In 1867, just, one century after Hutchinson, Hon. Charles W. Upham, of Salem, Mass., published an elaborate, polished, interesting and instructive “History of Witchcraft and Salem Village.” The connection of two such topics as a local history and a general survey of witchcraft in one work, was very appropriate and judicious in this case, because Salem Village, which embraced the present town of Danvers and parts of other towns adjacent, was the site of the most extensive and awful conflict which men ever waged in avowed and direct contest with the devil on this continent, if not in the world. By his course he enabled the reader to comprehend what kind or quality of men, women, and children they were, among whom that combat raged.

Upham’s history of the Village and its people is minute, exhaustive, lucid, sprightly, and ornate. That work clearly shows that the people of the Village possessed physical, mental, moral, and religious powers, faculties, traits, trainings, and habits which must have given them keenness of perception, logical acumen, both physical and moral stamina and courage, and made them as difficult to delude or cow by novel occurrences as any other people anywhere, either then, before that time, or since. The same properties made them intelligent analyzers of their creed, clear perceivers of its logical reaches, tenacious holders on to what they believed, and fearless appliers of their faith. Holding, in common with all Christendom, the deluded and deluding belief that supermundane works required some human being “covenanted to the devil” for their performance, this people was ready and able to apply that belief in righteous fight. Such a people were not very likely to mistake the pranks of their own children for things supermundane in origin. To suspect them of such credulity or infatuation is to suspect and impeach the truth and accuracy of the very history which makes them so clearly and fully known to us.

The same faculties and acquirements which furnished so sprightly a history of the Village, of course made their impress upon the pages devoted to “Witchcraft.” And results might have been as pleasing there as in more external history, had not omission to see and assign spirit causes where spirit effects existed, forced the author to assume that heavy, effective cannon balls came forth from pop-guns, because he had not himself seen cannon in arsenals himself had not visited, and would take nobody’s word for it that such had been available.

For his own sake we are prone to wish that our personal friend had recognized that subsequent to the time of his early manhood, when he delivered and published Lectures upon Witchcraft, and pondered upon its producing agents and causes, phenomena, like the marvelous ones of former days, had been transpiring in great abundance all over our land, and that no less a man than Dr. Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, the correspondent and peer of Faraday, Silliman, and others of that class, had, by rigid and exact processes of physical science, actually demonstrated that some occult force, moved by an intelligence that could and did understand and comply with verbal requests, repeatedly lifted and lowered the arms of scale-beams, and made bodies weigh more or weigh less than their normal weight, at his mental request. The same had been done by Dr. Luther V. Bell and a band of press reporters in 1857. Such forces, if taken into account by this historian, would have required a reconstruction and vast modifications of his long-cherished theory of explanation, and have called for an immense expenditure of labor and thought.

Ease and retention of long-cherished notions are seductive to man. It was easier for the historian to ignore the discovery that natural laws or forces had always permitted unseen agents to come among us, whose workings the human brain had long, but unsatisfactorily, been laboring to trace to adequate causes,—easier to continue to assume that insufficient causes, lackered in glowing rhetoric, might answer a while longer,—easier to still hug the dream that little girls and young misses, mainly guileless and docile in all their previous days, could and did, without professional instruction and of a sudden, become proficients in the production of complicated schemes and feats rivaling and even surpassing the most astonishing ones of highest legerdemain, of jugglery, and of histrionic art combined,—easier to fancy that these girls rebelled against and set at defiance parental, medical, ministerial, and friendly authority, acted like brutes and villains, turned all things upside down with a vengeance, in the midst of a community clear headed and not easily befooled,—yes, it was easier to retain all these outrÉ suppositions than to set aside a pet theory and reconstruct history in conformity with requirements of discoveries which others had made in advance of this historian, and by the use of which he could have furnished a truly philosophical and satisfactory solution of all the marvels of ancient witchcraft. Infatuation still lingers on the earth, blinding many bright eyes.

We are hardly sorry that our friend ignored the actual and competent authors—indeed, we are nearly glad that he did so; for his course resulted in presentation of many important portions of New England witchcraft in very lucid, intelligible, and attractive combination, helped a vast many people to perception of the proximate nature and extent of strange things done here of old, and enabled the common mind to make pretty fair estimate of the nature of such forces as were needful to any agents who should perform such wonders.

We cheerfully acknowledge great personal indebtedness to that author for such an exhibition of this subject as shows its mighty influence over sagacious, strong, calm, good, and able men who were living witnesses and actors in its scenes; and shows also that common sense will instinctively feel that the acts imputed to a few illiterate girls and misses were beyond the powers which nature by her usual and well-known processes ever bestowed upon them. Philosophy, science, and common sense demand causes adequate to produce whatever effects are ascribed to them. Histories of witchcraft have not met these demands. Previous failure in that respect prompts this effort to present agents whose powers may have been equal to the works performed in witchcraft scenes.

The work in hand will necessitate a close grappling with many of our friend’s opinions and processes. But our grip, however firm, will never be made in unkindness toward or want of respect for him; the object will be to disclose mistakes, to rescue our forefathers and their children in the seventeenth century out from under damaging, groundless, needless, gratuitous imputation of fatuity to the elders, and devilish ingenuity to the younger ones, and to permit the present and future ages to look back upon them with respect and sympathy.

That author is still living, and long may he live in comfort and usefulness. His biography is not written; a brief outline of him, solely from this moment’s recollections is here given. Not less that fifty years ago, we knew him as a student at Harvard,—afterward, for many years, as a respected and successful clergyman at Salem,—still later, in political office, especially as member of Congress,—and for many of the more recent years, as a student and author at home. He has commanded and retains our high respect.

The scholar, rhetorician, statistician, fictionist, and dramatist, all blend harmoniously in him, give an uncommon charm to his “History of Salem Village,” and render it a work which bespeaks wide and abiding interest with the public. It is no essential part of the philosopher’s specific labors to discover or test new agents, forces, or facts. His dealings mostly are with facts known and admitted. Till one concedes the fact of spirit action upon persons and things in earth life, he cannot philosophically admit that spirit forces were ever employed in the production of any phenomenon, but must regard all as purely material or within the scope of ordinary human faculties. Therefore we can, perhaps, with propriety regard our friend as also a philosopher; but must add, that he either lacked knowledge of or ignored the agents and forces that produced many witchcraft phenomena which he attempted to elucidate, and many others of the same character which he failed to adduce from the earlier records; which agents and forces must be allowed their actual and full connection with their own effects before philosophy can furnish just, clear, and satisfactory solutions of their source and nature.