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Maine, Indian Land Speculation, and the Essex County Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692
Maine, Indian Land Speculation, and the Essex County Witchcraft Outbreak of
1692
By Emerson W. Baker and James Kences
from Maine History, volume 40, number 3, Fall 2001 (pp. 159-189)
Dr. Emerson Baker,Professor of History, Salem State College(photography by Lou Procopio)
On Thursday, September 1, 1692, the elite of Massachusetts society took a break
from the ongoing horror of the Essex County witch trials to celebrate the marriage
of Major John Richards and Anne Winthrop. It was the second marriage for Richards,
a prominent merchant and member of the Governor's Council whose deceased first
wife was the widow of Anne's uncle Adam Winthrop. It was the first marriage
for the bride, the daughter of the late John Winthrop Jr., and no less a figure
than Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton presided over the ceremony. Though
no wedding list survives, one can come up with some of the likely attendees.
As the Winthrop family had long awaited the marriage of spinster Anne, presumably
much of her family was in attendance, including her brother, Councilor Wait
Winthrop. Her sister Margaret would have made the trip from Salem, with her
husband John Corwin, and perhaps even brother-in-law Jonathan Corwin. Though
it is less likely, Bartholomew Gedney may have been there, for he was the father-in-law
of Margaret and John Corwin's son. Councilor Samuel Sewall presumably also attended,
for this family friend recorded the ceremony in his diary. The wedding was held
at the home of Hezekiah Usher, a kinsman of the Winthrops through several marriages
with the Tyng family, so various members of these clans may have been there
as well. An outsider observing the wedding might have been struck with several
observations. First, as a group the wedding attendees, their families, and business
partners represented the principal land owners and speculators in New England,
owning tens of thousands of acres of frontier lands scattered from Maine to
Connecticut. Many of these families were allied by business as well as marriage.
Second, six of the seven judges of the Essex County witchcraft trials may have
been in attendance: John Richards, Wait Winthrop, Samuel Sewall, Jonathan Corwin,
Bartholomew Gedney, and Chief Justice William Stoughton. Subsequently, there
would also be a witchcraft victim in their midst, for soon their host, Hezekiah
Usher, would join the growing list of the accused. These seemingly unrelated
facts were far from coincidence. An exploration of the overlooked relationship
between Indian property transactions and land speculation in Maine demonstrates
that Massachusetts residents had pervasive ties to the frontier, a "dark corner"
of Puritan society, seen to be occupied by non-Puritan Englishmen in addition
to the enemy "heathen" Native Americans and their allies the "papist" French.
These connections help to explain the witchcraft outbreak that gripped Essex
County in 1692. In the past several decades, historians of the Essex County
witchcraft outbreak have turned increasingly to the impact of the frontier,
warfare, and Native Americans on the events of 1692. Although there is no single
cause responsible for the witchcraft accusations, a growing number of historians
view these events as largely the result of a war hysteria, triggered by the
abandonment of the Maine frontier in the early years of King William's War.
The effects of King Philip's War and King William's War on the people of Essex
County have been well documented by these authors and other historians. Numerous
participants in the witchcraft trials, including afflicted girls, accused witches,
judges and witnesses, had ties to the northern frontier. Some were refugees
from that region, and others were absentee Maine landholders. A few participants
had family members killed on the frontier during King Phillip's War. Even the
new leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Governor William Phips and his wife,
Lady Mary Phips, came from Maine. This linkage between witchcraft and frontier
war was readily apparent to contemporary observers. In his 1699 Decennium
Luctuosum Cotton Mather compared King William's War to the struggle against
Satan being waged in Salem and he blamed the Indians for both conflicts. The
story of the prodigious war, made by the spirits of the invisible world upon
the people of New-England, in the year 1692, hath entertain'd a great part of
the English world with a just astonishment. And I have met with some strange
things, not here to me mentioned, which have made me often think that this inexplicable
war might have some of its original among the Indians, whose chief sagamores
are well known unto some of our captives to have been horrid sorcerers, and
hellish conjurers, and such as conversed with demons.
Though largely overlooked since Mather, this historiographical interpretation
has grown in size and significance since 1984 when James Kences expanded on
the connections between war and witchcraft initially put forward by Richard
Slotkin, in Regeneration through Violence. Since then, a growing number
of historians of witchcraft have included some exploration of witchcraft and
the frontier. Carol Karlsen developed the ties between the afflicted girls as
well as the alleged witches, and the frontier in The Devil in the Shape
of a Woman. Peter Hoffer, Elaine Breslaw, and John McWilliam have explored
the issue of the race of Reverend Parris's servants Tituba and Indian John.
In 1998 Emerson Baker and John Reid provided a detailed examination of the links
between witchcraft and the frontier in The New England Knight: Sir William
Phips 1651-1695. More recently, Louise Breen has developed the relationship
between witchcraft and its ties to Indians, religious radicals, and the frontier.
Mary Beth Norton is currently writing an entire monograph on the topic that
promises to extend all of these interpretations.
Although this growing body of literature establishes an important tie between
the Maine frontier and the Essex County witchcraft outbreak, scholars have neglected
the relationship between frontier land ownership and speculation in Maine and
elsewhere and the purchase of lands from Native Americans. A close examination
of these connections is crucial to explaining the origins of the witchcraft
accusations in Essex County, for by 1692 land had become a critical issue. There
was no longer adequate room in the established towns to provide for their growing
populations. Land was also becoming less productive, as poor agricultural practices
rapidly led to soil exhaustion, and timber and other natural resources were
placed under heavy pressure. In addition to being an economic necessity, property
also had an important psychological value. In seventeenth-century England, landed
wealth was still the key to power, prominence, and legitimacy. Large tracts
gave leading New Englanders the promise of landed wealth and thriving estates
and the chance to emulate the English gentry. The leading families of Massachusetts
Bay owned hundreds of acres of lands - usually given to them by the government
as compensation for their services. These elites owned far more land than they
could possibly use, so hundreds of acres were underutilized, while neighboring
yeoman struggled on smaller farms with depleted resources.
