01: The Parsonage

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A PRODUCT OF THE WHISPERFORGE: SOUND & STORY, BROUGHT TO LIFE

[[Theme music: “Lakeside Path” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

KATE: Hello, and welcome to Remarkable Providences: a podcast about suspicion and superstition, prejudice and Puritans, and, of course, the Salem Witch Trials. I’m your tour guide, Kate Devorak.

[[MUSIC: Calm]]

It started with a house. Not immodest, by the standards of the village. An open parlor on the first floor, with an adjoining hall, two hearths leading to a large chimney dividing the space, two more rooms on a second floor, a lean-to out back. The land surrounding the house fenced in, separating it from the uncertainty of the New England forests. The parsonage had been built in 1672, to house the minister of Salem Village and his family. Salem Village, modern day Danvers, Massachusetts, was a farming village offshoot of Salem Town, though during the infamous witch trials of the 1690s, it would be considered more or less the same entity.

The Town was founded in 1626 as a commercial venture, with its port proving valuable for trade between the New World, England, and the West Indies, though it came to be primarily settled by English Puritans, who had come in droves to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in search of religious freedom. For Puritans, at least. They made up a Protestant sect who broke from the Church of England for… essentially not going hard enough in its rejection of Catholicism. Puritans wanted a return to the fundamentals of their religion, which boiled down to focus on the Bible as written, minister’s sermons, an emphasis on observing the Sabbath, a rejection of superfluous ritual, and churches run by a committee of members, or the Elect.

The Elect, also called Saints, were full members of a Puritan Church, those who were recognized as those whose souls were saved. These people were Calvinists, who believed in predetermination, meaning that from the moment you are born, you are predestined to go to either heaven or to hell, and only God knows which. On Earth, you try to live a good life and do a lot of soul searching, where you examine your life and actions. Once you’ve done your time of reflection, and decided that salvation feels right, you would petition to the Church, and be voted to the Elect by the minister and existing saints. Much of it has to do with your actions, but also with your lot in life. If you are healthy and wealthy and things are going great for you, that means God probably loves you. That is proof that God has smiled upon you and is allowing you to prosper. When you look at elected members of the church, they tend to be of a higher class, with more land, more wealth, more children, or attached to someone who did. People from the lower classes… not as much. With this distinction came certain privileges– the ability to receive the sacraments of communion and baptism, the ability to weigh in and vote on church matters, the ability to choose a minister for the parish, and access to meetings separate from the main congregation. Like, VIP sermons.

At this point, dear listeners, some of you may be thinking, “Well, this is all incredibly interesting, but what do town boundaries and church matters have to do with witches?” And I will tell you: absolutely nothing. And also everything. I’m going to turn my tour guide chair around and level with y’all for a sec. When people tell the story of Salem, they usually begin with Tituba telling stories in the woods, or Betty Parris and Abigail Williams throwing themselves across rooms and screaming their heads off, or however The Crucible starts. People tend to blame the witch trials on the women, when really it largely boils down to the gross incompetence of the men. Emphasis on gross. And the failings of the government, or church committee, or whoever holds the cards do not happen overnight. They sit on the back burner for years and years until the whole pot boils over and we’re left to wonder “oh no, how did this happen?” We’ll get to that spark, but in order to understand how we got there, we need to understand how all the pieces fall into place. And a lot of that has to do with local politics and church drama, to put it lightly.

[[MUSIC: Contemplative]]

Each community was centered around their church. It was the mark of an established town. Which put Salem Village in a bit of a predicament. Salem Village in the late 17th century was suspended in a limbo of sorts. Technically, it was still a part of Salem Town proper, being the more rural area primarily made up of farmers, but it was also isolated enough that made its existence as Salem’s suburb a touch difficult. In order to attend the mandatory church services every Sabbath, the people of the Village would have to make the trek into the heart of Salem Town, or else become a member of a congregation in a neighboring town.

Not that it was an easy feat. For some context, the Nurse family homestead in the village is roughly four and a half miles from the First Church of Salem, or a one and a half hour walk. The homestead is about four miles from the neighboring town of Beverly, or an hour and twenty minute walk, and nearly six miles (or a two hour walk) from Topsfield. These times are not taking into account the weather (especially in the winter), the conditions of the roads, and the ages and/or physical conditions of the parishioners, many of whom were in their sixties or older. Sounds exhausting, right? The Villagers thought so too.

