Blog Post #9 - The Trial of Rebecca Nurse

    To accompany last week’s reading – “The Invisible Saint Against the Invisible World” – I decided to investigate the convicting of Rebecca Nurse further. Something unique about Nurse’s case was that she wasn’t a usual suspect in the witch trial. As explained on page two of “The Invisible Saint Against the Invisible World,” Nurse fit with only two of the nine characteristics of an accused witch. While she was a woman and from an English Puritan background, she didn’t fit with the seven other traits: middle-aged, married with few or no children, frequent conflict with family members, previously accused of committing crimes, practiced a medical vocation, was of low social position, and “was abrasive in style, contentious in character.” In other words, Nurse was an outlier among those othered in the Salem Village Witch Trials.

Interestingly, many different theories speculate about why Nurse was singled out and accused. One theory argues that the farm that Nurse and her husband lived on had become the center of a long-standing dispute between Townsend Bishop, the farm’s owner who leased it to the Nurses, and Zerubabel Endicott, a neighbor who disputed the boundary of their adjoining land, according to Emerson Baker in his book, A Storm of Witchcraft. Baker shares: “The farm that Rebecca and Francis Nurse leased from Reverend James Allen was the focus of a long and complicated boundary dispute between Allen, the Nurses, and the abutting Endicott and Putnam families. This dispute and another between the Putnams and several Topsfield landowners likely influenced the charges against Rebecca and her sisters Mary Esty and Sarah Cloyce, for their brother, Ensign Jacob Towne, was one of the Topsfield men” (Baker 152.)

Another theory comes from historian Winfield S. Nevins, who believes it was a different dispute that earned Rebecca Nurse the wrath of the Putnam family. Nevins explains: “The first trouble appears to have come to this family after the purchase of the Bishop farm. Allen had guaranteed the title. He was soon called upon to defend it against the claims of Zerubabel Endicott, who claimed a boundary line to the Endicott possessions that pushed back the eastern bounds of the Bishop farm. The controversy was a long one, going finally to the General Court for settlement. It was decided against Endicott. Nurse, to be sure, was only indirectly interested in the suit. Allen was the principal, and he kept his promise to defend the title. Thomas Putnam became involved in the suit. Some writers allege that Nurse thus incurred his hostility and that this was one of the incentives to the subsequent prosecution of Rebecca Nurse. It would seem that Putnam, if anything, was united with Allen and Nurse in fighting Endicott. It is far more likely that the Topsfield controversy engendered ill-feeling between the Village people and the Nurse family.” (Nevins 718).

Something else that I found interesting and ironic was how, at the end of her trial in June 1692, Nurse was initially found not guilty by the jury. Leading up to the jury’s decision, thirty-nine people had braved the repercussions to sign a petition to corroborate her innocence. The signing of this petition was a particularly weighty decision for those individuals, because – throughout the Salem Witch Trials – many of those who criticized the trials or defended the accused witches became targets themselves. Two unfortunate examples were John Proctor and Giles Corey. Specifically, the petition for Nurse’s innocence reads:

“We whose nams Are heareunto subscribed being desired by goodman Nurse to declare what we knewe concerning his wives conversation for time past: we cane testyfie to all whom it may concerne that we have knowne her for: many years and Acording to our observation her: Life and conversation was Acording to her profession and we never had Any: cause or grounds to suspect her of Any such thing as she is nowe Acused of

Israel Porter

Elizibeth Porter

Edward Beshep sen

Hana Beshep

Joshua Rea

Sarah Rea

Sarah Leach

John Putnam sen.

Rebeckh Putnam

Joseph Hucheson sen

Leda Hucheson

Joseph Holten sen

Sarah Holten

Daniell Andrew

Sara Andrew

Jonathan Putnam

Lydia Putnam

Walter Phillipps senior

Nathaniel Felton Sen:

Margaret Philips

Taitha Phillipps

Joseph Houlton Junior

Sam’ll Endecott

Elizabeth Buxtston

Samuel Aborn senr

Isaack Cooke

Benjaman Putnam

Sarah Putnam

Job Swinerton

Esther Swinerton

Joseph Herrick sen

Samuell Sibley

Hephzibah Rea

Elisabeth Cooke

William Osborne

Hanah Osborne

Daniell Rea

Sarah Putnam

Joseph Putman”

However, even after this petition had been submitted before officials and after Nurse had been found not guilty by a jury of her peers, the afflicted girls began having violent fits and crying out against Nurse as the “not guilty” verdict was read. The scene is described in The Salem Witch Trials: A Reference Guide: “When Thomas Fiske, the jury foreman, announced the verdict the afflicted children raised such an outcry that Chief Justice William Stoughton asked Fiske to reconsider. Stoughton suggested that perhaps the jury had not heard Rebecca make an incriminating statement when another prisoner was brought in to testify against her. When Fiske later questioned Rebecca as to the exact meaning of her statement, she would not reply. This lack of a response, probably due to Rebecca’s partial deafness, was unexpected. Fiske waited briefly, then returned to the jury, and soon came back with a verdict of guilty. Stoughton sentenced her to be executed on July 19, 1692.”

https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-trial-of-rebecca-nurse/

https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-petition-to-free-rebecca-nurse/