Salem Witch Trials Timeline

Salem Witch Trial - Trial of George Jacobs
Salem Witch Trial - Trial of George Jacobs.

 Douglas Grundy / Getty Images

The Salem Witch Trials, the events of 1692 in Salem Village which resulted in 185 accused of witchcraft, 156 formally charged, 47 confessions, and 19 executed by hanging, remain one of the most studied phenomena in colonial American history. Far more women than men were among the accused, convicted and executed. Before 1692, the British colonists had only executed 12 people in all of New England for witchcraft.

This detailed timeline shows the major events leading up to, during and following the Salem witch accusations and trials. If you want to skip to the first strange behavior of the girls involved, start with January 1692. If you want to skip to the first accusations of witches, start with February 1692. The first examination by judges began in March 1692, the first actual trials were in May 1692 and the first execution was in June 1692. The Before 1692 section below gives a rich introduction to the environment which may have fostered the accusations and executions.

The chronology includes a representative sampling of the events, and is not meant to be complete or include every detail. Note that some dates are given differently in different sources and that names are given differently (even in contemporary sources, a time when the spelling of names was often inconsistent).

​Before 1692: Events Leading Up to the Trials

1627: The Guide to the Grand-Jury Men is published by the English Puritan Rev. Richard Bernard in England, which included guidance for prosecuting witches. The text was used by the judges in Salem.

1628: The settlement of Salem is established with the arrival of John Endecott and about 100 others.

1636: Salem banishes clergyman Roger Williams, who goes on to found the colony of Rhode Island.

1638: A small group of people settle about five miles outside of Salem town, in what became Salem Village.

1641: England establishes a capital penalty for witchcraft.

June 15, 1648: The first known execution for witchcraft in New England is Margaret Jones of Charlestown in Massachusetts Bay Colony, a herbalist, midwife, and self-described physician.

1656: Thomas Ady publishes A Candle in the Dark, critical of witchcraft prosecutions. He publishes A Perfect Discovery of Witches in 1661 and The Doctrine of Devils in 1676. George Burroughs would use one or more of these texts in his trial in 1692, attempting to refute the charges against him.

April 1661: Charles II regains the throne of England and ends the Puritan Commonwealth.

1662: Richard Mather drafts a proposal, adopted by the Massachusetts Puritan churches, called the Half-Way Covenant, distinguishing between full covenanted membership in the church and "half-way" membership for their children until they are able to become full members.

1668: Joseph Glanvill publishes "Against Modern Sadducism" which argues that those who did not believe in witches, apparitions, spirits, and demons thereby denied the existence of God and angels, and were heretics.

1669: Susannah Martin is accused of witchcraft in Salisbury, Massachusetts. She is convicted, but a higher court dismisses the charges. Ann Holland Bassett Burt, a Quaker and the grandmother of Elizabeth Proctor, is charged with witchcraft.

October 8, 1672: Salem Village separates from Salem Town, and is authorized by a General Court order to tax for public improvements, hire a minister and build a meetinghouse. Salem Village remains more focused on agriculture and Salem Town centers on a more mercantile identity.

Spring 1673: The Salem Village meetinghouse is raised.

1673–1679: James Bayley serves as minister of the Salem Village church, but a controversy exists on whether to ordain Bayley. His not being paid and some slanderous comments make their way into lawsuits. Because Salem Village is not yet fully a town or church, Salem Town has a say on the future of the minister.

1679: Simon Bradstreet becomes governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Bridget Bishop of Salem Village is accused of witchcraft, but the Rev. John Hale testifies for her and the charges are dropped.

1680: In Newbury, Elizabeth Morse is accused of witchcraft. She is convicted and sentenced to death but is reprieved.

May 12, 1680: the Puritan churches assembled at Boston consent to gathering the Salem Village church, a decision drawn on in 1689 when the Salem Village church is finally formally gathered.

1680–1683: Rev. George Burroughs, a 1670 Harvard graduate, served as minister of the Salem Village church. His wife died in 1681, and he remarried. As with his predecessor, the church would not ordain him, and he left in a bitter salary fight, at one point being arrested for debt. John Hathorne served on the church committee to find Burroughs' replacement.

October 23, 1684: The Massachusetts Bay Colony charter is annulled and self-government ends. Sir Edmund Andros is appointed the governor of the newly-defined Dominion of New England; he is pro-Anglican and unpopular in Massachusetts.

1684: Rev. Deodat Lawson becomes the minister in Salem Village.

1685: News of the end of Massachusetts self-government reaches Boston.

1685: Cotton Mather is ordained: he is the son of Boston's North Church minister Increase Mather and joins his father there.

1687: Bridget Bishop of Salem Village is accused for the second time of witchcraft and acquitted.

1688: Ann Glover, an Irish-born Gaelic-speaking Roman Catholic housekeeper for the Goodwin family in Boston, is accused of witchcraft by the Goodwins' daughter Martha. Martha and several siblings had exhibited strange behavior: fits, flapping of hands, animal-like movements and sounds, and strange contortions. Glover is tried and convicted of witchcraft, with language being something of a barrier in the trial. "Goody Glover" is hanged on November 16, 1688 for witchcraft. After the trial, Martha Goodwin lives at the home of Cotton Mather, who soon wrote about the case. (In 1988, Boston City Council proclaimed November 16 Goody Glover Day.)

1688: France and England begin the Nine Years' War (1688–1697). When this war manifests as outbreaks in America, it is called King William's War, the first of a series of French and Indian Wars. Because there had been another conflict between the colonists and Indigenous peoples earlier, not involving the French and usually called King Philip's War, these outbreaks of the Nine Years' War in America sometimes are called the Second Indian War.

1687–1688: Rev. Deodat Lawson leaves as Salem Village's minister. Like Rev. Bayley ten years earlier, Lawson, too, was not fully paid nor ordained by Salem Town church, he left with some but less controversy than that of his predecessors. His wife and daughter died just before he left the post and he goes on to become a minister in Boston.

June 1688: Rev. Samuel Parris arrives in Salem Village as a candidate for the position of Salem Village minister. He would be their first fully ordained minister.

