrived in sixteen forty one
Speaker 1: and purchased over eight hundred acres of land, land that
Speaker 1: now belonged to his three adult sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, and
Speaker 1: John Jr. In fact, if you were to time travel
Speaker 1: to Salem Village in the sixteen sixties and take a
Speaker 1: walking tour, most of the farmland you would see belong
Speaker 1: to one of the Putnam's. The Putnams weren't happy with
Speaker 1: a lot of things. They weren't happy with the Halfway Covenant,
Speaker 1: that church policy that loosened the rules around membership and piety.
Speaker 1: The Putnams believe that the church needed to become more strict,
Speaker 1: not less. They weren't happy with paying taxes to a
Speaker 1: town that rarely benefited, and when living outside the town's
Speaker 1: borders independence, to them, was a better way of life.
Speaker 1: On the opposite side of the argument were the Porter brothers, Joseph,
Speaker 1: Benjamin and Israel. While the Putnam's owned eight hundred acres
Speaker 1: of land, the Porters had amassed over two thousand acres
Speaker 1: Between them. They were the top dog, the most wealthy
Speaker 1: and influential of all the Salem Village farmers. But not
Speaker 1: only that, they heartily supported the halfway Covenant, putting them
Speaker 1: in direct conflict with the more pious Putnam family. The
Speaker 1: Porters also had deep financial ties to Salem Town, and
Speaker 1: an independent Salem Village would harm them financially. The land
Speaker 1: they owned actually straddled the line between the two communities,
Speaker 1: so breaking them up would also break their property up.
Speaker 1: Oh and they also owned three of Salem's four sawmills,
Speaker 1: which were incredibly busy thanks to the town's constant growth.
Speaker 1: Splitting off from Salem Town was not a plan that
Speaker 1: the Porters supported. In six teen seventy, Salem Town voted
Speaker 1: to build a brand new meeting house, a church building
Speaker 1: that served double duty as a community gathering place, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to levy more taxes to raise the necessary funds.
Speaker 1: The Putnam's over in Salem Village refused to hand over
Speaker 1: any more wealth to the town. They returned to Boston
Speaker 1: to petition the General Court for help, but were sent
Speaker 1: back to Salem to sort the matter out with their
Speaker 1: Salem Town counterparts. It took them two years, two years
Speaker 1: of haggling and fighting, of arguing and counter arguing, but
Speaker 1: in sixteen seventy two they managed to win Salem Village
Speaker 1: had permission to build their own meeting house and hire
Speaker 1: a minister to lead them. They even had permission to
Speaker 1: set themselves up as a township, but not completely independent.
Speaker 1: They would still have to defer to Salem Town for
Speaker 1: all of their major legal matters. A good way to
Speaker 1: think of it was that Salem Village became a recognized
Speaker 1: district within Salem Town, but it wasn't good enough. Building
Speaker 1: the meeting house was the easy part. The Putnam's had
Speaker 1: the money and timber to help that happen, and there
Speaker 1: were enough farmers around to help construct it. The bigger challenge, though,
Speaker 1: was finding the right minister for the job. He had
Speaker 1: to be firmly against the halfway covenant, suitably pious and
Speaker 1: well trained for the position, and what better place to
Speaker 1: start than a friend of the family. James Bailey was
Speaker 1: the brother in law of Thomas Putnam, junior, grandson of
Speaker 1: Old John Putnam. When Bailey graduated from Harvard, the Putnams
Speaker 1: asked him and his wife to come to Salem Village
Speaker 1: and serve as their minister, which sounded like the happy
Speaker 1: ending to a long and tragic fairy tale, except it
Speaker 1: wasn't that simple. Once Bailey arrived, he proved to be
Speaker 1: much less religious and strict then they'd hoped. In fact,
Speaker 1: they began to fear that although he was close to
Speaker 1: the Putnam family, he wasn't actually close to God. They
Speaker 1: managed to avoid ordaining him for seven whole years, and
Speaker 1: even refused to build him a house. He ended up
Speaker 1: doing that himself, but life didn't get any easier when
Speaker 1: he left Salem in sixteen seventy nine. He actually quit
Speaker 1: the ministry entirely, becoming a doctor instead. The second minister
Speaker 1: to arrive in Salem Village was George Burrows. He had
Speaker 1: graduated from Harvard the year after Bailey and represented an
Speaker 1: attempt to bridge the gap between Salem Village and Salem Town.
