good evening, everyone. i'm victor olvera, director of merchandizing for the peabody essex museum. we are really pleased to host daniel gagnon, author of a sale in which trial, execution and exoneration of rebecca nurse, which vividly recreates 17th century salem and challenges previous interpretations of rebecca nurse's life and the 1692 witch trials. witchcraft accusations spread from salem villages. villages massachusetts ensnaring innocent people from all strata of society under a burden of assumed guilt. one of the most significant accusations and most unlikely was against a 71 year old grandmother, rebecca nurse, a remarkable woman whose legacy has transformed how the witch hunt has been remembered and memorialized. before we turn the podium over to daniel feiler for his presentation, would like to point out that there are more ways to. learn about rebecca nurse in the salem witch trials, not the least of which is the museum's current witch trials. pop-up experience on view a rare original document that illustrates how the town sisters rebecca nurse mary sd and sarah joyce experienced the trials. in addition the museum is showing artifacts and art relating to the witch trials and the museum's nancy and george gallery and barbara will putnam galleries and also not a you know not the least of which is the rebecca nurse in danvers, massachusetts, which is definitely worth a trip if you're interested in the subject. and with that, i'll turn it over to daniel. thanks, lactation. hello. thank you all for joining us today. it's great to see you. i'm happy to have this opportunity to talk about my biography of rebecca nurse a salem witch with you today as start out today. one thing that most people have asked me about the book as i've been talking a different historical society is different libraries different museums and different events. is a very polite version of the question aren't there already a lot of books about the witch trials and is true? there are many and there are many that are very good. so really it comes down to that question is really them trying to ask like, why did i go about writing this book, why did i think that this was important? why do i think that this was a neat a story that needs to told in this way? with this book, it is the only full length biography of any of the victims, the salem witch hunt that's in print. there are no other standalone biographies which is amazing, given how important an event in american history that this is. one can only imagine, for example, going to museums around the nation's capital and seeing a dozen biographies of george washington for sale. yet if one went to the rebecca nurse homestead museum, it's been a museum for more than a century. there was never a full length biography of rebecca nurse and that always stuck out as as a need. and in terms of a story need with the many other books about the witch hunt. it's hard to capture the event in its entirety in a way that feels human. the witch hunt will last 1692. the accusations at least eight or nine months through that time period, about 200 people will be accused 19 hanged. one pressed to death, and at least five die in jail. that's a lot of people. if you even just take this 200 accusations in order to tell those stories, have to include their immediate family members, maybe their extended family members. and you're into hundreds of people. you can't tell a story about hundreds of people and really feel like this is a human story. this is a tragedy whereas if you tell it through a, you can see one person's life and see how real person is affected. what is truly one of the earliest american tragedies here. and i picked rebecca as the one to focus on because her life and the later her case, 1692 always stuck out to me with rebecca nurse. she is the one who had the strongest defense. she is the one early on who is the least likely. and so by focusing on the person that was more of a surprise of being accused, not have something in their past that would be a logical reason that according to puritan beliefs not our own. one would be accused. i was would kind of draw out really the heart of the issue by picking such an unlikely case with our time today together talking about nurse fairly briefly tod when do think of the salem witch tals we think of here in salem or down the road in danvers which was salem village in 1692, as you see here but our story begins back in england. rebecca immigrated to she's born in great yarmouth, england. 1621 occurred last year. the hundredth anniversary of her birth and when she comes over is about a 14 year old. we see a family that is looking stability. that's to find peace because what they're behind in england is not peace. we have religious strife, political disputes with the nurse or i should say the town family, her, her, her, her original family. they are puritans. england when puritanism is not officially tolerated. they'll be by the church of england, the royal government. and the reason that they're persecuted on surface is that they have different religious beliefs than the church of england. sure. but what that really is, is political dissent at the reformation when the king separated the of england from the catholic church and the king put himself in charge of the church. what means is different religious opinions are political. you're disagreeing with the king. that's the way it's framed. and that's why that these these families are persecuted with them coming to massachusetts. it doesn't work out. the way that they expect. we know where the story is leading towards the witch hunt. as i began with. but we're going to see many struggles, their lives, struggles with the environment, struggles with those who here before them, struggles with other colonial groups like the french in canada. it not a peaceful time either in the colony as a whole or in the town family life. now with rebecca nurse over the map here to kind of help us so salem village would be those both black lines and today the town of danvers is in blue so you can see it primarily lines up there. nurse the story goes there, though. originally when her family comes over, they do live in what's now the city of salem. they will live in the north fields when rebecca nurse is about to 24, 25, somewhere around there. she will marry a gentleman named francis nurse. they'll live in downtown salem. and when i say about 24, 25, one of the reasons i think that nobody had ever attempted a biography, a full length biography of these men and women who are accused of witchcraft in 1692 is because we we struggled with records in the early 6000s. we do not have a firm date of that wedding. so i say about 24, 25. so that's roughly time. but don't have the exact date. we don't have the exact data for birth. we know when she's baptized. so it would have been within a week so we could least get the week in when we know her 400th birthday, we could at least the week. but we really don't know. and in particular with nurses case coming to puritan massachusetts as a woman there's things in your name. many of the things we trace about her life are actually through the name of her husband. they adopt a child. sure. rebecca nurse as the convention back then the mother of the family would have been the one most responsible for this child. but francis nurse's name goes in the court records. so what we of her is almost a shadow, or she's almost in the shadow of the records that has to be pieced together. some of these parts of her early have been really misunderstood throughout. for example, when she marries francis and they live briefly in downtown salem we don't think they owned land because we can't find any deed. no. been able to find a deed with francis's name on it. we assume that they rented with that. historians the 19th century. as you notice this map was actually put together in the 1860s. historians in the 19th century had assumed that, well, they must have lived in downtown salem forever until they moved to salem villageusa short while. the witch hunt. and through my research, found that that is not the case, that going through the salem selectmen's records, we see that her husband was given land in what's today the city of peabody. so towards the west of downtown salem, it would actually be