Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. Alright, so welcome back Patreon. Hi subscribers.
Hello. I'm so glad you came back for me. I mean, me and Haley. Yes.
Well it's been a week. I have so many damn canker sores on my tongue. I can barely speak. I don't know why.
I don't know what it is. I bet it is. I bet it is. I have a lot of stress.
I think it could be it. If you know how to get rid of them let us know. Yeah, so it doesn't. I've been like um rinsing with um salt water.
No, actually what's that stuff you could use to like dye your hair? No! No, no, no, no, no. Um, peroxide.
Yeah, I've been rinsing with peroxide and that'll help for a little while like it'll take some of the pain away. It's for that aniseptic um but then it just comes back. So yeah, it's just super painful. So if you guys know how to get rid of it, water.
Salt water. Oh, I'll try it. Try salt water. We'll see.
Yeah, it's the worst. It hurts. So worst. All right.
What you got for me? We are since it's you know um October. It's spooky times. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about the Salem witch trials.
Yes. Which are pretty cool. They're so cool. This is going to be pretty like brief history.
Oh, it's because it's just we're pretty in depth. Yeah, we're just hitting the highlights here because I could go on for hours about this and there's so many like cool things you can watch or read or you know whatever but I just want to you know just kind of get into it. Do it. All right.
So Salem witch trials. They occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. During this time there were more than 200 people accused of witchcraft or the devil's magic. You so would be.
Oh, for sure. Would have 100% been accused witch. Yeah. Around 20 people were executed.
Eventually the colony did admit that the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Yeah, because that really brings their family back. It sure does. So they were like, you know what?
We'll just shell out some cash for you. Yeah. Yeah. So since you know this all happened in the 1600s and more common or in more recent years it's been kind of this synonym of like witch trial with paranoia and injustice in the world and it continues to influence our culture and our pop culture and all that.
Absolutely. Especially in regard to women. Yes, 100%. All right.
So let's talk a little bit about early Salem. So many practicing Christians and those of other religions had the strong belief that the devil could give certain people known as witches the power to harm others and return to their loyalty. So if you pledged yourself to the devil, the devil would give you these powers. Hey, is that why I have these swords on my tongue?
This is what you've done? Yes. Yes. Don't smell hate me.
It's like a no. Never. Never. Okay.
So a witchcraft craze as it was called, rippled through Europe from the 1300s all the way to the end of the 1600s. There were tens of thousands of supposed witches, which is the shaker that were most of women, were executed throughout this time in Europe and the Salem trials came on just as the European craze was kind of winding down. So it was trendy in Europe and now it's come over here to the United States and it's kind of escalating. Yes.
As it tends to do. But their Salem had kind of his own local issues that it was dealing with that kind of sparked this witchcraft craze. Let's see here. Might not have disappeared.
Please hold. There they are. Here we go. All right, they turn on your west now.
All right. We're in 1689. We've got some English rulers William and Mary. They decided to start a war with France and the American colonies.
This was known as King William's War. Now it really messed up up state, York, Nova Scotia and Quebec and ended up sending refugees into the county of Essex and specifically Salem Village in Massachusetts Bay Colony. So Salem Village is what they were calling Salem Village is present day in Danvers, Massachusetts. Colonial Salem's house is kind of a long name.
And that's what kind of is left of the original Salem. So if you're going to visit, you'll go to Danvers, Massachusetts and visit colonial. We have plenty of them. I just want to go.
I want to go. So these displaced people that were kind of refugees from the war created a strain on the resources in Salem, which it would. This really aggravated the existing rivalry between families with ties to the wealth of the port of Salem and those who still depended on agriculture. So you had kind of this rivalry between the townsfolk and the farmers, which is still kind of a thing.
Yeah, it was like it's not uncommon right now. There was also some controversy over a Reverend Samuel Paris, who became Salem Village's first ordained minister in 1689. And he was pretty disliked because of his quote, rigid ways and greedy nature, which is never good for a minister. No.
The Puritan villagers believed all this fighting and controversy and everything was the work of the devil. All right. Moving on, January of 1692, Reverend Paris's daughter Elizabeth, who was nine and his niece Abigail Williams, who was 11, started having fits. They screamed through things, uttered weird sounds and kind of contorted themselves into strange positions.
