Speaker 1: Giles Corey was furious, partly at himself, but mostly at
Speaker 1: the rest of the community. He had let slip a
Speaker 1: small piece of information about his wife Martha's past, and
Speaker 1: now that had snowballed into a massive attack on her character,
Speaker 1: and he was going to stop it. Martha and Giles
Speaker 1: Corey hadn't been married for a long time, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't even her first husband, although that wasn't unusual in
Speaker 1: a day and age when people died often and quickly
Speaker 1: from any manner of illness. No, her first husband had
Speaker 1: been a man named Henry rich and together they had
Speaker 1: raised one son named Thomas. But Martha had a secret.
Speaker 1: She had another son, one that was born three years
Speaker 1: before her marriage to Henry rich In, born out of wedlock,
Speaker 1: mind you, and fathered by a local slave. And while
Speaker 1: she and Henry raised Thomas, their white and proper son,
Speaker 1: inside the Rown home, this older son, Ben, lived in
Speaker 1: a local boarding house where Martha would visit each day
Speaker 1: and see to his needs. So when the very first
Speaker 1: examinations took place back in early March and Tituba, Sarah
Speaker 1: Good and Sarah Osborne were dragged into the meeting house
Speaker 1: to account for the accusations leveled against them. Jiles Corey
Speaker 1: knew that it was only a matter of time before
Speaker 1: they came for his wife. Witch Hunts always began with
Speaker 1: the outsiders and the rule breakers, after all, So he
Speaker 1: stormed out of his house that very same day, ready
Speaker 1: to go defend his wife's name in the meeting house
Speaker 1: if it ever crossed someone's lips. He was an outspoken man,
Speaker 1: known to be rough and cantankerous, and he was not
Speaker 1: about to let his wife be thrown into the mix.
Speaker 1: Martha rushed out to stop him. They worked well together
Speaker 1: as a couple because she was just as strong willed
Speaker 1: as he was. While he was grabbing whatever he might
Speaker 1: need for his ride to the meeting house, she was
Speaker 1: unbuckling his saddle. When it was loose, she tossed it
Speaker 1: into the dirt. That was months ago. The little storm
Speaker 1: that had blown in back in late winter had blossomed
Speaker 1: into a September tempest, and it was threatening to devastate
Speaker 1: countless lives in Salem. But this time Giles Corey wasn't
Speaker 1: able to stomp out of his house and saddle his
Speaker 1: horse for another ride to the meeting house. He couldn't
Speaker 1: because he was in jail, along with a fresh crop
Speaker 1: of newcomers, each with their own cloud of accusations hovering
Speaker 1: over them. On the upside, Giles was finally reunited with Martha.
Speaker 1: But that's about all the silver lining I can find.
Speaker 1: Anything else hinted at a darker future. The Court of
Speaker 1: Oyer and Terminer had already met three times, and each
Speaker 1: time had ended with the sentencing and execution of almost
Speaker 1: everyone involved. The Corey's names were on the list for
Speaker 1: the fourth session, and even though their trial had yet
Speaker 1: to begin, they already knew how it would end, with
Speaker 1: countless whispers and rumors swirling around them and no one
Speaker 1: willing to step forward and defend them. They could see
Speaker 1: no other way out, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't try.
Speaker 1: This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. As August gave way
Speaker 1: to September, the wreckage of the trials was already beyond unbearable.
Speaker 1: Eleven people had been executed for the crime of witchcraft,
Speaker 1: and others had died in jail waiting for justice. One
Speaker 1: didn't have to look far to see the effects of
Speaker 1: the trials. I can't help but wonder if many were
Speaker 1: full of regret for remaining silent. Silence in the face
Speaker 1: of injustice has a way of acting like a stamp
Speaker 1: of approval. What was happening there in Salem must have
Speaker 1: felt less and less like justice with each passing day.
Speaker 1: Some of the people in the community had to have
Speaker 1: been worried the magistrates and their supporters, However, they didn't
Speaker 1: see it that way. The King and Queen of Hell
Speaker 1: had been defeated, and they had new leads for yet
Speaker 1: more witches hidden within their community and the wider area.
Speaker 1: Samuel Wardwell, the andover man who had defended himself against
Speaker 1: accusations that he had somehow bewitched Joseph Ballard's wife Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: was arrested and thrown in jail, and the rumors were
Speaker 1: pretty damning. Wardwell had a reputation for fortune telling and divination,
Speaker 1: to activities that many people viewed as the skills of
Speaker 1: a witch. He was proud of these skills too, and
Speaker 1: bragged about them freely. He once shouted the devil take
Speaker 1: you at another farmer who allowed his cattle to graze
Speaker 1: on his land, and he even admitted to being baptized
Speaker 1: by the devil himself in a local river, being careful
Speaker 1: to wash away every bit of his earlier Christian baptism.
Speaker 1: So yeah, while many had already died and the community
Speaker 1: was writhing with unease and remorse, their fear was just
Speaker 1: a little bit stronger, and their superstitions were still in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. After all, how could you pump the
Speaker 1: brakes when someone confesses to signing the Devil's book and
Speaker 1: doing his evil work. That and over branch of the
Speaker 1: witchcraft trials had become a monster of its own too,
Speaker 1: so many new accusations him to light that the magistrates
Speaker 1: in Salem set up a separate examination location right there
Speaker 1: in and Over. Anyone found worthy of participating in the
Speaker 1: official oyer and Termina or trial would then be carted
Speaker 1: off to one of the many area jails who were
Speaker 1: helping Salem out. And the Oyer and Terminer was about
Speaker 1: to resume for its fourth session beginning on September six,
Speaker 1: a new wave of accused would begin stepping into the
Speaker 1: courtroom to stand before the magistrates and make their case.