Speaker 1: You see, Burrows was actually related to the junior minister
Speaker 1: of the Salem Town Congregation. Hiring him could be seen
Speaker 1: as a sort of olive branch. He was a play
Speaker 1: for unity, but when he arrived, he moved into the
Speaker 1: home of one of the Putnam's, which upset the porters.
Speaker 1: Whatever hope they had of uniting their divided village evaporated
Speaker 1: like missed over a new England field in the spring.
Speaker 1: The porters also refused to contribute to the minister's salary,
Speaker 1: leaving him without an income. Two years later, Burrows left
Speaker 1: for Maine. Their third attempt at finding a minister to
Speaker 1: guide their new church was a man named Deodat Lawson.
Speaker 1: He arrived in sixteen eighty four and really did his
Speaker 1: best to try to unite the community. They've been trying
Speaker 1: to get their new church up and running for twelve
Speaker 1: years at that point, and everyone was feeling a bit desperate.
Speaker 1: But two years after his arrival, something unexpected happened. Thomas Putnam, senior,
Speaker 1: son of the patriarch Old John Putnam, died in sixteen
Speaker 1: eight six and his will needed to be executed. He
Speaker 1: had an immense fortune and nine children from two separate marriages.
Speaker 1: Everyone expected the fortune to be divided up equally among
Speaker 1: the nine, but that didn't happen. That's because Thomas Sr's
Speaker 1: second wife, and the mother of only one of his
Speaker 1: nine children, was also the daughter of Israel Porter, and
Speaker 1: Israel Porter somehow managed to become appointed executor of the will.
Speaker 1: When it was over, a large chunk of the Putnam
Speaker 1: family wealth had headed back towards the Salem town side
Speaker 1: of the community. Dao dat Law and tried to manage
Speaker 1: the situation as any good minister might, but he failed
Speaker 1: to help smooth things over. Defeated, he quit his position
Speaker 1: and left the church and the village defend for itself.
Speaker 1: Fourteen years after beginning their search for a minister to
Speaker 1: bring the community together under one roof Salem Village found
Speaker 1: themselves returning to square one. They had tried and failed
Speaker 1: not once, but three times, and I have to imagine
Speaker 1: it was beginning to feel rather hopeless. But there were
Speaker 1: still some who refused to give up entirely. The Putnam's,
Speaker 1: you see, had an ace up their sleeve. Samuel's uncle
Speaker 1: made his fortune selling other human beings. John Paris was
Speaker 1: one of those enterprising english Men who took full advantage
Speaker 1: of the global empire his country was building. Early on,
Speaker 1: he got involved in the African slave trade, helping to
Speaker 1: kidnap Africas and sell them to plantation owners in the
Speaker 1: New World. One of those locations was the island of Barbados,
Speaker 1: which England had begun to colonize in sixty seven. After
Speaker 1: earning a heavy profit from the sale of slaves, John
Speaker 1: Paris bought a plantation there and settled in It. Turns
Speaker 1: out John wasn't very good at running his own business.
Speaker 1: Sometime in the sixteen fifties, his brother Thomas took over
Speaker 1: running everything in an attempt to turn things around. In
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty, John died, leaving everything to his brother, who
Speaker 1: packed up his entire family and moved them from London
Speaker 1: to the plantation, and that included seven year old Samuel.
