Allen Putnam

Having come to the last of the accused whose case our leading purpose induces us to notice at much length, we present here a specimen of indictment for the crime of witchcraft.

“The Indictment of George Burroughs.

Essex ss.

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Anno Regni Regis et ReginÆ Willielmi et MariÆ. Nunc AngliÆ, &c., quarto.

“The jurors of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, present—That George Burroughs, late of Falmouth, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, clerk, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord and lady, William and Mary, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland king and queen, defenders of the faith, &c., and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts, called witchcrafts and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practiced, and exercised, at and within the township of Salem, in the county of Essex aforesaid, in, upon, and against one Mary Walcutt, of Salem Village, in the county of Essex, single woman; by which said wicked arts the said Mary Walcutt, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year abovesaid, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided.

“Witnesses: Mary Walcott, Sarah Vibber,
Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam,
Eliz. Hubbard.

“Indorsed by the grand jury, Billa vera.”

Three other similar indictments accompanied the above, for witchcrafts practiced by Burroughs upon Elizabeth Hubbard, Mercy Lewis, and Ann Putnam severally.S. P. Fowler, in the edition of “Salem Witchcraft” edited by him, says, on page 278,—

“The trial of Rev. Geo. Burroughs appears to have attracted general notice from the circumstance of his being a former clergyman in Salem Village, and supposed to be a leader amongst witches.”

Fowler adds, that—

“Dr. Cotton Mather says he was not present at any of the trials for witchcraft; how he could keep away from that of Burroughs we cannot imagine. His father, Dr. Increase Mather, informs us that he attended this single trial, and says, ‘Had I been one of George Burroughs’s judges, I could not have acquitted him, for several persons did upon oath testify that they saw him do such things as no man that had not a devil to be his familiar could perform.’

“Burroughs was apprehended in Wells, in Maine; so say his children. They also inform us that he was buried by his friends, after the inhuman treatment of his body from the hands of his executioners at Gallows Hill, in Salem.

“He is represented as being a small, black-haired dark-complexioned man, of quick passions and great strength. His power of muscle, which discovered itself early when Burroughs was a member of Cambridge College, and which we notice in the slight rebutting evidence offered by his friends at his trial, convinces us that he lifted the gun, and the barrel of molasses, by the power of his own well-strung muscles, and not by any help from the devil, as was supposed by the Mathers, both father and son. Alas, that a man’s own strong arm should prove his ruin!”

We shall show shortly that this commentator here overlooked an important point. Burroughs himself made statement, in his own defense, that an Indian stood by and lifted the gun; therefore the chief question is not whether Burroughs was himself strong enough to lift it as alleged, but whether he told the truth when he said that he had help. The chief question bears upon his veracity, not upon his strength. The Mathers believed him on that point.

The allegations in the indictment were for witchcrafts invisibly practiced upon members of the famous Circle, and not for visible feats of strength. All the girls testified to seeing and suffering from his apparition. Also some who confessed to having been witches themselves (for some accused ones were over-persuaded to speak of their own clairvoyant observations and experiences as witchcrafts, and therefore of themselves as witches),—some such testified thus, as Mather says (p. 279, Salem Witchcraft). “He was accused by eight of the confessing witches as being head actor at some of their hellish rendezvous, and who had promise of being a king in Satan’s kingdom now going to be erected; he was accused by nine persons for extraordinary liftings, ... and for other things, ... until about thirty testimonies were brought in against him.”

Mather’s account of the witchcraft at Salem was drawn up at the request of William Phips, then governor of the province; and two prominent judges at the trials indorsed it as follows:—

Manifestation of one class of phenomena presented at those trials has not been noticed in the preceding pages; viz., the appearance of the spirits of particular departed ones to many of the accusing girls. It is obviously true that those clairvoyants were very much oftener beholders of the spirits of those still dwelling in mortal forms than of those who had escaped from thralldom to the flesh. Still there were then some cases in which the spirits of some who had been known in that vicinity, and whose bodies were moldering beneath its soil, were both seen and heard. Among others, two former wives of Burroughs were named. Mather says (p. 282), “Several of the bewitched had given in their testimony that they had been troubled with the apparitions of two women, who said they were G. B.’s two wives; and that he had been the death of them.... Now, G. B. had been infamous for the barbarous usage of his two successive wives, all the country over. (p. 286.) ... ’Twas testified, that, keeping his two successive wives in a strange kind of slavery, he would, when he came home from abroad, pretend to tell the talk which any had with them; that he has brought them to the point of death by his harsh dealings with his wives, and then made people promise that, in case death should happen, they would say nothing of it; that he used all means to make his wives write, sign, seal, and swear to a covenant never to reveal any of his secrets; that his wives had privately complained unto the neighbors about frightly apparitions of evil spirits, with which their house was sometimes infested,” &c.