around the area of the salem country club today, near the highway. and that is important because it will change our perspective on 92. all of these early details change what we think later on. one of the theories for witchcraft accusation is in 1692, there was especially in the 1970s, was this idea of factionalism that those who are more rural and agrarian are accusing people they saw as more tied in with the merchants in downtown salem. well, if one had thought the nurse family lived in downtown salem all along, you might line up one way. but now that we know they had actually lived for many years, pretty far inland as regular farmers, you can't really tie them to a certain social group that they do, not any longer appear to be a part of. and so each of these details is really key for our bigger picture with nurses life. she will have eight children. they will actually adopt two others. and when we get to our build up to the witch. in 1678, they moved to their farm. that's today, the rebecca nurse homestead museum. as victor mentioned at the start out in salem village. this will be t community where our troubles in 1692 begin. their farm is 300 acres. this sounds big and objectively it's big. 300 acres is a lot. keeping in mind, back then, large farms were more common. it's not as much of an outlier. and with other misconceptions we have about the nurse family, people see 300 acres. they see a purchase. it sounds like big money. the nurse family also had been kind of portrayed by some 19th century historians as one that other people may have been jealous of, which it would be rather a base view of human nature to think that one out of just jealousy would accuse somebody of witchcraft. but that could be a motive. however it doesn't appear to be true. we know that nurse family, when they purchased their farm, they got like the deal of a lifetime. they have no money down and a very cheap annual rate for two decades. neither rebecca nor frances will live to see the end of the the two decades of mortgage payments. but they don't know that at the time, of course. and even with this really deal, they can't keep up with the annual payments. they also behind on their taxes. this is not a family that is one to envy financially. and i mentioned the falling behind on their taxes because that's read every year at town meeting. so everybody would know maybe you wouldn't know the private information of their mortgage payments, but you know that, they owed money to the village. and so that's common knowledge when they establish they are fortunate that several of their children are already grown adults this point in time. it's not just rebecca frances farming 300 acres. that's not really possible, but several of their adult children, three of whom will build other homes on. the 300 acres, only one still exists today. the other two homes have been lost in centuries. with this whole little community of four branches of the nearest family, children and rebecca nursing homestead living here, it's a life of hard work. this is the frontier and with my differentiate it a salem village is important. there's one salem back then, but there's two communities. there are salem, which is today the city of salem, where we are as we speak. and then there's salem village that is more rural, agrarian and and farmland. it's almost entirely just farmland. salem village had for many years wanted to separate. city of salem not want them to separate. city of salem had lost. or today should be saying salem town. then had lost. several other communities to become independent and they didn't want to lose any more land. they didn't wanna lose any more taxpayers. so salem village has the struggle against salem town. what'll happen? first they get their own militia, which kind of makes them a separate community. then they get their own church. which brings us most directly to 1692. and the salem village church is contentious. it's full of strife and discord. the first three ministers do not last. there's variety of individual reasons. there's disagreements with the there's disagreements over if one didn't like the minister, whether it personal, whether it was their preaching whichever. many villages would refuse to pay their taxes. back then, there's only one church and is tax supported. if enough people stop paying their taxes the ministers not getting paid what he was promised, which heightens disagreements, then some of them would borrow money from their parishioners and weren't able to pay them back. you have debt lawsuits and it turns out to be a real mess. in 1689, salem village to believe this problem is solved. from what i looked through, the nurse family and pretty much all of the families who had been on different sides of ministers do gather together to hire reverend parris. he seems to have finally he be the person to unify this village. that 1689. we know it doesn't last three years here. but again, it is this quest for peace and stability that is never truly accomplished. paris strong starts. well, we don't see too much dissension or like we had with the previous ministers at least. and he had of tried to milk salem village for the best deal he could get. when he is hired, he wants to be paid very well because he had previously come from a life of wealth that had been lost by him as minister. the one unfulfilled part of his contract that he's never given is ownership of the salem village parsonage. this is the home where the minister of salem village would live. and you only got to use it while you're the minister. you just got used it, not ownership. he wanted to a landowner because he came from high status and part of his high status. we can see here next to me he's of the few people from the witch trials who we have an image of. we don't have an image of rebekah nurse, which is not on the cover of the book. but we can talk about the at that at the end what, what that image is. but this just shows sort of the status of reverend paris. fortunate also that his sermon notebook was was sort of misplaced and then found so we can read from the first few years he's in salem village what he preaches every week kind of gives you a good sense of like really just a sense of the community on that sunday and especially as we lead up to the witch hunt the way that he sort of phrases the sermons is is invaluable. his dispute over ownership of the parsonage, though, is what i would consider to be this key turning poiding to the witch hunt. this is what remains of salem village parsonage behind center inanvers, the pge h existed for the likes of many ministers was replaced around the time of the american revolution move torn down just turned into grass field and it was uncored about 1970 so it had been missing so to speak the first several centuries. but it's a historic site that can be visited with paris not getting ownership of this site. the issue seemed settled in 1689. he didn't it. and then we get to the fall of 91, only before january 16, 92, when the witch hunt begins. and what we see is a community kind of blindsided and confused the government has a record book where every vote from town meeting is written down. and this is something we still have in the town archives. you can see date the vote and then the town clerk's signature at the bottom, like certifying decision in this end of 1691, this book is is is passed off to somebody else. and essentially you can think of it as like they audit it. does that book include everything that was meant to include it? when they audit this, they find an entry the nobody remembers there's a town meeting that happened. the book says, and there's a vote. and salem village voted to give paris ownership of the parsonage. but nobody remembers that happening. you can't have a secret town meeting. that's not how it works. every voter is invited to town meetings, so the idea that nobody seems to remember this is quite odd and it doesn't seem to be illegal entry. and now you have a problem. what? was there a secret town meeting? that's not possible? or did someone fraudulently write this decision? the book. it's also obviously not. and when this issue really comes to a head, paris is no longer that unifying in salem village, there's several records that have been depositions, records in the book