1688: King James II, remarried to a Catholic, has a son and new heir who will replace James' older and Protestant daughters in the succession. William of Orange, married to the elder daughter Mary, invades England and removes James from the throne.

1689–1697: Raids on Indigenous peoples in New England are launched at the instigation of New France. French soldiers sometimes led the raids.

1689: Increase Mather and Sir William Phips petition William and Mary, new rulers of England after James II was deposed in 1688, to restore the charter of the Massachusetts colony

1689: Former Governor Simon Bradstreet, removed when England revoked the charter for Massachusetts and appointed a governor for the Dominion of New England, may have helped organize a mob in Boston that led to Governor Andros' surrender and jailing. The English recall the New England governor and reappoint Bradstreet as Massachusetts governor, but without a valid charter, he hads no real authority to govern.

1689: Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions by Rev. Cotton Mather is published, describing the Boston case from the previous year involving "Goody Glover" and Martha Goodwin.

1689: Benjamin Holton dies in Salem Village, and the doctor attending cannot identify a cause of death. This death is later brought out as evidence against Rebecca Nurse in 1692.

April 1689: Rev. Parris is formally called as the minister at Salem Village.

October 1689: Salem Village church grants Rev. Parris a full deed to the parsonage, apparently in violation of the congregation's own rules.

November 19, 1689: The church covenant is signed by Rev. Parris and 27 full members. Rev. Parris is ordained at Salem Village church, with Nicholas Noyes, minister at Salem Town church, presiding.

February 1690: The French in Canada send a war party mainly made up of Abenaki that kills 60 at Schenectady, New York, and takes at least 80 captives.

March 1690: Another war party kills 30 in New Hampshire and captures 44.

April 1690: Sir William Phips leads an expedition against Port Royal and, after two failed attempts, Port Royal surrenders. Captives are traded for hostages taken by the French in previous battles. In another battle, the French take Fort Loyal in Falmouth, Maine, and kill most of the residents, burning the town. Some of those fleeing go to Salem. Mercy Lewis, orphaned in one of the attacks on Falmouth, first works for George Burroughs in Maine, and then joins the Putmans in Salem Village. One theory is that she saw her parents killed.

April 27, 1690: Giles Corey, twice a widower, and unmarried since his wife Mary died in 1684, marries his third wife, Martha Corey who already has a son named Thomas.

June 1691: Ann Putnam Sr. joins the Salem Village church.

June 9, 1691: Indigenous peoples attack in several places in New York.

1691: William and Mary replace the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter with a new one establishing the Province of Massachusetts Bay. They appoint Sir William Phips, who had come to England to gather help against Canada, as royal governor. Simon Bradstreet refuses a seat on the governor's council and retires to his home in Salem.

October 8, 1691: Rev. Samuel Parris asks the church to provide more firewood for his house, stating that the only wood he had was donated by Mr. Corwin.

October 16, 1691: In England, a new charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay is approved. At a Salem Village town meeting, members of one faction in a growing church conflict promise to stop paying the church's minister, Rev. Samuel Parris. Those supporting him generally want more separation from Salem Town; those opposing him generally want a closer association with Salem Town; but there are other issues that tended to polarize around the same lines. Parris begins to preach about a Satanic conspiracy in town against him and the church.

January 1692: Beginnings

Note that in Old Style dates, January through March of 1692 (New Style) were listed as part of 1691.

January 8: Representatives of Salem Village petition Salem Town to recognize the village's independence, or at least to tax Salem Village residents only for Salem Village expenses.

January 15–19: In Salem Village, Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and Abigail Williams, ages 9 and 12, both living in the home of Betty's father Rev. Samuel Parris, begin exhibiting strange behavior, making strange noises, and complaining of headaches. Tituba, one of the family's enslaved Caribbeans, experiences visions of the devil and swarms of witches, according to her later testimony.

Betty and Abigail's strange fits and jerky movements are much like the children in the Goodwin household in Boston had in 1688 (an incident they likely had heard about; a copy of Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions by Rev. Cotton Mather was in Rev. Parris' library).

January 20: St. Agnes Eve was a traditional English fortune-telling time.

January 25, 1692: In York, Maine, then part of the Province of Massachusetts, Abenaki sponsored by the French invade and kill about 50–100 English colonists (sources disagree on the number), take 70–100 hostages, kill livestock and burn the settlement.

January 26: Word of the appointment of Sir William Phips as royal governor of Massachusetts reaches Boston.

February 1692: First Accusations and Arrests

Note that in Old Style dates, January through March of 1692 (New Style) were listed as part of 1691.

February 7: Boston's North Church contributes to the ransom of captives from the late January attack on York, Maine.

February 8: A copy of the new provincial charter for Massachusetts arrives in Boston. Maine is still part of Massachusetts, to the relief of many. Religious liberty is granted to all but Roman Catholics, which does not please those who oppose radical groups like the Quakers. Others are not pleased that the document is a new charter rather than a restoration of the old one.

February: Captain John Alden Jr. visits Quebec to ransom British prisoners taken when the Abenaki attacked York.

February 16: William Griggs, a physician, buys a home in Salem Village. His children had already left home, but his niece Elizabeth Hubbard live with Griggs and his wife.

About February 24: After traditional remedies and prayers fail in the Parris household to cure the girls of their strange afflictions, a doctor, likely Dr. William Griggs, diagnoses the "Evil Hand" as the cause.

February 25: Mary Sibley, a neighbor of the Parris family, advises John Indian, an enslaved Caribbean of the Parris family, to make a witch's cake to discover the names of the witches, perhaps with the help of his wife, another enslaved Caribbean of the same family. Instead of relieving the girls, their torments increase. Ann Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard, who live about a mile either direction from the Parris household, began showing the "afflictions." Because Elizabeth Hubbard is 17 and of legal age to testify under oath and to file legal complaints, her testimony is especially important. She will testify 32 times in the trials that followed.

February 26: Betty and Abigail begin naming Tituba for their behavior, which increase in intensity. Several neighbors and ministers, likely including Rev. John Hale of Beverley and Rev. Nicholas Noyes of Salem, are asked to observe their behavior. They question Tituba.

February 27: Ann Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard experience torments and blame Sarah Good, a local homeless mother and beggar, and Sarah Osborne, who is involved with conflicts around inheriting property and also had married, to a local scandal, an indentured servant. None of these three were likely to have many local defenders against such accusations.