Speaker 1: One of those, of course, was Martha Corey, who had
Speaker 1: been in jail longer than anyone else, but another was
Speaker 1: a local woman named Alice Parker. Alice was the husband
Speaker 1: of John Parker, who worked as a fisherman just south
Speaker 1: of what's referred to as Salem Neck, a peninsula of
Speaker 1: land that pushes northeast from the rest of the city.
Speaker 1: They rented a home there near the water, and, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people in town, did their best to
Speaker 1: just survive. Alice, though, was prone to seizures that were
Speaker 1: refer to as catalepsy, a medical condition that was well
Speaker 1: known at the time. Those who suffered from it would
Speaker 1: have seizures that resulted in their bodies becoming rigid and unmoving,
Speaker 1: while they would appear to everyone else as if they
Speaker 1: were asleep or unconscious. In a community frightened by a
Speaker 1: rash of witchcraft stories, though Alice Parker made people uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: it didn't help that she had a bit of a temper.
Speaker 1: One of her neighbors was the Warren family, whose daughter
Speaker 1: Mary had become a well known member of the group
Speaker 1: of afflicted girls doing much of the finger pointing, and
Speaker 1: years before Alice had caused a scene at their home.
Speaker 1: With her husband out on the water much of the time,
Speaker 1: Alice had asked Mary Warren's father to help harvest the
Speaker 1: grass on her meadow. He agreed to help but when
Speaker 1: the time came around, he never showed up. So Alice
Speaker 1: paid them a visit and shouted at him, using threatening
Speaker 1: words that seemed to take roots and hold on. And
Speaker 1: Mary Warren remembered those words. She remembered them when her
Speaker 1: sister became ill and lost her hearing. She remembered them
Speaker 1: when her mother became sick and died. She remembered them
Speaker 1: when her father also died. Even after leaving her childhood
Speaker 1: home and moving in with the Proctors as a helper,
Speaker 1: she remembered those words. So when Alice Parker entered the
Speaker 1: courtroom to hear the charges against her, those charges included
Speaker 1: a description of that encounter years before and the detailing
Speaker 1: of the fallout from that curse. According to Mary Warren,
Speaker 1: her entire family had been destroyed because of Alice Parker's
Speaker 1: powers as a witch, and that was enough for the magistrates.
Speaker 1: The jury considered the evidence and then returned with a verdict.
Speaker 1: Alice Parker was guilty of witchcraft, but she wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the last. Others stood before the court that week as well.
Speaker 1: After Alice Parker's conviction, Mary ste had her turn, hearing
Speaker 1: the accusations and speaking for herself. Mary Esty, if you remember,
Speaker 1: was the sister to Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Klois. And
Speaker 1: while Sarah would have her own trial soon enough, Rebecca
Speaker 1: was already dead, executed for the very same crime for
Speaker 1: which her sister Mary now stood trial. And I can't
Speaker 1: imagine Mary not being acutely aware of that, still in mourning,
Speaker 1: she was about to follow in her sister's footsteps. It
Speaker 1: was to be expected, I suppose. Part of the evidence
Speaker 1: that led to Rebecca's conviction was the fact that her mother,
Speaker 1: Johanna Town, had been accused of witchcraft. Seeing as how
Speaker 1: Rebecca and Mary shared that dark lineage, the court already
Speaker 1: had a head start. Added to this was the fact
Speaker 1: that Mary ste had worked tirelessly to defend her sister,
Speaker 1: something that made sense to a court that believed one
Speaker 1: which would gladly support another. There was more. Mary was
Speaker 1: the wife of tops Field farmer Isaac ste and mother
Speaker 1: of twelve children, Being much younger than her sister, she
Speaker 1: was in her late fifties at the time of the trial.