The declining opportunities for acquiring land within established towns raised
animosity and put increasing pressure on modest farmers and renters, leading
to inevitable legal conflict against large landowners. In their award winning
Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum saw witchcraft in
Salem largely as a by-product of local conflict between the Porter and Putnam
families and their allies. Even this dispute was partially rooted in land speculation
and land ownership. For example, in 1686 a lengthy property dispute arose in
Salem Village over the Corwin farm, a substantial tract that was virtually unoccupied.
When the Trask family, kinsmen and allies of the Putnams, illegally harvested
timber from this unused land, they were sued by the owners of the property,
the heirs of the wealthy Salem merchant George Corwin. The litigants carried
on this protracted and bitter dispute while they also faced the witchcraft outbreak.
The suit was only resolved by the colony's highest court in 1693, months after
opponents of the Corwin clan physically dragged off the property the small cabin
of the tenant who had occupied the land as a symbol of the Corwin right of ownership.
Faced with declining opportunity and escalating conflict over local lands, men
of all ranks turned increasingly to the opportunity of "unclaimed" tribal territories
beyond the line of settlement.
From the end of King Philip's War (1678) to the outbreak of King William's
War (1688) there numerous transactions, covering thousands of acres of Indian
lands as a part of a wild wave of speculative frenzy. With the defeat of the
Indians of southern New England, speculators and would-be settlers pushed into
the frontier. The weakened Indian survivors of the war were often forced to
sell, in the face of English squatters who threatened to seize land. Selectmen
in some established towns even purchased Indian deeds to bolster title to towns
threatened by Edmund Andros and the Dominion of New England. Overall, this English
involvement with Indians and their frontier lands could be seen as a taint on
society, and very few people in Essex County could feel completely free of this
stain. As early as King Phillip's War, Increase Mather lamented that settlers
had fallen into worshiping the ownership of land itself.
Idolatry brings the Sword, and Covetousness is Idolatry. Land! Land! hath been
the idol of many in New-England: whereas the first Planters here that they might
keep themselves together were satisfied with one Acre for each person, as his
propriety, and after that with twenty Acres for a Family, how have Men since
coveted after the earth, that many hundreds, nay thousands of Acres, have been
engrossed by one man, and they that profess themselves Christians have forsaken
Churches, and Ordinances, and all for land and elbow-room enough in the World.
Speculation took place throughout New England. In Rhode Island competing land
companies, including the Atherton Company, the Misquamicut Company, and the
Pettaquamscut Company vied for the lands between the Connecticut border and
Narragansett Bay. Joseph Dudley and William Stoughton led the efforts in the
Nipmuc country of central Massachusetts. In 1682 these magistrates negotiated
a settlement with the Nipmuc: the tribe would live on a twenty-five-square-mile
tract, and sell the rest of their lands (approximately one thousand square miles)
to Massachusetts for £50 and a coat. As a token of thanks, the General Court
then granted a township of eight square miles of the Nipmuc Purchase to Dudley,
Stoughton, and their three English partners. The speculators were not done yet.
Dudley and Stoughton then purchased half of the remaining twenty-five-square-mile
tract from the Nipmuc. Subsequently, several other major tracts were purchased
from the tribe, both in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Speculators initiated
a series of such ventures in this region by the mid 1680s, resulting in the
eventual establishment of ten new towns. To the north, a similar process was
at work in the Merrimac region. In 1686 Joseph Dudley, Stoughton, Richard Wharton,
Samuel Shrimpton, and sixteen others had the Dudley Council confirm their title
to the huge Million Acre purchase in the Merrimac River. The government also
made other substantial grants, such as the Wamesit purchase (present-day Lowell,
Massachusetts). A critic of the Dudley Council pointed out that most of its
members "are possessed of great tracts of land by Indian purchase."
In Maine speculation was equally rampant, though it took a slightly different
form than efforts in southern New England. By the time of King Phillip's War,
English merchants and fur traders had already purchased most of southern coastal
Maine from the Wabanaki Indians. There were few efforts to purchase lands further
inland as in southern New England, because of the continued strength of the
Wabanaki. Despite these factors, much land speculation would occur in Maine
during these years as well. Refugees from King Phillip's War who had no desire
to return to the dangerous frontier after the war frequently sold their holdings
to speculators or those willing to move to Maine. Several new townships were
carved from the wilderness, and merchants sold and mortgaged large tracts that
had previously been purchased from Native Americans. Substantial investments
were made in the Maine frontier as sawmills destroyed during King Philip's War
were rebuilt and new ones constructed.
The speculative bubble burst at the outbreak of King William's War as new settlements
went up in smoke, and frontier lands throughout New England became worthless.
The investors lost everything, in a financial panic akin to a modern day stock
market crash. The heavy taxes of the war, combined with the financial burden
of refugees from Maine made a bad situation worse. The crisis was particularly
difficult in Essex County, which had the highest number of investors in the
Maine frontier and was now close enough to the frontier to be exposed to attack.
Furthermore, Essex County residents had the burden of hundreds of war refugees.
