\u2022 Robert Lord, III (1657-1735)<\/strong>: My wife\u2019s 7th great-grandfather.<\/p>\r\nA blacksmith by trade and a resident of nearby Ipswich, Robert Lord was contracted to make handcuffs and fetters and attach them to four prisoners in the Ipswich prison, the evidence of which we have in the bill he submitted for his services. The Salem prison was overflowing with people accused of witchcraft, so neighboring prisons, including the one in Ipswich, were enlisted to help contain the accused.<\/p>\r\n
One of the women Lord made and attached handcuffs and fetters to was Mary Easty, who was hanged at the same time as Samuel Wardwell on September 22, 1692. Another was Mary\u2019s sister Sarah Cloyce, whose husband had formerly been married to Hannah Littlefield, and Sarah was helping raise Hannah\u2019s children. [Hannah Littlefield was my wife\u2019s eighth great-grandaunt.]<\/p>\r\n
These two women, in their 50s, were accused of being witches by Thomas Putnam and his associates because they were married to men who were directly or indirectly in land disputes with the Putnam family.<\/p>\r\n
From The Devil Discovered<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n\u201cIn mid- June [1692] Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyce were transferred from the Boston prison to the Ipswich prison. An account of Robert Lord, blacksmith of Ipswich from about July 31 reads, \u2018For making four pairs of iron fetters and two pairs of handcuffs and putting them on to the legs and hands of Goodwife Cloyce, Easty, Brumidge, and Green. \u00a31.12.0.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\r\n
\u2022 John Littlefield (1624-1697)<\/strong>: My wife\u2019s eighth great-granduncle<\/p>\r\nJohn Littlefield was a resident of Wells, Maine, which was one of the most northerly outposts of New England and which came under frequent Indian attacks in the French-Indian wars. Two of my wife\u2019s ancestral families, the Littlefields and Wardwells, were among the first settlers of the area in the 1600s. Some of the Littlefield homes became ‘garrison’ homes during Indian raids: places which were better fortified and where townfolk gathered to protect themselves.<\/p>\r\n
Captain John Littlefield was dispatched to Boston in 1691 to deliver a request written by his friend the town\u2019s minister, George Burroughs, for more soldiers to repel the Indian attacks and protect the townfolk. When a party of soldiers arrived later that year, the townspeople were relieved . . . only to find that they had not come to protect the village but to arrest its minister as a witch.<\/p>\r\n
From The Devil Discovered<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n\u201cOnce again, on September 28, 1691, with the embattled garrisons surrounded by Indians, Burroughs appealed to the Council in Boston. A young man, venturing forth less than a hundred feet outside the garrison to fetch some firewood, had been captured by the stealthy Indians. Burroughs writes, \u2018Whereas it has pleased God, to let loose the heathen upon us, keeping us in close garrison, and daily lying in wait to take any that go forth, whereby we are brought very low, not all the corn is judged enough to keep the inhabitants themselves one half year. We therefore humbly request your honors to continue soldiers among us to remain with us for winter. We had a youth, seventeen years of age, last Saturday carried away, who went (not above gunshot) from Lieut. Storer\u2019s garrison to fetch a little wood in his arms. We have desired our loving friends, Captain John Littlefield and Ensign John Hill, to present this to your honors.\u2019<\/p>\r\n
\u201cOn May 2, 1692, for a brief moment, the people of Wells thought that the aid they had so long hoped and prayed for finally had arrived. On that day Field Marshal John Partridge rode into Storer\u2019s garrison with a few men. But instead of carrying good news of reinforcements, Partridge carried an arrest warrant. To the astonishment of his parishioners and comrades, the Rev. George Burroughs, the garrison\u2019s bastion of strength, a true minister of God, was arrested for witchcraft; the afflicted girls of Salem Village were claiming that \u2018he was above a witch, for he was a conjurer.\u2019 At the precise point when he was most needed, Burroughs was taken captive and carried from Wells to Salem prison to stand trial for his life.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cTwo months later, on August 10, 1692, the Rev. George Burroughs, age forty-one, was hanged in Salem.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Many of the historical events that seem remote and immaterial to us today greatly affected those who lived through them, including our forefathers and mothers. The Salem witch trials and executions were gruesome examples of the dark side of human nature, in which one person\u2019s or a group\u2019s hatreds, jealousies, and vengeance, when left unchecked, caused widespread pain and death.<\/p>\r\n
In our modern era it may be appropriate to recognize September 22nd as Witch\u2019s Day, an appropriate start to the Halloween season, and a time to reflect on the trials of our ancestor\u2019s difficult lives . . . and how best to light our own dark times through warmth, compassion, tolerance, and rationality.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the ugliest chapters of American history, the Salem witch trails of 1692, affected a number of our ancestors. According to an insightful book on the subject, The Devil Discovered: Salem Witchcraft 1692, by Enders A. Robinson, the witch hunt \u201cwas driven by conspiracies of envious men [namely, the extended family of Thomas Putnam] … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Witch’s Day — September 22nd”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1936,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/1936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.thundermoon.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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