The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the execution of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and the imprisonment of many others. The trials began when two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, started experiencing strange fits and accusing others in the community of bewitching them. The girls claimed to see particular people's specters, or apparitions, tormenting them. These initial accusations led to a widespread hysteria, with more and more people being accused of witchcraft. The trials were conducted in a highly religious and superstitious society, where the belief in witchcraft was prevalent.
David Green, "Salem Witches I: Bridget Bishop," The American Genealogist, Vol. 57, No. 3. 1981: 130-138.
She was charged with tortur ing , afflict ing , pin ing , consum ing , wast ing members of the community told of past acts of witchcraft by the accused; and one or more confessors validated the claim of the accusers. Two other witnesses, Samuel and Sarah Shuttuck gave a long, rambling testimony about how Bridget Bishop first asked them to dye a small piece of lace that they believed couldn t be used for anything other than a poppet a type of doll used in witchcraft , then bewitched their eldest child and physically attacked the child in person when she was confronted about bewitching him.
The trials were conducted in a highly religious and superstitious society, where the belief in witchcraft was prevalent. The Puritan leaders in Salem saw the accusations as threats to their community's stability and proactively sought to identify and punish the alleged witches. They established a court, known as the Court of Oyer and Terminer, to oversee the trials.
The Witchcraft Trial of Bridget Bishop
Bishop, whose maiden name was Playfer, was born sometime between 1632 and 1635 in England.
In 1660, she married her first husband, Samuel Wasselby, in England and moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony around the same time.
After Wasselby died in 1664, Bridget married her second husband in 1666, a widower named Thomas Oliver who already had children from his previous marriage. Bridget and Thomas Oliver had one child together, a daughter named Christian who was born in Salem on May 8, 1667.
Bridget and Thomas Oliver had a troubled relationship. The couple quarreled often and were even brought to court for fighting in 1670, during which their neighbor, Mary Ropes, testified that Bridget’s face was bloodied and bruised on a number of occasions, according to the book Salem-Village Witchcraft: A Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England:
“Mary Ropes, aged about fifty years, deposed that she had several times been called to her neighbor Thomas Oliver’s, by himself, but mostly by his wife, to hear their complaints one of the other, and they both acknowledged that they had been fighting together. Further she saw Goodwife Oliver’s face at one time bloody and at other times black and blue, and the said Oliver complained that his wife had given him several blows.”
Bridget and Thomas Oliver were fined and ordered to be whipped if they did not pay their fine on time.
In 1678, Bridget was brought to court for using foul language against her husband, as described in the book Salem-Village Witchcraft:
“Bridget, wife of Thomas Oliver, presented for calling her husband many opprobrious names, as old rogue and old devil, on Lord’s day, was ordered to stand with her husband, back to back, on a lecture day in the public market place, both gagged, for about an hour, with a paper fastened to each others foreheads upon which their offense should be fairly written.”
After Oliver died of an illness in 1679, Bridget inherited his estate, which consisted of a house worth £45, ten acres of land worth £25, a variety of household goods and two pigs. Oliver’s two sons and the couple’s daughter only received twenty shillings each.
“Execution of Bridget Bishop at Salem, 1692,” illustration by Joseph Boggs Beale, circa 1885Just three months after receiving her inheritance in November, Bridget’s stepchildren accused her of bewitching Oliver to death. A lack of evidence prevented the case from going to trial and it was speculated that the stepchildren’s accusation was an attempt to get their hands on the property she inherited from their father.
In 1687, Bridget was then accused of stealing brass from a local mill by the mill owner, Thomas Stacy, and arrested. Bridget claimed she didn’t steal the brass, but found it on her property and had no idea how it got there.
She also stated that she sent her daughter into town with the brass to discover what it was, not to sell it, as Thomas Stacy accused her of doing. Unfortunately, there are no surviving records indicating the outcome of this trial.
After Oliver’s death, Bridget Bishop married Edward Bishop, a well-respected sawyer (woodcutter). Bridget Bishop’s life at this time is sometimes difficult to trace because many historians, including Charles Upham in his 1867 book Salem Witchcraft, have confused her with Sarah Bishop, who was also accused of witchcraft and was married to Bridget Bishop’s step-son, who was also named Edward Bishop, according to the book Salem Story:
“As the first person to be executed in the Salem Witch Trials, Bridget Bishop has received plenty of attention from Salem’s historians, amateur and professional. She has served as a paradigm of the executed person as social deviant, the outsider who falls prey to a community devouring the eccentric on its margin. This is a version of Salem’s story codified in 1867 by Charles Upham, who in his Salem Witchcraft told the story of Bridget Bishop as a singular character, not easily described. ‘She kept a house of refreshment for travellers, and a shovel-board for the entertainment of her guests, and generally seems to have countenanced amusements and gayeties to an extent that exposed her to some scandal. She is described as wearing ‘a black cap and black hat, and a red paragon bodice,’ bordered and looped with different colors. This would appear to have been a rather showy costume for the times. Her freedom from the austerity of Puritan manners, and disregard of conventional decorum in her conversation and conduct, brought her into disrepute; and the tongue of gossip was generally loosened against her.’ Upham had made a mistake. Although he correctly identified Bridget Bishop as a woman who previously been charged with witchcraft, he conflated two people into one, inaccurately identifying her as living just outside of Salem Village, rather than in Salem [town] where she did live, and of being a rather colorful tavern keeper, which she was not. Upham’s mistake was understandable, since the confusion as to her identity actually goes back to 1692, and only some brilliant detective work by David L. Greene in 1981 brought clarity to the matter; still, some scholars have continued to make the misidentification.”
The mistake originates from Reverend John Hale‘s testimony against Sarah Bishop on May 22, which many historians have misidentified as testimony against Bridget Bishop because during the testimony Hale merely refers to the accused as “Goodwife Bishop…wife of Edward Bishop Jun’r.”
Since Bridget and Sarah Bishop were both accused of witchcraft and were both married to men named Edward Bishop, it’s easy to see how the two became mixed up over time.
Bridget Bishop’s Memorial Marker, Salem Witch Trials Memorial, Salem Mass, November 2015. Photo Credit: Rebecca Brooks
The court relied heavily on spectral evidence, which was based on the testimony of the accusers who claimed to see the spirits of the witches. This form of evidence was highly controversial and criticized by some, as it allowed for accusations to be made based on mere imaginations and hallucinations. However, it was still considered valid evidence during the trials. As the trials progressed, an atmosphere of fear and suspicion culminated in mass arrests and many individuals making false confessions to save themselves. The accused were often subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including physical torture, to extract confessions. Those who confessed were spared execution but faced social ostracism and imprisonment. The trials attracted significant attention throughout Massachusetts and beyond. People started doubting the reliability of the trials and questioning the validity of spectral evidence. Reverend Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather, prominent ministers in Boston, urged caution in accepting the accusations and criticized the reliance on spectral evidence. Their stance eventually led to a decline in support for the trials. In the end, the Salem Witch Trials came to an end after the Governor of Massachusetts disbanded the Court of Oyer and Terminer and established a new court that excluded spectral evidence. The remaining accused prisoners were released, and the damage caused by the trials had a lasting impact on the community and its reputation. Overall, the Salem Witch Trials were a dark period in American history, demonstrating the dangers of mass hysteria, the abuse of power, and the consequences of relying on unfounded evidence. The trials serve as a reminder of the importance of due process and the need to critically evaluate accusations, particularly in times of fear and uncertainty..
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