Speaker 1: But that's where the differences stopped. Mary and her husband
Speaker 1: were just as connected to the wealthy Porter family and
Speaker 1: just as hounded by accusations from the afflicted girls in
Speaker 1: the area. Eight different men stood before the court that day,
Speaker 1: validated the stories of Mercy Lewis, who claimed that Mary
Speaker 1: ste had attacked her in spectral form. But remember, Rebecca
Speaker 1: Nurse had come prepared, armed with a petition. She had
Speaker 1: used her position and connections to reach for more help
Speaker 1: than most people could have managed, and here in early September,
Speaker 1: her sister Mary did the same. Not only did she
Speaker 1: show up for her trial with a signed petition in hand,
Speaker 1: but she also came with statements from her jailer swearing
Speaker 1: to her good behavior and character. They spoke of her
Speaker 1: unblemished reputation of Christianity, but all of it failed to
Speaker 1: sway a jury and court of magistrates who were frightened
Speaker 1: by the claims of the afflicted Mary Esty. Like her sister, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: was convicted after her. The court handled the case of
Speaker 1: seventy year old Mary Bradbury. She wasn't a local to
Speaker 1: the area, having been brought south all the way from
Speaker 1: Salisbury coastal town up near the border of modern Massachusetts
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire. But Bradbury was a fighter and would
Speaker 1: give the courts another challenge. Her husband was the wealthy
Speaker 1: and respected Captain Thomas Bradbury, grand nephew of the Archbishop
Speaker 1: of Canterbury, militia officer, and local magistrate and judge. These
Speaker 1: were powerful connections and that's exactly what Mary would need
Speaker 1: to defeat the charges against her. But those connections were
Speaker 1: also a handicap. You see, the Puritan didn't care for
Speaker 1: the Anglican Church, which meant that Thomas's great called the Archbishop,
Speaker 1: was about as evil as one person could get. And
Speaker 1: Thomas had friends who were Royalists, those who supported the
Speaker 1: Anglican king. These were connections that had gone a long
Speaker 1: way toward helping Thomas and Mary advanced through life, but
Speaker 1: now they were going to hold them back. Mary had
Speaker 1: the added problem of having prior accusations of witchcraft in
Speaker 1: her past. While she had never been formally charged, those
Speaker 1: old stories had more weight to them in light of
Speaker 1: the new rumors. Many of the afflicted girls, including Ann Putnam,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Warren, all claimed to have been
Speaker 1: attacked by her that year, and all of their stories
Speaker 1: helped the Attorney General deliver yet another conviction. More quickly
Speaker 1: followed after Mary Bradberry and Mary sty the court convicted
Speaker 1: Samuel Wardwell and Ann Foster of Andover, along with Anne's daughter,
Speaker 1: Mary Lacey, and Abigail Hobbs. The teenage girl who had
Speaker 1: returned from Maine with stories of the devil and claims
Speaker 1: of witchcraft, found herself on the wrong end of the
Speaker 1: game she had started. Yes, her claims had put a
Speaker 1: lot of other people in jail, but they had also
Speaker 1: earned her a conviction. When Samuel Wardwell learned that three
Speaker 1: other confessed witches and Foster, Mary Lacey, and Abigail Hobbs
Speaker 1: were all sentenced to death by hanging, he had a
Speaker 1: change of heart. Maybe it was the realization that no
Speaker 1: confessing to witchcraft was not the guaranteed ticket to safety
Speaker 1: that he had assumed it would be. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: just the impending doom of the hangman's noose. Neither way,
Speaker 1: he recanted his claims. It didn't work. On Thursday September,
Speaker 1: the court handpicked eight individuals from the fresh crop of
Speaker 1: convicted witches and carted them off to the site of
Speaker 1: their execution. Those eight were Martha Corey, Mary st Alice Parker,
Speaker 1: and Samuel Wardwell, along with some that we know much
Speaker 1: less about and Beauty Wilma Red and Margaret Scott. The
Speaker 1: only account of their execution is from Robert Caliph, the
Speaker 1: Boston merchant, who had written down an account of the
Speaker 1: previous execution as well. According to Caliph, it was a
Speaker 1: somber scene, with much weeping and heartfelt goodbyes from the victims.
Speaker 1: The Salem town minister, Nicholas Noyce, however, was one of
Speaker 1: the few to appear unmoved by the occasion. What a
Speaker 1: sad thing it is to see, he was said to
Speaker 1: have announced, without remorse, eight firebrands of hell hanging there
Speaker 1: sad Indeed, one by one the eight victims were pushed
Speaker 1: off the ladder, and one by one they perished at
Speaker 1: the end of the rope. But not Mary Bradbury. No,
Speaker 1: she didn't go to the gallows for a very simple reason.
Speaker 1: She escaped. Then, As hard as it might be to believe,
Speaker 1: she wasn't the only one. It's not hard to imagine why. Really,
Speaker 1: if you and I have been living in Salem at
Speaker 1: the time of the witchcraft trials, any one of us
Speaker 1: might have felt just nervous enough about the direction things
Speaker 1: were headed to consider running away. Sure, the accusations had
Speaker 1: first been thrown at the outsiders, and the others in
Speaker 1: their community. But week by week, month by month, those
Speaker 1: old norms were crumbling by September. Of anyone was fair game,
Speaker 1: poor or rich, alone or well connected, religious outsider or
Speaker 1: full member. In the Puritan Church, if you lived and breathed,
Speaker 1: there was a chance you might be accused, never mind
Speaker 1: the fact that the trials had clearly been guided by
Speaker 1: passion and fear rather than logic and fact. To most observers,
Speaker 1: and especially those who had gone through the examination process
Speaker 1: and the Oyer and Terminer trial, there was very little
Speaker 1: night at the end of the tunnel. So the Bradberry's
Speaker 1: got creative. They were at the end of their rope,
Speaker 1: and with Mary's conviction and sentencing, things felt urgent. Many
Speaker 1: people had simply accepted their fate, but not Mary's family. Instead,
Speaker 1: they broke her out. Here's historian Mary Beth Norton to
Speaker 1: explain how well if you pay attention to where they are,
Speaker 1: remember there are a lot of people in jail. They're
Speaker 1: not just in Salem. The jail in Salem is too
Speaker 1: small to hold them all. The jail in Salem Town,
Speaker 1: as we're talking about, there's too small to hold them all.