that. the sequencing had has been an issue as to what happened when of them aren't dated and. it's it's a little bit of a mess what i was able to gather from that is it appears as though in december of 1691 paris is basically fired. others previously had dated a couple of those documents is after the witch trial. but that doesn't to me logically follow that that the chain of events that that it appears to be in. and when i say halfway fired, do you think how can someone be halfway fired? you're either or you're not fired. do you have the job you don't? well, the spirit of new england was never that easy. and nothing is a straightforward as a modern reader would assume. what happens is paris is paid by the village. village town meeting essentially this contract. it's not going to be paid, but only the members of the church have the power to decide who their minister is and they're going to keep them. so he has a job, but he's not going to pay it. that's why i would say halfway fired. so he goes into this winter, not sure of a salary, not sure of supplies of things like firewood. he's constantly complaining about not having enough firewood. this household is under stress. this household is under pressure. that winter will make it through. maybe he's relying the charity of some of his supporters to deliver him firewood to to deliver supplies. and so it's in house in 1691 where what will become the witch hunt starts. paris lives there wi wif elabh. two children in the household are betty paris, nam his wife a abigail, who are young girls, pre-teens, not not teenagers yet. and there's several other children, but they do not play a role in the witch hunt and also living. there are two enslaved people, tituba and john indian, who we know are there. tituba is described in the records as, quote, an indian woman. we know that she is indigenous, most likely to the caribbean, possibly south florida, but we're not quite sure where. and in this household in january, betty parris and abigail williams begin to be unwell. they start screaming, they start rolling on the floor, crawling under furniture. they'll walk around on all fours, barking like a dog. they are just frightened. it's something is frighteningly wrong here. it is unlike something that had been witnessed and one can only imagine how fearful robert and mrs. parris are at this moment. now, when we talk about reverend parris. i'm sure those of you present this is a name you've heard and. if you've ever seen, maybe some television programs about the witch trials movies, reverend parris is often labeled as one of the bad guys of this story, one of whom is to blame for the witch hunt. and he will have a fair share of blame as this moves forward. other times, though, he's portrayed as like engineering this. i don't really buy into that with. him being, as i said, halfway fired, having something super weird starting in your house is not going to get you greater job security that only going to hurt his position at this moment in time. it cannot be helpful at that point and he tries to keep it quiet eventually. this this illness, this this being unwell will spread people on far corners of salem village. we get a teenage young women, young women in their early twenties, middle aged women, young men. it will spread this this, this being unwell and it continues to get worse. abigail williams in what moment? in one moment will run into a fireplace with a raging fire and try to crawl up the chimney as there's a roaring fire going. truly frightening behavior for a young child. they also don't name names of any witches as this begins. those that they claim to be hurt by, because they don't see it as witchcraft. this is seen as a medical issue. they're unwell. it's an illness sick. and they'll call doctors. we quite honestly don't know how many. we just know one of the records says the word is at the end of the word. doctors. so we know it's plural. we don't know how many. and one of them eventually will say that they are under, quote, an evil hand. it's the doctor who says it's witchcraft. you trust your doctor. hopefully and with them being seen as an expert that's seen as an expert, they had ruled out things we know specifically like epilepsy that could lead to seizures or something maybe slightly similar. and at the time they would have known about things you could eat that could cause erratic presentation in yourself. there's still not immediate naming of names. and then eventually name a couple of people in salem village who poor reputations or who are likely suspects. the first accuses teach another enslaved woman who in this household, if nothing else, proximity to where it all started would be suspicious. but also, she's very much an outsider, not originally appeared, and after that sarah goode and sarah osborn, who had something in their reputations, and martha corey, who would be more apt as historians demographically look at witch trials, accusations to have that happen. but after that we've rebecca nurse and rebecca just doesn't fit that mold. she's an important member of the church. she gets along well with her family. no scandals there. she has the support of her neighbors after she's we know that she at least gets along well with them, that they will stick their necks out, support her and with categories, historians have come across as other things that could make one more apt to witchcraft accusation. she fits none of them other than her gender, whereas with being a woman would definitely make one more likely to be accused of witchcraft than a man in colonial new england. but other than that, it it's a surprise and her case will be different right off the bat. when when tituba surrogate sarah osborn and the others first appear before the judges in salem village. you're first appearance is it's not technically an arraignment but it's kind of what you'd see on the nightly news day after somebody is arrested and the decision is, is there enough evidence to hold you for trial or is it baseless? and they'll let you go. they will hold everybody for trial in 1692, except for one gentleman. they messed up and they arrested the wrong guy. but everybody who was intentionally arrested will be held. and at these first hearings, their guilt assumed. you have, john hawthorne, jonathan corwin, as the two local judges. and they'll ask questions, not are you a witch, but when did you become a witch? they're assuming you are one with rebecca nurse. they start strong that way, but then they'll start to ease up asking questions like after she's firm, her insistence of innocence. well, if you be not a witch, basically then how else can you explain this? like they're opening the door to maybe this is the first one that they're questioning and thinking is wrong. and what we see is when they start to soften their questions, they're not in a room alone. much of the villages there, many the accusers are there. and afflicted accusers will have fits in those moments where the judges seem to let up and after the fits subside back to hard questioning. and that a real effect. so rebecca nurse with her family there supporting her is assumes that it's a plausible enough accusation to be sent to jail she'll go to the salem jail the boston jail, back to the salem jail. the puritans in massachusetts really have never dealt with arresting about 200 people in such a short amount of time. so there's no jail space yet being moved around. a lot of times. and with nurses is time. when she's first arrested, she was taken to the tavern prior to the judges arriving. salem, a structure that still stands when she appears before her community and before the two judges. it'll be in the meeting house, which is where the salem village church meets. you have woman who had such a pious reputation and who had always been in, we know, one of the front ws with the older women you were assigned based on gender. and then a few other factors this is where she had always been a member of the community and that is where she rt of like ripped out of thcommunity in in this this structure here. our images not of the original the original torn down about a decade after the witch hunt and doesn't exist so we ve an copy that was built in the 1980s. we're fortunate that puritans kept a lot records so