February 29: Based on the accusations of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, arrest warrants are issued in Salem Town for the first three accused witches, Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. The accusations are based on complaints of Thomas Putnam, Ann Putnam Jr.'s father, and several others, and made before local magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne.

March 1692: Examinations Begin

Note that in Old Style dates, January through March of 1692 (New Style) were listed as part of 1691.

March 1: Tituba, Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good are taken for questioning at Nathaniel Ingersoll's tavern and examined by local magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. Ezekiel Cheever is appointed to take notes on the proceedings. Hannah Ingersoll, wife of the tavern-owner, finds that the three had no witch marks on them. William Good tells her about a mole on his wife's back. Tituba confesses, naming the other two as witches and adding rich details to her stories of possession, spectral travel and meeting with the devil. Sarah Osborne protests her own innocence; Sarah Good says that Tituba and Osborne are witches but that she is herself innocent. Sarah Good is sent to Ipswich to be confined with a local constable who is also her relative. She escapes briefly but returns voluntarily; this absence seems especially suspicious when Elizabeth Hubbard reports that Sarah Good's specter had visited her and tormented her that evening.

March 2: Sarah Good is jailed at the Ipswich jail. Sarah Osborne and Tituba are questioned further. Tituba adds more details to her confession, and Sarah Osborne maintains her innocence.

March 3: Sarah Good has apparently now been moved to Salem jail with the other two women, where the questioning of all three by Corwin and Hathorne continues.

March: Philip English, a wealthy Salem merchant and businessman of French background, is appointed a selectman in Salem.

March 6: Ann Putnam Jr. mentions Elizabeth Proctor's name, blaming her for an affliction. 

March 7: Increase Mather and Governor Phips leave England to return to Massachusetts.

March: Mary Warren, a servant in the home of Elizabeth and John Proctor, begins having fits like the other girls. She tells John Proctor she had seen the specter of Giles Corey, a local and prosperous farmer, but he dismisses her report.

March 11: Ann Putnam Jr. begins to demonstrate behavior like that of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. Town records note that Mary Sibley had been suspended from communion with Salem Village Church for giving John Indian instructions to make a witch's cake. She is restored to full covenanted membership when she confesses that she had innocent purposes in doing this folk ritual.

March 12: Martha Corey, a respected community and church member, is accused by Ann Putnam Jr. of witchcraft.

March 19: Rebecca Nurse, 71 years old, also a respected church member and part of the community, is accused of witchcraft by Abigail Williams. Rev. Deodat Lawson visits several members of the community and witnesses Abigail Williams acting strangely and claiming Rebecca Nurse was trying to force her to sign the devil's book.

March 20: Abigail Williams interrupts Rev. Lawson's service at the Salem Village meetinghouse, claiming to see Martha Corey's spirit separate from her body.

March 21: Martha Corey is arrested and examined by Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne.

March 22: A local delegation visits Rebecca Nurse at home.

March 23: An arrest warrant is issued for Rebecca Nurse. Samuel Brabrook, a marshall, is sent to arrest Dorcas Good, the daughter of Sarah Good and a four or five-year-old girl, on a charge of witchcraft. He arrests her the next day. (Dorcas is identified incorrectly in some records as Dorothy.)

Sometime after the accusations are leveled against Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, whose daughter is married to an in-law of Rebecca Nurse's son, denounces the afflicted girls publicly.

March 24: Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne examine Rebecca Nurse on the charges of witchcraft against her. She maintains her innocence.

March 24, 25 and 26: Dorcas Good is examined by Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. What she answers is interpreted as a confession that implicates her mother, Sarah Good. On March 26, Deodat Lawson and John Higginson are present for the questioning.

March 26: Mercy Lewis accuses Elizabeth Proctor of afflicting her through her specter.

March 27: Easter Sunday, which was not a special Sunday in the Puritan churches, saw Rev. Samuel Parris preaching on "dreadful witchcraft broke out here." He emphasizes that the devil could not take the form of anyone innocent. Tituba, Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, and Martha Corey are in prison. During the sermon, Sarah Cloyce, Rebecca's sister, leaves the meetinghouse and slams the door.

March 29: Abigail Williams and Mercy Lewis accuse Elizabeth Proctor's specter of afflicting them, and Abigail claims to see John Proctor's specter as well.

March 30: In Ipswich, Rachel Clenton (or Clinton), accused by her neighbors of witchcraft, is examined by local magistrates there. None of the girls involved in the Salem Village accusations are involved in Rachel Clenton's case.

April 1692: Widening the Circle of Suspicion

April: More than 50 men in Ipswich, Topsfield and Salem Village sign petitions declaring that they do not believe spectral evidence about John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor nor do they believe they could be witches.

April 3: Rev. Samuel Parris reads to his congregation a prayer request for thanks from Mary Warren, servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor. Mary expresses gratitude that her fits had stopped. Parris questions her after the service.

April 3: Sarah Cloyce comes to the defense of her sister, Rebecca Nurse. The result was that Sarah is accused of witchcraft.

April 4: Complaints are filed against Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce, and an arrest warrant issued to have them in custody by April 8. The warrant also orders Mary Warren and Elizabeth Hubbard to appear to give evidence.

April 10: Another Sunday meeting at Salem Village sees interruptions, said to have been caused by the specter of Sarah Cloyce.

April 11: Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce are examined by Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Also present are Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, assistants Isaac Addington, Samuel Appleton, James Russell, and Samuel Sewall. Salem minister Nicholas Noyes gives the prayer and Salem Village minister Rev. Samuel Parris takes notes for the day. John Proctor, Elizabeth's husband, objects to the accusations against Elizabeth—and is himself then accused of witchcraft by Mary Warren, their servant, who had also accused Elizabeth Proctor. John Proctor is arrested and jailed. A few days later, Mary Warren admits to lying about the accusation, saying the other girls were also lying., but then recants that on the 19th.

April 14: Mercy Lewis claims that Giles Corey had appeared to her and forced her to sign the devil's book. Mary English is visited at midnight by Sheriff Corwin with an arrest warrant; she tells him to come back and arrest her in the morning, which he did.