Speaker 1: So they've been scattered around other places. And it happens
Speaker 1: that a lot of the leading people who are accused
Speaker 1: of being which is are sent to Boston. And I
Speaker 1: am convinced that the Boston jailer had his hand out
Speaker 1: for bribes, and that it was from the Boston jail
Speaker 1: that a lot of these people escaped. It's not written
Speaker 1: down anywhere, but he basically took money to let will go.
Speaker 1: I think there's no question um in my mind. There's
Speaker 1: no question my mind that he was. He was bribable
Speaker 1: and probably earned a pretty penny from letting all these
Speaker 1: wealthy people go, one of them being my very own ancestor,
Speaker 1: Mary Bradberry, who was held and suddenly managed to escape.
Speaker 1: Guess what, she had a wealthy husband. Another escapeee was
Speaker 1: Captain John Alden, if you don't remember, he was one
Speaker 1: of the arrests in late May. In fact, his arrest
Speaker 1: happened so quickly that they wrote the arrest warrant after
Speaker 1: he was in custody, because nothing says we're running this
Speaker 1: thing entirely by the book, like breaking basic rules like
Speaker 1: having a warrant for his suspect's arrest. Since that arrest,
Speaker 1: Alden had spent fifteen weeks in a Boston jail, waiting
Speaker 1: for his turn to stand trial before the Oyer and Terminator.
Speaker 1: From the jail, he would have heard the news week
Speaker 1: by week of each new trial, conviction, and execution. His
Speaker 1: own approaching death was like the beating of a drum,
Speaker 1: growing louder and more intense with each new day. And
Speaker 1: then George Burrows was executed. Alden had served in the
Speaker 1: militia on the main Frontier, where Burrows had been a minister.
Speaker 1: The men had known each other, and that made the
Speaker 1: minister's execution personal. If the court could not stop at
Speaker 1: convicting a frontier fighting minister, how could John Alden expect
Speaker 1: anything less for himself as a result. Sometime towards the
Speaker 1: end of August, Captain John Alden vanished. That's the how,
Speaker 1: But what about the why? Where did Alden and the
Speaker 1: Bradberries get the idea in the first place. Well, it
Speaker 1: turns out we might have one of the local ministers
Speaker 1: to blame for that, and not just anyone, none other
Speaker 1: than Samuel Willard. Willard, if you remember, was the minister
Speaker 1: of Boston's Third Church, where three of the Oyer and
Speaker 1: Terminer judges were members. Samuel Sewell Peter Sergeant, and wait
Speaker 1: Still Winthrop. Early on, he had preached from the pulpit
Speaker 1: about the need to be sober and vigilant as they
Speaker 1: began their spiritual mettle with the devil. But as time
Speaker 1: went on that changed. Maybe it had to do with
Speaker 1: how the magistrates handled that group letter written by many
Speaker 1: of the local ministers called the Return of Several Ministers.
Speaker 1: Their purpose had been to warn and guide the government,
Speaker 1: but instead their words were twisted and used as justification
Speaker 1: for many of the injustices that followed. Samuel Willard wasn't
Speaker 1: the type of man who would handle that sort of
Speaker 1: misrepresentation well, so he spoke out. But he wasn't disconnected
Speaker 1: from the trials. In fact, Willard was tangled up in
Speaker 1: it thanks to friendships and family. He was a close
Speaker 1: friend of Captain John Alden, and his own brother, Simon,
Speaker 1: was a lieutenant in the militia who testified against the
Speaker 1: recently executed George Burrows. It's interesting to point out something else.
Speaker 1: Burrows had been executed on August nineteen. Two days later,
Speaker 1: on August Willard stood before his congregation and preached on
Speaker 1: Matthew Chapter ten, verse twenty three, Across Town inside Boston's
Speaker 1: first church minister, Joshua Moody, taught the exact same Bible passage.
Speaker 1: What exactly does that specific verse say they that are
Speaker 1: persecuted in one city let them flee to another? It
Speaker 1: was hard to ignore the obvious. Granted, some people might
Speaker 1: have just assumed that Willard and Moody were preaching from
Speaker 1: a passage of scripture that they had both agreed upon
Speaker 1: at their last Thursday lecture meeting. But if you were
Speaker 1: deep in the tragic events personally, it was far from
Speaker 1: a coincidence. And those people noticed. Two of the people
Speaker 1: sitting in church that morning were Philip and Mary English.
Speaker 1: They were a power couple and quite possibly the wealthiest
Speaker 1: citizens of Salem Town. Philip was a merchant who was
Speaker 1: known to be impulsive, generous, and optimistic. He had arrived
Speaker 1: in Salem in the sixteen seventies and quickly began to
Speaker 1: grow his business empire. Early on, he formed a business
Speaker 1: partnership with another already established merchant. In the process, he
Speaker 1: fell in love with that man's daughter, Mary, and in
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy five the couple were married. By sixteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Mary was around forty years old and a full member
Speaker 1: in the Salem Town Church, well respected among her peers.