buildings can be recreated. we're fortunate they kept a lot of records. otherwise i would have a lot less to say about the witch trials if. it wasn't for all of this, and that's true compared to other events. even at the time there were actually really fortunate with the salem story that we have so much and of there are blanks. of course there might be papers that we don't even know are missing. so you have to be conscious this. but what we have is is really good with nurse in the jail it's a miracle she she survives she's she's 71 at this point in time when she was arrested in 1692, she was ill in bed for eight or nine days. she said. there are people younger and stronger than her that die. she perseveres. this hearing before a community, this time jail, this being separated by her family when she sent all the way to boston, is far from little salem village. that this is not a not a quick trip back then and as if she hasn't gone through enough they will put her on trial at the beginning of of that summer and. by the time she's put on trial the accusations have spread wildly. dozens and dozens have been accused since she was accused that march when she goes before the grand jury in june, they had already executed bridget bishop, the first person accused of witchcraft. when she goes to there is a moment where sense bridget bishop's trial and execution in at the sitting in early june and the nurse's time in the process towards the end of june will it be the same process will it have changed bridget bishop's execution elicits criticism, but the educated in massachusetts, primarily leading, we might not assume the biggest critics. and early on they're the biggest critics of this process, not because they believe which is a real they just don't believe you're actually have enough evidence that you proved that case against bridget bishop. they don't think that conviction was was actually proven when nurse to trial though nothing has changed this criticism not taken into account. it's the same old story. bridget bishop gets her trial is is significant because she'll have the most defense evidence most support from the community out of any those who are accused some of those who are accused, they're families kind of abandon and don't want anything do with them. never mind standing next them and helping their defense at you can imagine that they don't want the suspicion turned on them next so it's a really brave thing that the nurse family sticks with her. they collect a petition. 39 neighbors testifying to her good character. they get other character witnesses, they get pieces of evidence not just of her character, but the sort of attack some of the accusers, those people who recount that they've known that person and instances where they've lied seriously in past. you're really casting doubt on these accusations we see, for example, abigail williams, the minister's niece, one of the first afflicted accusers after nurses trial her her uncle parris will no submit any her testimony to the court that she is so ruined as accuser and as a witness. her reputation is destroyed by the nurse family that that in a way kind of helps all of those accused. you've eliminated one accuser now nurses main accusers will be the putnam family and putnam junior and mrs. and putnam her her her mother with with these accusations since jury questions that they had not seen testimony like this when they go to deliberate they leave the courthouse and in downtown salem leave the main room rather the courtroom. and when they return can, they tell the court that they find rebecca nurse, not guilty. it has a court with a perfect conviction rate. how how could rebecca nurse not be guilty is what the judges are thinking as they sit front of the court. there's a moment where can just imagine everybody in shock and then screams and fits begin as the accusers present visibly appear to be unwell again, as they are being harmed by witchcraft. they've already named rebecca nurse as the person who they believe is doing it to and what will happen is a twist that is legal. the chief justice of the court is is william stoughton, lieutenant governor. he previously in witchcraft accusations it was actually judges in massachusetts who for the previous like 45 years had tried to put the brakes on being accused and executed for witchcraft even if juries found him guilty, oftentimes they wouldn't accept it or would accept the guilty verdict, but refused to execute them in 92, we see that the judges are really eventually become a driving force in in really prosecution of these people. and he allows the jury to be deliberate sense of something they missed, something. rebecca nurse overhead that's really over said that they overheard that's taken out of context it's a phrase where she mentions that somebody was one of us. it's innocent enough. but what does us mean? the other person had also been accused of witchcraft. is that like fellow prisoner, one of us? is it a fellow which one of us? and that's what it hinges on. as i mentioned, being 71 and being really ill, she's been standing in front of a courtroom for what seems like hours. we have a lot of evidence that's given by both sides, so it had to be ours. this is a long time. as witnesses came up, swear to this in front of the judges, all of their pieces of testimony. and she doesn't give the jury satisfied jury answers and when they read deliberate, eventually when the trial ends, they will say that she they do find her guilty because she doesn't satisfactorily address these conclusions. what happens is even at this moment, her family is still with her. her family does not give up. the families of others had we have, for example, sarah goode, who's accused on when her husband is brought forward and asked, what do you think of this witchcraft accusation against your wife? he says she's an enemy of all that is good, not what you want. your significant other to say when you're accused of witchcraft. the nurse family doesn't do that. the nurse family will then petition to the they're trying at any last option that they can get because they know that she's innocent. those 39 neighbors who signed to support her know that she's innocent. they're risking their neck by putting their name on. that petition to if rebecca nurse when she's found guilty those people who sign our petition you've now stood up for someone was guilty of witchcraft that's not a position as the salem villager want it to be in. eventually, it seems as though they tried to appeal. the governor will grant a reprieve. the rebecca nurse will not be executed, presumably for appeal. then it goes away. all we know is some salem gentleman lobbies the governor and it's taken away and she's executed july 19th with about half a dozen as one of half a dozen women. what could have been the first acquittal. and this turning point isn't in august. it's more criticism. the court. court meets again. we have about another half dozen people executed, men and women. this time again in september. the court will meet again another round of executions, about half a dozen men and women. and then giles corey is pressed to death. the nurse family then on to sticking up for rebecca. sisters accused of witchcraft. sarah cloisters and prior to her marriage after her mary steve will be accused and also executed. that's september of of witchcraft they stick together sarah cloy side of the three sisters is the only one who will survive and she survives because. her case hadn't come before the court yet when the court shut down the court is shut down by. the governor, it's the same who sets up the court when he disestablished is that he wants to take a lot of credit of having solved this problem, even though he created this problem, he's set up the court and in terms of opposition to the witch hunt, we see it build after july in a new way with rebecca nurse that there is clearly unease that somebody of that reputation could be believed be a witch and then we have opposition that just grows organically the more people you accuse, the more opponents you get. you might have been on the line if you're an average salem villager or you might have believed it, but then they accuse mother, you're going to turn into an opponent pretty fast. so the more accusation is more