The region had suffered through these exact same problems in King Phillip's
War. Refugees had poured in from Maine, and Essex County had lost numerous sons
in the fighting. The companies of prominent Essex County captains Thomas Lathrop
and Benjamin Swett were nearly wiped out in two of the worst defeats of the
war. Swett's company was ambushed in Maine in the summer of 1677, at the same
time that the Wabanaki Indians were capturing vessels and killing fishermen
of the Essex County fleet. In 1680 the selectmen of Salem complained of "our
former greate losses by the indian warr, together with considerable losse since,
and thereby many poore widows & fatherless children amonghts us." For all of
these reasons, Essex County felt King William's War more than other parts of
New England. Many of its residents must have felt a sense of desperation as
they watched their finances collapse and war approach their doorsteps in the
early 1690s.
Devastating raids on Pemaquid and Cocheco in 1689 were followed the next year
by the Salmon Falls raid and the fall of Fort Loyal in Falmouth. Native Americans
from Maine and surrounding territories made these attacks, though their allies,
the French, provided some men and logistical support. In the process, all settlements
north of Wells had been destroyed, with hundreds of English killed or taken
captive. The fall of Fort Loyal must have proved to be particularly disturbing.
After fighting for five days with great loss of life, the garrison negotiated
their surrender with offer of safe passage to the nearest English settlement.
When the disarmed garrison marched out to surrender, the Indians attacked. Despite
the efforts of the French to control their allies, nearly all of the occupants
of the fort were killed and the few survivors taken captive. It would be a grim
reminder not to make a bargain with the enemy.
By the fall of 1691, Essex County was feeling a growing sense of alarm over
the progress of the war. On October 31 the committee of militia in Salem complained
of the "Ill Circumstances that we are under ye Expectation wee may Justly have
of ye French and Indian Enemies coming down upon Our frontiers Especially Strawberry
Banke ye likelihood yt Our Enimies will drive in Our frontiers upon us Naked
and Seize thier provisions & Estates by which they will be inabled to proceed
further upon us." Panic must have ensued in Salem when this prediction soon
began to come true. Strawberry Banke's neighbor, York, Maine was virtually destroyed
in a raid on January 24, 1692. Over one hundred people were killed or taken
captive in the Candlemas Raid. Among the victims was Shubael Dummer, the first
Puritan minister to die at the hands of the Indians. Cotton Mather soon observed
that "you have seen a most Pious and Faithful Minister Lately Assinated by the
Brutes of Our East." He perceived the event as an ominous sign and an urgent
encouragement for moral reformation: "A church of saints is now lately in a
manner dissipated by a sudden, furious, treacherous attack … Doubtless the fall
of one golden candlestick in our borders makes noise enough to awaken all out
churches unto the doing of some remarkable thing in returning to God" Mather
called for reform because of the gravity of the situation. The English had almost
completely abandoned the Maine frontier, with only a few settlements left between
the war front and Essex County. If the enemy could destroy a supposedly safe
town like York, what community would next fall victim? Places like Salem Village
could no longer ignore the threat of attack. Indeed, in the summer of 1692 a
panic would spread through Gloucester, when people claimed to see armed French
and Indians "skulking" about the town. Reverend John Emerson witnessed these
events and observed "all rational persons could see that Glocester was not alarumed
last summer for above a fortnight together by real French and Indians, but that
the devil and his agents were the cause of all the molestation." Emerson's account
demonstrates both the close relationship between the frontier fighting and the
devil and the ambiguous identity of the enemy.
Furthermore, many Essex County residents had family ties to York and other
Maine communities. Reverend Shubael Dummer himself came from a prominent Newbury
family. Less than a month before the Candlemas Raid the minister had received
money to aid the victims of the war from his cousin, Samuel Sewall. Soon after
the raid, Salem Town parishioners voted to contribute £32 to a York relief fund
administered by Sewall and Shubael's brother, Jeremiah Dummer. Thus, the Candlemas
Raid may have represented a psychological breaking point. Soon after the raid,
what had been the afflictions of just a couple of Salem Village girls quickly
mushroomed into the largest witchcraft outbreak in American history. It appeared
that Satan was indeed loose in New England. He was working in an unholy league
with the "papist" French Catholics and their "heathen" Native American allies
against the English. Certainly the English had long accused the Indians of New
England of being heathens, or even witches. Many Puritans saw Native American
religion as devil worship. Thus, contacts with the Native Americans, either
in war or trade, placed a possible taint on Englishmen. These ties reinforced
the danger of the frontier, its inhabitants, and their associations with witchcraft.
As they watched the destruction of frontier settlements, the witchcraft judges
must have been among the most concerned citizens in the colony. Based on their
business ventures, the judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer were better
qualified to preside over a land court than cases of witchcraft. Wait Winthrop
held title to huge tracts of frontier lands in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
Massachusetts. He inherited much of this land from his father, John Winthrop
Jr., and grandfather Governor John Winthrop, though Wait and his brother Fitz-John
had supplemented their holdings while both were councilors in Dudley's provisional
government of 1686. Their brother-in-law John Richards had an interest in the
Winthrop lands through his marriages to two Winthrop brides, but he also had
a long history of involvement in the frontier, going back to his 1649 purchase
of Arrowsic, Island, Maine, from the Androscoggin sachem Robin Hood. In the
1680s and 1690s Richards was also a major mortgage holder for property in greater
Boston. Although these lands were far from the frontier, his investments would
have been sensitive to the declines in real estate values of the day.
