On June 2nd, 1692, Bridget Bishop was the first woman hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. I have a book that goes a little more into the details.
The book “The Witchcraft of Salem Village” by Shirley Jackson, 1956, is an interesting but sad book. Once again, I go to my Landmark Books to get a story that I read in junior high. The story begins when a group of girls would form a club and meet the kitchen of Samuel Parris. They would listen to the stories of his Indian slave Tituba. She would tell stories about her life in the Spanish West Indies, and voodoo.
Then the kids, led by Ann Putnam, started acting weird, acting out fantasies, not listening to parents. They started pointing fingers, and saying that these people were witches, and afflicting them. The girls would go into trances, act up, and continued to accuse others of being witches. Over two hundred people were arrested and put in jail.
Bridget Bishop was pointed to by the girls as a witch. She dressed in colorful clothes, that the townspeople “suddenly noticed,” and that proved to them that she was a witch. She was the first one that was hanged. One man Giles Corey was called a witch but was so upset and angered, that he would not even talk to the judge. Laws then said that they could not hang him so they ‘Pressed” him by putting more and more stone on him, hoping to have him confess. He just would say “more stone.” He died after three days.
People were impressed with his courage, and the fanaticism about witches began to slow down. By the middle of September 1692, nineteen people were hanged. All had claimed they were innocent. More died in jail. None of the accusers, or those that “confessed” were executed. People just stopped believing that the girls were possessed. The jury in 1696, wrote a letter saying that they were sorry for their errors. In 1954 the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature declared that six of those hung, including Bridget Bishop, were innocent of the crime of witchcraft.
There may be other books written that go into more details, but these Landmark Books were written for ten to fifteen year old children, and they have enough facts to be interesting without being gory or nightmarish. They are also easy enough to read as adults, to pass an enjoyable evening in the library.
Keep reading.
Librarytomes 