Copp's Hill Burying Ground: Grave Art, Witch Hunters, and Spectral Evidence

I have been a little under the weather this week, but last weekend I did stroll to Boston's North End to visit Copp's Hill Burying Ground. It's the second oldest cemetery in the city and has a lot of really interesting history attached to it.

A folk story claims that the cemetery gets its name from the word "corpse" and was originally called "corpse hill." I suppose if you say "corpse" with a heavy Boston accent it does kind of sound like "copps." Try it and you'll see what I mean. Sadly, this story doesn't seem to be true. The burial ground  was actually named after the Copp family who lived nearby in the 1600s.

The first interments happened in 1659; the final ones sometime in the 1850s. An estimated 10,000 people were buried there over those two centuries, although there are only 1,200 gravestones. In the 19th century urban planners wanted to give Copp's Hill a more parklike feeling so they laid out pedestrian paths and arranged the gravestones in neat, orderly rows. They didn't bother to move the bodies though. These facts mean two things. One, there are a lot of unmarked burials at Copp's Hill. Two, many of the burials are probably mis-marked. When you walk there you're probably stepping on someone but you'll never know who.

Copp's Hill Burying Ground is on a high elevation overlooking the harbor, and I think because of this there is some serious decay among the older gravestones. Still, there are some nice examples of New England funerary art here. The oldest gravestones are decorated with the classic winged death's head motif. The Puritans weren't big on sugar-coating bad news.

In the mid-1700s, a different motif began to appear on New England gravestone's: cherub's heads. These are slightly more cheerful than the death's heads and perhaps reflect a gentler strain of religious thought that began to appear in the area at that time.

The third motif appeared in the late 1700s. Some historians speculate that the willow and urn motif represents a more abstract and philosophical approach to death, while others argue that this and all the other motifs are simply just fashions unrelated to religion or philosophy.

Whenever I visit Copp's Hill I always stop by the Mather family tomb. This is the resting place of three of Boston's most famous Puritan ministers: Increase Mather and his sons Cotton and Samuel. For such an important family their tomb is surprisingly low-key.

The Mathers are mostly remembered now for the roles Increase and Cotton played in the Salem witch trials, but during their lives they did a lot of good things for Boston and New England. Increase Mather (1639 - 1723) served as president of Harvard College for 20 years, wrote numerous books and articles about New England history and politics, and successfully got a new charter for Massachusetts Bay Colony from King William III after the initial one was revoked. All this while serving as a minister until his death.

His son Cotton (1663 - 1728) was also a very influential person in early New England. Cotton was very interested in science and conducted experiments with plant hybridization. He also supported the first smallpox vaccination campaign in Boston. Cotton Mather published more than 400 books and pamphlets on a variety of topics during his life.

Unfortunately, Cotton was also a fervent believer in the literal reality of witchcraft. He thought that witches lived in Massachusetts and were subverting God's plan for a Puritan society in New England. In 1689 he published Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions which described the trial and execution for witchcraft of Goody Glover, an Irish washerwoman from Boston. The book also describes the strange behavior of several children supposedly afflicted by Goody Glover. Memorable Providences is now believed to have laid the groundwork for the larger Salem witch trials that came three years later.

Although he lived in Boston Cotton Mather was active in the Salem trials. He attended several executions, including that of fellow Puritan minister William Burroughs. When Burroughs successfully recited the Lord's Prayer, something it was believed a witch could not do, Mather supposedly intervened and said that even the Devil sometimes could take the form of an angel. The execution went forward and Burroughs was hanged. Mather also wrote about the trials while they were occurring and they helped to glorify God.

During the Salem trials the court turned to the ministerial community for guidance in how to deal with spectral evidence. It was believed at the time that witches had the ability to send their souls (or specters) out of their bodies to afflict their enemies. Often only the person being afflicted would see the witch's specter. The judges wanted to know if this really happened and if they should accept accounts of it as evidence.

To answer the judges Increase Mather published a book called Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Impersonating Men. In it he clearly stated that the judges should ignore spectral evidence for many reasons, most importantly because demons could take the form of innocent people and afflict someone. He was about to publish it when he was asked by his son Cotton to add a chapter defending the trials and the judges.

