Susannah North was born in England in 1621. When she was 18 years old, her family immigrated to Salisbury, Massachusetts. The family lived with other settlers on plots of land along the “circular road,” known today as the triangle formation of Elm Street, School Street and Bridge Road in Salisbury square.
When she turned 25, Susannah married a blacksmith named George Martin. Eight years later, the couple moved to Amesbury. Over the years, they had eight children.
Susannah was no stranger to the early Massachusetts judicial system. In 1669, Susannah was formally accused of witchcraft by William Browne. According to court documents she allegedly tormented his wife Elizabeth with her spirit. Shortly after her arrest, the charges were dropped.
A few years later, she was accused by William Sargent, Jr. of fornication, killing her infant and witchcraft. In response, her husband sued Sargent for two counts of slander against Susannah - one for accusing her of being a witch, and another for claiming one of her sons was a bastard and another was her "imp". Eventually, a Massachusetts high court found Sargent liable and cleared Martin of the witchcraft accusation.
Unfortunately, Susannah’s legal troubles extended beyond witchcraft claims. She was prosecuted for a variety of criminal offenses, including calling one neighbor a liar and a thief. Likewise, when her father, Richard North, died and left a sizeable inheritance to Susannah’s sisters, a granddaughter and his second wife, she sued the estate. From 1671 to 1674 she was embroiled in a series of legal disputes over the estate, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful.
Susannah was left a poor widow when her husband George died in 1686.
When the witchcraft hysteria erupted in 1692, Martin quickly became a target of wild accusations. Inhabitants of nearby Salem Village, including Joseph and Jarvis Ring, named Susannah a witch and asserted she had attempted to recruit them into a covenant with the devil. She was also accused by John Allen of Salsbury, a man who claimed that she had bewitched his oxen and drove them into the Merrimack River where they later drowned.
She was arrested in Amesbury on May 2, 1692 and transported to Salem for judicial examination. Justices John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin subjected her to intense questioning and twice ordered humiliating physical examination in an effort to find a witch’s teat that prosecutors believed witches used to feed their companions. No such mark was found but the examiner did note that “in the morning her nipples were found to be full as if the milk would come,” but later in the day “her breasts were slack, as if milk had already been given to someone or something.”
Martin was quickly incarcerated and ordered held for trial.
The next month when her trial commenced, Martin was denied the right to representation by legal counsel. At least nine and as many as twenty-four neighbors traveled to Salem to testify against her. Among the personal grievances harbored over the years were claims that her specter had stalked a farm hand, she had bitten another man’s hand, she had driven a neighbor mad, and she had been seen at witch meetings. In response Martin simply exclaimed “I have led a most virtuous and holy life.”
The Reverend Cotton Mather assertted that she was “one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked Creatures in the World.”
The next month when her trial commenced, Martin was denied the right to representation by legal counsel. At least nine and as many as twenty-four neighbors traveled to Salem to testify against her. Among the personal grievances harbored over the years were claims that her specter had stalked a farm hand, she had bitten another man’s hand, she had driven a neighbor mad, and she had been seen at witch meetings. In response Martin simply exclaimed “I have led a most virtuous and holy life.”
The Reverend Cotton Mather assertted that she was “one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked Creatures in the World.”
Nevertheless, Martin refused to allow her accusers intimidate her. Standing in the courtroom, confronted by girls seemingly writhing from "afflictions" they blamed on her, she maintained that she only “desire[d] to lead my self according to the word of God.” Asked what she then made of the afflicted girls, Martin suggested that they might be the ones under the devil's influence, reminding the judges that, “He [the devil] that appeared in the sam[e] shape a glorifyed saint can appear in any ones shape.”
According to trial notes maintained by the Reverend Mather, the following interaction took place between Martin and one of her accusers:
“[Magistrate] (to the afflicted girls): Do you know this Woman?
[Abigail Williams]: It is Goody Martin she hath hurt me often.
Others by fits were hindered from speaking. Eliz: Hubbard said she hath not been hurt by her. John Indian said he hath not seen her Mercy Lewes pointed to her & fell into a little fit. Ann Putman threw her Glove in a fit at her.
The examinant laught.
[Magistrate] (To Martin): What do you laugh at it?
[Martin]: Well I may at such folly.
[Magistrate]: Is this folly? The hurt of these persons.
[Martin]: I never hurt man woman or child.
[Mercy Lewes]: She hath hurt me a great many times, & pulls me down
Then Martin laughed again
[Mary Walcott]: This woman hath hurt me a great many times.
Susan Sheldon also accused her of afflicting her.
[Magistrate] (To Martin): What do you say to this?
[Martin]: I have no hand in Witchcraft.
[Magistrate]: What did you do? Did not you give your consent?
[Martin]: No, never in my life.
[Magistrate]: What ails this people?
[Martin]: I do not know.
[Magistrate]: But w’t do you think?
[Martin]: I do not desire to spend my judgm’t upon it.
[Magistrate]: Do not you think they are Bewitcht?
[Martin]: No. I do not think they are
[Magistrate]: Tell me your thoughts about them.
[Martin]:Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they are anothers.”
Susannah mounted a vigorous defense but ultimately was found guilty of witchcraft. She was sentenced to death.
On July 19, 1692, she was escorted to Proctor’s Ledge along with Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes and executed by hanging. She and her fellow “witches” were buried in a shallow grave near the execution site.
In 1711, the Massachusetts colonial legislature passed a resolution clearing the names of the convicted witches and offered financial restitution to their descendants. Surprisingly, Susannah Martin’s family did not wish to be named in the resolution and did not seek restitution. In 1957, the Massachusetts legislature formally apologized to the victims of the Salem Witch Trials but did not specifically mention any of the victims by name. Years later, in 2001, the Massachusetts passed a resolution officially exonerating five of the victims not mentioned in the previous resolutions: Susannah Martin, Bridget Bishop, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd and Margaret Scott.
Famed Massachusetts poet John Greenleaf Whittier was a direct descendant of Susannah Martin. In 1857, he honored his ancestor in a poem titled The Witch’s Daughter. As Whittier noted:
“Let Goody Martin rest in peace, I never knew her harm a fly,
And witch or not – God knows – not I?
I know who swore her life away;
And as God lives, I’d not condemn
An Indian dog on word of them.”
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