Studying the Salem witch trials: Review of records yields new details

By Jay Lindsay
The Associated Press

	LISA POOLE / AP Richard Trask, a historian from Danvers, Mass., stands inside a reproduction of the Salem Village Meeting House, where "witches" were given pretrial hearings in front of town magistrates. A project by scholars to transcribe the Salem witch trial records has revealed new details.
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DANVERS, Mass. — The little that was known about Ann Dolliver suggested an unhappy life during wicked times.

Her husband, a layabout with an affinity for wine, deserted Ann and their child around 1683, according to court records. Nine years later, Dolliver was accused of being a witch.

But Dolliver may also have believed she was possessed and fought back with her own magic, according to Salem witch trial documents discovered in recent years. Dolliver crafted wax puppets of her imagined tormentors and damaged them, hoping to hurt her enemies or protect herself.

"She thought she was bewitched and she read in a book that was (the) way to afflict them (that) had afflicted her," according to records of a court examination, unearthed by University of Virginia professor Benjamin Ray.

Ray's work is part of five-year project by a team of scholars to update the trial transcript for the first time in 65 years. The project, which relies on original records whenever possible, aims to correct errors and find new documents that can add context to events and life to victims such as Dolliver.

"It puts a little meat onto (Dolliver's) bones, because she was really basically a name," Richard Trask, a historian and witch trials expert, said.

The work combines grinding research in dusty libraries with new technology, such as ultraviolet light and digital enhancement, that can reveal faded writing and information that was previously missed.

Rather than settle the record, the new information could fuel more speculation about the events of 1692, Trask said. So many papers are lost that the new clues barely begin to fill in the gaps, he said.

Researcher Margo Burns, a linguist, said accuracy in existing records is crucial because of the unabated interest in America's original witch hunt, during which 20 people were executed and more than 200 imprisoned.

The project began in 1998 after University of Binghamton English professor Bernard Rosenthal discovered he had inadvertently included an erroneously transcribed court date in his book, "Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692." It wasn't the only problem he'd found.

"In writing the book, I was starting to get an inkling that I couldn't trust the sources," he said. "It was that particular thing that said, 'Hey, we really have to go through all the transcripts.' "

The last transcription of the roughly 900 court documents was done in 1938 as a Works Progress Administration project.

The work was reprinted during the 1970s but had very limited distribution — just three or four copies are spread out in Salem-area libraries, Trask said.

This time, Rosenthal assembled a team of about 10 historians and linguists from Texas to Finland who have a keen interest in the trials. Trask and Burns, for example, are descendants of accused witches.

The updated transcript will include about 30 documents discovered since the project began, many found after being overlooked in local libraries for years. Ray found the Dolliver documents when he visited the Boston Public Library in 1999 to digitally photograph other records.

Trask is arranging the transcript chronologically for the first time.

"By seeing the ebb and flow of events, it's going to give us a clearer indication of what was happening," he said.

Many of the records are remarkably well-preserved because much of the paper of that time was made of sturdy linen fibers, woven and pressed together without using modern corrosive acids. Such paper can last as long as 500 years. The ink can fade, especially iron-based inks, but most is in pristine condition, Trask said.

Methods of storing the papers helped preserve then. The records were stored "docket-style" in bundles of long, folded documents tied together. In the 19th century, many were mounted into scrapbooks until the 1980s, when they were removed, repaired if necessary and stored in acid-free boxes.

"The majority of the papers are in excellent shape, as good as any new letters people might write today," Trask said.

To ensure that they don't repeat mistakes or introduce new ones, sections of the transcripts are being dissected by pairs of researchers, whose work will then be reviewed by another pair, Rosenthal said.

So far, researchers have found errors ranging from misspellings to the deletion of entire chunks of testimony.

Even small mistakes can change the story. This summer, Burns discovered that Tituba, an Indian slave who confessed to using witchcraft and accused others, never mentioned — as long believed — rats in her testimony about numerous, sometimes bizarre animals she had seen. The "c" in cats had been misread as an "r" by the transcriber.

Crossed-out portions of the documents are also revealing. The name of Elizabeth Parris, daughter of the chief accuser, the Rev. Samuel Parris, was deleted in early examinations. Was it arranged by her father to protect her, Burns asks, or because her testimony against others was no good?

Another deletion indicates that Dorcas Good — at 4, the youngest to be accused of witchcraft — may actually have been named "Dorothy," the name written over crossed-out portions of her transcripts, Burns said.

Researchers have become intimately familiar with the handwriting of the main players, and that's raised questions about whether the judicial system was manipulated.

It's clear, for example, that in depositions sworn by Parris, he later added names of witnesses to back up his story. And Thomas Putnam, father of accuser Anne Putnam, was involved in taking down depositions, an obvious conflict of interest.

Corruption is also a theme in a theory Rosenthal advances, based on a recently discovered jury call notice issued by George Corwin, the sheriff at the time. The sheriff had confiscated property of suspected witches and stood to gain if more were jailed.

"If you're crooked and on the take, you might have a vested interest on who you pick for juries," Rosenthal said.

The new transcript was due to Cambridge University Press last summer, but Rosenthal said the painstaking work, which is being done for free, won't be complete until next year at the earliest.

The transcripts aren't a likely best seller, Trask joked, but he predicted they'll cause a stir because the trials maintain a grip on people's imagination.

He said that in Danvers — where the witch hysteria began when the town was known as Salem Village — residents were ashamed to discuss the trials until recent years.

Rosenthal describes the trials as America's "original sin," painful because it countered the American myth that promised people a new beginning, but intriguing because people still don't understand the society-wide failure that allowed the trials to happen.

"We've never gotten away from it," he said.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company