Speaker 1: That's the world Samuel Paris grew up in, but it
Speaker 1: was also a very Puritan lifestyle, leaning hard toward the
Speaker 1: conservative side of the Christian spectrum. In fact, Samuel's older
Speaker 1: brother was a Puritan minister back in England, and he
Speaker 1: had an uncle, John Oxenbridge, who served as a minister
Speaker 1: of Boston's Puritan First Church. So when it came time
Speaker 1: for Samuel to consider his edge accation and trained to
Speaker 1: be a minister, there was only one place to send him. Harvard. Today,
Speaker 1: Harvard is a bastion of progressive thinking, but it began
Speaker 1: life as a conservative alternative to more liberal schools like
Speaker 1: Oxford or Cambridge. Sure, Thomas could have sent Samuel back
Speaker 1: to England for training as a minister, but Harvard was
Speaker 1: the safer choice for a Puritan. So in sixteen seventy
Speaker 1: Samuel left home and headed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
Speaker 1: where he joined the ranks of students at Harvard just
Speaker 1: outside of Boston. Real life doesn't always play along with
Speaker 1: our carefully laid plans, though. Just three years after arriving
Speaker 1: in Boston with his degree in sight at the end
Speaker 1: of the tunnel, Samuel's father died and he was forced
Speaker 1: to return to Barbados to take over the family business.
Speaker 1: Two years later, the bottom fell out of the sugar market,
Speaker 1: destroying most of his fortune. Months later, a hurricane devastated
Speaker 1: the island, and after that racial tensions began to boil over.
Speaker 1: This was a time when nine out of every ten
Speaker 1: people on the island were black, yet the whites held
Speaker 1: all the power. People were upset, and rightly so. When
Speaker 1: a smallpox outbreak arrived in sixteen eighty, Samuel took it
Speaker 1: as a sign. He sold everything off, packed up, and
Speaker 1: headed back north. He arrived in Boston with at least
Speaker 1: one of his slaves, a woman named Tituba, as well
Speaker 1: as a small fortune that he hoped to use as
Speaker 1: a seed for something greater. He bought one of the
Speaker 1: wharfs in Boston's Harbor, a downtown shop and interest in
Speaker 1: one of the smaller shipping companies. Being back in New
Speaker 1: England was refreshing for Samuel. He was back in touch
Speaker 1: with his Harvard friends and reconnected to the Puritan movement. There.
Speaker 1: He had begun to brush shoulders with religious leaders like
Speaker 1: Increased Mather and his popular son Cotton. He even worked
Speaker 1: for a time alongside his uncle at the Puritan church
Speaker 1: in Boston, and it was there that he met a
Speaker 1: physician named William Griggs who had some family north of
Speaker 1: the city, and they we're looking for a minister. This
Speaker 1: family turned out to be none other than the Putnams,
Speaker 1: and their timing was actually perfect. Samuel wasn't doing so
Speaker 1: well compared to some of the other businesses around him.
Speaker 1: He was earning good money, but nothing compared to the competition.
Speaker 1: So in six he began conversations with the folks in
Speaker 1: Salem Village about shifting careers once again and stepping into
Speaker 1: their vacant minister role. Here's Richard Trask. He had not
Speaker 1: been an ordained minister. I guess the term today would
Speaker 1: be had taken courses. He was a man who had
Speaker 1: changed his occupation. He was a merchant. Didn't do that
Speaker 1: while there had a belief in wanting to do good,
Speaker 1: and so took the call in Salem Village, and the
Speaker 1: village took him on as the minister. It took them
Speaker 1: nearly a year of negotiations, but in November of six nine,
Speaker 1: Samuel Paris took over as the fourth minister of the
Speaker 1: Salem Village Congregation. And not only did he get the job,
Speaker 1: but unlike his three predecessors, he was even ordained by
Speaker 1: the community there. This was huge, but things weren't all
Speaker 1: rose colored glasses and smooth sailing. You find that in
Speaker 1: his coming to Salem Village, you had some problems, and
Speaker 1: the problems were you always had within your community, the
Speaker 1: covenant members usually like ten of the population, and then
Speaker 1: the others, the outsiders who had to contribute to the
Speaker 1: meetinghouse for the church but didn't really have too much
Speaker 1: of a say that way. You see, you can hire
Speaker 1: a new minister, even one that meets that very specific
Speaker 1: list of requirements that Salem Village had, but you can't
Speaker 1: change the culture around the village. If Paris was meant
Speaker 1: to be a seed for change, he'd been planted in toxic,
Speaker 1: unfriendly soil, and nothing good could ever grow. From that.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, there were flaws on both sides
Speaker 1: of the argument. On one hand, the Putnam's finally had
Speaker 1: an ultrapious minister who would fight against the halfway covenant.
