15: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

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

[[MUSIC: “Lakeside Path” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

 KATE: Hello, and welcome to Remarkable Providences, the podcast about notes and narcs, mistakes and malcontents, and, of course, the Salem Witch Trials. I’m your tour guide, Kate Devorak.

[[MUSIC: Tense]]

As the sun rose on April 3rd, Sabbath day, Reverend Samuel Parris trudged towards the Salem Village meetinghouse. It had been a long week since Rebecca Nurse’s examination. A long couple of weeks, actually. Hell, it’s been a long life for Samuel Parris, if we’re being honest. But the Village was under massive spiritual attack, and the people needed reassurance. As Parris approached the meetinghouse, he surely would have noticed the note. It wasn’t uncommon for folks to post requests for prayers before Sabbath, but this one would have been especially poignant. I can’t say what Sammy P thought of its contents, but he still felt the need to share it with the congregation when they gathered later that morning. 

“The afflicted did but dissemble!” the note declared. If you’re not up on your Latin, dissemble means to hide one’s feelings or intentions. In a more charitable reading, dissemble could also mean to have one’s eyes shut to the facts of a situation. So maybe the afflicted were simply somehow deluded, that they only thought they were being tormented by their neighbors. But let’s face it, the note was suggesting that the afflicted were faking it. Whatever the author of the note meant, I’m sure it left the Putnams, Walcotts, and the other allegedly bewitched sweating in their pews. The author thanked the congregation for their prayers, saying that though she had once been afflicted, she was now cured of all fits. The note was signed by Mary Warren, servant of the lately accused Elizabeth Proctor.

I can just picture this scene in which Mary catches her master’s eye from the servants’ section of the meetinghouse. If it were historically accurate, I’d love to imagine she flashes a thumbs up while John and Elizabeth aggressively shake their heads no. Mary just couldn’t catch a break. 

If you ask me, Mary Warren is one of the most interesting figures of the witch trials. On the surface, she’s just another afflicted girl, a servant of little importance outside of turning on the family she served. But she comes back into the story again and again. After the note and its subsequent fallout, she’s trotted out in front of the courts and interviewed by key figures, more than almost any other girl, despite having no apparent link to any of the core group of afflicted. There were free agents having fits, like Mrs. Pope, but most of the core afflicted were related either through kinship, employment, or political ties. Mary’s an outsider who amassed a decent amount of credibility over the course of the trials, whether she wanted to or not. But her feelings about the trials, her faith, her motives, are a big ol mystery to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t empathize with her, though. No lie, I cry about Mary Warren a lot. 

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

Was she afraid? Did she believe that the Village really was under attack and that it was her duty to come forward? Did she think that becoming one of the afflicted would give her an opportunity to be recognized beyond her station? Did she want revenge against the people she felt had ruined her life? I can’t say for sure. You can’t psychoanalyze someone 300 years after the fact, even though, you know, this whole podcast. But I feel like her motives might have been an “all of the above” situation. She didn’t really have a solid place in the community, and maybe because of that, she was more susceptible to the suggestions of other people. I don’t think she ever really thought too far ahead. It’s clear to me that she didn’t have the best grasp on the possible consequences of her actions, as evidenced by how she anticipated that the note would be received. At the end of the day, I believe that she got caught up in the wrong crowd, she made a bunch of mistakes, she hurt a lot of people, and she suffered greatly because of it.

Everything we know about Mary Warren’s life comes from Mary herself, through her later testimonies before the official court. As a servant with few social connections, it’s a miracle that we know as much as we do. Without the trials, the best we could have hoped for as evidence of Mary’s existence is a birth date, and if we were lucky, a marriage or death announcement. But also, Mary flip flops several times during the trials, and as I mentioned, we can’t know for sure what she was thinking or feeling at the time. So while I believe a lot of her backstory, it’s good to remember that her account is subjective. 

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

Mary was about twenty years old in 1692, so she had to have been born in the colony in the early 1670s. An exact date of birth is not given, and she was not baptized. She feels like a Libra to me, though, so let’s say she was born in October.

There were a lot of Warrens in New England by this point, though I’m not certain what ties they may have had to each other. Apparently, there was a Warren family in Salem with possible ties to Ipswich, where John Proctor’s family settled, and though they had a daughter named Mary, it is unlikely that our Mary Warren was connected to them at all. 