What they decided they needed, then, was to form their own church. Not only would it make services more convenient, but it would also be a step towards possibly breaking away from Salem Town, as Beverly had done in 1668. The Town, however, was not too keen on this. They did not want to lose control over the Village, and the crops, and men required for the night watch that it provided. But the Villagers were insistent on the church front, and after much petitioning to the court in Boston, the Village was allowed to form a parish on October 2nd, 1672. This meant that they could now build a meetinghouse for services and get their own minister. However, this does not mean that they have their own Church with a capital C, since their minister would not be ordained, and therefore could not perform sacraments or approve new Saints, meaning that to become a member of the Elect, you would still have to go to a neighboring congregation. So this was a bit of a hollow victory, but not nothing. It still worked towards bringing Salem Village some legitimacy. Or it would, if they could just nail down a minister. Which proved to be much easier said than done.

As I mentioned, one of the perks of being in your church’s committee of saints was the ability to choose a minister. But since the Village was starting from scratch, and even then could not form their own committee of saints, they found themselves in a bit of a catch-22. Without a minister, they could not form the church. But without a church, they could not choose a minister. Nor did they have their own secular government, since they were still legally in the clutches of Salem Town. The only elected decision making group they had was a village committee, made up of, well, rich white men. So, logically, it would fall on them to select a minister and decide their rate. But logic has never stopped a divided small town before, and dang it if it would this time. Along with the appointment of the minister, the Town also left the matter of payment in the hands of the Villagers. Instead of the minister’s salary being a responsibility of the Town church, the Village committee would be in charge of collecting parish taxes and assuring payment to their current minister, which would have disastrous results.

You see, the saints of Salem Village weren’t thrilled with being left out of the decision to choose a minister. That had been part of the deal with becoming a full member. God had chosen them for spiritual salvation, so they should have the most authority in spiritual matters. Who chose the village committee? Freakin’ John Putnam?? It just wasn’t right. So when James Bayley, a fresh faced reverend just 3 years out of Harvard, was brought in as minister in October of 1672, he was met with mixed reviews. The Village records are unclear as to who initially brought him to the parish, but he was liked enough that by June of the following year, he was invited to stay by a vote at a meeting of Village householders. However, by the end of 1673, fourteen families had also failed to pay taxes for his salary.

By 1679, a significant anti-Bayley faction had formed, led by Nathaniel Putnam and Bray Wilkins, and they were ready to air their grievances. (Y’all might want to put a star next to the name Putnam–it’ll come in handy later!) They argued that the legitimacy of Bayley’s appointment was questionable, that he was only in it for the money, and that he was spiritually neglectful, some even claiming that he didn’t even pray in his own home! These charges were unsubstantiated and never really went anywhere, with Bayley’s supporters arguing that they had been nothing but satisfied with their minister’s performance, so the anti-Bayley faction doubled down on their primary objection–who had the power to choose the minister? But this question could not be answered within the Village, and Salem Town and the General Court in Boston had to get involved. The Court ultimately decided that the question of the reverend would officially be left to the Village committee, until such time that a committee of saints could be allowed. No real surprises there, but at least they had it all on paper now and everyone could go home satisfied, right?

Not so much. The anti-Bayley faction kept petitioning for his removal, and had by this point gained a majority in the Village committee. Fed up with all the strife, James Bayley stepped down in 1680. And this all goes back to what distinguished Salem Village from other communities in the colony. Almost every community was plagued with some level of infighting and petty squabbling, but at least other towns had some kind of government and/or church committee in place to settle these issues. Salem Village had no way of dealing with internal strife without going over each others’ heads. As I’ll discuss later, all of the Massachusetts Bay Colony would experience another level of this uncertainty, but in Salem Village it was more concentrated. More personal.

And it was into this charged environment that 28-year-old George Burroughs found himself hired in April of 1680. He had graduated from Harvard one year after James Bayley, so it’s likely that the two men knew each other. Maybe Bayley had given Burroughs some warning about the Village, since one of Burrough’s goals in coming to the congregation was to restore some semblance of harmony to the community. Aaaaand, no dice.