The real estate interests of the Winthrops and Richards were among the most
substantial in New England but their late brother-in-law, Richard Wharton possessed
even greater landed wealth. As a member of the Atherton Company, Wharton owned
lands in Rhode Island. He also was a partner with his kinsman Joseph Dudley
in several efforts in the Nipmuc and Merrimac regions, including the Million
Acre purchase, and he was an absentee proprietor of Dunstable. In 1683 and 1684
Wharton had purchased the Pejebscot Patent from the Purchase and Way families,
and had the sale of the 500,000 acre parcel confirmed by six Indian sachems
of the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers. In 1686 Wharton along with Stoughton,
Dudley, and several other men, formed a company to purchase lands from the Mohegans
in Connecticut. One of these partners, John Blackwell, had invested in confiscated
church lands in England in the 1650s. After the Restoration when these lands
reverted back to the church, Blackwell and other speculators migrated to New
England. Thus some of the frontier investors of the 1680s had ties to Puritan
speculation in Cromwell's England. Wharton died in London in 1689, having traveled
there to push for the replacement of Governor Edmund Andros, after the governor
refused to confirm Wharton's title to Pejebscot.
Fellow witchcraft judges Samuel Sewall and Jonathan Corwin also maintained
sizable interests in the frontier. Sewall and his wife Hannah inherited tremendous
wealth, and huge tracts of land from her father, John Hull. The family owned
shares in the Pettaquamscut Company, held numerous properties in the Greater
Boston area, and also owned sawmills on the Maine frontier. In 1687 Samuel recorded
in his diary a visit to his sawmills at Salmon Falls (in present-day Berwick).
During the trip he spent the night in York, at the home of his cousin, Reverend
Shubael Dummer. Sewall also went to Wells where it is possible he saw the mills
belonging to Salem merchant Jonathan Corwin. For a time the mills were managed
by Corwin's brother-in-law and business partner, Eleazar Hathorne. Jonathan
became a judge of the court of Oyer and Terminer after Nathaniel Saltonstall
resigned. Corwin and Eleazar Hathorne's brother William were also principal
Salem magistrates in the pre-trial hearings of the Salem witch trials.
Judge Bartholomew Gedney was related by marriage to the Corwins and the Winthrops.
In 1674 Gedney purchased an estimated 100,000 acres of land, in Westcustugo
(present-day Yarmouth), from Thomas Stevens, shortly after the fur trader bought
it from the sachem Robin Hood and his followers. Gedney's gristmill and two
sawmills burned during King Philip's War; so after the war he rebuilt these
operations and was granted a house lot in nearby Falmouth (present-day Portland).
In 1686 Gedney, Richard Wharton, and several others (including Shubael Dummer's
brother) supported an effort to setup lands in the Westcustugo region as a home
for English refugees who had been forced out of Illuthera Island in the Bahamas
by the Spanish. Barthlomew was not the only member of his family with sizable
Maine interests. His brother married Mary Pateshall, whose family were Boston
merchants and major investors in Maine lands. Mary's father had been killed
on the Kennebec in King Phillip's War, and her brother died in the 1689 attack
on Pemaquid.
Even Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall, who left the witchcraft court early in the
proceedings, had extensive property interests. The judge's family owned thousands
of acres of land, thanks largely to his grandfather, Massachusetts Bay Company
undertaker and investor Sir Richard Saltonstall. Most of these tracts were in
frontier areas, including Connecticut, and the Piscataqua. Nathaniel lived on
a substantial estate in Haverhill, one of the most exposed frontier settlements
in the colony. He also owned over 1,000 acres of land in Ipswich, where his
family's properties included a sizable mill complex. In the early 1680s Saltonstall
was granted a house lot in Falmouth, Maine, while there to help re-establish
the government. After he resigned from the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Saltonstall
himself would be accused of witchcraft.
The only member of the Court of Oyer and Terminer who was not a substantial
holder of frontier lands was Peter Sergeant. However, even this wealthy Boston
merchant had at least one such investment. He was a partner with Samuel Sewall
and Eliakim Hutchinson in the 1684 purchase of 50% of the ironworks and saw
mill in Braintree. He was also a kinsman of Samuel Shrimpton, one of the purchasers
of the Million Acre Purchase. These business ties as well as his kinship ties
meant that Sergeant shared the interests and presumably the views of his fellow
members of the merchant class.
The witchcraft judges, their kin and their fellow merchants suffered the largest
financial losses in King William's War but numerous residents of Essex County,
drawn from the broad ranks of the citizenry, also held Maine lands that had
become worthless. Some were absentee investors though a considerable number
had lived in Maine until the outbreak of the war, and these refugees lost all
their wealth and possessions when they fled the region. Many would play a role
in the witchcraft outbreak.
Numerous Essex County men invested in Casco Bay lands after King Phillip's
War including Bartholomew Gedney's kinsmen, the Putnams of Salem Village. Two
Putnams were among the eleven Essex County proprietors of the new township of
Westcustugo. Just to the south, Essex men played an important role in the resettlement
of Falmouth, which had been abandoned during King Phillips's War. A 1688 list
of Falmouth house lots contains five members of the Ingersoll family of Salem
Village. Several Falmouth householders would later testify against George Burroughs,
the former minister of Falmouth. Burroughs and another former Falmouth resident,
Ann Pudeator, would both hang for witchcraft in 1692.
The Casco Bay settlements were not the only Maine communities with ties to
Salem and Essex County. Walter Phillips was the largest landholder on the Damariscotta
River, having acquired his holdings in three purchases from the Indians from
1661 to 1674. He was also recorder of deeds for the County of Cornwall, which
was established by the Duke of York in 1665 for the English settlements east
of the Kennebec River. In King Phillip's War Phillips sought refuge in Massachusetts.
