" . . . I have often seen the apperishtion of goody heart among the witches butt I did not know who she was; nor she did me no hurt tell the 13th of May 1692; that she came to my father house parsonally and tould me who she was and asked me if she had ever hurt me; but ever sence that day she has personally hurt me most grievously severall times and urgeth me grevously to writ in her book," reads the testimony of Ann Putnam against Elizabeth Hart. (The spelling is both Hart and Heart in the legal documents of Salem - the spelling was changed to Hartt during the Revolutionary War era.)
The above paragraph could certainly imply that the "power of suggestion" was present among the afflicted girls of Salem Village. Also, there seems to be such a level of paranoia among the town folk that Elizabeth actually sought out Ann Putnam (one of the afflicted girls) to ask Ann if she had seen Elizabeth's apparition. To fully understand the situation, let's put this in context with the other cases Empower! has reviewed so far in this series.
It was late January - in the dead of a very cold winter - when the youngest of Reverend Parris' daughters had the first "seizure." This was the first official symptom of the impending witch crisis. By late February, failing to find medical cause for several girls who began having similar seizures, the "afflicted" girls were pressured to name the first three witches. All of these women were known as outcasts in the community. By March, the witch hunts were growing and the girls were still frequently naming women whose behavior or economic circumstances were somehow disturbing to the social order and conventions of the time.
Rebecca Nurse, sometimes portrayed as a midwife and known to be a faithful and upstanding church member, was named on March 19th - this stunned the community as she was the first upstanding church member to be named. Sarah Cloyce, Rebecca's sister, was accused on April 3rd, after walking out on a church service where Reverend Parris likened her accused sister to Judas during the sermon. Along with many other arrests at about this same time, the third sister (Mary Easty) was accused on April 22nd. So, by the time Elizabeth Hart was arrested, many of the women of the community - including upstanding Puritans - were already being examined by the judges for charges of witchcraft.
Elizabeth was not as famous as the three sisters we examined in previous issues, though their families would intermarry a few generations later. Elizabeth's plight was that of an old woman (termed "ancient" in a petition submitted to the court by her son, Thomas Hart) caught-up in what must have been a horrifying, fear-driven experience. It is understandable that she would want to know if the girls had seen her apparition - she probably wanted to know if she would be named. Unfortunately, the very act of making herself visible to the girls is probably what turned her into a victim of the witch hunts (when what she was really seeking was, most likely, peace of mind.) We also know that Elizabeth's family were probably intermarried with the Proctor family - so it is quite likely that Elizabeth had some relationship with John and Elizabeth Proctor (a husband/wife), who were both named as witches in August of 1692.
Social norms, gender roles and Puritan values about female identity were horribly disrupted by the witchcraft trials. In time, this brought about an attempt by some individuals to reconstruct the former order by convincing the court that some of the women (accused witches) were model Puritan citizens. That was true in the case of Elizabeth Hart, when her son (Thomas) petitioned on her behalf. He was able to persuade the court that his mother did not engage in evil or sinful practice. Further, he pointed out that he would not have supported "any creature he knew engaged in the Druggery of Satan."
Elizabeth's husband, Isaac, arrived in America from Norfolk, England only 16 years after the Mayflower. He married Elizabeth Hutchins (another new arrival from England) in 1650. Shortly after, he and Elizabeth acquired farm land in the community of Lynfield, MA. Isaac went on to serve in King Phillip's war. After her accusation for witchcraft, Elizabeth was sent to jail in Boston, where she stayed until December of 1692. She was about 70 years old when she was sent to jail for 7 months - because her apparition was seen (by the afflicted girls) with that of a goody Coale toying "with a Venus and an Egg."
It was not only Thomas' words that saved his mother's life. By October (and after 20 executions), the Governor received a letter that caused him to put an end to the trials. He also ordered that spectral evidence could not be allowed in the court. The remaining trials were overseen by a Colonial Supreme Court and no further guilty verdicts were reached.
Editor's Note: Elizabeth Hart is my great X 6 grandmother, as is Mary Easty (one of the three sisters mentioned above.) In our next issue(s), we will look at the political precursors to the Salem witch crisis and how these factors played out in who was accused of witchcraft. We will also be comparing this to modern day environments that may be at-risk for witch hunt behavior.
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