Every Hope of Heaven

Something horrible began to take shape in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.  And no one can tell why to this very day.  But at the beginning of the year, a group of girls led by Elizabeth Parris, the nine-year-old daughter of the local reverend, and her cousin Abigail Williams, 12, began to have "fits."  Conveniently enough, this started when they were discovered having their fortunes told by Tituba, the family servant.  Dr. Griggs diagnosed them as "bewitched," and the destruction began.

Questioned as to the identities of their persecutors, the girls named Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne (called Goody in address, short for Goodwife), who were thrown into jail.  On March 1, the Meeting House became the scene of the show.  The three women went to trial, and, as each was questioned by the judges, the girls and some young audience members screamed in agony and flailed wildly about on the floor.  While the two Sarahs kept their wits about them, denying all, the black woman knew her position was even more precarious.  So she concocted what the prosecutors wanted to hear--stories of meeting with the Devil, signing his book, dancing naked in the forest, and consorting with other "witches" in the village.  The snowball was rolling.

Soon, many others were arrested, most of them older women who had caused some sort of difficulty for their neighbors at one time or another.  Men and women were questioned.  Could they say the Lord's Prayer without stumbling?  Quote the Ten Commandments?  Recall particular passages from the Sermon on the Mount?  Women were undressed by their former friends and searched over for "witch's tits," any unusual growth or mole which might allow a "familiar" to suckle.  No humiliation was too great.  And anyone who was considered suspect was imprisoned.  Eventually, volunteers loaned barns and sheds for makeshift jails, as more than 150 people were locked away.

The group of girls had expanded, and in June an official court of Oyer and Terminer, with the power to issue warrants of execution, had been created to try the cases.  Generations from a single family were awaiting their day before the tribunal.  Both Martha Corey and her equally cantankerous husband Giles, who had not minded her arrest in the least, were accused.  Sisters, cousins, grandmothers, mothers, and daughters were all supposedly amongst the Devil's minions.  A pregnant woman could, however, "plead her belly," which meant delaying her trial or execution until after the birth.  In the end, this would literally save lives.

Only the women who refused to sign confessions were brought to trial.  The first to be found guilty, while the girls wallowed and howled, was Bridget Bishop, and her sentence was death by hanging.  She was followed in quick succession by Martha Cory, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, and many others.  All were taken to the Gallows Tree for execution, and their land was confiscated, just as that of those who had confessed.

The exception to this process was the redoubtable Giles Cory.  When he refused to sign his life away, the decision to torture him came down from the tribunal.  The old man, who was 80, was placed on the ground with a door laid over him.  That fixture was topped with one large rock after another.  While his body broke, his spirit did not.  His last words were "more weight," and his land stayed in the family.  He died an innocent man.

Eventually, anything can go too far.  In 1693, the girls were already being doubted because of their reliance upon "spectral evidence," or visions.  They often claimed that their tormentors appeared to them in another form or in their rooms at night, when they could not possibly have done so.  During the hearings, they cried out that those sitting in full view of the court were sticking them with pins or whispering in their ears. 

Then they did the unthinkable.  They accused the wife of Governor Phips, claiming that she too was a practicing witch.  It was like the sound of a needle scratching across a record, as the proceedings ground to a halt.  They had overextended their reach.

But the damage, deliberate or not, was profound.  Of those arrested, 19 women had been hanged (Tituba survived).  Cory had lost his life.  Even a dog has been taken to the Gallows Tree and executed as a "familiar."  Of the women never tried, five had died imprisoned.  The madness had spread, though not so dramatically, to nearby villages.  And the power of the great Puritan theocracy was dead.  Now those who follow this religion call themselves Congregationalists.  Even Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose ancestor John Hathorne had been one of the original Meeting House magistrates, changed the spelling of his name to disguise the connection.  But he could not change the tone of his subject matter to do the same.

So were these girls just vicious?  Perhaps, but there are other arguments.  Most were from wealthy families who believed that God smiled more brightly upon those with the most property.  They may have been encouraged to pursue the owners of valuable land, which would be put up for sale upon their confessions.  Some point out that the majority of the "afflicted" were pubescent, which could mean that hormones and sexual repression played a role.  Others argue that they simply became addicted to the attention and celebrity, for people came from far and wide to observe,  And, as the staples of the Puritan diet were bread and beer (yes, beer), the theory that the wheat crop was contaminated by ergot has been suggested.  This could mean that they actually had pain and hallucinations, but so would many others.  There simply is no satisfactory answer.

