A Witch in the Family

I first remember hearing about the Salem witch trials when I was about eight years old. I was sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table, listening to her and my mother telling stories about various family members. It was when they started relating the history of a relative who had been hanged that I first heard the name Martha Carrier, my grandmother nine generations back, who was sentenced to die for being a witch in Salem in 1692.

This first recounting began a life long fascination with Martha and her family and I grew up scouring local libraries, genealogy sites and begging for family stories; slowly gathering the material that would later become “The Heretic’s Daughter.”

Fortunately for me, the New England courts of the time kept very good records of the witch trials. Some of the most disturbing evidence of the hysteria of the accusers, and gullibility of the magistrates or judges, are the actual court transcripts. The original documents are, for the most part, not available to the public, but they have been collected into a body of work entitled “The Salem Witchcraft Papers” by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum.

The use by the courts of Spectral Evidence, or the manifestations of the Devil seen only by the accusers, led to the killing of 19 men and women, and the death by “pressing”, or the laying on of stones, of another man. It was only when Governor Phipp’s wife was accused of witchcraft that the governor intervened and put a stop to the examinations, imprisonment and hangings. In total there were over 150 people, mostly from villages and towns nearby Salem, and mostly children under the age of 17, who were manacled, chained and placed in prison from March to October 1692.

In the course of my research I travelled to various towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut to study the architecture and placement of related historical sites. Once there, I gathered reproductions of maps of New England from the 1690’s and read letters and sermons by such theologians as Cotton Mather, all towards recreating an accurate and authentic portrayal of Puritan life.

Sarah, Martha’s daughter, is used as the narrator throughout the book as I felt a child’s voice has a feeling of urgency and poignancy that uniquely captures the sense of fear and hysteria of the times. Some of the most dramatic passages of the book take place during Sarah’s imprisonment in the Salem jail. There is very little tangible evidence left of this terrible place, only a single beam that was excavated from the probable site of the prison, displayed in a Salem museum. This sole remaining beam makes an appearance during one of the darkest scenes of the novel when Sarah wonders what future generations will make of the evil brought about by religious tyranny, intolerance and greed.

There was always a tremendous sense of pride in my family of the courage and audacity of Martha Carrier. “The Heretic’s Daughter” is a love letter to all of those relatives, distant and near, who kept the stories alive, and a tribute to all of the men and women who suffered and died as a result of their bravery in holding fast to the truth of their innocence.