You see, Cotton had been asked by the colony's governor to write a defense of the Salem trials. It was called Wonders of the Invisible World and although in it he too dismissed spectral evidence he also claimed the other evidence was strong enough for the trials to continue. Because he didn't want Increases's book to contradict his own he asked his father to add a chapter supporting the trials to Cases of Conscience. Increase agreed, even though it muddied the main argument of Cases. When the judges read it they thought Cases of Conscience supported what they were doing and continued to accept spectral evidence. The Salem witch trials only stopped when Governor William Phips declared that spectral evidence could no longer be accepted.

That's all pretty bad, but to make things worse Increase and Cotton Mather never apologized or said they were wrong about the trials. They continued to maintain they were right, even after the Salem trials ended and many of the judges publicly acknowledged they had done something horrible. Even after some of the key witnesses admitted they had lied. Even after public opinion turned against them the two ministers refused to admit any wrongdoing. Over time they slowly lost their political influence and today are often seen as villains of the Salem witch trials. Certainly there is a lesson to be learned here about pride and accepting blame.

Well, that's a lot to chew on. Next week I'll write about some less grim stories from Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

Ducking Witches in Old Connecticut

Imagine yourself as a Puritan colonist, living in New England during the 1600s.

Things aren't going all that great. Your cow keeps acting strangely, sitting down when you want her to move and running away when you want her to stay put. That Indian pudding you made for dinner the other day came out blood red rather than the traditional muddy brown color. You had to throw it away. Your spouse made cheese but it got infected with maggots, and one of your children has a weird illness that won't go away. And to top it all off, your maid servant can't sleep at night and swears something comes invisibly into the house to pinch her.

Clearly, a witch is causing all your problems. Luckily, like all New England Puritans, you live in a small tightly-knit community bound together by mutual obligation and gossip, and there are a few cranky folks that everyone hates who are obviously witches.

You tell the town magistrates that they need to do something about these witches. They happily arrest the cranky suspects (whom no one likes anyway), but during the trial the magistrates want proof that they are witches.

Proof? What the...?!?!

You testify about the cow, the Indian pudding, the maggoty cheese, and your sick child. "Well sure," the magistrates say, "but maybe there are natural explanations for all those. Got anything else?'

The maid servant testifies about the thing that attacks her in the night when she sleeps. Some other neighbors jump in to testify that they've seen strange beasts lurking in the dark woods, or had something sit on their chests in the middle of the night. Spooky!

"Yes, it sounds like witchcraft," the magistrates say, "but how do we know if was really Goody Smith and Goody Jones doing all this? Of course no one likes them, but that doesn't mean they're witches."

The magistrates confer and decide to examine the women for witches teats, which are strange bodily growths witches use to suckle their demonic familiars. They do find some strange growths, but aren't sure if they are really any stranger than the pimples and warts non-witches have on their bodies.

The magistrates debate if they should try other tests. Maybe they should see if the suspects can say the Lord's Prayer? Maybe they should see what happens if they touch the afflicted maid servant?

One thing the magistrates would not do, however, was throw them in a pond to see if they could float. That never happened in New England.

 

Well, almost never. It did happen at least once, in the year 1692. While a giant witch hunt raged through Massachusetts that year, a smaller one was occurring in Connecticut. It centered around two women, Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough, who were accused of bewitching a servant girl named Katherine Branch.

Unlike their Puritan brethren to the north, the Connecticut magistrates took a more cautious approach to witch-hunting. Deputy Governor William Jones even wrote a document explaining what type of evidence would be considered sufficient, and which would be insufficient, during the trial. He considered the following methods for proving someone is a witch:

Less sufficient are those used in former ages such as by red-hot iron and scalding water, the party to put his hand in one or take up the other. If not hurt the party cleared, if hurt convicted for a witch. But this way utterly condemned in some countries. Another proof justified by some of the learned is by casting casting the party bound into water. If she sinks counted innocent, if she sink not then guilty (quoted in Richard Godbeer's Escaping Salem (2005))

The magistrates agreed that the first two tests weren't good - and for obvious reasons. Everyone burns their hands touching hot metal or boiling water, regardless of their guilt or innocence. But they didn't rule out the water test. Also known as "ducking," the test operates on the principal that since water is used in Christian baptism it will reject anyone that is allied with Satan. If the accused person floated, that meant the water rejected her because she was a witch. If she sank, she was innocent. Of course, being innocent also meant possibly drowning, but it was better than being guilty of witchcraft, right?