Speaker 1: She was even the manager of the business for her
Speaker 1: husband whenever he was away or at sea, and proved
Speaker 1: herself to be every bit his equal. She was a
Speaker 1: powerful figure in her own right. Philip did well for
Speaker 1: himself over the years he served on juries and then
Speaker 1: as a constable in sixteen eighty two. Nearly all of
Speaker 1: the man registrates of six ninety two new Philip English
Speaker 1: from those many official appearances in court, but also from
Speaker 1: his business reputation. He was dripping with wealth, and those
Speaker 1: men couldn't help but notice that English was so rich
Speaker 1: that by six eighty three he was able to build
Speaker 1: the largest mansion in the city of Salem. Remember this
Speaker 1: was a time when most people lived in a one
Speaker 1: room home, with the occasional two room house in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Philip's Great House, as people called it, was an exercise
Speaker 1: in opulence. But Philip English had a secret. I'll let
Speaker 1: historian Emerson Baker clew you in. He's from the Channel Islands.
Speaker 1: His first language is French. He comes over here as
Speaker 1: Philip langlais not Philip English. Philip was an outsider. He
Speaker 1: spoke the language of the evil Catholic French and identified
Speaker 1: as an Anglican, not a Puritan. He tried to hide it,
Speaker 1: as the change and his surname might suggest, but most
Speaker 1: likely not well enough. Eventually the truth slipped out, and
Speaker 1: for as successful as his wife, Mary turned out to be,
Speaker 1: not everyone liked her either. Here's historian Marilyn k. Roach.
Speaker 1: Marry English was the richest woman in Salem. Her father
Speaker 1: had been a merchant who was lost at sea, and
Speaker 1: she married his business partner, Philip English, who was from
Speaker 1: the Isle of Jersey and had more of a French culture.
Speaker 1: Some people, at least according to descendants, thought she put
Speaker 1: on airs, but class and status and the responsibilities of
Speaker 1: class were big in those days, not like now. But
Speaker 1: she was accused even though she was a full member
Speaker 1: of the Salem Church in town. The stories tell us
Speaker 1: they came for the english Is in the dead of night.
Speaker 1: Of course, they had a warrant, and behind it was
Speaker 1: a whole slew of accusations. Mary's mother had once been
Speaker 1: accused of which craft, making her a prime suspect. Some
Speaker 1: of the afflicted girls, including Annie Putnam and Mercy Lewis,
Speaker 1: even claimed to have seen Mary Specter visit and torment them.
Speaker 1: The warrant had been issued on April and included other
Speaker 1: names as well, names we should all recognize by now,
Speaker 1: Mary Esty, Sarah Wild's, Abigail Hobb's parents, William and Deliverance,
Speaker 1: all of whom work harded off to jail. By early September,
Speaker 1: some of them would have been executed, and that obvious
Speaker 1: fate hovered over all the rest like a dark cloud.
Speaker 1: Most people settled in for a long stay in jail.
Speaker 1: But I need to take your mental image of a
Speaker 1: jail and throw it out the window. Here's historian and
Speaker 1: Salem archivist Richard Trask. If you were rich, you would
Speaker 1: treated differently, and you could take care of yourself much
Speaker 1: better in jail, because in jail you had to pay
Speaker 1: for your own fees. If you wanted to eat them
Speaker 1: might have been a common pot in which you could partake.
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to eat often your family brought
Speaker 1: to the food. They'd bring you a fresh straw, so
Speaker 1: that you would have a mattress that would have fresh
Speaker 1: straw in it. He wanted a stool so you didn't
Speaker 1: go on the cold ground all the time. That could
Speaker 1: be brought in. Of course, Philip English could pay for
Speaker 1: anything his wife Mary might need in jail. Money has
Speaker 1: always been the same as power, and he used it
Speaker 1: to give her a better experience. But when the next
Speaker 1: round of warrants went out in early May, Philip's own
Speaker 1: name was listed among the new suspects. Rather than caring
Speaker 1: for his wife from the outside of a jail, he
Speaker 1: was moved inside to sit beside her. Actually, his arrest
Speaker 1: took a bit of time. The warrant was issued in
Speaker 1: early May, but he couldn't be found anywhere in Salem Town. Finally,
Speaker 1: a woman named Susannah Sheldon came forward and claimed to
Speaker 1: have seen Philip Specter heading to Boston on a mission
Speaker 1: to kill Governor Phipps, so a marshal was sent after him.
Speaker 1: They finally found Philip English hiding in the home of
Speaker 1: a friend in Boston. Legend says that they found him
Speaker 1: in the dirty laundry, where he'd been hiding off and
Speaker 1: on for weeks. Once united in jail, though Philip flexed
Speaker 1: his political muscles to have himself and his wife freed
Speaker 1: from the horrid conditions. They paid their massive four thousand
Speaker 1: pound bond and were set free on house arrest for context,
Speaker 1: Reverend Samuel Parris in Salem Village earned an average salary
Speaker 1: of just sixty pounds a year. So yeah, the English
Speaker 1: family were stinking rich. And then they got back to
Speaker 1: normal life as best they could. They went for walks
Speaker 1: under the supervision of a jailer, They saw their daughter,
Speaker 1: and they traveled around Boston. Oh and they went to
Speaker 1: church too, which, of course is where they heard the
Speaker 1: sermon on August nine that suggested running away. A short
Speaker 1: while later, Philip and Mary English disappeared. They headed for
Speaker 1: New York, but in doing so left four of their
Speaker 1: five children under the care of friends in Boston. The
Speaker 1: hangman would be very busy in the coming weeks, but
Speaker 1: it seemed as if money and power had afforded the
Speaker 1: English as a chance to do something very few might
Speaker 1: even dream of. They slipped the noose and lived to
Speaker 1: tell about it. There were more escapes, of course. One
Speaker 1: of the other married couples to make a run for
Speaker 1: it was Nathaniel and Elizabeth Carey. They lived in Charlestown
Speaker 1: rather than Salem, but we're pulled into the Salem trials
Speaker 1: on May when Nathaniel got word that his wife had
Speaker 1: been accused. So the couple headed north to clear the
Speaker 1: matter up. Looking back, that wasn't the smartest decision. They
Speaker 1: were probably expecting to arrive in Salem and find a normal,
Speaker 1: ordinary trial in progress, where logic and reason ruled the day.