April 16: New accusations are made against Bridget Bishop and Mary Warren, who had made accusations but then recanted them.

April 18: Bridget Bishop, Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren, and Giles Corey are arrested on charges of witchcraft. They are taken to Ingersoll's tavern.

April 19: Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne examine Deliverance Hobbs, Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Corey, and Mary Warren. Rev. Parris and Ezekiel Cheever take notes. Abigail Hobbs testifies that Giles Corey, husband of accused Martha Corey, is a witch. Giles Corey maintains his innocence. Mary Warren recants her recantation in the case of the Proctors. Deliverance Hobbs confesses to witchcraft.

April 21: A warrant is issued for the arrest of Sarah Wildes, William Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Nehemiah Abbott Jr., Mary Easty, Edward Bishop, Jr., Sarah Bishop (wife of Edward Bishop and stepdaughter of Mary Wildes), Mary Black, and Mary English, based on the accusations of Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis and Mary Walcott.

April 22: The newly-arrested Mary Easty, Nehemiah Abbott Jr., William Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Edward Bishop Jr., Sarah Bishop, Mary Black, Sarah Wildes, and Mary English are examined by Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Mary Easty had been accused following her defense of her sister, the accused Rebecca Nurse. (examination records for this day are lost, as they are for a few other days, so we don't know what some of the charges were.)

April 24: Susanna Sheldon accuses Philip English of tormenting her through witchcraft. William Beale, who had sparred with English in 1690 in a lawsuit about land claims, also accuses English of having something to do with the deaths of Beale's two sons.

April 30: Arrest warrants are issued for Dorcas Hoar, Lydia Dustin, George Burroughs, Susannah Martin, Sarah Morell, and Philip English. English is not found until late May, at which time he and his wife are jailed in Boston. George Burroughs, a predecessor of Samuel Parris as Salem Village minister, is thought by some in town to be at the center of the outbreak of witchcraft.

May 1692: Special Court Judges Appointed

May 2: Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne examined Sarah Morrell, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, and Dorcas Hoar. Philip English is reported as missing.

May 3: Sarah Morrell, Susannah Martin, Lydia Dustin, and Dorcas Hoar are taken to Boston's jail.

May 4: George Burroughs is arrested in Wells, Maine (Maine was at the time a northern part of the province of Massachusetts) on charges of witchcraft after being accused on April 30. Burroughs had been serving as the minister in Wells for nine years.

May 7: George Burroughs is returned to Salem and jailed.

May 9: George Burroughs and Sarah Churchill are examined by Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Burroughs is moved to Boston's jail.

May 10: Sarah Osborne dies in jail. Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne examine Margaret Jacobs and George Jacobs Sr., granddaughter, and grandfather. Margaret implicates her grandfather and George Burroughs in witchcraft. A warrant is issued for the arrest of John Willard, who had himself been a constable in Salem Village bringing in the accused. He attempts to flee, but is later found and arrested.

May 12: Ann Pudeator and Alice Parker are arrested. Abigail Hobbs and Mary Warren are questioned. John Hale and John Higginson observe part of the day's proceedings. Mary English is sent to Boston to be jailed there.

May 14: Sir William Phips arrives in Massachusetts to take up his position as royal governor, accompanied by Increase Mather. The charter they bring also restores self-government in Massachusetts and names William Stoughton as lieutenant governor. The Salem Village witchcraft accusations, including the large and growing number of people overflowing the jails and awaiting trial, quickely draws Phips' attention.

May 16: Governor Phips is given the oath of office.

May 18: John Willard is examined. Mary Easty is set free; existing records do not show why. Dr. Roger Toothaker is arrested, accused of witchcraft by Elizabeth Hubbard, Ann Putnam Jr., and Mary Wolcott.

May 20: Mary Easty, set free only two days before, is accused of afflicting Mercy Lewis; Mary Easty is charged again and returned to jail.

May 21: Sarah Proctor, daughter of Elizabeth Proctor and John Proctor, and Sarah Bassett, Elizabeth Proctor's sister-in-law, are accused of afflicting four of the girls, and they are arrested.

May 23: Benjamin Proctor, son of John Proctor and stepson of Elizabeth Proctor, is accused and jailed. The Boston jail orders additional shackles for prisoners, using money loaned by Samuel Sewall.

May 25: Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Dorcas Good, Sarah Cloyce and John, and Elizabeth Proctor are ordered transferred to Boston's jail.

May 27: Seven judges are appointed to a Court of Oyer and Terminer by Governor Phips: Bartholomew Gedney, John Hathorne, Nathaniel Saltonstall, William Sergeant, Samuel Sewall, Waitstill Winthrop, and Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton. Stoughton is appointed to head the special court.

May 28: Wilmott Redd is arrested, accused of "sundry acts of witchcraft" on Mary Wolcott and Mercy Lewis. Martha Carrier, Thomas Farrar, Elizabeth Hart, Elizabeth Jackson, Mary Toothaker, Margaret Toothaker (9 years old), and John Willard are also arrested. An accusation is also made against John Alden Jr. William Proctor, son of Elizabeth Proctor and John Proctor, is accused and arrested.

May 30: Elizabeth Fosdick and Elizabeth Paine are accused of witchcraft against Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren.

May 31: John Alden, Martha Carrier, Elizabeth How, Wilmott Redd, and Philip English are examined by Bartholomew Gedney, Jonathan Corwin, and John Hathorne. Cotton Mather writes a letter to John Richards, a judge, with advice on how the court should proceed. Mather warns that the court should not rely on spectral evidence. Philip English is sent to jail in Boston to join his wife there; they are treated quite well due to their many connections. John Alden is also sent to Boston jail.

June 1692: First Executions

June: Governor Phips appoints Lt. Gov. Stoughton as chief justice of the Massachusetts court, in addition to his position on the special court of Oyer and Terminer.

June 2: The Court of Oyer and Terminer convene its first session. Elizabeth Fosdick and Elizabeth Paine are arrested. Elizabeth Paine turns herself in on June 3. Elizabeth Proctor and several other accused women were subjected to a body search by a male doctor and some women, looking for "witch's marks" such as moles. No such signs were reported found.