opposition, the other level is the prominent ministers of massachusetts who have been critics really from the start of the trials continue. their criticism with nurse herself and her family, we believe there's been a long standing tradition that she'll eventually be reburied on her farm. we know that other victims of the witch hunt are that that is true of george for example as one and knowing that nurse had the greatest support of her family out of any of if anybody was reburied their family, it would seem to be nurse and one the kind of the last thing i wanted to touch upon is one that other books, other examinations of the witch hunt never fully did. and that is you have, the nurse, family. what what happens afterwards? here you have a community that's been wrecked, torn asunder. you have accusers. you have accused how after this court is shut down, you go back home living near somebody who may have caused the death. your mother, your sister, your brother, son, daughter. how does this happen in rebecca case sticks out here as well. i have a picture here just of the first church in danvers which was back then known as the church of christ in salem village. that is the same congregation that exists today that had existed in 1692 in terms of putting the story back together, nurse will be the first person accused and executed for witchcraft and all of north america to be memorialized. we have her church dealing with this issue here. we have our church centennial marker of a new minister who comes in after the witch hunt, salem village. those who had someone accused in their family will never worship again with reverend parris. reverend parris testifies against rebecca, one of the most well respected people who attended his his sermons. it takes six years for them to get reverend parris to quit and leave town. this is a battle still her family is fighting battle even six years after she has been killed. there'll be a series of lawsuits. for example, and they even go before some of the same judges who had done the witch trials, which is this cruel irony that the family has to appear before those same judges, in some cases that rebecca nurse herself had. how uncomfortable one can't even imagine this after parris leaves in this new minister comes in, the nurse, family and others will return to church. because it's not reverend this church. they had made clear all along. problem is not with the church. it's with parris personally. after this with nurse being the first one memorialized at 85 her descendants ancizens of the town of danvers formerly salem village gather and they will raising money to rrse nurse gets a monument you can see in the middle in 15 one of the gentlemen in the bottom front left, his hat on his knee is theastor of what was the church of salem village, the first church at that point in time who attends this and speaks of great wrongs that need e righted in that history of the community that we start to see this recognition. it'll be worlid news. a monument was erected to somebody who had been killed for allegedly being a witch. it had really never happened before. not just north america, but this is not something that is common in any way in the whole western world to remember somebody who had who died under it for such an alleged reason here. now, this is the globe. there are other newspapers in paris. there are german language newspapers, australian newspapers,ewapers in england, newspapers all across the west, the south in america reporting on thith monument. now, if you look at it the so the whole front left is the story monument. you can take a look at how the globe portrays it. that's what it actually is. so, i don't know. the boston globe get carried away, putting it on their front page. there. this is a picture from 2017 that was a 3th anniversary of the execution of nurse, where we have this this wreath and monument to her is is moving it words by john greenleaf carved in it who later lives down the road from her farm. somehow she is the first to be able to be remembered by the rest of those victims of the witch hunt won't have their names carved in stone till 1992. she's more than a century head start on them. clearly, she's special there's something about her that drew people to remember. there was something special at thtime the led so many peopl to stick their necks out and put their on the line to remember her because of her good reputation as it's seen in the documents and she has stuck out all along her home is the only home of a victim of the witch hunt that is preserved and you can visit still a unique of status. there are other homes of people who are kids and executed of witchcraft. there just have nobody has ever turned them into a museum. so there really is something about this story and the way it plays out, which is why i had picked nurse to be the one to focus on and i wanted to leave you here at the memorial to all of the others and the picture of my of of the cover here which we can talk about in a moment, because i already had a question in advance about about that one. so we'll get to that. but what i wanted to say first is i wanted to thank you all coming out for hearing about the story. rebecca nurse and sort remembering what i think is a key story in american history. so thank you very much. so are our question in advance was about the cover. now most biographies that you've probably ever seen or ever bought have a picture of the person whose life the book is about. it's logical and it would make a lot of sense. we we weren't lucky enough to have likeness of rebecca nurse to use as i mentioned, with the paris portrait. he's one of the few. we have an image of the others have images of our primarily just the judges on, the court that set up being more prominent people being very wealthy people but not nurse this is an artifact, not the jar, but the pins in the jar from the time of the trials, this was kept for many years in the old courthouse building in the law library. there was a little display which i had walked by once on jury duty but never actually looked and saw the pins. this was many, many years ago, and they had a couple copies of documents. and this jar, this photos, the 1890s, which is why it's this black and white sort of image. it is in its original they didn't tint it for the cover or anything that is the image looks like and the pins there were reputed to be pins from the actual trials. one of the things that those who were afflicted claimed to have witchcraft done to them is that when they said that people were hurting them with witchcraft, at first there's no physical evidence of this. they just say as they're yelling that somebody is is hurting them when it continues, they're going to start to say that there's specters or ghostly images of somebody who they say are appearing and like sticking them with pins and putting them will claim that rebecca nurse's image to her in late march and whips her with an invisible chain and that example there's no chain produced but there's marks on her arm looks like a chain. there's physical evidence which is some level of fraud in all of those instances to different degrees. but it nurses trial in particular at one person is going to claim that although she's standing up front of the courthouse somehow her image in the side of the room is hurting her. this is this is a middle aged woman, sara biber, who will scream and everybody looks there's blood running down her leg. and she says, this is from a pen. look, i have pen. that that the specter allegedly used. now, nurses, daughter in law actually will write down later that she saw sara biber take a pen out of her skirt, poke herself on purpose and will be scenes that are repeated in many of the trials that some are not just nurses. so what's in the jar are allegedly pens were used that way now these were with the trials and are of the right age some of are possibly or even likely are actually originally paper clips. they kept the trial records together. we don't know if those are actually the pens to rebecca nurse this trial but it's one of the few physical items we have related to the witch trials, other than paperwork, we might have some items that belong to some of the people involved, but it's not an item from the trial that really is