Speaker 1: But we know better, don't we. We're aware of the
Speaker 1: bias and disregard for simple logic. If we had been
Speaker 1: in Charlestown that day, in any one of us would
Speaker 1: have shouted for them to stay away from Salem. While
Speaker 1: they watched the first examinations of the morning, some of
Speaker 1: the afflicted girls took notice of them and asked for
Speaker 1: their names. In the afternoon session, one of those afflicted
Speaker 1: girls fell into a series of fits and then pointed
Speaker 1: to Elizabeth Carey as the witch who was attacking her.
Speaker 1: She was immediately taken into custody and arrest warrant was drafted,
Speaker 1: and then she was brought to the front of the courtroom.
Speaker 1: Nathaniel tried to help her. He requested permission to stand
Speaker 1: beside her and hold her hand, but was denied. Even
Speaker 1: when she told the judges that she felt faint and overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: they refused to let her husband help her. All he
Speaker 1: was ever allowed to do was wipe away the tears
Speaker 1: from her eyes. You can imagine how her examination went.
Speaker 1: Stories were told by the afflicted girls. Witnesses came forward
Speaker 1: who said Elizabeth Carey's specter appeared and tormented them. Nathaniel
Speaker 1: objected and disrupted the proceedings more than once, overwhelmed with
Speaker 1: frustration at what he referred to as inhuman dealings. It
Speaker 1: didn't work. Elizabeth was thrown in jail, and so Nathaniel
Speaker 1: request did she at least be moved to a jail
Speaker 1: closer to Charleston so he could better care for her. Instead,
Speaker 1: the magistrates instructed the jailer to put Elizabeth in leg irons.
Speaker 1: The situation had been so unexpected and moved so quickly
Speaker 1: that she practically collapsed under the stress, even having convulsions
Speaker 1: in the jail due to the trauma of it all.
Speaker 1: We don't know how, but Nathaniel somehow managed to organize
Speaker 1: his wife's escape from the Boston jail. Maybe he paid
Speaker 1: off the jailer it's entirely possible, or maybe someone slipped
Speaker 1: him a key to her chains. However it happened. She
Speaker 1: headed south at the end of July and stopped in
Speaker 1: Rhode Island to wait for Nathaniel to join her. Once reunited,
Speaker 1: the couple continued on until they arrived in New York,
Speaker 1: where Governor Benjamin Fletcher was said to have welcomed them
Speaker 1: in and given them refuge. New York was where the
Speaker 1: English Is would go as well and others from Salem
Speaker 1: to In a lot of ways, the former Dutch settlement
Speaker 1: and it's more open minded culture made the colony something
Speaker 1: of a sanctuary city, and it saved lives. There were
Speaker 1: others too. Daniel Andrew was a bricklayer and builder who
Speaker 1: was connected to many of the wealthy powerful men in
Speaker 1: Salem Town. He was joined by marriage to the Porter
Speaker 1: clan and lived in Salem Village, where he owned large
Speaker 1: tracts of land. He also held the position of Deputy
Speaker 1: of the Massachusetts General Court for a while until Hawthorne
Speaker 1: and Corwin took that over. He was accused of witchcraft
Speaker 1: on May fifte and skipped town almost immediately. Unlike John Willard,
Speaker 1: who had fled town only to be captured farther west,
Speaker 1: Daniel Andrew made it to safety. Yet another to escape
Speaker 1: was George Jacobs Jr. We've already met his father, George Senior,
Speaker 1: who was executed on August nine, alongside George Burrows and
Speaker 1: the others. George Jr. Rented property from Daniel Andrew and
Speaker 1: was married to his sister. He was also close to
Speaker 1: the Klois family, but Sarah Klois was in jail awaiting
Speaker 1: her own trial. Life had suddenly become very tense and
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for George Jacobs Jr. So he ran. Today we
Speaker 1: still have a letter that his daughter, Margaret wrote to
Speaker 1: him on August We don't know if it was ever
Speaker 1: actually delivered to George, but it tells of how she
Speaker 1: was forced to confess against her grandfather, George Senior, and
Speaker 1: that it broke her heart. She begs her father to
Speaker 1: pray for her, and then closes the letter by stating
Speaker 1: that God knows how soon I shall be put to death,
Speaker 1: and that she looked forward to a joyful and happy
Speaker 1: meeting in heaven. Historians today have no idea where Daniel
Speaker 1: Andrew and George Jacobs Jr. Found shelter, but their stories
Speaker 1: tell us something important about the culture they lived in
Speaker 1: and how similar it is to our own world today.