June 3: A grand jury indicts John Willard and Rebecca Nurse for witchcraft. Abigail Williams testifies on this day for the last time; after that, she disappears from all records.

June 6: Ann Dolliver is arrested and examined for witchcraft by Gedney, Hathorne, and Corwin.

June 8: Bridget Bishop is tried, convicted and sentenced to death. She has a previous record of accusations of witchcraft. Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth shows signs of being afflicted by witchcraft.

Around June 8: A Massachusetts law which had been made obsolete by another law against hangings is resurrected and passed anew, allowing executions for witchcraft.

Around June 8: Nathaniel Saltonstall resigns from the Court of Oyer and Terminer, possibly because the court pronounces a death sentence on Bridget Bishop.

June 10: Bridget Bishop is executed by hanging, the first to be executed in the Salem witch trials.

June 15: Cotton Mather writes to the Court of Oyer and Terminer., urging that they not rely on spectral evidence alone. He also recommends that they make the prosecution "speedy and vigorous."

June 16: Roger Toothaker dies in prison. His death is found by a coroner's jury to be of natural causes.

June 29–30: Sarah Good, Elizabeth How, Susannah Martin, and Sarah Wildes are tried for witchcraft. They are all found guilty and condemned to hanging. Rebecca Nurse is also tried, and the jury finds her not guilty. The accusers and spectators protest loudly when that decision is announced. The court asks them to reconsider the verdict, and they do and find her guilty, discovering on reviewing the evidence that she had failed to answer one question put to her (perhaps because she was nearly deaf). She, too, is condemned to hang. Gov. Phips issues a reprieve but this also meets with protests and is rescinded.

June 30: Testimony is heard against Elizabeth Proctor and John Proctor. 

July 1692: More Arrests and Executions

July 1: Margaret Hawkes and Candy, her enslaved Barbadian, are accused; Candy testifies that her enslaver had made her a witch.

July 2: Ann Pudeator is examined in court.

July 3: The Salem Town church excommunicates Rebecca Nurse.

July 16, 18 and 21: Anne Foster is examined; she confesses on each of the three days of examination and implicates Martha Carrier as a witch.

July 19: Sarah Good, Elizabeth How, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Wildes, convicted in June, are executed by hanging. Sarah Good curses the presiding clergyman, Nicholas Noyes, from the gallows, saying "if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink." (Years later, Noyes dies unexpectedly, hemorrhaging from the mouth.) Mary Lacey Sr. and Mary Lacey Jr. are accused of witchcraft. 

July 21: Mary Lacey Jr. is arrested. Mary Lacey Jr., Anne Foster, Richard Carrier, and Andrew Carrier are examined by John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and John Higginson. Mary Lacey Jr. (15) confesses and accuses her mother of witchcraft. Mary Lacey, Sr., is examined by Gedney, Hathorne, and Corwin.

July 23: John Proctor writes a letter from jail to the ministers of Boston, asking them to stop the trials, have the venue changed to Boston, or have new judges appointed, due to the way that the trials are being conducted.

July 30: Mary Toothaker is examined by John Higginson, John Hathorne, and Jonathan Corwin. Hannah Bromage is examined by Gedney and others.

August 1692: More Arrests, Some Escapes, Rising Skepticism

August 1: A group of Boston ministers, led by Increase Mather, meet to consider the issues raised by John Proctor's letter, including the use of spectral evidence. The ministers change their position on the topic of spectral evidence. Before, they had believed that spectral evidence could be believed because the Devil could not impersonate an innocent person; but now they decide that the Devil is capable of appearing to people in the guise of someone innocent of any witchcraft.

Early August: Philip and Mary English escape to New York, at the urging of a Boston minister. Governor Phips and others are thought to have helped them in their escape. The property of Philip English in Salem is seized by the sheriff. (Later, when Philip English heard that drought and lack of tending the fields were causing a food shortage in Salem Village, Philip had a shipment of corn sent to the village.)

Also sometime in August, John Alden Jr. escapes from the Boston jail and goes to New York.

August 2: The Court of Oyer and Terminer considers the cases of John Proctor, his wife Elizabeth Proctor, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., George Burroughs, and John Willard.

August 5: Grand juries indict George Burroughs, Mary English, Martha Carrier, and George Jacobs Sr. The trial juries convict George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth Proctor, and John Willard, and they are condemned to hang. Elizabeth Proctor is given a temporary stay of execution because she is pregnant. A petition from 35 of Salem Village's respected citizens on behalf of George Burroughs fails to move the court.

August 11: Abigail Faulkner, Sr., is arrested, accused by several neighbors. She is examined by Jonathan Corwin, John Hathorne, and John Higginson. Accusers include Ann Putnam, Mary Warren, and William Barker, Sr.. Sarah Carrier, the seven-year-old daughter of Martha Carrier (convicted August 5) and Thomas Carrier, is examined.

August 19: John Proctor, George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr., John Willard, and Martha Carrier are hanged. Elizabeth Proctor remains in jail, her execution postponed because of her pregnancy. Rebecca Eames is at the hanging and is accused by another spectator of causing a pinprick in her foot; Rebecca Eames is arrested and she and Mary Lacey ware examined at Salem that day. Eames confesses and implicates her son Daniel.

August 20: Regretting her testimony against George Burroughs and her grandfather George Jacobs Sr., the day after their execution, Margaret Jacobs recant her testimony against them.

August 29: Elizabeth Johnson Sr., Abigail Johnson (11) and Stephen Johnson (14) are arrested.

August 30: Abigail Faulkner, Sr., is examined in prison. Elizabeth Johnson Sr. and Abigail Johnson confess. Elizabeth Johnson Sr. implicates her sister and her son, Stephen.  

August 31: Rebecca Eames is examined a second time, and she repeats her confession, this time implicating not just her son Daniel but also "Toothaker Widow" and Abigail Faulkner.

September 1692: More Executions, Including Death by Pressing

September 1: Samuel Wardwell is examined in court by John Higginson. Wardwell confesses to telling fortunes and making a pact with the devil. He later recants the confession, but testimony from others about his fortune-telling and witchcraft casts doubt on his innocence.

September 5: Jane Lilly and Mary Colson are examined by John Hathorne, John Higginson, and others.