one of the few things that that exist. and that's why that was chosen for the cover there. that idea that what's in that jar was either in one's mind or falsely in reality used to torment someone. if it was witchcraft. so i would ask for other questions as well. yes, ma'am. what what ever came about with paris's older daughter's the one that ran into the fire? i mean, that's just not. what did they think actually caused those behaviors? because i remember reading once they thought that there may have been a mold or something that had grown on the wheat or the rye that they used, bread that may have been a hallucinogen. i don't know if any of that was ever like what would cause that. so in our first instance of this so-called old affliction, using the word affliction, because they believe it's witchcraft, it seems as though it begins as something psychological in that household. they're under lot of stress that winter. are they going to live through the winter and that somehow this anxiety would manifest that way? now, that's only two people, though and it will spread. it's kind of the first wave of who it spreads to or other teenage women, young women in their early twenties who do have things, their background that are extraordinarily traumatic many of them are not living with their families because their families aren't alive anymore. at least one. it's believed that she saw. her turkey or parents were or were hacked to death and in wars with the natives and such. and so these are things that would leave real deep impact and perhaps hearing about what was somehow triggers this to to occur and to spread. that being said, that really seemingly only accounts for the that doesn't account for pulling a pin out of your dress and stabbing yourself or rebecca nurses trial. absolutely not. that does not make any sense. and pretty early as it continues, we're going to see evidence with the nurse, with those in paris's household. it seem as though something is legitimately wrong that at the start with those young women it's it's and even more so with putnam who then accused rebecca nurse being kind of that second wave of age young women. but once you get past their that can explain it once bridget bishop is executed at the beginning of june, however they're there of committed to their story they're kind of locked in the point of no return you then change your mind if you're an accuser, say, oh, never mind, you've killed someone. and so especially as it continues, that's where you get the more fake evidence. now, the question about the the mold, the potential for egotism, ergot being a fungus that grows on on rye bread was something that was put forward in the 1970s as a as an explanation and as the theory originally went. if you eat the the the grain that has this mold in it, which grows in damp areas, it in true fashion of the time it's compared to lsd that you could hallucinate it and see things. and well, if they said that they were seeing things and they thought things were hurting them that weren't real. okay, maybe could kind of see that it doesn't line up though with all the details it's disproven, so to speak or heavily rebutted. we all, i should say to be more precise, it's rebutted only six months after it's published. yet it isn't every special. the salem witch trials you will ever see hear on the radio. ever. it's such a like attention grabbing sensational story because you have this in your mind of the puritans and then taking lsd and it's just such a sensational it's a sensational idea. and the reason it totally line up is that particular particular kind of egotism. yes, you could hallucinate. these people lived on different parts of the village. they totally different crops. some might have been in damp areas, some are on top of hills like the putnam family. so you wouldn't have had moldy crops there and other things with the kind of egotism you hallucinate also you gangrene. and after that amount of time you'd be quite visibly having gangrene and we have a lot of wild accusations in 60, 92. we have accusations justify belief. there's got to be a gentleman they say comes down the north river and salem walking on a flying saucer. they're going to write things like that. there's another gentleman. they say could control. people's bladders make could for weeks without being able to go to the bathroom. then he'd change his mind. you would not be able to stop urinating for days wild accusations that we think of, like, how could you ever come up with this? so if we have such detailed things, if somebody was turning green, i do think this would have been written down. now, a lack of evidence can't really be used as evidence, but i imagine would have heard that. and the last part of that, which is really true of other like physical theories there's other physical illness theories of could be lyme disease, it could be some kind of encephalitis is put forward. but as it continues, the fits of the afflicted happen conveniently in a way that a physical illness wouldn't it lines up with, for example, the lessening up of questions against rebecca nurse that her initial hearing a physical illness would not have suddenly all of those people out there one moment in time something psychological actually could have been sort of triggered by that at, the same moment, whatever likeliness of that or when fits become really convenient throughout that summer seems as though they might not be real and that we might have some fake fits there. but either way, that the physical kind of just doesn't line up. but that's a great question because that is something that very often up. so i'm happy that you asked that question. that's real good. any others? yes. i should point the only witch trial there were nine people hung in connecticut before. this that what people don't know about in hartford and that area also wasn't the end of it. there was. some in virginia after this. but two things have always bothered me. the girls, one of them openly admitted think in ingersoll tavern that were doing it for sport. right. so why were never any. and you mentioned that there was a woman caught committing fraud, trying to stab herself. why weren't there any ramifications or prosecute russians or anything these people afterwards of any of this? you know, and why was from my understanding, is there were no trial records kept or they were destroyed or something. was that convenient or is there a reason for that? good questions. so at the first one, yes, salem is not the first time in colonial new england or the world where people are accused and executed for witchcraft, unlike other that often turned outbreaks of witchcraft accusations as interesting a term as that is, you would never this many people accused in such a short. that being said it pales in comparison to people being accused of witchcraft in europe, where you will have hundreds of people accused in various cities and in short lengths of of of time with. the question about the accuser is there is a moment where in the tavern in salem village some afflicted accusers or overheard as saying it is blood sport. these accusations and it's the tavern keeper's wife mrs. ingersoll who who is the one who's there for scene and it's actually overheard. two gentlemen from beverly who happened to be visiting and they they hear this and they'll write it down and it becomes part of the court records. that's how we of that instance, as the two gentlemen write it down. it's just not seriously considered somehow, to be honest, that everything else is so convincing the way that it seems like people are being hurt, the way that they're behaving it kind of just defies any explanation and they on this with the example at rebecca nurse's trial that is sent to the governor and probably the main reason that he appears willing to grant them an appeal. it's one of the things at least he takes into consideration. so yeah. that is seen as as highly irregular. there will be other instances at sarah goode's trial where somebody will produce fake evidence right around the time of rebecca nurses. that's the same the same session here in the early summer who will come forward with the broken knife. and he will say a specter tried to stab me with this knife and i broke the knife. here's the piece. and