[[MUSIC: Melancholy]]

In 1682, one parishioner wrote to Burroughs complaining that in the Village, quote, “brother is against brother, neighbors against neighbors, all quarreling and smiting one another.” By 1683, the Village had stopped paying his salary, so Burroughs packed up and returned to Falmouth, Maine, where he had served as minister some years before and still owned some land. He returned to Salem Village on May 2nd, 1683 to settle some affairs. During that meeting, he was arrested for debt at the complaint of Captain John Putnam. You see, when George Burroughs had first moved to the Village, the parsonage was undergoing repairs, so he and his wife stayed with John Putnam and his family for nine months. In 1681, Burroughs’s wife, Hannah, died, and George had borrowed the money for her funeral from the Putnams, who used his assumed future salary as credit. But when the town stopped paying the minister, Putnam sued him for money owed. You know. For his dead wife’s funeral. The whole thing was ultimately settled out of court, but the very public arrest of a former minister would not be soon forgotten. In fact, it would be repeated less than ten years later. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The next victim–I mean minister–of the Salem Village parish was Reverend Deodat Lawson. For those of you playing along at home, that’s D-E-O-D-A-T Lawson. Lawson was born in England, the son of a Puritan minister, educated at Cambridge, and came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1670s. He served as minister in a town on Martha’s Vineyard for a few years before moving to Boston to pursue some secular careers. None of those panned out, so he decided to get back into the ministry, ultimately filling the position in Salem Village in February of 1684. And by 1686, the Villagers were back on their bullshit.

This time, the issue surrounded the question of whether or not the Village should press to establish a fully-congregated church and to get Lawson ordained. One would think that this would be an open and shut deal, since this is something that the Village had pushed for back in back in the 1670s. One would be very wrong. Again, the Villagers divided themselves into two major factions. Those in favor of an established church were headed by John Putnam and his nephew, Thomas Putnam, Jr, who essentially controlled the village committee. Those opposed were led by Joseph Porter, Porter’s brother-in-law Daniel Andrew, Job Swinnerton, and Joseph Hutchinson.

Hutchinson, who had donated the land the meetinghouse was built on, took a decidedly passive aggressive and frankly incredible approach to protest by building a fence around the meetinghouse, leaving only a single gate for entrance, and actively farming the land around the building. In February of 1687, the anti-ordination group brought their case before three judges in Salem Town, who strongly advised against ordaining Lawson, chiefly due to the Village’s now-infamous pattern of infighting. This behavior, they warned, would have, quote, “a tendency to make such a gap as we fear, if not timely prevented, will let out peace and order and let in confusion and every evil work,” concluding that, “if you unreasonable trouble yourselves, we pray you not to any further trouble us.” A tough, but fair assessment of the Village’s major flaw, though one that comes out as a touch hollow given that two of those three arbiters would become judges in the witch trials five years later. They can’t all be winners. With any hope for ordination out the window and growing resentment within the community, Lawson saw himself out at the end of his contract in 1688. Don’t worry, though, gang. This isn’t the last we’ve seen of “the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson”.

Salem Village had burned through three ministers in sixteen years. They were no closer to spiritual or political independence than they had been in 1672, and it was no longer certain that it was what the majority of the Villagers even wanted anymore. But with Deodat Lawson’s departure, the faction in favor of an established church got a kind of second wind. It seems that they had learned something from their hesitation during Lawson’s stint as minister, and were feeling much bolder in their intentions. Furthermore, larger political upheavals in Boston and England thrust the leadership of the colony into a state of confusion. We’ll get into all that later, but the state of uncertainty in the higher levels of government gave the pro-church faction of Salem Village a ripe opportunity to further their interests.

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

All they needed was a willing participant. And the Village still needed a minister. Someone who would come to the Village despite their reputation. Despite their shaky finances. Despite the uncertainty of their position. Someone who was out of options. Someone who was desperate for a job. Someone just plain desperate.

That someone, it turned out, would be Samuel Parris: human disaster.

And that’s where we’ll pick up next week on Remarkable Providences. Join me then, as Salem Village gets a new minister, a failure gets a new lease on life, and both get in way over their heads.

[[Outro music: “Our Names Engraved” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

Remarkable Providences was written, researched, and performed by me, Kate Devorak. It was produced by Dan Manning, and recorded by Chad Ellis. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on Twitter @RemarkablePod, and everywhere else @RemarkableProvidences. For transcripts and links to everything, visit us at whisperforge.org/remarkableprovidences

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Thanks for listening, and remember, the devil’s in the details.