The fact remains, of those murdered 12 never confessed.  They had "every hope of Heaven." to quote Arthur Miller.  Over the following years, some excommunications and convictions were reversed or overturned, but not all.  And the term "witchhunt" has passed into popular idiom to describe any unjust accusation. 

Before 1692, twelve lives were taken for "practicing witchcraft" in Massachusetts, and still others were lost in the United States afterward.  Chadwick Hansen argues in Witchcraft in Salem, the seminal work on the subject, that white magic was practiced in the guise of superstition, just as people still avoid black cats, walking under ladders, stepping on cracks, and the number 13.  But the next time you level an accusation against your neighbor, remember that one of you is getting farther from Heaven.  How can you be sure which one?

V K

When the Donners Were Done For

"Never take no cut offs, and hurry along as fast as you can."
Virgina Reed, aged 13.

In the 1840's, after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California, there was a tremendous rush to the West.  And one wagon train in particular carved out a name for itself on the journey.  Let's face it, everyone wants to know what happened, and why, to the Donner Party.  So here we go.

The family was the hub of several others, including the Breens, the Kesebergs, the Reeds, and the Murphys, belonging to a band headed for California.  The beginning of the trip for these 32 people was in Independence, Missouri, which seems innocuous enough.  But it was already May, 1846, unusually wet, and they did not reach Fort Laramie, in Wyoming, until the end of June.  Still, at that point they were only one week behind schedule.

This is where things became calamitous.  Donner had a copy of Lansford Hasting's guidebook to the west, which outlined a "cut off" through the Wasatch Mountains much further south.  It was designed to take weeks off the journey, and James Reed became interested.

In July, the group elected George Donner captain and within a month were on the Hastings Cutoff.  Most people walked, with only the infirm or infants riding in the wagons.  But this was rugged country, and, unknown to potential settlers, the "guide" had never taken this route, only speculating on its feasibility.  To put it bluntly, though they were in virgin territory, their little band was screwed.

As they crossed the Great Basin of the Salt Lake Desert, they began to lose animals and people due to hard going and a lack of preparation.  They sent two men on ahead to Sutter's Fort for supplies, walked through treacherous mountain territory, and, in August, they finally reached a trail that settlers had used before.  Unfortunately, they had gone 125 miles out of their way--mostly on foot.

And the damage was done.  James Reed was banished for killing another man.  Struggling travellers were being left by the side of the road.  It seemed there was always more desert.  Division and infighting were the standards.  And in October, they were in the Truckee River Valley of the Sierras (now Reno) when the worst snowstorm in recorded history began as they ran out of supplies.  California dreaming does not start to address this issue.

The party was forced to camp.  They had arbors, tents, cabins, shanties, and lean-tos.  George Donner cut his hand while trying to repair a broken axle and would die of an infection, his wife Tamsyn by his side.  Others would succumb as well, with starvation being the culprit. 

In December, ten men and five women made up a contingent known as the Forlorn Hope.  They trudged through several feet of snow in an effort to make it across the pass, but it was useless.  Soon they were snow blind and exhausted, drawing straws to see who would be cannibalized.

Among them, Franklin Graves was the first to die, instructing both his daughters to use the body for sustenance.  The day after Christmas, Mary and Sarah did so in shame and through their tears.  This was only the beginning.

By mid-January, 1847, most families in the camp had consumed human flesh, and William Foster had killed two Indian guides of the Forlorn Hope solely for that purpose.  He and the survivors made it back to the settlement only to find themselves no better off.  But the two who had gone on to Sutter's Fort had not forgotten them.

So it was that on February 19th, a rescue party arrived to take some of the survivors to safety over the ridge.  On March 1, the outcast James Reed was reunited with the surviving members of his family when he, too, rode into the camp.  The last person taken out was Lewis Keseberg, who was surrounded by the half-eaten bodies of former companions.  He had developed quite a taste for them.

No one knows how many were eaten, but almost half the party died.  It is amazing what people will do when their hope is truly forlorn.  Virginia Reed encouraged her cousin back East to come to California, where she could find a husband easily enough.  But she gave the aforementioned stipulation.  She also stated that she was thankful that her family alone had not eaten anyone else.

Keseberg opened a successful restaurant.  Maybe that is why it is called a "twist" of fate.  Go figure.

V K