Sounds like a seizure. Right. It just, it was very odd. A local doctor blamed the supernatural because why not?
You know what? He didn't know what the hell it was. He's like, well, it does be the ghost. That's the devil.
It's the devil. The devil. We're also talking about Puritan society here. Yes.
Yeah. So another girl and Putnam, she was 11, started experiencing some similar episodes. On February 29th, there was some pressure from Magisterates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorn and to kind of figure out like, what the heck's going on? Like, who's the devil in this place?
We got to find the devil and rid the spirits because Puritans. The girls blamed three women for afflicting them. These were Titchba. The Paris is Caribbean slave because it is the 7, 16, of course, 7, 100s and that's a thing that happened.
Sarah Goode, who was a homeless beggar and Sarah Osborn, who was an elderly impoverished woman. Of course, poor of another race, you know. It's like easy to blame. Homeless.
Like, yeah, we want these people out of our society. So we blame them for it. And these are also 11 and 9 year old girls. Right.
Why are we trusting them? Exactly. Why are we even talking to them? Exactly.
All right. So all three of these women were brought before the local Magisterates and interrogated for several days beginning on March 1st of 1692. Osborn and Goode claimed in a sense that we're like, what are you like, absolutely not? What are you talking about?
Titchba, however, confess. Which in my mind, I'm thinking Titchba was kind of like the hell you talking about. What like, because what she says is kind of like, smart assy like I would. Oh, you die for sure.
And I die immediately because they'd be like, well, you just confess. I'm like, what are you talking about? This is absolutely insane. Get the to the stocks.
Yeah. So Titchba said, the devil came to me and bid me serve him. She described elaborate images of black dogs, red cats, yellow birds, and a black man who wanted her to sign his book. She admitted that she had signed the book and said there were several other witches looking to destroy these Puritans.
Oh my god. So she's like, to me, Titchba's just like pulling out random things. And it's like, you're an idiot. You're crazy.
Or maybe she did believe in some like voodoo magic or something. But also like thinking, I'm not cursing children. I also want to throw out the chances are they beat and starve these women into confessions. Oh, I'm gonna say.
So you're hungry. You're gonna say whatever, you know, how pretty. Right. All three women were put in jail.
Of course they were. So this kind of planted that seed of paranoia. There were more out there. And there's a stream of accusations that kind of came out of this.
And everybody's telling everybody that someone says a witch and all this nuts. Charges against Martha Corey, who was a loyal member of the church in Salem Village, greatly concerned the community. You know, she's this well-to-do church she woman. And she's been accused of being a witch.
Wow. So now the community's like, oh my god, if she could be a witch, anybody could be a witch. Magistrates even questioned Sarah Goode's four-year-old daughter Dorothy. And her like scared answers of like, why are you talking to me?
We're construed as a confession. Four. Four years old, yes. Yes.
Questioning got more serious and intense in April of that year when deputy governor Thomas Danforth and his assistants began attending the hearings. Dozens of people from Salem and other Massachusetts villages were brought in for questioning. On May 27th, 1962, Governor William Phipps ordered an establishment of a special court of Euler and Terminator, which means Euler means to hear and Terminator means to decide. So to hear and decide is what we're doing.
And that was for Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties, which Salem's a part of. Gosh, one of those. The first case brought to this special, you know, to hear and decide court was Bridget Bishop. She's an older woman who was known for her, Gossopie Habits and Prince Qudy.
Oh my god, it was you with me. No, I love her though. She sounds like a great lady. She does.
She's amazing. When asked if she committed witchcraft, Bishop responded, I am as innocent as the child unborn. Which is a couple of rows. Yes.
This was apparently not commencing enough and she was found guilty. And on June 10th, she became the first person hanged for witchcraft on what was called, later would be called Gallows Hill, which is like ew. Get you to the gallows. And she's just like a badass lady.
I hate that. I hate that. It's just really about her. Yeah.