His family would retain their Maine lands, but they would live on the eastern
limit of Salem Village, where they ran a tavern. In 1692 Phillips, his wife
Margaret, and daughter Tabitha signed a petition of support for their neighbor
Rebecca Nurse when she was accused of witchcraft. Meanwhile, daughter Jane was
afflicted by witches, and her husband, Benjamin Hutchinson would accuse four
women of witchcraft, and testify against George Burroughs.
Though the Phillips family remained in Massachusetts, others would return to
Maine after King Philip's War to settle and to speculate in lands. One area
of investment was the lower Saco River. In the early 1680s the heirs of the
proprietors of present-day Saco sold about 25 percent of the township to Benjamin
Blackman, a Harvard-educated minister. The young minister had moved to Scarborough
in 1680, where he received land from his father-in-law, the prominent Boston
merchant Joshua Scottow. As commander of the garrison at Scarborough's Black
Point during King Philip's War, Scottow was accused of profiteering by putting
the garrison to work on his extensive personal holdings. After a year in Scarborough,
Blackman moved south to Saco where he bought several large tracts, acting at
times on behalf of some Andover men who planned to settle there. The move apparently
never took place, and the identity of the men is unknown, but the demand for
land was real. Philip Greven has demonstrated that land in Andover was controlled
by a small number of men who only grudgingly gave lands to their sons. The tension
that resulted may have spilled out in 1692, for in that year more people were
accused of witchcraft in Andover than any other Essex County town. The Andover
accused included Mary Marston, who may have been the wife or daughter-in-law
of a Westcustugo proprietor.
When he moved to Saco, Blackman gave up the ministry to concentrate on his
land ventures as well as building a sawmill with Sampson Sheafe, a kinsman of
Judge Jonathan Corwin. Instead of Blackman, William Milbourne would be the new
minister in Saco. Milbourne was a Baptist who fled from Bermuda after the governor
of the colony called him a Fifth Monarchist - a radical who believed that King
Jesus would directly intervene in British politics to bring about reform. In
1689 his brother, Jacob Milbourne, would attempt his own radical reforms, as
one of the leader of Leisler's Rebellion in New York. Three years later Governor
Phips would order the arrest of William Milbourne for sedition, when the minister
questioned the legitimacy of the witchcraft proceedings. The spectacle of a
Harvard-trained minister giving up his calling to speculate in land and saw
mills, only to be replaced by a dangerous radical must have been viewed as an
ominous sign by many Puritans. Observers may have also noted that Blackman was
partly responsible for the outbreak of King William's War. A militia captain,
Blackman seized twenty Wabanaki in the summer of 1688 and shipped them to Boston
as hostages after Natives had killed some cattle. The Indians retaliated by
taking English prisoners and these events rapidly escalated into war. During
the Salem witchcraft trials, people repeatedly referred to the devil as a "black
man." Those who knew Benjamin Blackman may have struck by the irony of this
description.
Speculation caught hold on the other bank of the Saco long before Blackman's
arrival. In 1659 Major William Phillips of Boston purchased the patent to present-day
Biddeford and moved to the township. Once there, he proceeded to buy thousands
of acres in the Saco Valley as well as land along the upper Mousam River in
a series of transactions with Native Americans. One of the tracts supposedly
contained a silver mine, though Phillips also made more orthodox investments
by developing saw mills. Phillips moved to the Saco for its economic promise
but he may have also departed Boston to find a friendlier climate for his third
wife Bridget, whom he had recently married. Bridget Hutchinson Phillips was
the daughter of Anne Hutchinson, the controversial Antinomian leader. She shared
her mother's religious radicalism, joining a group of Quakers in Maine. In 1671
when members of this group were brought before the court for being absent from
public worship, one told the judges their worship was "false and idolatrous,"
and another said the magistrates "worship divills and not God." Six years later
a Maine Quakeress accompanied Margaret Brewster when she walked into the South
Boston church in sack cloth and smeared in ashes in the middle of Sunday service.
A shocked Samuel Sewall stressed that "it occasioned the most amazing uproar
that I ever saw."
During King Phillip's War the Phillips Garrison withstood a major raid, though
it was eventually abandoned and burned. Major Phillips died as a refugee in
Boston but Bridget would return to the Saco and forcefully press the government
for confirmation of the family's extensive land claims until the outbreak of
King William's War. It was rare for early New England women to take such a public
role in business and politics, though perhaps it is not surprising that Anne
Hutchinson's daughter would act in this way. Major Phillips was assisted in
his ventures by his son-in-law, Captain John Alden, a merchant, ship's captain,
and militia officer who frequently sailed the coast of Maine, trading with Native
Americans. It was probably this familiarity with the Indians that led Phillips
to have Alden witness two of their deeds. Alden was accused of witchcraft in
1692, and even of selling "Powder and Shot to the Indians and has fathered Indian
papooses." Scholars have pointed out that he was probably accused because he
was tainted by both his connections to Indians and the Quakers, but his ties
to Indian land speculation added a third reason for Alden to be singled out.
The Phillips holdings were bounded on the south by Coxhall, a tract measuring
six miles by four miles. This land had initially been purchased from sachem
Sosowen and his son Fluellin - the same Indians who later sold land to Phillips.
In the 1660s Harlakenden Symonds acquired Coxhall. Harlackenden lived in Wells
for from 1655 to 1660, and his brother William was a prominent citizen of the
town most of his adult life. Over time, Harlackenden would deed hundreds of
acres to his father, Deputy Governor Saumel Symonds, his sisters, kinsmen, and
other Essex County people. The Symonds family was one of the most powerful and
well connected in all of New England, whose kin included even the Winthrops.
