For Sale: The Home of A Salem Witch Trial Victim

Would you like to own a home connected to Salem witch trials? Now is your chance. The historic Solart-Woodward House in Wenham, Massachusetts just went on the market. The house has four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms. and is priced at $599,000. That seems like a good price in this current market.

Although there have been additions since, the original part of the house was built in 1670. That's an old house. A friend of mine used to live in a house built in the 1680s, and you could feel the history seeping out of the walls. I imagine the Solart-Woodward house would feel the same.

The Solart-Woodward House

As you might expect, the house has a tragic history attached to it. It was built by John Solart, a French immigrant and the father of Sarah Good, one of the first people accused in the Salem witch trials. Solart operated the house as an inn but drowned himself a few years later. His wife (Sarah's mother) inherited Solart's wealth after the suicide and quickly remarried. Sarah and her sisters sued but failed to get any of the inheritance.

Sarah married Daniel Poole, an indentured servant who incurred heavy debts. She inherited these when he died in 1682. Sarah's second husband, William Good, paid off her debts but had to sell most of his property to do so. He and Sarah became homeless, wandering through Essex County begging for food and shelter with their young daughter Dorothy (often erroneously referred to as Dorcas in older scholarly works).

Many witch accounts from colonial New England follow a familiar pattern. A poor person (usually a woman) asks a wealthier person for food or money. When the wealthier person refuses them the poor person mumbles threats. The wealthy person then hits a string of bad luck (sick children, dying farm animals, household mishaps) and accuses the poor person of being a witch. Puritans were expected to take care of each other and offer hospitality, but resented it when they felt they were being taken advantage of. Witch accusations often arose from that resentment.

That resentment could sometimes turn deadly. It did for Sarah Good. When the afflicted girls of Salem began to name witches Sarah was among the first. As a poor female beggar she was an obvious target. She denied being a witch until the end, but the judges still found her guilty. They thought the contortions of the afflicted girls were credible evidence. They were convinced when four-year old Dorothy Good admitted to being a witch and accused her mother. They took William Good literally when he said he felt like his wife was a witch when she treated him poorly. Absurd as it now seems, it all added up to a death sentence for Sarah.

Sarah Good was executed on July 29, 1692. A well-known story claims that she uttered a dying curse. After she was sentenced to hang the Reverend Nicholas Noyes asked her once again to admit her guilt. She refused, reportedly saying, "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink!" Sarah was executed, but twenty-five years later Reverend Noyes died from internal hemorrhaging. Blood gushed out of his mouth as he expired. Witnesses thought back to Sarah Good's dying curse.

Sarah Good's problems and death were caused by poverty. Ironically, after the witch trials ended William Good sued for damages and won. He received thirty pounds, which was several times more than the average laborer earned in a year.

The Possession of Mercy Short

In 1692, a Boston servant girl was sent by her mistress on an errand. En route, she was asked for some tobacco by a poor woman on the street.

The servant girl, named Mercy Short, threw wood shavings at the woman and said, "There's tobacco good enough for you!" The woman cursed at her, and Mercy completed her errand. Just another day in Puritan Boston, right?

The woman who cursed her was Sarah Good, of Salem Village, who was later executed after being accused of witchcraft. When Mercy returned home she was afflicted with fits for several days, but they abated after she fasted. OK, so maybe it wasn't just another day in Boston, but it wasn't so bad. At least the fits cleared up!

Mercy wasn't out of the woods, though. About a year after her encounter with Sarah Good, she once again became afflicted with fits, but this time with a twist: the Devil came to visit her.

He was a wretch no taller than an ordinary Walking-Staff; hee was not of a Negro, but of a Tawney, or an Indian colour; hee wore an high-crowned Hat, with strait Hair; and had one Cloven-Foot. 

The Devil came with specters, who looked like neighbors and people that Mercy knew. They tormented her and urged her to pledge herself to Satan by signing a red-lettered Book of Death. Only then would they stop torturing her. She didn't even have to actually sign - just touching the book with her little finger would suffice for Mercy to give herself to Satan.

Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Boston

Mercy refused, so her fits continued, but in a spectacular fashion.

• The Devil and his specters blinded her and stopped up her ears, so at times she was unaware of her surroundings and the neighbors and ministers who came to help her.  
• They pinched her and stabbed her with small pins. Witnesses saw small bloody marks appear on her body, and pulled physical pins from her limbs. 
• Mercy's hellish tormentors poured a white liquid down her throat, which made her "swell prodigiously, and bee just like one poisoned with a Dose of Rats-bane."
• Cotton Mather visited Mercy, and witnessed the following: "They would Flash upon her the Flames of a Fire, that was to Us indeed (tho not unto her) Invisible… Wee saw Blisters thereby Raised upon her."
• Mercy was forced to speak profanely and sarcastically about people she knew and refused to listen to discussions about God or religion. 

In the late winter of 1693, Governor Phips visited Mercy at her request. She told him that the Book of Death, the Devil's book itself, was hidden in the attic of a wealthy neighbor's house. The governor directed one of the neighbor's servants to retrieve it.

When the Servant was Examining the place directed, a great Black Cat, never before known to bee in the House, jumping over him, threw him into such a Fright and Sweat, that altho' hee were one otherwise of Courage enough, he desisted at that Time from looking any further.

Finally in March of 1693 a good spirit appeared to Mercy and told her she would be delivered from the Devil's torments on Thursday, March 16. On that Thursday, the spectres came but were unable to harm Mercy, no matter how hard the Devil exhorted them. They departed and Mercy was free.

It's an amazing story, and similar to many demonic possession stories across the centuries, but Mercy had a traumatic experience before her possession that helps shed light on it.

In March of 1690, Mercy and her family were abducted from their home in New Hampshire by Wabanaki Indians. Mercy's parents and several of her siblings were killed, and Mercy was held captive in Quebec for eight months before being sent to Boston. It seems likely that her possession was a way for her to deal with horrific experience she had. It's no coincidence that Mercy saw the Devil as an Indian. Living in a society without psychological concepts like trauma and PTSD, Mercy dealt with her experiences using the ideas available to her.

D. Brent Simmons, in his book Witches, Rakes and Rogues, notes that in 1694 Mercy married a man from Nantucket, but the marriage didn't last. Mercy was found guilty of adultery and excommunicated from the Puritan church. She returned to Boston, and her gravestone can still be seen in Copp's Hill Burying Ground in the North End.

In addition to Simmons' book, I found my information in Cotton Mather's narrative about Mercy Short, A Brand Pluck'd Out of the Burning.