Speaker 1: That when it comes to the mocking nations of power,
Speaker 1: who you know is often more important than what you
Speaker 1: know that money and status, those elusive tools of the elite,
Speaker 1: are useful in avoiding the power of the law, and
Speaker 1: that ultimately, while some people's connections might save them, vast
Speaker 1: majority faced a less hopeful truth. Who you know could
Speaker 1: get you killed. Giles Corey didn't have Daniel Andrews quick
Speaker 1: thinking or the money and friends of Mary and Philip English.
Speaker 1: He didn't have John Alden's military background or Thomas Bradford's
Speaker 1: connected family. He was a rough spoken, quarrelsome eighty one
Speaker 1: year old farmer with a bad reputation, and there would
Speaker 1: be no escape for him. It's not that he didn't
Speaker 1: contribute to that reputation himself. One historian records that Corey
Speaker 1: was given to vile language. He was often in arguments
Speaker 1: with his neighbors and on more than one occasion referred
Speaker 1: to them as damned, devilish rogues. Some records portray him
Speaker 1: as a thief, claiming he stole things he felt he deserved,
Speaker 1: such as tools or bushels of neighbors apples. He'd lived
Speaker 1: in the community there for decades but had no friends
Speaker 1: to show for it. Giles Corey was a hard man
Speaker 1: to like. He was also on the bad side of
Speaker 1: the Salem Village Minister Samuel Paris, a staunch supporter of
Speaker 1: the witch trial proceedings. Remember the Halfway Covenant, that agreement
Speaker 1: amongst some of the Puritan churches to allow people to
Speaker 1: become full members without the traditional strict requirements. Well, that
Speaker 1: comes in to play here too. As a reminder, here's
Speaker 1: Emerson Baker to explain to us exactly why that was
Speaker 1: frustrating to Reverend Paris. The Corries used that loophole. Giles
Speaker 1: Corey becomes a member of the Salem Town Church and
Speaker 1: even though they say, basically despite his his reprobate past,
Speaker 1: he's acknowledged his past as a center and we accept
Speaker 1: him into our fellowship, into our covenant. So then imagine,
Speaker 1: here's this fellow who people know to be who he is,
Speaker 1: and he's sitting right there and partaking of the Lord
Speaker 1: suffer with the other members of the Salem Village Church
Speaker 1: because as a member of the Salem Town Church, you
Speaker 1: can attend and you have full rights really to receive communion. Really,
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting? This trophy hunting, social climbing wife who
Speaker 1: claims she's a gospel woman, and look how she managed
Speaker 1: to get her husband, Giles Corey, arsonist, beater of servants.
Speaker 1: We've managed to get him into the church. Something's wrong here.
Speaker 1: But it was worse than that. Almost two decades earlier,
Speaker 1: in six seventy five, Giles Corey had murdered his farm hand,
Speaker 1: Jacob Gooddale. The young man was reputed to be a
Speaker 1: bit dimwitted, as they would say referring to someone with
Speaker 1: a mental disability, and that slowness frustrated Corey. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: he lost his temper and beat Gooddale so severely that
Speaker 1: he died a couple of days later. The trial would
Speaker 1: be a frustrating mess if it happened today. The coroner
Speaker 1: ruled his death a murder, meaning he wouldn't have died
Speaker 1: if Giles Corey hadn't beaten him so violently. And yet
Speaker 1: during the trial a number of other locals came forward
Speaker 1: to admit that they too had beaten Gooddale at some
Speaker 1: point in the past. Corey, no longer an outlier, was
Speaker 1: led off with nothing more than a fine. It was
Speaker 1: hard to love a man like that. The fine might
Speaker 1: have been paid, but there was no denying there was
Speaker 1: blood on his hands, and the community would never view
Speaker 1: him the same way. Again. Not only was he outspoken
Speaker 1: and angry, but now there was proof that his anchor
Speaker 1: could boil over into murder. Understandably, people kept an eye
Speaker 1: on Giles Corey, so when his wife, Martha, the Queen
Speaker 1: of Hell, was arrested in April, everyone assumed Giles would
Speaker 1: soon follow her to jail. When it happened, and he
Speaker 1: was brought before the magistrates for his initial examination. They
Speaker 1: say Corey was tight lipped and quick to fight back
Speaker 1: while they threw accusations at him. He wasn't shy about
Speaker 1: how ridiculous they sounded. He hardly knew what a warlock was,
Speaker 1: he said, and now Abigail Hobbs was insisting he was one.
Speaker 1: According to Mercy Lewis, he was a dreadful wizard. His
Speaker 1: wife's reputation was used against him, as was his past behavior.
Speaker 1: They brought in neighbors to paint him as a liar
Speaker 1: and a wicked man. And sure, Giles Corey wasn't well
Speaker 1: behaved or well loved, but none of that amounted to witchcraft.
Speaker 1: But that didn't matter. Logic wasn't the fuel that ran
Speaker 1: the engine of the witchcraft trials. No, it was upheld
Speaker 1: by religious intolerance. And a fear of being accused by others.
Speaker 1: Better to point a finger at someone else than to
Speaker 1: have a finger pointed at you. So Giles Corey, the
Speaker 1: loud and abusive farmer with a foul mouth and a
Speaker 1: murder charge on his record, went to jail. Over the
Speaker 1: months that followed, he sat in a jail cell with
Speaker 1: his wife Martha. He followed her from Boston to her
Speaker 1: own Oyer and Terminator trial in Salem Town. He watched
Speaker 1: as she was convicted of witchcraft and given the death sentence.