then there's another person in the audience who says, no, that's mine. here i have the other half. well, that's to absolutely being called out as lying and that person is, quote, better not to tell lies and is is not then put trial for bearing false witness that's bearing witness in a capital case. it's a crime. you can't lie in a courtroom when somebody is on trial for their life, there are no consequences. there won't be part of it. i think is when it ends, people just want it all to have ended. when it ends, it's known that it's been done wrong. there's more and more opposition gathering. the governor stop the court because it becomes well, as the governor, he sees as politically untenable that it is not doing right and people are realizing this. and now he's realized it could endanger his job. and so is going to stop it. so right in that moment at the end of october, early november 1692, it's known that it's all wrong. their what they did was not correct, that that court was not following the rules. this is clear to the vast majority of people, but there is no accountability there's no accountability to the accusers accusers, some of whom will will leave the village, some whom will stay in the village and live near those people that you may have accused. there's also no accountability for those who facilitated this like the judges. the judges, what they will eventually the state legislature, the rather the colony's legislature will will pass an act clearing people's names years afterwards. and they specifically put down, to paraphrase. but you sue anybody about it because they want to protect the government of massachusetts from being sued because it is the government of massachusetts that does this with the accusers there's this idea we only have one of their words, it's not even really their words. and that's an putnam jr on record as talking about her actions and they call it her apology. she's not and it's not an apology. the what it boils down to is she says she's deluded and the devil made her do it. all these accusations and she's the number one accuser. she's the she accuses or as part of the cases of 69 out of the 200 people, the number one in terms of numbers. so she's says the devil made her do it and it's her father's fault. her father's long dead. easy to blame a dead person not going to talk back, but she never owns it herself. and so that is that's really written her minister we would seems but that's the only public statement we have from one of the accusers and they even vote to let her the salem village church after all this. so not only is there not a negative, but they actually give her this position that is enviable. you had to be voted in. it's a small minority of people. got it. so, yeah, i don't have a perfect answer to your question, but that is one of the things that we continue to scratch our heads and unfortunately we lose track of many of those afflicted accusers. they marry their name changes. they move towns. and a lot of them we kind of can't trace can trace they in putnam and we know that she later dies in salem village really young. we know that betty parris will move with reverend parris to the area of stowe and then lexington and they will live there, never prosecuted for any wrongdoing. reverend parris himself testified against people. i mean, he would be a candidate for being accused of false witness just as the accusers themselves, he under oath to things he couldn't have known, were. but there are no repercussions. there are no consequences. nothing. in fact, most of the judges will go on to get promoted to other jobs in the government. so opposite is true, that one? yes. there was always the theory put forward too that it was used by some people like the putnam family as a power and land grab. is there truth to that at all? no. and this is a theory that sort of lingered in kind of two different ways. so the land grab theory, which i think we kind of blame the crucible in terms of its in in american thought as that being tied it's sort of implies it which is so many people in the united states. their first introduction to the witch trials was reading the crucible high school. that is just a very common it's not history, though. it's theater. and if you accuse somebody of witchcraft was no benefit to you tangibly. you do not get anything from them. you do not get their land. no women in colonial massachusetts could not own land. vast majority of people accused were women. you're not getting anything from them. they legally don't own anything. it's their husband who technically owns everything. the owns with the idea of the putnam's in some sort of power struggle. that is one that has lingered, maybe even more so as think of it as like two factions in salem village, two factions. you have the putnam faction and you have a faction that the nurse family is in. and this was a longstanding belief that really only begins to be challenged about ten or 12 years ago. the historians started to poke a couple of holes in that. the things that didn't quite line up this idea, that you have a western faction that's the farmers, this eastern faction that's more involved with the trade in salem town and not so much farming. and it doesn't work. it doesn't work there. one actually maps out the accusers than the accused. you can't a neat line. the previous historians had done on the map. from the map there doesn't actually include everybody. so it only includes those who there's a line. so that doesn't make sense. the east and the west. it doesn't make sense. furthermore, any differences the nurses in the putnam's are on the same side of pretty much every issue before the witch trials. why would they not be getting along? what? where, what? what are they? factions or for? what dispute? they both want salem village to become independent. they're both involved in hiring reverend parris there doesn't seem to be anything to divide them except afterwards. and a lot of evidence that's used for this factionalism actually comes from those six years afterwards after the witch hunt. you've. a faction, the ones who get rid of parris. after the witch hunt, you have a faction, the wanted to keep them. those factions exist only because of the witch hunt. you can't use that as evidence for what people thought before the witch hunt because everything changes in 1692, nurse, family wanted to hire parris after he testifies against rebecca nurse, they want to fire him. that is the that's the moment that they changed their opinion. there's nothing else that changes their opinion that we know of at that point in time. so that's a great question. and that's one that i really explored in this because it's a belief that never never to me seem to fit this idea of two factions and even it's repeated in films even even the excellent films like three sovereigns for sarah about rebecca nurse and her two sisters. it's the most historically accurate portrayal of the salem witch trials until the end, when suddenly there's a map and they're talking about two halves of the village as being against each other. and it line up with what those people. so thank you for asking that any others? yes, ma'am. it was power and it wasn't in regards to opinion on certain political things. what do you think could have driven those people to accuse rebecca and the others? what was their motivation for accusation? good with each case, there's a unique set of circumstances when it appears one of the afflicted accusers would name somebody, especially as it goes on the others back up this accusation perhaps again, if it's psychological, they might believe that accusation and then the suggestible committee of they themselves thinking they're also hurt by this this this person who's been accused with nurse we have a mysterious origin of her first being named as a witch. it comes from the household of the putnam family where mrs. putnam and in putnam junior liv. there's others in household, and we know it comes from there. after rebecca nurse is arrested and prepares before the judges the next day, her son and one of her sons in law go the putnam family. and they ask them questions. they they're basically already on day one like planning her defense is the point of it and if they can figure out why she's accused you