Some of these allegations probably rested on firmer bases of facts than have generally been perceived. Though we regard Burroughs as having been one of the kindest and best of men, we do not entirely withhold credence from the general import of such allegations regarding him. They point both to extraordinary unfoldments within him, and to probable handlings and control of his outer form at times by some intelligence not his own. “Strange kind of slavery” would naturally result, in those days, from a husband’s telling his wife, on returning to his home, what conversation she had held with others during his absence, if his statements were true; but if not true, the wife would only laugh at his pretensions, and make no complaints to neighbors. If both true and oft repeated, such mysterious utterances might well enslave, worry, and bring close to death’s door a sensitive wife; and the husband, however affectionate and kind, may at times have been as powerless to shape his course of procedure as is the dried leaf when whirled onward by strong autumnal breezes. Acts not his own the world would hold him responsible for; and no wonder that, in his age, a spiritualistically unfolded, an illumined man, and one also whose form might be moved, as was that of Agassiz, by will not his own, should strive in all possible ways to prevent wives, and any other people who knew them, from revealing any of his peculiar and marvelous secrets; no wonder that he sought to make his wives “write, sign, seal, and swear” never to do it; because the noising abroad of such powers as he possessed, and such performances as were attendant upon him, if publicly known, would be profaned, would destroy his usefulness, and endanger, if not take, his life. Thanks that, in our day, danger of a hangman’s rope does not threaten one because of his high spiritual illumination.

George Burroughs was graduated at Harvard College in 1670; had been a preacher for many years prior to 1692, and, during some of them, ministered to the people at Salem Village. But before the outburst of witchcraft there, he had found a home far off to the north-east, on the shores of Casco Bay, in the Province of Maine, where he was then humbly and quietly laboring in his profession, but not in impenetrable seclusion. Clairvoyants are masters of both seclusion and space to a marvelous extent. Throughout a region far, far around, wherever the special light pertaining to the mediumistic or illuminated condition revealed its possessor and put forth its attractions, there the opened inner vision of the accusing girls might make them practically present. Emanations from one residing at Falmouth or at Wells might readily meet and blend with those from sensitives at their home in Salem. Thought flies fast and far. With equal speed, and quite as far, can the unswathed inner perceptives of an entranced or illumined mortal be attracted. Old memories and undissolved psychological attachments may have operated in this case. One of the accusing girls had lived for a time in the family of Burroughs while he resided at the Village. Chains of association are never broken and rendered forever unusable, though they often become exceedingly attenuated, and cease to retain recognition in our ordinary conditions. Several of the accusing girls alleged that Burroughs was one, and a leading and authoritative one, in the band of apparitional beings from whom their torments came. He was “cried out upon,” arrested, tried, condemned, and executed.