Both accused witches agreed to be ducked, and on September 15 both were thrown into a pond.

...two eyewitnesses of the sorry exhibition of cruelty and delusion made oath that they saw Mercy and Elizabeth bound hand and foot and put into the water, and that they swam upon the water like a cork, and when one labored to press them into the water they buoyed up like cork (from John Taylor's 1908 book The Witchcraft Delusion in Connecticut, 1647 - 1697)

So based on the results of the water test, Clawson and Disborough should have been found guilty of witchcraft. But they weren't. Jones had noted that "some of the learned" thought ducking was sufficient evidence, but some others didn't. Increase Mather, the president of Harvard and one of New England's leading Puritan ministers, was one of those who didn't.

Mather attacked the reasoning behind the water test in An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684). Not all water is sacred, he argued, only the water actually used in a baptism. Besides, the Bible didn't state that God approved of ducking witches, so it seemed likely the water test had actually been created by Satan to cause confusion. The water test was itself actually a form of witchcraft.

The magistrates threw out the water test as evidence, and after lengthy trials both Clawson and Disborough were found innocent. They were freed partly because the magistrates didn't see any good evidence, but also because many people thought Katherine Branch, the afflicted servant, was simply making everything up. Still, it's interesting to see how Puritans grappled with the difficult task of proving witchcraft.

*****

Most of the information for this week's post come from Richard Godbeer's brief but informative book Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692. 

The Salem Witch House and Jonathan Corwin

October is Halloween month. The days are getting darker, the air is getting cooler. It puts me in the mood for spooky stories, and tales about witches.

Tony and I went with our friends Lori and Dave up to Salem for our annual pilgrimage. This year rather than visit a cheesy (but scary) haunted house we went someplace with an authentic connection to the Salem witch trials - the Salem Witch House, the former residence of witch trial judge Jonathan Corwin.


Located just off the main drag, the Corwin house is an impressive example of 17th century architecture. Jonathan Corwin bought the house in 1675, but I believe it was built in the 1650s. Now that's an old house!


Jonathan Corwin was born in 1640, and became quite wealthy as a merchant. He served Salem (and Salem Village) as a magistrate, and dealt mostly with petty crimes like public drunkenness and burglary. However, given the penal code of the day, even though the crimes were petty I am sure he delivered some harsh punishments. For example, convicted burglars were branded with a "B" on their hands or forehead, depending on their number of convictions.


Corwin was appointed to serve on the witch trials only after Haverhill's Nathaniel Saltonstall resigned. Saltonstall had quit in protest over the admission of spectral evidence in the trials.


People at the time believed that witches could send their souls (or specters) to attack their victims. The afflicted girls in Salem Village claimed they could see the specters of the witches who were attacking them. Although no one else was able to see them, this spectral evidence was still allowed in the court.


It appears that Jonathan Corwin had no qualms about accepting spectral evidence, but not much is known about his role in the trials. Records from the time are incomplete. Corwin did sign multiple arrest warrants and transcribed the records of several trials.


Corwin's role in the trials did not have a negative effect on his reputation. Although it was eventually acknowledged that the trials killed twenty innocent people, Corwin went on to serve on the state legislature. He died in 1718 at the age of 78.


The Salem Witch House is definitely worth a visit. The architecture is great, and the building is filled with furniture and artifacts from the 17th century. They let you take photos (no flash allowed), which I think is unusual for a house museum. There are also some interesting displays around the house about witchcraft beliefs of the time.

I got my information about Jonathan Corwin from Wikipedia.

Next week: how to make a poppet!

The Mather Tomb: Occupant #2, Cotton Mather

Thanksgiving is over, so now back to some witchcraft and the occupants of the Mather tomb on Copp's Hill. Its second famous occupant is Cotton Mather, Increase's son.

Cotton was born in 1663. Although he had a stutter, that didn't stop him from entering Harvard University when he was 12 years old. By 25 he was the minister of Boston's North Church. (Note: don't confuse this with the famous Old North Church in the North End, which is an Episcopal church built in 1723). Like his father, Cotton was a prolific writer, producing more than 450 pamphlets and books on religious topics.