Five days later, the respected minister, Cotton Martha, wrote a letter to the court not to allow any spectral evidence, which is testimony about dreams and visions. So he's like, you know, you can't be putting that into. Because it could be heavenly, right? You know, it can't be a positive deity.
Right. Right. The court, you know, pretty much ignored that request. And five people were sentenced and hanged in July, five more in August and eight in September.
On October 3rd, following in his son's footsteps, increased matter, which was kind of a terrifying name. He was then the president of Harvard, denounced the use of the spectral evidence as well, saying, you know, you can't be using this kind of evidence of like, oh, they said in a dream that someone's a witch and that's not really a thing. I said it was better than 10 suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned. So he's like not saying there's not witches, but like, if you convict us one innocent person, then that's a bad sign.
He's an arbitrary story. Right. Yeah. All right.
So governor Fipps in response to matters, please and his own wife being questioned in witchcraft, prohibited further arrests released many accused witches and dissolved the court on October 29th. Wow. So I mean, anybody else sure, but you go after my wife. Oh, that's fine.
That's fine. That's all. That's all. That's all we had to do.
It really is. Yes. That's what we had to do. Fipps replaced it with a superior court of judic couture.
I don't really know what that is. This disallowed the spectral evidence and it actually only ended up condemning three out of 56 defendants. Well, good. But still why?
Right. Like, why were they decided that they were witches? Oh, Haley would hang. Even in this new court, I'd go on to three.
Yeah, she would have been. Fipps eventually pardoned all those who were in prison on witchcraft charges by May of 1693. But I mean, the damage had been done. 19 were hanged on Gallows Hill and a 71 year old man was pressed to death with heavy stones.
So I read more about this in another article. So he was called, he was a farmer. So he was part of that feud. Right.
One of the farmers side. And he would not say anything. He wouldn't talk about anything. So one of the ways they used to try to make people talk was they would lay stones on their body and just put heavier and heavier ones on there until they finally would cave, like who was torture and say what they need to say.
Well, he did not. He just died. And people who knew him said that his death was like an act of like his final act. And here's the thing.
Exactly. You think you're gonna get an answer? No, it's just stupid. I don't know.
It's just pretty. It's like what are you expecting to get out of that? The truth? No, you're gonna get whatever you guys actually witches because you're doing some evil stuff.
Right. I think you might be witch. Not you. But anyway, let's see.
Several people died in jail and there were nearly 200 people that have been accused of practicing witchcraft. Yeah, that's scary. Following these trials and executions, many that were involved like a judge Samuel Seaball publicly confessed air wearing guilt, which is, you know, all right. On January 14th, in 1697, the general court ordered a day of fasting and soul searching the tragedy and Salem.
I mean, I really think that these folks who convicted them need to do a lot of soul searching. But they decided, you know, one day we'll fast and we'll do some soul searching. Just one day. That's all we need.
That's all we need. In 1702, the court declared the trials unlawful, which we'll have to do. In 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused. Good.
Which is kind of, you know, it's not a thing. They should do that. And they granted 6,000 euros in restitution to their heirs. Wow.
Yes, they should. Which I think is probably a lot of money for. It seems like a lot of money. Yeah, but.
However, it was not until 1957, okay, just more than 250 years later, that Massachusetts formally apologized for the events of 1692. That's insane. It took them that long to be like, I mean, you know what, we were wrong. This was a bad idea.
We shouldn't have done that. Boy, talk about your pride. Yeah. It's not great.
So there's been a lot of things that have kind of come out of, like I said, in popular culture, artists and scientists continue to be fascinated by the Salem, which trials, which I'm fascinated about Salem, which I think is just kind of a crazy piece of our history that it's, I mean, what a social experiment. What am I, you know, like, yeah, it's like there's no proof of anything actually going on. And it all started with these, I wonder if these children ever, like these nine and 11 year old girls ever felt guilt. Yeah, over this.
Playwright author Arthur Miller. That's what the play the crucibles about the 1950th, the play the crucible. He used as a trial as an allegory for the cartheism, paranoia in the 1950s. I mean, I can see the parallel.
I mean, people like Lucille Ball, who was a comedian who was greatly loved, was accused of being a communist. And yeah, there was a law going around in that time period, because it was a Cold War. Everybody was terrified of that. Yeah.