Around September 8: Deliverance Dane, according to a petition issued after the end of the trials (which does not mention the specific date), is first accused when two of the afflicted girls were called to Andover to determine the cause of sickness of both Joseph Ballard and his wife. Others are blindfolded, their hands laid on the “afflicted persons,” and when the afflicted persons fall into fits, the group is seized and taken to Salem. The group includes Mary Osgood, Martha Tyler, Deliverance Dane, Abigail Barker, Sarah Wilson, and Hannah Tyler. Some are, the later petition said, persuaded to confess what they were suggested to confess. Afterward, over their shock at arrest, they renounce their confessions. They are reminded that Samuel Wardwell had confessed and then renounced his confession and was therefore condemned and executed; the petition states that they were frightened that they would be next to meet that fate.

September 8: Deliverance Dane confesses under examining, implicating her father-in-law, Rev. Francis Dane, though he is never arrested or questioned.

September 9: The court finds Mary Bradbury, Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Dorcas Hoar, Alice Parker, and Ann Pudeator guilty of witchcraft and sentences them to hang. Mercy Lewis testifies as a witness against Giles Corey. He is formally indicted on the charge of witchcraft and continues to refuse to plead either guilty or not guilty.

September 13: Anne Foster is accused by Mary Walcott, Mary Warren and Elizabeth Hubbard.

September 14: Mary Lacey Sr. is accused by Elizabeth Hubbard, Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren. She is indicted on the charge of witchcraft.

September 15: Margaret Scott is examined in court. Mary Walcott, Mary Warren, and Ann Putnam Jr. give testimony on September 15 that they had been afflicted by Rebecca Eames.

September 16: Abigail Faulkner, Jr., aged 9, is accused and arrested. Dorothy Faulkner and Abigail Faulkner confess; according to the record, they implicate their mother, stating that “thire mother apared and mayd them witches and also marth [a] Tyler Johanah Tyler: and Sarih Willson and Joseph draper all acknowlidge that they ware lead into that dradfull sin of witchcrift by hir meanse.”

September 17: The court tries and convicts Rebecca Eames, Abigail Faulkner, Anne Foster, Abigail Hobbs, Mary Lacey, Mary Parker, Wilmott Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell, and they are all condemned to be executed.

September 17-19: Under the law, an accused person who refused to plead could not be tried. It has been speculated that Giles Corey realized that if he could not be tried, in a situation where he would most likely be found guilty especially in the wake of his wife's conviction, then the property he had signed over to his daughters' husbands would be less vulnerable to seizure. In an attempt to force Giles Corey to plead either guilty or not guilty, which he refused to do, he is pressed (heavy rocks were placed on a board on his body). He asked for "more weight" to end the ordeal more quickly. After two days, the weight of the stones killed him. Judge Jonathan Corwin ordered his burial in an unmarked grave.

September 18: With testimony from Ann Putnam, Abigail Faulkner Sr. is convicted of witchcraft. Because she is pregnant, her hanging is delayed until after she gave birth.

September 22: Martha Corey (whose husband had been pressed to death on September 19), Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell are hanged for witchcraft. Rev. Nicholas Noyes officiated at this last execution in the Salem witch trials, saying after the execution, "What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there." Dorcas Hoar, also condemned to be executed, had been granted a temporary stay at the urging of ministers so that she could make a confession to God.

September: the Court of Oyer and Terminer stopped meeting.

October 1692: Halting the Trials

October 3: Rev. Increase Mather denounces the court's reliance on spectral evidence.

October 6: On payment of 500 pounds, Dorothy Faulkner and Abigail Faulkner Jr. are released on their own recognizance, to the care of John Osgood Sr. and Nathaniel Dane (Dean) Sr. On the same date, Stephen Johnson, Abigail Johnson, and Sarah Carrier are released on payment of 500 pounds, to be cared for by Walter Wright (a weaver), Francis Johnson and Thomas Carrier.

October 8: Influenced by Increase Mather and other Boston-area ministers, Gov. Phips orders the court to stop using spectral evidence in the proceedings.

October 12: Governor Phips writes to the Privy Council in England that he formally halted the proceedings in the witch trials.

October 18: Twenty-five citizens, including Rev. Francis Dane, write a letter condemning the trials, addressed to the governor and the General Court.

October 29: Governor Phips orders a stop to any more arrests. He also orders some of the accused be released and dissolves the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

Another petition to the Salem court of Assize, undated but probably from October, is on record. More than 50 Andover “neighbors” petitioned on behalf of Mary Osgood, Eunice Fry, Deliverance Dane, Sarah Wilson Sr. and Abigail Barker, stating faith in their integrity and piety, and making clear that they were innocent. The petition protested the way that many had been persuaded to confess under pressure what they were charged with and stated that no neighbors had any reason to suspect that the charges might be true.

November/December 1692: Releases and a Death in Prison

November: Mary Herrick reports that the ghost of Mary Easty visited her and told her of her innocence.

November 25: Governor Phips establishes a Superior Court of Judicature to handle any remaining trials of accused witches in Massachusetts.

December: Abigail Faulkner, Sr., petitions the governor for clemency. She is pardoned and released from prison.

December 3: Anne Foster, convicted and condemned on September 17, dies in prison. Rebecca Eames petitions the governor for release, retracting her confession and stating she had only confessed because she had been told by Abigail Hobbs and Mary Lacey that she would be hanged if she did not confess.

December 10: Dorcas Good (arrested at 4 or 5 years old) was released from prison after £50 was paid.

December 13: A petition is sent to the governor, council and general assembly by the prisoners in Ipswich: Hannah Bromage, Phoebe Day, Elizabeth Dicer, Mehitable Downing, Mary Green, Rachel Haffield or Clenton, Joan Penney, Margaret Prince, Mary Row, Rachel Vinson, and some men.

December 14: William Hobbs, still maintaining his innocence, is released from jail in December when two Topsfield men (one a brother of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyce) paid a bond of £200. He left town without his wife and daughter who had confessed and implicated him.

December 15: Mary Green is released from jail on payment of a bond of £200.

December 26: Several members of Salem Village church are asked to appear before the church and explain their absences and differences: Joseph Porter, Joseph Hutchinson Sr., Joseph Putnam, Daniel Andrews, and Francis Nurse.