The opinions of different writers as to the real character and worth of this man have been very diverse. While some have accounted him an hypocritical wizard, others have deemed him a man of beautiful and beneficent life. Mather regarded him with aversion, and says, “Glad should I have been if I had never known the name of this man.” Afterward the same author charged Burroughs with “tergiversations, contradictions, and falsehoods.” Sullivan, in his History of Maine, says, that “he was a man of bad character, and of a cruel disposition.” Hutchinson asserted, on insufficient grounds, that when under examination, “he was confounded, and used many twistings and turnings.” But Fowler says, “All the weight of character enlisted against him fails to counteract the favorable impression made by his Christian conduct during his imprisonment, and at the time of his execution.” Calef says, that, the day before execution, Margaret Jacobs, who had testified against him, came to the prisoner, acknowledging that she had belied him, and asking his forgiveness; “who not only forgave her, but also prayed with and for her.” The same adducer of “Facts” states that, “when upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his innocency, with such solemn and serious expressions as were to the admiration of all present; his prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord’s prayer) was so well worded, and uttered with such composedness and such (at least seeming) fervency of spirit, as was very affecting, and drew tears from many, so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. The accusers said the black man stood and dictated to him. As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he (Burroughs) was no ordained minister, and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light; and this somewhat appeased the people, and the executions went on.” His prayers, and his whole deportment and spirit during these last trying scenes, indicate his possession of a calm, strong soul, which bore him, on the wings of innocence and piety, into a region of serenity which his traducers and murderers were unfited to enter and knew not of. The brief account which Upham’s researches enabled him to furnish of this man’s life prior to the witchcraft mania presents still further evidences of his sterling worth. That author says, “Papers on file in the State House prove that in the District of Maine, where he lived and preached before and after his settlement at the Village, he was regarded with confidence by his neighbors, and looked up to as a friend and counselor.... He was self-denying, generous, and public-spirited, laboring in humility and with zeal in the midst of great privations.” Land had been granted to him, and when the town asked him to exchange a part of it for other lands, “he freely gave it back, not desiring any land anywhere else, nor anything else in consideration thereof.”

Scanning Burroughs as well as accessible knowledge of him now permits, we judge that he was a quiet, peaceful, persistent laborer for the good of his fellow-men,—a humble, trustful, sincere servant of God,—a rare embodiment of the prevailing perceptions, sentiments, virtues, and graces which haloed the form of the Nazarene.

Why did the people of his time take his life? What were the accusations against him? In addition to the testimony that he was felt by many of the girls as a tormenting specter, he was accused of putting forth superhuman physical strength. Cotton Mather says,—

“He was a very puny man, yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant. A gun of about seven feet barrel, and so heavy that strong men could not steadily hold it out with both hands, there were several testimonies given in by persons of credit and honor, that he made nothing of taking up such a gun behind the lock with one hand, and holding it out like a pistol, at arm’s end. In his vindication he was foolish enough to say that an Indian was there, and held it out at the same time; whereas, none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian; but they supposed the black man (as the witches call the devil, and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might have given him that assistance.”

That paragraph is very instructive. All subsequent historians, beginning back with Calef, have mentioned, what is no doubt true, that Burroughs was a small man, and yet was constitutionally very strong—was remarkable for physical powers even in his college days; and they have fancied that on that ground they have satisfactorily accounted for his marvelous exploits; they seemingly overlook the fact that it was Burroughs himself, and not other people, who said that “an Indian,” invisible to others, stood by and held the gun out. Historians have explained the good and true man’s seeming physical feats at the expense of his veracity. Heaven help the innocent when in the hands of such traducing commentators. The question is not what Burroughs could have done unaided, but it is whether he told truth when he said an Indian helped him. His whole character and life argue that he would not have spoken as he is alleged to have done, unless he had been conscious of the presence of an Indian within or by himself, putting forth, in part at least, the strength which raised and supported that heavy gun. He said that such was the fact. What though all spectators failed to see the Indian? It was a disembodied Indian—a spirit Indian—and therefore necessarily invisible by external eyes. The non-perception of him by other men standing by is no evidence that the spirit Indian was not there; for spiritual beings are discernible by the inner or spirit optics alone, and not by the outer; so taught Paul.

The fact that bystanders supposed the devil helped Burroughs, or performed the lifting feat through him, implies that they, as well as he, believed that something more was done than mere human strength accomplished. In the present day, when spirits are very often putting forth strength through forms of flesh which executes performances quite as marvelous as any which were alleged to have been enacted through Burroughs, his assertion that a foreign, hidden intelligence worked within and through his form, conjoined with the belief of beholders that some spiritual being was operating therein, any array of facts now, proving, even to perfect demonstration, that the little man was enormously strong, though it may indicate that he did not require foreign aid to lift and hold out the gun, does nothing toward impeaching his own veracity when he said he had help. Surely one can have help in the performance of what he could do alone. If any man says he had help in a particular case, his ability to have performed the special feat alone affords no indication that his statement is untrue; and yet the spirit of witchcraft history implies that it does.

