Demystifying Witchcraft in Portsmouth and Salem |
HISTORY MATTERS
“Oh God, it’s October again!” Prof. Emerson Baker groans over the phone, and I can almost hear his eyeballs roll up towards the heavens. Reporters by the dozen call “Tad” Baker this time of year for their annual Halloween fix. (Continued below)
But it’s his own fault. Dr. Baker teaches history at Salem State College in
The curse of
“It’s really too bad,” Baker says. “It [witchcraft] really has more to do with
What began as clever “branding” has morphed, for many, into a cheesy stereotype of Hollywood-influenced fiction – more Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter than historic
“Historians and locals want to tell the
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The devil next door
“Here was this case of witchcraft that was exciting,” Baker says, “because it broke the stereotype in so many ways. It’s not taking place in
Baker uses the
“Once you get north of the Merrimack River and into
Hag-ridden in
Baker, who lives in nearby York, Maine, is familiar with well-known local cases like Goodwife Cole in Hampton who was frequently jailed for her supposed witchcraft in what, essentially, was a dispute over property ownership.
Brewster did not treat the legends as fact, but passed them along to entertain his newspaper readers. An article entitled “Witchcraft in
Referring to a dilapidated house in the South End Brewster wrote:
“The superstitious were therefore very careful about passing such houses by night, especially in dark and stormy weather, when, as many believed in those days, the witches would sally out from the house and, if successful in casting a horse's bridle over the head of any person passing by, would immediately transform the victim into a horse, and after having him shod with iron shoes, would ride the animal till it became tired, and just before daylight would turn it loose in the street. The persons thus afflicted would the next day find prints of the horse nails on their hands.”
“That’s where you get the term ‘hag-ridden,’” Baker says without a pause. His mind is an encyclopedia of the Dark Arts. The term reminds him of a major outbreak of witchcraft in the Piscataqua region in 1656. That’s when Eunice Cole and Jane Walford and William Ham and Thomas Turpin were accused of witchery.
“Witchcraft is a working class crime,” Baker says, and even in its heyday was rarely taken seriously by the learned judges of the era. “It was sort of a way to slander your neighbors or to get back at people who have done something to you.”
Local accusations against Jane Walford, Baker suggests, appear to be attempts to get back at her husband Thomas who was a powerful person in the community. Walford was in charge of redoing the seating plan in the meeting house in
“People got really bent out of shape over these seating plans,” Baker says. It brought the original Royalists or “Old Planters” in town directly into conflict with the newly arriving Puritans. When John Pickering, one of the founders of
Unable to fight back politically or legally, Baker says, citizens during these turbulent times resorted to calling each other witches and wizards. The most vulnerable person to attack in this case, Baker suggests, was Walford’s wife.
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Just think “terrorist”
Brewster all but ridicules those who take the stories literally. Even in the 1830s, he points out; intelligent
Brewster was bothered towards the end of his life by the rise of Spiritualism and Mesmerism that offered scientific explanations for ghostly and supernatural events. “It is science now,” he scoffs, “it was witchcraft then.” The Age of Enlightenment, he implies, might be giving way again to superstition.
“It [spiritualism] really starts again in the wake of the Civil War when everyone is trying to connect to their lost loved ones,” Baker says. The revival of superstition seems to be on the rise again as evidenced by the modern fascination with all things paranormal, from vampire films and TV ghost hunters to the boom in Halloween tourism.
But, hopefully, Baker says, there is a difference. When we’re talking about witches in the 17th century, it’s not superstition; it’s the accepted belief system of the day.
“If you’re living in
How does 17th century
The early residents of the Piscataqua faced harsh weather, darkness, wild animals, Native Americans, sickness, and mystifying events – not to mention the very real existence of witches and the devil. If you swap the word “terrorist” for “witch,” Baker says, modern Americans can begin to understand the problem our ancestors faced. We have not advanced so far as we may think.
“People today think we’re so sophisticated,” Baker says, “and we don’t believe in superstition. Well – do you believe in terrorists? Yes? Well, have you ever met a terrorist? Have you ever been harmed by a terrorist? What do they look like?”
It’s even more scary, Baker points out, if the terrorists look just like you, and might be sitting right next to you in church. This region was far from the civilized world of
“This was the howling wilderness, a place of chaos and disorder. It was the devil’s lair. Living in the Piscataqua you were barely in civilized land.”
Baker pauses, unable to resist. “Some would say we’re still barely civilized. Go out in the woods tonight without a flashlight and let’s see what happens.”
Copyright © 2011 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved. Robinson’s column appears in the Portsmouth Herald every other Monday and exclusively online at his independent Web site SeacoastNH.com. His newest hardcover history book is