could tailor the defense seems to be their plan at least when one reads what they say and they write down everything that happened to submit to the court of like we questioned them as some kind of evidence. it's not really totally clear at what stage that's submitted, but it's in the court record. so it's it is submitted and what they get the women and teenage girls in the putnam never give them a straight answer they all point fingers at one another and say it was you, it was you and as her son in law says, they turned it against one another. what we know is and putnam junior saw a specter or an image and she describes it someone other her identifies and putnam can only identify it as elderly woman sat next to my grandmother in the meeting house looking at you part of what gender and age is how you're seated. so that whole pew would have been full of elderly women it's that doesn't narrow down but what's fascinating is and putnam claims she doesn't know this person's name how in such a small community where everybody attends services every. can we believe that she had never even heard rebecca nurse's name she sits next to her grandmother. you think in some way this just like would have come up before and she denies it and says it's either her mother or the so-called servant in the household another puritan woman, a young woman who says, but but they never get to the root of it. what we know is after that moment, it's just taken up. it's taken up by all the others who support it in putnam accusation. and so the nurse family are frustrated by that. that's why they go and ask and that also kind of gets back to the the the factional question if they were in a true like factional setting and absolutely hated the putnam's and the putnam is absolutely hated them. why would the putnam's have invited them into their home to like be questioned. that doesn't seem imply bad blood in the past and we don't really understand beyond that we don't have a record if. there was any one moment that i wish we had like a couple more sentences on would be there what it could be is some historians considered maybe and putnam had bad feelings about grandmother and it was just some sort of like association type psychological thing. i'm not going in on that one. i don't i don't quite go for that one. but it is shocking. it's shocking to other people. the nurses name. do you think it would have been shocking to her family if they believed this was real here? but although she first mentions it, the one who at rebecca nurses initial hearing is actually the strongest witness against her is her mother, mrs. and putnam, who has to be carried out because she is such a bad fit. one rebecca nurses before the judges and so she's actually the real turning point and as an adult lodging the accusation it's taken much more seriously than. a teenage and so i would say that that's kind of the key turning point how mrs. putnam what led her even once the name is muttered once to immediately take this up and she her fits at that beginning do seem if thinks it's psychologically genuine with the beginning few people she's the same is what it looks like and feel so at a lost a child and there's some things in her background but it's just how one moment, it's just a moment and next thing you know you'll be the next person arrested. it's just it is that scary of a situation. and the others are. yes, ma'am. so in the beginning, you said that the nurse family was well-to-do. they were late on their mortgage. they didn't pay their taxes. how did this financial impact them if they had to mount a defense and then to lose someone, even if she was 71, that was helping to maintain and their property as well as mary if mary was also living on part of that 300 acres or not. so with a financial their defense mounted by themselves it was no money hands but as actually charles upham in book salem witchcraft, the middle of the 19th century writes he has he has several good lines about how not all the farming got done that summer because of the witch hunt and his point actually because so many people wanted to attend the trials they left their fields alone but you can see as well course this is monopolizing the nurse family's time that they can't in any way be productive. we don't really have returns that would would tell us that financial impact but they do continue be behind and that's and that doesn't it that doesn't change that that continues with with her sister mary had not been living her farm but had been living in tom's field also with some of her nearby to in that general area. no the financial effect could be when they're in jail the families would often go and provide supplies to their loved ones in jail. and when names are finally cleared in the early 1700s, the government of massachusetts doesn't. it's not it's not like reparations, because there's no admission of wrongdoing there's a small level of compensation for what families spent. really, the idea is the burden of for your loved one in jail. it's not money meant to make for a wrongdoing. it's it's it's almost more like a reimbursement type thing. and the nurse family is interesting in that as they're one of the biggest forces lobbying the government. and then they're asked as a legal paperwork. so how much was it worth? and they refused to put a number on their piece of paper. they're not going to like quantify what they went through in any way. and so someone else writes in a number of pounds. it's legally not a request. it's not a petition. and plus, you're asking for a certain amount of money of the government. and so somebody just just writes it in and but they say they just quantify it. they themselves will not put a price on what's happened. but how much higher. and then the question, oh, you please i have a lot of questions. how long after rebecca was put to death before? her husband died because you said that they didn't live long enough for him to see the end of their mortgage. it is three years. wow. and he will he will continue to live on that farm. their youngest son, wife and, then granddaughter live with him. so he he he continues to live there. but he dies at 60, 95, 16, 98 would have been the end of the the mortgage. so no, he doesn't it's old age at that point in time. any other questions? yes, sir. now, if they young child ran into a fireplace and tried to crawl up the chimney there, obviously would be horrific injuries are any reports that there was anyone really injured or did this story happen at all with? that story we have. uh, i don't corroboration or witnesses than others in this when mrs. ingersoll, the tavern keeper's wife is present. this happens when. there's a visiting minister from boston, and we don't have, like a documented injuries or, anything, basically, because they immediately grab her and get her out of there before it can be long enough to hurt her. but there actually are multiple witnesses, not just from like one family, is what i mean to say who saw this incident happen. when this minister do that, lawson comes to visit salem village a month, almost a month. it's a few weeks after nurse is the end of march. he comes in april and he actually publish in april findings. he writes down what he sees when he goes to salem village. that's actually spreads a lot of away awareness and belief that thought it was true. thanks to his pamphlet the beginning of april. but that's something he documents. also, you can kind of see in his documentation is the moment he arrives in salem village and he's staying at the tavern, which doubles as a hotel basically back then he hasn't even crossed the threshold and one of the accusers is showing him a mark where allegedly witchcraft happens. like you got to imagine the guy's had even taken off his coat yet and somebody is coming forward with this, which seems very convenient and that is likely an example of something being fraudulent and and orchestrated. what are the odds that you happen to arrive right at this moment in time they knew he was coming he was staying at the tavern that's something that someone could have anticipated and essentially set up mean to say. all right. well thank you all very much for your questions. i'm so happy you were here today and have a good rest of your well, welcome, everyone, to