1693: Clearing the Cases

Note that in Old Style dates, January through March of 1693 (New Style) were listed as part of 1692.

1693: Cotton Mather publishes his study of satanic possession, Wonders of the Invisible World. Increase Mather, his father, publishes Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits, denouncing the use of spectral evidence in trials. Rumors circulate that Increase Mather 's wife was about to be denounced as a witch.

January: The Superior Court tries Sarah Buckley, Margaret Jacobs, Rebecca Jacobs, and Job Tookey, who had been indicted in September, and finds them not guilty of the charges. Charges were dismissed for many others of the accused. Sixteen more are tried, with 13 found not guilty and 3 convicted and condemned to hang: Elizabeth Johnson Jr., Sarah Wardwell, and Mary Post. Margaret Hawkes and her enslaved person, Mary Black, were among those found not guilty on January 3. Candy, another enslaved person, was cleared by proclamation on January 11, and she returned to her enslaver's household when he paid her jail fees. Forty-nine of the accused were released in January because the cases against them relied on spectral evidence.

January 2: The Rev. Francis Dane writes to fellow ministers that, knowing the people of Andover where he served as senior minister, "I believe many innocent persons have been accused and imprisoned." He denounces the use of spectral evidence. Several of Rev. Dane's family had been accused and imprisoned, including two daughters, a daughter-in-law and several grandchildren. Two of his family members, his daughter Abigail Faulkner and his granddaughter Elizabeth Johnson, Jr., had been sentenced to death.

A similar missive, signed by Rev. Dane and 40 other men and 12 women "neighbors" from Andover, probably from January, is sent to the court of assize on behalf of Mary Osgood, Eunice Fry, Deliverance Dane, Sarah Wilson Sr. and Abigail Barker, stating faith in their integrity and piety, and making clear that they were innocent. The petition protested the way that many had been persuaded to confess under pressure what they were charged with and stated that no neighbors had any reason to suspect that the charges might be true.

January 3: William Stoughton orders the execution of the three sentenced on the first, and several others whose executions had not been carried out yet or had been delayed, including women whose executions were temporarily stayed because they were pregnant. Governor Phips pardons all of those named, countering Stoughton's orders. Stoughton responds by resigning as a judge.

January 7: Elizabeth Hubbard testifies for the last time in the witchcraft trials.

January 17: A court orders a new committee be selected to govern Salem Village church, on the grounds that the previous committee had neglected to fully raise the minister's salary in 1691–1692.

January 27: Elizabeth Proctor gives birth to a son, naming him John Proctor III after his father who had been hanged on August 19 the year before. Elizabeth Proctor's original sentence of execution was not carried out, though she remained in jail.

Late January / early February: Sarah Cole (of Lynn), Lydia and Sarah Dustin, Mary Taylor and Mary Toothaker are tried and found not guilty by the Superior Court. They were, however, held in jail pending payment of their jail fees.

March: Rebecca Eames is released from prison.

March 18: Residents of Andover, Salem Village, and Topsfield petition on behalf of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, Abigail Faulkner, Mary Parker, John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Elizabeth How, and Samuel and Sarah Wardwell—all but Abigail Faulkner, Elizabeth Proctor, and Sarah Wardwell had been executed—asking the court to exonerate them for the sake of their relatives and descendants. This was signed by:

  • Francis and Abigail Faulkner
  • Sarah and Samuel Wardwell (children of the Samuel Wardwell who was executed)
  • John and Joseph Parker
  • Nathaniel and Francis Dane (Nathaniel’s wife was Deliverance Dane)
  • Mary and Abigail How
  • Isaac Estey Sr. and Jr.
  • Samuel and John Nurse
  • Phebe Robinson
  • John Tarbel
  • Peter Cloyce Sr.
  • Sarah Gill
  • Rebecca Preston
  • Thorndike and Benjamin Proctor (sons of John Proctor, stepsons of Elizabeth Proctor)

March 20, 1693 (then 1692): Abigail Faulkner Sr., whose execution was only delayed because she was pregnant, and whose sister, sister-in-law, two daughters, two nieces, and a nephew had been among those accused of witchcraft, gives birth to a son she names Ammi Ruhamah, meaning "my people have obtained mercy" in Hebrew.

Late April: The Superior Court, meeting in Boston, clears Captain John Alden Jr. They also heard a new case: a servant charged with falsely accusing her enslaver of witchcraft.

May: The Superior Court dismisses the charges against still more of the accused, and find Mary Barker, William Barker Jr., Mary Bridges Jr., Eunice Fry, and Susannah Post not guilty of the charges against them.

May: Governor Phips formally pardons those still in prison from the Salem witch trials. He orders them released if they paid a fine. Governor Phips formally ended the trials at Salem.

May: Elections for the General Court saw Samuel Sewall and several others of the judges from the Court of Oyer and Terminer gain in votes from the previous election.

July 22: Robert Eames, the husband of Rebecca Eames, dies.

After the Trials: the Aftermath

Salem Village Map from Upham
Salem Village 1692. Public Domain Image, originally from Salem Witchcraft by Charles W. Upham, 1867.

November 26, 1694: Rev. Samuel Parris apologizes to his congregation for his part in the events of 1692 and 1693, but many members remain opposed to his ministry there, and the church conflict continues.

1694?: Philip English begins to fight in court for the return of his considerable estate after his wife, Mary English, died in childbirth. Sheriff George Corwin had confiscated his property and had not made payments to the English crown as was required, instead likely using the proceeds on English's valuable property for himself.

1695: Nathaniel Saltonstall, the judge who had resigned from the Court of Oyer and Terminer, apparently over the admission of spectral evidence, is defeated for reelection to the General Court. William Stoughton is elected with one of the highest vote totals in the same election.

1695: John Proctor's will is accepted by the probate court, implying his rights are restored. His estate is settled in April, though Elizabeth Proctor is not included in the will nor the settlement.

April 3, 1695: Five of six churches meet and urge Salem Village to mend their divisions and urge that if they could not do so with Rev. Parris still serving as pastor, that his moving on would not be held against him by other churches. The letter noted the illness of Rev. Parris' wife, Elizabeth.