Speaker 1: Paris refused to give church membership to anyone who wasn't
Speaker 1: willing to take on the highly conservative practices that he taught.
Speaker 1: He refused them communion and baptism, which was like depriving
Speaker 1: starving men of a good meal. On the other side
Speaker 1: of the argument were the Porters. They were some of
Speaker 1: the people denied membership by Samuel Paris, and they weren't
Speaker 1: happy about that. But one of the Porters was the
Speaker 1: leader of the Salem Tax Committee, so he fought back.
Speaker 1: If Paris was going to play hardball with essentials like communion,
Speaker 1: then they would simply refuse to pay him his salary
Speaker 1: and regular allotment of firewood. Historian Maryland k Roach at
Speaker 1: one point, He's really low on it and complaining about it.
Speaker 1: He's riding in the winter and in the ink praises
Speaker 1: in the innklow. So it was a necessity, which is
Speaker 1: why in early January Paris was freezing in his upstairs study.
Speaker 1: It was his space away from the rest of the household,
Speaker 1: where he retreated to prepare his sermons. But New England
Speaker 1: winters have always been a brutal experience, and he probably
Speaker 1: spent just as much time breathing into his cupped hands
Speaker 1: as he did dipping his quill in the ink. Thankfully
Speaker 1: though he kept writing. In fact, his Minister's Notebook is
Speaker 1: one of the most important documents we still have today,
Speaker 1: and it provides a unique window into the events that
Speaker 1: were about to unfold. During my time with historian Richard Trask,
Speaker 1: I got to see that notebook for myself. This is
Speaker 1: the Minister's record book. We had it restored back in
Speaker 1: the nineties seventies, so he is the original piece of
Speaker 1: paunchment on a new binding. Yeah, and this is all
Speaker 1: in the handwriting of Reverend Paris. The notebook helps us
Speaker 1: see the new wants in the story. The tensions in
Speaker 1: Salem were a lot more complex than just withheld firewood
Speaker 1: deliveries and religious disputes between two prominent families. There was
Speaker 1: another layer to their worldview, one that was filled with
Speaker 1: dark powers, horrifying dangers, and a system of rules that
Speaker 1: was so loose and full of holes that anyone could
Speaker 1: be accused of breaking them. Taking it all into account,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just bad. It was a recipe or a disaster.
Speaker 1: Samuel Paris had guts, that much was clear. But while
Speaker 1: he was preaching harsh messages to his church about wandering
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, about suffering through hatred and persecution, about
Speaker 1: the wicked and reprobate people who were working with the
Speaker 1: devil to destroy the church, well, things were falling apart
Speaker 1: back home. It wasn't just that Betty Abigail were suffering
Speaker 1: from something they couldn't treat. No, there was something else.
Speaker 1: It reminded Paris of another story, one from just a
Speaker 1: few years before. In six four children of a Boston
Speaker 1: family by the name of Goodwin began to show unusual symptoms, fits, seizures,
Speaker 1: and violent twisting, the sort that caused great alarm and
Speaker 1: were also very hard to forget. At some point in
Speaker 1: their suffering, the four girls cried out that they were
Speaker 1: being attacked by their neighbor, an elderly Irish immigrant named
Speaker 1: Goody Glover. Goody, by the way, wasn't a first name.
Speaker 1: The terms Goody and good Men were sort of a
Speaker 1: seventeenth century version of Mr. And mrs. That After a
Speaker 1: long trial, Goody Glover was convicted of witchcraft and hanged
Speaker 1: in Boston. There were others too, and they had all
Speaker 1: been written about and spread to the far reaches of
Speaker 1: the colony there. We can blame Cotton Mother for that,
Speaker 1: because he had a passion for collect these sorts of tales,
Speaker 1: in publishing them as a sort of warning to the pious.