Speaker 1: He listened as he was told of her execution on
Speaker 1: August nineteen. He was all enough to take the wind
Speaker 1: out of anyone's sale, but not Giles Corey. There was
Speaker 1: plenty of strength left in him, and in the coming
Speaker 1: days he would show just how ready he was to
Speaker 1: do battle. His fight was far from over. He wasn't
Speaker 1: an easy defendant. In the first week of September, the
Speaker 1: authorities brought Giles Corey to sail In Town to stand
Speaker 1: trial in the newest session of the Oyer and Terminer,
Speaker 1: but nothing went according to plan. When asked, as every
Speaker 1: other defendant had been, asked, how he would like to
Speaker 1: be tried, he didn't give the scripted answer of by
Speaker 1: God and my country. Instead, he stood silent and unspoken.
Speaker 1: It's what the English called standing mute. Frustrated, the judges
Speaker 1: sent him back to jail for a while while they
Speaker 1: handled the other cases. They needed time to research how
Speaker 1: to handle someone who refused to speak in their own defense,
Speaker 1: and by the time Corey was brought back on the
Speaker 1: final day of the trial, they had two options. The
Speaker 1: first was a precedent from a New York trial a
Speaker 1: previous year, where a leader of a rebellious faction refused
Speaker 1: to speak. The court there simply declared him guilty and
Speaker 1: executed him. But English law recommended a different approach, the
Speaker 1: use of what they called strong and hard punishment to
Speaker 1: compel a reply from the defendant torture. On Sunday, September eight,
Speaker 1: the day before his scheduled punishment, Corey was visited in
Speaker 1: jail by representatives of the Salem Town Church, who excommunicated
Speaker 1: him for his refusal to stand trial. Other members of
Speaker 1: the church visited him as well, attempting to change his
Speaker 1: mind and convince him to take the less stubborn road.
Speaker 1: But that's not the type of man Giles Corey was.
Speaker 1: The following day, Monday, September nine, he was led out
Speaker 1: of the Salem jail to an open pasture across the street.
Speaker 1: One contemporary account describes the day as dry and windy.
Speaker 1: The sky might very well have been blue and beautiful
Speaker 1: above them, but there was a darkness in the air.
Speaker 1: Everyone gathered around to watch would have felt it. Corey
Speaker 1: was placed on the ground, face up, and then flat
Speaker 1: boards were set across his body, forming a platform. Then
Speaker 1: one by one, a series of heavy stones were placed
Speaker 1: on the boards. Robert Califf, that Salem merchant who left
Speaker 1: us with some of the best private records of the
Speaker 1: executions of Salem victims, was on hand that day to
Speaker 1: watch as the pile of stones grew larger and larger.
Speaker 1: This was torture, plain and simple. The basic idea was
Speaker 1: the same as the neck and heels technique used on
Speaker 1: the carrier teenagers Richard and Andrew use pain to make
Speaker 1: them talk, but it didn't seem to work here. Later
Speaker 1: that evening, Judge Samuel Sewell would record three simple words
Speaker 1: in his journal. Corey kept silent, which meant that the
Speaker 1: weight kept adding up. Stone after stone was placed on
Speaker 1: his chest, putting immense pressure on the elderly man's body.
Speaker 1: In theory, there was time for him to answer and
Speaker 1: the torture, but at some point they would pass the
Speaker 1: point of no return. The damage that was being done
Speaker 1: to him was irreparable. In the end, Corey did speak,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't to confess. With a weight of hundreds
Speaker 1: of pounds of stones on his chest, the old farmer
Speaker 1: managed to draw enough breath to utter one final insult
Speaker 1: more weight. He said, I can't help it smile at
Speaker 1: how frustrated that must have made the judges feel. Robert
Speaker 1: Califf describes Corey's final moments in graphic detail, tongue being
Speaker 1: pressed out of his mouth. He wrote, the sheriff with
Speaker 1: his cane forced it in again when he was dying.
Speaker 1: It was the first execution by pressing in the history
Speaker 1: of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and thankfully it would also
Speaker 1: be the last. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview
Speaker 1: of what's in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured,
Speaker 1: this was the mess that Phipps discovered when he returned
Speaker 1: from Maine. People were having their land and property ripped
Speaker 1: out of their hands seemingly left and right, and the
Speaker 1: community was beginning to rumble with discontent, and so word
Speaker 1: was spreading about it. So Phipps did something to stop
Speaker 1: it all. No, not the seizure of property, but the
Speaker 1: spreading of the news. He declared an embargo on the
Speaker 1: public writing about the trials in their entirety, prohibiting anyone
Speaker 1: from publishing news or information about what was happening. Phipps,
Speaker 1: the rough spoken gold digger who preferred victory lapse to
Speaker 1: actually doing work, declared the press to be illegitimate and
Speaker 1: shut it down. But as everyone knows, you can't stop
Speaker 1: the signal. Unobscured was created and written by me Aaron
Speaker 1: Mankey and produced by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams in
Speaker 1: partnership with How Stuff Works, with research by Carl Nellis
Speaker 1: and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our
Speaker 1: contributing historians, further reading material, resource archive and links to
Speaker 1: our other shows at History unobscured dot com. Until next time,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening.