Of Ministers and Specters; Witchcraft in 1692

by Terri McFadden

Nearly 327 years after the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem the expression ‘witch hunt’ is still often in the news. Many of horrible events of 1692 are well-known and extensively chronicled. There are however aspects of the story that have been less examined. That is the story of the somewhat mysterious Mary Herrick who accused Sarah Hale, respected and admired wife of Reverend John Hale, of afflicting her. Mary’s vision also included one of the executed witches. According to early accounts, Mary’s accusation was instrumental in bringing Reverend Hale and others officials to their senses and putting a stop to the witch hunt. But is this really what happened?

On the 12^th of November 1692, reported Mary Herrick, “Mrs. Hale did afflict her as formerly.” The ghost of Goody Easty appeared too “and made as if she would speake.” Mary was said to be about 17 years old and she told Reverend Joseph Garrish of Wenham and Reverend John Hale of Beverly that she was pinched, pricked and choked by Mrs. Hale. When asked by the spirit of Mrs. Hale if Mary thought she was a witch, the girl answered “No You be the Devill.” The torments that Mary reported were the usual ones mentioned during the trials by the afflicted people; they believed their suffering was caused by witches who appeared to them as specters. In those days everyone, from the Harvard educated pastor to the simple maid servant, believed in the invisible world of spirits. They also believed these specters could harm those in the visible world. But Mary’s story was subtly different. The young woman told the specter that she didn’t believe it to be Mrs. Hale, but the devil in her form. (Emphasis mine.)

Mary Herrick’s story goes on: In the vision the deceased Goody Easty (executed September 22, 1692) was then able to speak and said that “she had been put to death wrongfully & was Innocent of Witchcraft, & she Came to Vindicate her Cause & she Cryed Vengeance, Vengeance, & bid her reveal this to Mr. Hayle & Gerish, & then she would rise no more.” Mary Herrick then stated that when Easty was executed she appeared to her and said that though she was “going on the lader to be hanged for a Witch….” She went on to assert that she was innocent and before a year was past the girl would believe it. Mary Herrick didn’t tell anyone of this vision at the execution because she believed Easty was guilty, but after Mrs. Hale appeared to her she became convinced that “all was a delusion of the Devil.”

Sarah (Noyes) Hale was 36 in 1692. Married to Reverend John Hale in 1684, she was expecting their fourth child - a son was born in December. The story that Mrs. Hale was beloved and no one believed she could be a witch has been repeated and repeated over the years. She may well have been beloved and admired by her community, but the fact is that by the time Mary Herrick told the story of her November vision the witchcraft delusion was nearly at its end. The trials had been stopped in October and the court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved. As we have seen, Mary’s own words show that she didn’t believe it was Mrs. Hale that she saw, but the devil in her form.

Also appearing in Mary Herrick’s vision was Mary Towne Easty. This unfortunate woman was one of three sisters accused of witchcraft in 1692. In a petition Easty asked the officials, including “the Reverend ministers,” not for her own life, but “that no more Innocent blood be shed…I know you are in the wrong way.” She suggested that the accusers should be questioned strictly and kept separate for “some time.” Mary Beth Norton writes in her examination of the witchcraft crises, In the Devil’s Snare, that it isn’t clear how many knew of the petition, but Mary Easty was “touching on the very issues that outspoken critics of the trials” were speaking of by September. By the second week in October public opinion had turned against the trials. Norton writes: “That one of the afflicted herself (Herrick) would so soon come to question the origins of her suffering and reject the guilt of such an active spectral tormentor as Mary Easty reveals above all the rapidly changing climate of opinion in the colony.”

 Who was the young woman who spoke with Reverend Garrish and Reverend Hale in November 1692? Historians have had some difficulties answering this question. No listing for Mary Herrick about age 17 appears in the published Vital Records of Beverly, or those of surrounding towns. A recent search of the handwritten records revealed a possible candidate; the daughter of Ephraim and Mary (Crosse) Herrick. This couple were married in Beverly July 3, 1661. Ephraim & Mary had an older daughter, also called Mary, born in 1667, making her about 25 in 1692. She is not found in death records but may have married in the 1680s. However, another daughter was born to Ephraim and Mary on May 25^th 1673, making her 19 in 1692. In the records she is called, “Mary alias Sarah Herrick, daughter of Ephraim & Mary (Crosse) Herrick” and in another she is “Sarah or Mary.”

The second question to address concerns the origin of the information posted in 1930 outside the Hale Farm, home of Reverend John Hale, Beverly’s first minister and his wife Sarah. The plaque, notes: “…a charge of witchcraft made against his wife convinced the minister of the folly and wickedness of the crusade and ended all witch-hunting in Beverly.” This story appears first in a book by Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, published about 1700. Unfortunately, Calef does not record the source of this information. However, John Hale wrote his own book, A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, on the events of 1692. In it he doesn’t mention Mary/Sarah Herrick or his wife. Instead, Hale wrote that he believed the legal methods used in 1692 by the authorities were in error and caused death and suffering of people who may have been innocent. In this he echoed the words of Mary Easty. He hoped his book might help avoid future mistakes which happened because of “proceeding on unsafe principle.” He continued, “Such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former presidents [precedents], that we walked in the clouds, and could not see our way.” His moving conclusion is something to remember in our own troubled times. “