Speaker 1: Here's Jane Kamensky, Professor of American History at Harvard University.
Speaker 1: Kind Mother was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society,
Speaker 1: fancied himself a scientist of international connection. So it's not
Speaker 1: education or intellect that explains where people came down and
Speaker 1: and how this is a world in which science and
Speaker 1: religion and ghost stories all are are very much of
Speaker 1: a piece. They had a particular cosmology, parts of which
Speaker 1: we believe we have proved wrong. We also have a
Speaker 1: cosmology right that there are certainly things in our conceptions
Speaker 1: of science are totalizing conceptions of science that people in
Speaker 1: two hundred or three hundred years will wonder, how on
Speaker 1: earth did they believe that these stories were on Samuel
Speaker 1: Paris's mind when he heard a knock at the door
Speaker 1: one day in early February. It was a local woman
Speaker 1: named Sarah Good. She and her little girl had come
Speaker 1: to beg for assistance. Her husband had no income, and
Speaker 1: her relatives had turned her away. She was known to
Speaker 1: be rude and unpleasant, and she creeped people out. She
Speaker 1: would arrive on their doorstep and beg for food, and
Speaker 1: when people turned her away, she would mutter under her
Speaker 1: breath and say things about their property that sounded an
Speaker 1: awful lot like a curse to their superstitious Puritan ears.
Speaker 1: On this occasion, Paris gave the little girl something to
Speaker 1: eat and then turned the pair of them away. As
Speaker 1: she left, Sarah Good did more of her mysterious muttering
Speaker 1: in Paris didn't like the sound of it. Events like these,
Speaker 1: along with all the other stories, served to inform how
Speaker 1: the Paris family would treat Abigail and Betty. Sure He
Speaker 1: tried to take the more logical path. First, his old
Speaker 1: physician friend, William Griggs, paid them a visit in January
Speaker 1: of six two and examine the girls. But despite being
Speaker 1: a doctor, he could only agree with Samuel's puzzlement. There
Speaker 1: was no bodily illness that could cause the symptoms that
Speaker 1: they were witnessing. Instead, Griggs suggested that the girls were
Speaker 1: under an evil hand, a pronouncement that must have chilled
Speaker 1: Paris to the bone. Not only that, but it also
Speaker 1: made him feel well out of his depths. Yes he
Speaker 1: had read about the Goodwin children and others like them.
Speaker 1: Yes he was a pious man of faith, but this
Speaker 1: was out of his realm of personal experience, and he
Speaker 1: was going to need advice. On February six, Samuel and
Speaker 1: his wife Elizabeth left home to attend a nearby gathering
Speaker 1: of local ministers and church leaders called a Thursday lecture.
Speaker 1: His hope was that there might be someone there who
Speaker 1: could consult with him, or even be invited over to
Speaker 1: his home to see for themselves what the symptoms looked like.
Speaker 1: While he was there, he was able to chat with
Speaker 1: both of the Salem town ministers, as well as Reverend
Speaker 1: John Hale from Beverly and former Salem village minister Dao
Speaker 1: Dat Lawson. Hale and Lawson both agreed to visit soon
Speaker 1: while the paris Is were gone, though they had left
Speaker 1: their children in the care of a local woman named
Speaker 1: Mary Sibley. She was a pregnant mother of five children
Speaker 1: and one of the faithful members of Samuel's congregation. She
Speaker 1: stayed in the house that day to care for Betty
Speaker 1: and Abigail, along with the Paris slaves Tituba and John Indian.
Speaker 1: What she witnessed that day concerned her enough to drive
Speaker 1: her into action. Mary told Tituba and John that she
Speaker 1: remembered an old remedy from her time growing up in England.