Samuel Symonds was related to several ministers, both on the frontier and in
Salem Village. Son-in-law John Emerson, minister in Berwick from 1683 to 1689,
was taking refuge in Gloucester in 1692 when he witnessed the war scare that
he believed was caused by the devil. Symonds's step-grandson Richard Martin,
Jr. served as minister of Wells until he died of smallpox in December 1690.
Reverend Martin was aided and succeeded in his post by George Burroughs, who
fled to Wells when Falmouth was destroyed in the spring of 1690. Symonds's grandson,
Daniel Epps, Jr., served as interim minister in Salem Village in 1683-1684,
after George Burroughs left the position. The Salem Village church records in
late December 1683 referred to a vote to "give Mr. Epps for the time he doth
preach with us twenty shillings per day," with the money to be collected by
Thomas Putnam and Nathaniel Ingersoll. Two years earlier, Epps purchased a small
plot of land in Salem from Bridget Bishop. In 1692 Bishop would be the first
witch to be condemned and executed. In 1660 Daniel Epps, Sr. had acquired a
claim to the entire township of Wells from John Wadleigh, who had bought the
town from the Indians in 1649. Finally, Reverend John Hale of Beverly was one
of the first ministers called to Salem Village to deal with the witchcraft outbreak.
Hale was the son-in-law of Deputy Governor Samuel Symonds and "my sonne John
Hale" was named an overseer of his probate estate.
In June 1688 Harlackenden Symonds sold Coxhall to 38 men from Ipswich and other
Essex County towns. Many of these men would have some tie to the witchcraft
outbreak. Six of the proprietors were kinsmen of witches. Three proprietors
testified against witches while four signed petitions supporting the accused.
Some proprietors had multiple ties to the trials. For example, proprietor Thomas
Higginson was the son of Salem's esteemed minister, Reverend John Higginson.
His brother, Captain John Higginson was a court officer during the witch trials,
and his sister, Ann Higginson Dolliver was an accused witch. Proprietors were
also the alleged victims of witchcraft. One proprietor's son was said to be
killed by magic, while a witch supposedly made proprietor Nicholas Rust's beer
magically disappear. There were many other ties among Wells, Essex County and
witchcraft. For example, the Symonds were also kinsmen of the Littlefields,
who owned saw mills and extensive lands in Wells - lands purchased in part from
Indians. The Littlefields were also kinsmen of Peter Cloyce a Wells landholder
who moved to Salem Village during King Philip's War. Cloyce's second wife was
Sarah Towne Bridges, who would be arrested for witchcraft and jailed for many
months. Her two sisters, Mary Easty and Rebecca Nurse were not so fortunate
- both were hanged. Accused witch Sarah Wilds was a kinswoman of Thomas Averill
of Wells. In March 1692 Joseph Bayley of Newbury would purchase a 156 acre homestead
in Wells, that had been abandoned during the war. Later that year Joseph would
testify against a Salem witch. His brother, James Bayley, had been the controversial
first minister of Salem Village. Admittedly, the Coxhall proprietors and residents
of Wells represent a maze of genealogical connections among Essex County, the
frontier, and Salem Village. Today it is easy to minimize the significance of
distant relatives and kinship ties, however these ties were all-important in
the seventeenth century. As recent immigrants in a new land, most settlers had
few close relatives on this side of the Atlantic. Wartime depredations must
have been quite traumatic in Puritan Massachusetts, a society that placed a
particularly strong emphasis on family. Under such circumstances, any relations
would have represented important social and economic ties, with even distant
kin taking on heightened significance.
Not all lands purchased from Indians in the 1680s were in remote areas like
Coxhall. In Massachusetts, where the General Court granted townships, some selectmen
bolstered their town's grant by purchasing Native title to the entire town,
on behalf of all of its citizens. In 1680 Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall had witnessed
such a reaffirmation of the Native sale of his town of Haverhill to the town
fathers. These deeds soon became important insurance policies when Governor
Andros threatened to vacate titles to lands granted by towns and to eliminate
their right to divide land among the town's freemen. For example, William Bassett
and other civic leaders of Lynn purchased their township from the heirs of the
late Sagamore George, the last sachem of Lynn. Sagamore George's heirs must
have considered the silver they received for these deeds to be an unexpected
windfall with no downside, for it formally acknowledged long-standing political
and geographic reality - English possession and Native dispossession of Lynn.
William Bassett's wife, two daughters, and a grandson were all accused of witchcraft
in 1692. His son-in-law John Proctor was convicted and executed.
Even towns far from the frontier, such as Lynn, had to interact with Native
Americans to secure their title. In this process, people not only exposed themselves
to avarice and greed but to a further danger - contact with Indians whom many
Puritans believed to be agents of the devil. This portrayal of Native Americans,
an on-going theme of early English writers, took on a new intensity during times
of conflict. For example, in describing the Pequot War, John Underhill called
the tribe "wicked imps" aided by Satan, and under his command. Reverend William
Hubbard described two Wabanaki sachems as "not without some shew of a Kind of
Religion, which no doubt they have learned from the Prince of Darkness ....
It is also said they have received some Visions and Revelations." Hubbard went
so far as to label these enemy commanders of King Philip's War as "Minsters
of Satan."
This association between Native Americans and Satan can even be glimpsed in
land transactions. In deeds, the English used nicknames they had given to the
Indians. Names like Robin Hood, Little John, and Jack Pudding (a rustic buffoon
or clown) are clear allusions to English carnival culture. They reflect an English
sense of superiority, but also perhaps a slight playfulness, or sense of humor.