Also like his father, Cotton is now most famous for his role in the Salem witchcraft trials.

• His 1689 book, Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions, is thought to have laid the groundwork for the Salem trials in 1692.

• Although he was somewhat skeptical about spectral evidence, he still urged the judges to identify and punish all witches. He claimed a curse placed on New England forty years earlier by an executed witch had led to a conspiracy of witches that threatened the fabric of society.

• Cotton ensured that George Burroughs, a fellow minister, was executed for witchcraft. While on the gallows Burroughs successfully recited the Lord's Prayer; the ability of someone to say this prayer was usually taken as proof they were not a witch. Confused about whether to hang him, the crowd turned for advice to Cotton Mather, who had arrived on his horse. According to those present, Mather said "That the Devil has often been transformed into an angel of light." The crowd kicked away the ladder and Burroughs died.

After the trials ended, Cotton published On Witchcraft: Being the Wonders of the Invisible World, which described the Salem trials and argued for the reality of witchcraft. His timing couldn't have been worse. Public opinion had turned by this point, and the people of Massachusetts now felt the trials were a tragedy and abuse of power. Cotton Mather didn't change his opinion, though, and continued to insist the people convicted in Salem were actual witches.

His reputation suffered greatly, particularly after Boston merchant Robert Calef published Another Brand Pluckt Out of the Burning or More Wonders of the Invisible World, which parodied Mather's book and portrayed both Cotton and Increase as dirty old men who liked watching young girls writhe around pretending to be possessed.

Cotton's reputation suffered permanent damage, and he was refused the presidency of Harvard University. He helped start Yale University instead, and finally died in 1728.

(As for my earlier post on Increase Mather, most of my information comes from Rosemary Ellen Guiley's The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. )

The Mather Tomb: Occupant #1, Increase Mather

I restrained myself from writing about witches throughout October, and focused on monsters instead. Now it's November, and I'm free again to about witches and all things witchy.

So, here's a photo the Mather tomb on Copp's Hill in Boston. When I hear the name Mather, I think of witches. The Mathers buried here would spin in their graves to hear that, but it's true.



Increase Mather was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1639. The son of a prominent Puritan minister, he graduated from Harvard in 1656 and eventually became the pastor of Boston's North Church. He was also the president of Harvard from 1685 to 1701.

Where's the witchcraft connection? Well, as the most important minister in New England, he became very concerned when reports of witchcraft reached him. Clearly, he said, it was caused by a lack of religion in Massachusetts. (How much more religious could the colony have been? It was already a Puritan theocracy.)

To combat the rising tide of evil, he wrote An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, which described cases of witchcraft and supernatural happenings. It was a huge hit. Even though the colony was a theocracy, people still wanted to read juicy stories about unseen demons pelting New Hampshire farmers with stones and possessed serving maids with giant tongues in Groton blaspheming God.

When the Salem witch trials began, Increase did not get directly involved. Instead, he published another tract, this time titled Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men; Witchcrafts, Infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are Accused with the Crime, which urged people to be cautious in accepting spectral evidence during the trials.

Spectral evidence was basically psychic hearsay accepted as proof of witchcraft. For example, during a trial an allegedly bewitched girl might say, "Ahh! Goodwife Corey is biting me on the arm!" The judges would accept this as evidence even though: 1. no one else saw Goodwife Corey bite the girl, and 2. Goodwife Corey and all the other witches were restrained in plain sight of the court. Since she was a witch, it was assumed she could send her spirit to cause mischief even while restrained.

Showing some wisdom, Increase Mather thought spectral evidence was not sufficient to convict someone. He didn't show as much wisdom as one might hope though, because here's what he did consider sufficient evidence: testimony from neighbors, and "the fact that some of the afflicted girls were relieved of their fits when a concoction of rye paste, water and the hair and nail clippings of the accused witches was mixed together and set afire."

Needless to say, once the hysteria died down and it was revealed that the bewitched girls had been faking, people in Massachusetts wanted Increase to recant and admit he was wrong. He never did, either out of pride or because he was friendly with the trial judges. His reputation suffered but not as badly as that of his son Cotton, who I'll write about soon.

(I got most of my information from Rosemary Ellen Guiley's The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. )