November 22, 1695: Francis Nurse, the widower of Rebecca Nurse, dies at age 77.

1696: George Corwin dies, and Philip English puts a lien on the corpse based on Corwin's seizure of property from English during the Salem Witch Trials.

June 1696: Elizabeth Proctor files suit to have the courts restore her dowry.

July 14, 1696: Elizabeth Eldridge Parris, the wife of Rev. Samuel Parris and mother of Elizabeth (Betty) Parris, dies.

January 14, 1697: The Massachusetts General Court declares a day of fasting and reflection for the Salem witch trials. Samuel Sewell, one of the judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, writes the proclamation and makes a public confession of his own guilt. He sets aside one day a year until his death in 1730 to fast and pray for forgiveness for his part in the trials.

April 19, 1697: Elizabeth Proctor's dowry is restored to her by a probate court. It had been held by heirs of her husband, John Proctor because her conviction made her ineligible for her dowry.

1697: Rev. Samuel Parris is forced out of his position at Salem Village Church. He takes a position in Stow, Massachusetts, and is replaced at the Salem Village church by Rev. Joseph Green, who help to heal the rift in the congregation.

1697: France and England end the Nine Years' War and thus King William's War or the Second Indian War in New England also ended.

1699: Elizabeth Proctor marries Daniel Richards of Lynn.

1700: Abigail Faulkner, Jr. asks the Massachusetts General Court to reverse her conviction.

1700: Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World is republished by Robert Calef, a merchant in Boston who adds considerable material criticizing the original and the trials, retitling it More Wonders of the Invisible World. Because it is so critical of beliefs about witches and of the clergy, he could not find a publisher in Boston and had it published in England. Cotton Mather's father and colleague at North Church, Increase Mather, burns the book publicly.

1702: The 1692 trials were declared to have been unlawful by the Massachusetts General Court. That same year, a book completed in 1697 by Beverley minister John Hale about the trials is published posthumously as A Modest Inquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft.

1702: Salem Village church records the deaths of Daniel Andrew and two of his sons from smallpox.

1702: Captain John Alden died.

1703: The Massachusetts legislature passes a bill disallowing the use of spectral evidence in court trials. The bill also restores citizenship rights ("reversed attainder." allowing the named individuals or their heirs to exist again as legal persons, and thus file legal claims for return of their property seized in the trials) for John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse, on whose behalf petitions had been filed for such restoration.

1703: Abigail Faulkner petitions the court in Massachusetts to exonerate her of the charge of witchcraft. The court agreed in 1711.

February 14, 1703: Salem Village church proposed revoking the excommunication of Martha Corey; a majority supported it but there were there were six or seven dissenters. The entry at the time implied that therefore the motion failed; but a later entry, with more details of the resolution, implied that it had passed.

August 25, 1706: Ann Putnam Jr., in formally joining the Salem Village church, publicly apologizes "for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom, now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons..."

1708: Salem Village establishes its first schoolhouse for the village's children.

1710: Elizabeth Proctor is paid 578 pounds and 12 shillings in restitution for her husband’s death.

1711: The legislature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay restores all rights to those who had been accused in the 1692 witch trials. Included were George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacob, John Willard, Giles and Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Elizabeth How, Mary Easty, Sarah Wilds, Abigail Hobbs, Samuel Wardell, Mary Parker, Martha Carrier, Abigail Faulkner, Anne Foster, Rebecca Eames, Mary Post, Mary Lacey, Mary Bradbury, and Dorcas Hoar.

The legislature also gave compensation to the heirs of 23 of those convicted, in the amount of £600. Rebecca Nurse's family won compensation for her wrongful execution. Mary Easty's family received £20 compensation for her wrongful execution; her husband, Isaac, died in 1712. Mary Bradbury's heirs received £20. George Burroughs's children received compensation for his wrongful execution. The Proctor family received £150 in compensation for the conviction and execution of family members. One of the largest settlements went to William Good for his wife Sarah—against whom he had testified—and their daughter Dorcas, imprisoned at 4 or 5 years old. He said that the imprisonment of Dorcas had "ruined" her and that she had been "no good" after that.

Also in 1711, Elizabeth Hubbard, one of the main accusers, married John Bennett in Gloucester. They were to have four children.

March 6, 1712: Salem church reverses the excommunication of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey

1714: Philip English helps finance an Anglican church near Salem and refuses to pay local church taxes; he accuses Rev. Noyes of murdering John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse.

1716: England holds its last trial for witchcraft; the accused were a woman and her 9-year-old daughter.

1717: Benjamin Proctor, who had moved with his stepmother to Lynn and married there, dies in Salem Village.

1718: Philip English's legal claims, for compensation for the seizure of his property during the witch trials, are finally settled.

1736: England and Scotland abolishes witchcraft prosecution on the order of King George II.

1752: Salem Village changes its name to Danvers; the King overruled this decision in 1759 but the village ignored his order.

July 4, 1804: Nathaniel Hathorne is born in Salem, Massachusetts, great-great-grandson of John Hathorne, one of the Salem witch trials judges. Before achieving fame as a novelist and short story writer, he added a "w" to his name making it "Hawthorne." Many have speculated that he did that to distance himself from an ancestor whose actions embarrassed him; but Hathorne's name is spelled as Hawthorne in some of the 1692 transcripts (example: Ann Doliver, June 6). Hawthorne's contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a descendant of Mary Bradbury, among the accused witches at Salem in 1692.

1952: American playwright Arthur Miller writes The Crucible, a play that fictionalized the Salem witch trial events of 1692 and 1693, and served as an allegory for the then-current blacklisting of communists under McCarthyism.

1957: The remaining accused who had not been previously legally exonerated are included in an act in Massachusetts, clearing their names. Although only Ann Pudeator was mentioned explicitly, the act also exonerated Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Wilmott Redd, and Margaret Scott.

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Salem Witch Trials Timeline." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/salem-witch-trials-timeline-3530778. Lewis, Jone Johnson. (2023, April 5). Salem Witch Trials Timeline. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/salem-witch-trials-timeline-3530778 Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Salem Witch Trials Timeline." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/salem-witch-trials-timeline-3530778 (accessed March 28, 2024).