Several nicknames, however, suggests a darker connotation. "Black Will," the
sachem of Nahant reinforced the image of the devil as "black man." It is unclear
if the name Fluellin is of Native or English origin, however Fluellin was also
an herb that was believed to be used by witches. John Cotta, a nickname given
to a Native of the Damariscotta River region, was also the name of one of the
leading contemporary English authorities on witchcraft. This nickname is a bit
of a pun. It reflects the English attitude that Indians practiced pagan rites
that bordered on devil worship. Thus, a Native American from Damariscotta was
deemed an expert on witchcraft, just like the learned scholar John Cotta. It
is also notable that Robin Hood and John Cotta lived near the place the English
called Merrymeeting Bay, for the gathering of witches' covens were often called
"merry meetings."
Increase Mather observed that demons were "not so frequent in places where
the Gospel prevaileth as in the dark corners of the earth," and suggested that
these apparitions particularly infested the "East and West Indians" as well
as the "popish countries." Maine was a particularly "dark corner" of piety -
inhabited by "heathen" Indians, "Papist" Frenchmen, non-Puritan protestants,
and Godless fishermen. The Province of Maine had begun life as an Anglican colony
that tolerated diverse beliefs, even allowing Reverend John Wheelwright and
his Antinomian followers to establish Wells. After Massachusetts absorbed the
region in the 1650s, officials had to allow more religious latitude than in
Massachusetts proper. Still the presence of Quakers in Maine, such as Bridget
Phillips, unnerved the Puritans. Accused of witchcraft, John Alden was also
accused of being a Quaker. An denouncer cried out "there stands Aldin, a bold
fellow with his Hat on before the judges." Only a Quaker would refuse to offer
hat service. Quakers and Antinomians were not the only radical sects in Maine.
In the early 1680s the Baptists formed a short-lived congregation in Kittery,
and during the witchcraft trials witnesses accused Reverend George Burroughs
of being a Baptist.
In the seventeenth century, religious radicalism was often intertwined with
social and political extremism. During the English Civil Wars, the radical Levelers
had posed a serious if short-lived threat to social order. The Levelers established
colonies in several English villages, including Coggeshall (or Coxhall) and
Dunstable. It is an interesting coincidence that the names Coxhall and Dunstable
were also given to two speculative frontier townships in New England. Probably
both of these frontier towns were named in honor of the English homes of early
settlers and promoters. Still, to many people these names held a potent symbol
of the dangerous radicalism of the Civil Wars and the frontier. The experience
of Reverend Shubael Dummer illustrates the complex relationship among frontier
land speculation, Indians, witchcraft, and orthodoxy. Like the witchcraft judges,
Dummer had claims to extensive lands on Casco Bay, for his father had been granted
800 acres of the Lygonia Patent by George Cleeve. Though he appears to have
been a respected minister, there may have been some who suspected his orthodoxy.
His father had been a prominent supporter of the controversial Antinomian, Reverend
John Wheelwright. Perhaps it was not altogether a coincidence that Shubael ended
up as minister in a town adjacent to Wells, which had been founded by Wheelwright
and his fellow Antinomians. South of York lay Kittery, a town that fell under
the control of Quakers in the 1660s. Land speculation and radicalism may have
tainted even this "golden candlestick."
The violent death of Reverend Dummer was yet another sign of God's displeasure
with New England. Puritans saw the events around them as signs of God's favoror
disfavor. King Philip's War, the loss of the Massachusetts Bay charter, and
the imposition of the Dominion of New England were among the ominous signs that
God was unhappy with the declining religious fervor and increasing worldliness
of Puritan New England. Puritan ministers, including Salem Village's Samuel
Parris preached their jeremiads, warning of the Jehovah's wrath, but to no avail.
The destruction of the frontier in King William's War was a further sign of
displeasure as well as evidence that Satan was loose in Massachusetts. The conflict
began on the frontier, a stronghold of the devil, and scene of Puritan speculative
greed. Massachusetts Puritans looked at Maine and saw all of New England's problems.
Here lived Fifth Monarchists, Antinomians, Baptists and Quakers. Harvard ministers
who went to Maine became land speculators or were killed by Indians. Merchants
turned to silver mining, profiteering, and even consorting with the enemy. The
outbreak in Maine of King William's War seemed to justify Puritan fears of the
frontier. Satan, working through his Native, French and English agents, had
taken over the region, and now threatened to end the entire Puritan experiment.
In the "more Pagan [out-]skirts of New-England" warned Cotton Mather, "Satan
terribly makes a prey of you, and Leads you Captive to do his Will." Rather
than stem the tide of advancing French and Indians, the settlers of the frontier
had abandoned it. As poor refugees, they overburdened the over-taxed townships
of Essex County and threatened to contaminate Massachusetts with their radicalism.
In addition to these concerns, the abandonment of Maine settlements was an
economic blow to the hundreds of Massachusetts residents who had participated
in land speculation as settlers or investors. Samuel Sewell estimated that he
and his father-in-law had invested £2,000 in their Kittery sawmills destroyed
in raids in 1689 and 1690. Indians also burned the mills owned by Bartholomew
Gedney, Jonathan Corwin, and many others. Without the mills, New England lost
one of its most important exports, which helped to drive the region's economy.
Beyond this, the value of the lands themselves had declined - making them worthless
for the time being. The tens of thousands of acres had no buyers. As a result
there would be no new lands for the next generation and more and more people
crowded onto the old farms of eastern Massachusetts. The Coxhall Proprietors
must have felt particularly the financial pinch, having purchased their township
only two months before the outbreak of war - before settlement could commence.