Speaker 1: She gave the instructions to John and he got to
Speaker 1: work preparing this miracle cure. First, John collected urine from
Speaker 1: the girls and then mixed it with hour to form
Speaker 1: a dough. Then it was shaped into biscuits and baked
Speaker 1: in the orange embers of the fireplace. Next, and this
Speaker 1: is a bit confusing, and most historians don't have a
Speaker 1: definitive explanation why the biscuits were then fed to the
Speaker 1: family dog. Maybe it was a way of passing the
Speaker 1: curse over from the girls to the dog, or perhaps
Speaker 1: it somehow marked the dog as a better target for
Speaker 1: the evil forces attacking the girls. We don't know. All
Speaker 1: we know is that Mary Sibley had made the biscuits
Speaker 1: in an effort to help, but that help backfired. Both
Speaker 1: of the girls experienced an uptick in their symptoms that day.
Speaker 1: It was so dramatic of an increase that Samuel and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth noticed it immediately when they returned home on Friday,
Speaker 1: as did the guests who came with them. The convulsions
Speaker 1: had visibly increased, and both of the girls were now
Speaker 1: claiming to see the shape of a stranger in the house,
Speaker 1: a stranger who was slapping and pinching them. When Paris
Speaker 1: asked the girl as who it was, both of them
Speaker 1: named Tichuba as their attacker. Naturally, Samuel pulled the woman
Speaker 1: aside and asked her about it. He'd known Tichuba for years,
Speaker 1: long before his time in England, and he thought he
Speaker 1: could trust her. His faith was deeper, though, causing him
Speaker 1: to believe the girl's claim. Tichuba denied it, of course,
Speaker 1: but she also revealed what had happened while they were gone,
Speaker 1: and what Mary Sibley had done. Samuel exploded in rage.
Speaker 1: Someone had dared to come into his home, the home
Speaker 1: of Salem Village's ordained servants of God, and use magic.
Speaker 1: They had called upon the powers of the Devil himself
Speaker 1: to save the girls, thereby making the situation worse, not better.
Speaker 1: The increase in the symptoms of both girls was irrefutable
Speaker 1: proof of just how bad an idea that had been.
Speaker 1: What he did in response after his guests had left
Speaker 1: for the evening would only come to light later on.
Speaker 1: As the ministers and town of issials went back to
Speaker 1: their homes and families, they carried a dark rumor with them.
Speaker 1: There was a witch in Salem and no one was safe.
Speaker 1: It's easy to lose perspective on history. The events of
Speaker 1: Salem took place over three centuries ago. That's three hundred
Speaker 1: years of looking back, three years of storytelling, and three
Speaker 1: hundred years of preconceived notions about what we think happened.
Speaker 1: From where we stand today, we've forgotten more about Salem
Speaker 1: than we ever remembered. Time has taken it from us.
Speaker 1: That's why this series exists. Over the centuries, the Salem
Speaker 1: witch trials have become obscured by time and distance. It's
Speaker 1: mysterious and misunderstood by most people. I want to clean
Speaker 1: that foggy window, to leave it clear and understandable, unobscured,
Speaker 1: So keep that in mind as we dive deeper. These
Speaker 1: seemingly unimportant details, the religious divisions, the competing families, and
Speaker 1: the small town politics all of them are essential pieces
Speaker 1: in a larger puzzle that my team and I want
Speaker 1: to assemble for you over the course of this season.
Speaker 1: Along the way, we'll hear from historians and experts in
Speaker 1: the study of the Sale and witch trials. Their insight
Speaker 1: will prove to be invaluable tools for our journey. That
Speaker 1: Thursday experiment by Mary Sibley and the aftermath it took
Speaker 1: place the following day were flashpoints. All of the background
Speaker 1: information and context came together like that yurine and flower biscuit,
Speaker 1: and after it baked in the heat of Samuel Paris's
Speaker 1: rage and his neighbor's fear, it got to work. On
Speaker 1: February six, two, the day after Samuel Paris and his
Speaker 1: friends learned of the witch cake experiment, young Elizabeth Hubbard
Speaker 1: was walking through the snow toward her home. She was
Speaker 1: on an errand for her uncle, William Griggs, who also
Speaker 1: happened to be the physician Samuel Paris had been consulting
Speaker 1: with for weeks. It had been Griggs that suggested that
Speaker 1: Betty and Abigail weren't suffering from a physical illness, but
Speaker 1: a spiritual one. Elizabeth trudged along the path that cut
Speaker 1: through the snow and tugged her coat tighter to her body.