Prove Burroughs to have been constitutionally as strong as the strongest mortal that ever lived,—yes, as strong as the strongest of all created beings,—ay, as strong as the Omnipotent One himself, and even then you have done nothing which shows or tends to show that another intelligent worker may not have co-operated with him in the performance of marvelous feats. We say again that the question raised by his statement is not whether he, in and of himself, was competent to his seeming feats, but it is whether an Indian spirit did or did not help him. Burroughs says he had help from such a one. Bystanders supposed that the devil helped him; but he who sensed the helper’s presence called him an Indian; and he was a much more trustworthy testifier as to that helper’s proper classification in the scale of being, than a combined world of men devoid of spirit-vision, putting forth only their inferences regarding an unseen personage. Imputation of this man’s liftings to his constitutional strength solely is an imputation of false testimony to the truthful man himself, and historic arguments, if valid, make him a liar.

Who helped the little clergyman lift and hold the heavy gun? He says it was “an Indian.” But Mather says, “none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian; but they supposed the black man (as the witches call the devil, and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might have given him that assistance.” That sentence illumines many a dark spot in our ancient witchcraft. The witches, or clairvoyants, whether accusers or accused, were not accustomed to speak of seeing the devil. It is fairly questionable whether any one among them ever spoke of seeing the devil, or of having any interview with him, or knowledge of him obtained by personal observation. It was man whom they saw. They spoke of the black man. Mather says that was their name for the devil. We doubt it. What they saw failed to present a semblance of Cloven-foot, with horns, tail, and hoofs, and did not suggest to them an idea of the devil. The substitution of devil for black man, or the regarding the two as synonymous, was Mather’s work, and not that of the clairvoyants. And who was the black man? Mather informs us that those whose optics could see him “generally say he resembles an Indian.” If he resembled an Indian, is not the inference very fair that he was an Indian? Yes. “Black man” obviously was applied by clairvoyants to designate any Indian spirit, and spirits of human beings probably were the only spirits whom their inner vision ever beheld. Thanks to you, Mather, for recording that explanatory sentence. The devil you fought against was your brother man—was earth-born—and when seen and conferred with not very formidable. Your clairvoyants, or witches, saw and heard occult men, women, children, beasts, and birds, but never spoke of seeing your ecclesiastical devil. The human beings whom they beheld varied in size from little children to tall men, and in complexion from black to white—even up to glorious brightness. Your informants never used the word devil in their descriptions. You misreported them, as Cheever did Tituba; Calef followed your lead, and subsequent historians have copied from both you and him.

You also state that Burroughs was “foolish enough to say that an Indian” helped him. Was it foolish in him to state the truth? Your own witnesses en masse say his helper resembled an Indian—he said the assistant was an Indian. Why didn’t you take the words of your own witnesses as corroborative of the man’s statement? They surely were so, and they give us a true presentation of the case. The reason of your course is obvious; the creed of your times deemed any spirit visitant or helper to be the devil himself.

A subsequent charge against “G. B.” (George Burroughs) was, that “when they” (the accusing girls) “cried out of G. B. biting them, the print of his teeth would be seen on the flesh of the complainers; and just such a set of teeth as G. B.’s would then appear upon them.” As in the case of little Dorcas Good, here we have it charged that indentations on the flesh of complainants corresponded to the size and shape of the teeth belonging to the person who was accused of biting. If G. B.’s spirit-form or apparition was made to approach and bite the accusers,—and it probably was,—his spirit-teeth would naturally, and, as we apprehend, necessarily have the exact size and form of his external ones.

Another charge is embraced in the following quotation:—

“His wives” (he had buried two) “had privately complained unto the neighbors about frightly apparitions of evil spirits with which their house was sometimes infested; and many such things had been whispered among the neighborhood.”

We have previously quoted but did not comment upon the above which relates to the appearance of apparitions. That statement may as well indicate that the wives themselves, or any other persons resident in his house, were the attracting or helping instrumentalities for producing the “frightly” sights, as that Burroughs himself was, provided only that some one or more of them were mediumistic. But the probabilities are, that the elements emanated from him which rendered such presentations practicable.