Oh, that's a really good parallel of that. Yeah. So that's kind of what, you know, he did there. So go ahead.
Numerous hypotheses have been devised to explain the strange behavior that occurred in Salem. One of the most concrete studies was published in science in 1976. It was the Talis I think it's a magazine. Oh, we found out about it because we used science.
And that was done in 1976 by psychologist Linda Capiorel. Sure. She blamed the abnormal habits of the accused on the fungus, ergot, ergot, which can be found in rye, wheat, and other cerebrasses, which is also linked, I think, to the dancing plague in France. Okay.
Which, if you haven't looked that one up, that one's fascinating, too. But toxicologists, toxicologists, toxicologists, toxicologists, say that eating the ergot contaminated foods can lead to muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, and hallucinations. Well, there you go. I mean, I feel like we have a doctor didn't.
So he was just like, uh, must be witches. You bet a prey. Right. It's the devil.
You know, sickle. Also, this fungus thrives in warm and damp climates, which is pretty common in the Swatty Meadows and Salem. Yeah. Um, rye was also the staple grain during the spring and summer months.
There you go. So that'll do it. That sounds smart. I mean, that sounds like a good conclusion.
Yeah. Geez. In August of 1992, to mark the 300th anniversary of the trial, Nobel Lauret Eli Wiesel, Wiesel, Wiesel, which I mean, we all know him, dedicated to which trials memorial in Salem. Wow.
300 years. Pretty crazy. Yeah. Also in Salem, the Peabody Essex Museum houses those original court documents.
Um, and it is the towns of most visited attraction and it attracts, um, I mean, thousands of people a year. Absolutely. To see about this kind of like crazy. We can put it on the list.
Yes. I definitely want to go. I hear it's great. Um, near Halloween also, for some reason, somebody said to go in March.
I think I do like a thing in March up there. I don't know. Maybe making that up. Um, but I always thought, I think I had gotten the Salem witch trials and the witch trials in Europe confused for years because I was always like, oh, they burned them at the stake and they, you know, did the, where you throw them in the water and say, oh, if they, if they think that they sink, then they're a witch, if they float, they're not.
Or if they float, they're a witch, if they sink, they're not, but wow, what a hard way to figure that out. Right. But then you drown in our daddy their way pretty much like if you sink, I mean, your dad and it's like, oh, bummer, but if you float, they'll come and kill you anyway. So because then you're a witch, yeah, right.
And you're thinking, uh, burning up a steak was, um, oh, God, in France. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That happened in France. And that was for the, um, pagans. So what's coming kind of witchy?
Right. But nonetheless, but yeah, so that wasn't in Salem, but I kind of had all that like, put together. So I would have died. Yeah.
For sure. Oh, 100%. How would you have made it? Yes.
Okay. But here's now, well, like a grace of God, but no, I wouldn't have taught back like you. I would have just taken my lumps. I would have, you know, been merciful, you know, and please, please, please God be merciful on me, please, you know, just all the things like I could personalize the happening to me like I do in situations like that.
And hopefully God would intercede and, but I would come to your parents with lots of rye and lots of things to, you know, ease their pain of your death. And I'm sure the money would help. Yeah. Yeah.
That's true. We could have a new hey, I really say get some money out of it. They could build a new farmhouse. I don't know.
I don't know what they would do. No, I'd have been dead for sure. Oh, without a doubt. You're sassy.
What have been dead? But that's it. That's craziness. I love that story.
I want to learn more about Salem. I want to go there and experience it. Yeah, for sure. Me too.
Okay. All right. Patreon friends. We will see you next month.
This has been a fun one. I hope you have an excellent Halloween. I know. It's into the month.
Hope that I don't know that you're doing all right. Maybe you're doing the mesh. It's a good time for it. It's a great yard.
It's a good time for it. It's going to be a wet winter. Apparently you can't really hold. So in this area.
So, you know, get ready for that. Get just no boots where I hate plowing the damn driveway. I hate doing that. Yeah.
I'm really excited about the process. But it's going to happen. Well, we wish you the best and we will see you in November. Bye.
Bye.