Speaker 1: The winds had picked up and it was throwing daggers
Speaker 1: of bitter cold. But as she walked, she had the
Speaker 1: overwhelming feeling that something was following her. She glanced back
Speaker 1: a few times, but didn't see anything until she was
Speaker 1: very close to her home. That's when she caught a
Speaker 1: glimpse of what she believed to be a wolf. It
Speaker 1: had been following her the entire time, stalking her through
Speaker 1: the wind and snow, but there was something wrong about
Speaker 1: that wolf, something different. Elizabeth Bubbard believed it was a familiar,
Speaker 1: an animal under the control of a witch acting as
Speaker 1: a servant and helper. And while I have no idea
Speaker 1: how she made this next leap in logic, she told
Speaker 1: her uncle that the wolf served one which, in particular
Speaker 1: Sarah Good, the grumpy beggar who went door to door
Speaker 1: for handouts. Later that day, she claimed that another woman,
Speaker 1: Sarah Osburne, was also tormenting her. Elsewhere in Salem Village,
Speaker 1: another family was encountering their own problems. Thomas Putnam Jr.
Speaker 1: Was a veteran of the wars on the main Frontier,
Speaker 1: so he had seen a lot of evil in his life.
Speaker 1: He was also most likely one of the friends who
Speaker 1: witnessed Betty and Abigail's new symptoms on Friday, and in
Speaker 1: the middle of all of that, at the same time
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Hubbard was seeing demonic wolves. Thomas's twelve year old
Speaker 1: daughter Annie began to convulse and writhe on the floor.
Speaker 1: A storm blasted Salem that Sunday, pinning most people down
Speaker 1: inside their homes. When it lifted on Monday morning, though,
Speaker 1: Thomas and three other local men made their journey to
Speaker 1: Salem Town, where they requested to speak with the local
Speaker 1: magistrates there, John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin. They told the
Speaker 1: magistrates about the events of the past two months of
Speaker 1: Tituba and Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. They told them
Speaker 1: about the fear that was creeping into the village, and
Speaker 1: that was enough for Corwin and Hawthorne. They called two
Speaker 1: constables to assist them and drafted the arrest warrants for
Speaker 1: the accused witches before setting an examination time for the
Speaker 1: very next day. They were hoping to stop the evil
Speaker 1: before it spread, to contain it and remove it from
Speaker 1: the village, but they started something else entirely, something that
Speaker 1: would leave a mark on history that we can still
Speaker 1: see today. The Salem witch trials had begun. That's it
Speaker 1: for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this
Speaker 1: short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store
Speaker 1: for next week. Next time on Unobscured, Have you made
Speaker 1: no contract with the devil? John Hawthorne began, No, she replied, then,
Speaker 1: pointing toward the four girls who had begun the entire ordeal,
Speaker 1: Hawthorne continued, why do you hurt these children? I do
Speaker 1: not hurt them, she replied. In response, Hawthorne asked the
Speaker 1: girls to look at Sarah Good and say whether or
Speaker 1: not she was the person who had been tormenting them.
Speaker 1: They replied that Good was one of the people responsible. Yes.
Speaker 1: A moment later, all four of them began to convulse
Speaker 1: and cry out in pain. For the first time, all
Speaker 1: of the torment and despair that had been kept behind
Speaker 1: the closed doors of the Paris home was on full display,
Speaker 1: laid bare to the eyes of everyone in the galleries.
Speaker 1: If their accusations of witchcraft had begun as a private matter,
Speaker 1: left to the realms of whispers and rumor, this was
Speaker 1: the moment it transformed a cat as black and evil
Speaker 1: as it was was finally out of the bag. Unobscured
Speaker 1: was created and written by me Aaron Mankey and produced
Speaker 1: by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams in partnership with How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, with research by Carl Nellis and original music
Speaker 1: by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians further
Speaker 1: reading material, resource archive and links to our other shows
Speaker 1: at History unobscured dot com. Until next time, thanks for listening.