His telling the purport of talks held in the house during his absence indicates that his inner ears were opened to catch either the spirit of mundane sounds, or sounds made by spirits, as could those of Margaret Jones, Ann Hibbins, Joan of Arc, and many others. The same power in him is indicated in the following extract:—

“One Mr. Ruck, brother-in-law to this G. B., testified that G. B., and he himself, and his sister, G. B.’s wife, going out for two or three miles to gather strawberries, Ruck, with his sister, the wife of G. B., rode home very softly” (slowly) “with G. B. on foot in their company. G. B. stepped aside a little into the bushes. Whereupon they halted and hollowed for him. He not answering, they went homewards with a quickened pace without any expectation of seeing him in a considerable while. And yet, when they were got near home, to their astonishment they found him on foot with them, having a basket of strawberries. (Philip was found at Azotus.) G. B. immediately then fell to chiding his wife on account of what she had been speaking to her brother of him on the road. Which when they wondered at, he said he knew their thoughts. Ruck, being startled at that, made some reply, intimating that the devil himself did not know so far; but G. B. answered, My God makes known your thoughts unto me.”

True and luminous fact! The humble, pious, intelligent, illumined Burroughs, far-looker into the realm of causes—an observer of things behind the vail which bounds the reach of mortal senses and pure reason—stated that God—not the devil—made known to him the thoughts of other and absent people. In other words, his intended meaning probably was, that God’s worlds and laws provide for legitimate inflowings, to some minds, of knowledge of the thoughts and purposes of other minds, even though far distant in space. The character, or rather the actual qualities of this man, if we read him correctly, were truthfulness, humility, and piety. When such a one deliberately said to a brother-in-law, under such circumstances as stated above, “My God makes known your thoughts unto me,” he indicated his consciousness of possessing self-experienced knowledge of the existence of an instructive and momentous fact pertaining to human capabilities. Only few persons, relatively, have had proof by personal experience of the extent to which the inner perceptives of embodied mortals may reach forth and imbibe knowledge by processes common to freed spirits, and in the realms of their abode. What the unfoldings of Burroughs permitted him to do and know is possible with many others while resident in mortal forms. If he could, some others may, come into that condition in which thought itself shall be heard speaking itself out to them, in which they shall be listeners to “cogitatio loquens”—self-speaking thought—which Swedenborg says abounds in spirit spheres; in which thought from supernal fonts shall make itself known to the consciousness of an embodied man, and become matter of knowledge with him. Others, and more in number, may have the inner ear opened and hear the words of spirits.

With ears competently attuned, the meek and truth-loving Burroughs was occasionally able to receive not only knowledge of the thoughts of mortals in ways unusual, but also, as we judge, to receive spiritual truths copiously from purer fountains than his cotemporaries generally could get access to; and he thence obtained such truths as relaxed in him many credal bonds which firmly held most of his cotemporary preachers to the creeds, forms, ordinances, and customs common in the churches then. Many questions put to him at his trial were, obviously, designed to draw forth evidence of his lax regard for and inattention to the accepted ordinances of religion. He admitted both that it was long since he had sat at the communion table, and that some of his own children had not been baptized. We presume that he was inwardly, wisely, and beneficently prompted to walk somewhat astray from the narrow and soul-cramping paths then trod by most New England clergymen. The spirit of the Lord was giving him more liberty than most of his cotemporaries felt privileged to exercise. Using his greater facilities than theirs for instruction in heavenly things, he probably advanced far beyond his brethren generally in sinking the letter, that is, sinking the forms, and ceremonies, and ordinances of religion beneath its divine spirit, and his less illumined brethren suspected him of an abandonment of religion itself, and of alliance with the great enemy of all goodness. Some among them apparently looked upon him as a combined heretic and wizard, withheld all sympathy from, and exulted over the doom of, this double culprit.

But this victim may have been, and probably was, as high above most of his crucifiers as freedom is above bondage, as the spirit above the letter, as light above darkness, as sincerity above hypocrisy. The blood of such as Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, George Burroughs, and probably many others who in company with these took their exit from life shrouded in witchcraft’s blackening mists, may go far toward making Gallows Hill a Mount Calvary—a spot on which zeal urged on the worse to crucify their betters in true godliness—betters in all that fits immortal souls for gladdening welcome into realms above.