Thus, the collapse of the frontier in King William's War was an economic and
psychological loss in addition to a military defeat against the forces of Satan.
Overall the witchcraft judges particularly and many other people in Salem Village
and Essex County had a direct stake in the frontier. What impact did this have
on the events of 1692? The judges of the court of Oyer and Terminer played a
central role in the trials and convictions. As owners of extensive frontier
lands and mills that were now worthless, they and their families had already
suffered considerably from the actions of the perceived agents of Satan on the
frontier. The judges now had the opportunity to identify some of these minions
and bring them to justice. In this light it is easy to see why these judges
would be predisposed to accept spectral evidence and convict so many people.
Of course, the judges were not the only people who had suffered from the frontier
war. Throughout Essex County families were counting their financial and personal
losses. Who did these people hold responsible for their difficulties? The witchcraft
accusations suggest that several groups were singled out, including the merchant
class, which included the judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer themselves.
This group demonstrated the declining religious fervor of New England - where
concerns for profits seemed to take a growing precedent over everything else.
The merchants had led the speculation in frontier lands, convincing others that
it was a safe and wise investment. Merchants had bargained with the heathen
Indians and incited them to war, and they had blurred the boundary between Godliness
and worldliness. Symbolic of this unholy spirit, Sir William Phips, a merchant
and a speculator born in Maine, was the new governor of the colony. Although
the merchants profited from the frontier, it was the common man who defended
it at substantial cost. The militia of Essex County had suffered great losses
in King Phillip's War and the casualties mounted in King William's War. Many
kindred of these war dead would be accusers and witnesses in 1692. John Alden,
Phillip English, Hezekiah Usher and Lady Mary Phips were accused of witchcraft,
as people lashed out at the merchant class. While most of the judges themselves
were above accusation, these business allies were not. Indeed, after Judge Nathaniel
Saltonstall withdrew from the bench he would eventually join the list of the
accused.
Observers and participants in the witchcraft trials could not help but feel
that the events on the frontier were a sign of divine displeasure. Furthermore,
this disaster showed what happened when you tried to bargain with Satan. When
the occupants of Fort Loyal had bargained for their safety with the perceived
agents of the devil, they had paid with their lives. Likewise, dealing with
Indian lands could also be seen as a bargain with evil. People who confessed
to practicing witchcraft said they signed the devil's book, much as one would
sign a property transaction. Cotton Mather described the torment of Mercy Short,
a former Indian captive who had lost most of her family during the Salmon Falls
raid: "There exhibited himself unto her a Divel having the Figure of a Short
and Black Man …. hee was not of a Negro, but of a Tawney, or Indian colour."
The devil showed her his book "somewhat long and thick (Like the wast-books
of many Traders) … and filled not only with the Names or Marks, but also with
the explicit ... Covenants." Satan and his company tempted her to sign and receive
great wealth, showing her "very splendid garments … and many more conveniences
… When all these persuasives were ineffectual, They terrify'd her with horrible
Threatenings of miseries which they would inflict upon her." This encounter
sounds incredibly similar to an Indian land sale. Tempted by wealth, a merchant
enters into a covenant, written in his ledger, with an Indian. In 1692 it became
all too easy for people to equate signing a Native American deed to signing
Satan's book. Many men had made written agreements with heathen agents of the
devil that they thought would bring them great wealth, but Satan had tricked
them and the lands purchased in an unholy covenant were now worthless. Thus,
Indian land speculation tainted society and helped fuel the witchcraft outbreak.
This encounter can also be interpreted the other way. An English merchant's
promises of "fine garments and many more conveniences" might tempt an Indian
to sell their lands. If not, then threats might be employed. When you finally
signed the merchant's book, you gave up your land, and with it, your soul. While
English land traders may have considered their Indian grantors minions of Satan,
perhaps the real tempting devils were the English grantees themselves.
Although scholars are just beginning to explore the links between witchcraft
and Maine land speculation, residents of Salem understood it over 150 years
ago. Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables focuses on the descendants
of Judge Pyncheon, a man who condemned to death the alleged wizard Mathew Maule
then seized Maule's property to build an imposing mansion. A subplot of the
novel is the Indian land deed, granted to the judge by Indians. It "comprised
the greater part of what is now known as Waldo County, in the State of Maine,
and were more extensive than many a dukedom." The deed was lost, and Judge Pyncheon
died before he could use his influence to confirm his title. So the Pyncheon
family could never claim what they believed was rightfully theirs - the potential
source of "incalculable wealth to the Pyncheon blood." Instead they had to be
content to maintain a map of their purchase, "grotesquely illuminated with the
pictures of Indians and wild beasts." Scholars readily acknowledge that the
House of Seven Gables contains historical autobiographical information about
Salem and Hawthorne. He was a descendant of the Judge John Hathorne, who heard
many of the preliminary hearings in the witchcraft cases. The real House of
Seven Gables was built by merchant John Turner's family, whose daughter Elizabeth
was the sister-in-law of Judge Bartholomew Gedney. Hawthorne borrowed the last
name of his wizard from Thomas Maule, a Salem Quaker and outspoken critic of
the witchcraft trials. The real Pyncheon (or Pynchon) family were land barons
in seventeenth-century western Massachusetts, purchasing countless acres from
the Indians. While their history may have influenced Hawthorne, much of Waldo
County was actually purchased from Sachem Madockawando by Sir William Phips,
the Maine native who was Governor of Massachusetts during the witchcraft trials.
Less than a year after signing the deed Phips died unexpectedly, before he could
legitimately establish his family's claim to their "dukedom." Like so many others,
Sir William had bargained with Satan, and ended up with nothing.