[[MUSIC: Quirky]]

Flash forward to Mary’s childhood. An ongoing dispute between her family and one of the neighbors had come to a head. Alice Parker had asked Mary’s father to mow the grass in her meadows for her, since her husband worked as a fisherman and wouldn’t be back in time for the harvest season. Mary’s father told her that he would, if he had the time between his own work. He never made the time. Faced with a meadow full of unmowed grass that was now beyond saving, Alice stormed over to her neighbor’s house to give him a piece of her mind. Because of Mr. Warren’s perceived negligence, the Parkers would now have to buy feed for their livestock. Apparently, Goody Parker really let her neighbor have it. Then Alice said something to Mary’s father that Mary would remember years later- “He had better he had done it.” Which sounds pretty innocuous, but after what happened next, I see how it could be taken as a vaguely witchy threat. 

Soon after this confrontation, Mary’s mother and sister fell seriously ill. Mary’s sister recovered, but she lost her hearing, and consequently stopped speaking. Mary’s mother died. 

This story comes from Mary’s testimony against Alice Parker, which led to Alice’s execution in September of 1692. And I believe that is the only true murder Mary Warren committed. Evidently, Mary linked Alice’s confrontation with her father with the death of her mother and dissolution of her family. Mary saw an opportunity. It doesn’t justify her actions, obviously, but I can follow her logic.

Her father and sister were apparently still alive at the time of the trials, but they never come up in court documents other than being referenced in Mary’s testimony. Which means they did not offer any evidence against Goody Parker. I don’t know where they even were at this point. It’s unclear if they stayed in Salem, or if they moved on after the death of Mary’s mother. How much, if any, communication Mary had with her remaining immediate family members is also a mystery. I feel like it wasn’t much, though. She must have been very lonely. 

We don’t know exactly when Mary started working for the Proctors, but she'd been with them at the start of 1692, and based on the familiarity of their relationship, I’d guess she had been with them for at least a year.

[[MUSIC: Investigative]] 

Oh, I promised I’d get back to John Proctor’s “fetching his jade” comment about Mary, so I’ll do that here. So “jade” as slang can mean a couple things. First, it could describe something or someone tired, worn out, or worthless. Like jaded. Then there’s the second meaning of “jade”, which refers to an especially flirtatious girl or a woman of ill repute- a connotation that certain salacious Salem storytellers really like to highlight. But it makes much more sense to me that John was calling Mary “worthless”, which is unfortunate, but it jibes with what we know about their working relationship. Some folks, however, use this ambiguity to jump to some icky conclusions. One of my sources, which is otherwise excellent, unfortunately poses this theory that based on the “jade” comment, and Mary’s first affliction, Mary Warren was in love with John Proctor. That Mary, a 20-year-old, worn-down servant harbored intense sexual feelings for her 60-something master who, in records, seems to show her nothing but utter contempt. I hate it. I hate it so so much. It’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that Mary at some point had fallen in love with the man who belittled and mistreated her. Besides, in Mary’s first affliction, in which the spector turned into John Proctor when she pulled it into her lap, seems to have come from a place of fear rather than desire. Maybe he pulled some creepy shit on her in the past, who knows? The idea that Mary acted out of some kind of jealousy or harbored romantic feelings for Proctor is gross to me, and further cements John as this alluring tragic hero à la The Crucible, when really he was kind of an asshole who used his power to challenge the status quo. Which is all well and good, John. Fight the power. I just wish writers and historians would stop trying to turn him into a damn daddy dom.

Back on that April Sabbath, Mary again found herself in deep trouble with her employers. Her brilliant plan had only succeeded in turning the Villagers’ attention and ire directly towards the Proctors, who in turn directed their attention and ire at Mary. Her note had put a target on all their backs. Elizabeth was already suspected, sure, but now there was buzz that Mary could have turned from victim to witch. The other afflicted had previously talked about how their tormentors had offered them the Devil’s Book to sign in exchange for relief. Maybe the Villagers reasoned that since there was already a witch at the head of the household, Mary could easily have been courted by the dark side. Or maybe the afflicted and their allies saw Mary’s note as a potential threat to their control of the crisis. 

It’s probably that one. 

I can’t say if the note tipped the scale, or if it was just inevitable, but the Villagers felt that something needed to be done. After nearly a month of informal accusations, Jonathan Walcott and Nathaniel Ingersoll rode to Salem Town to enter complaints against Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce on April 4th; but with six accused witches already in custody, Hathorne and Corwin were uncomfortable with issuing any more arrest warrants without first consulting higher authorities in Boston. 

Meanwhile, Deodat Lawson had hurried back to Boston. He had gathered enough evidence in Salem to complete his Brief and True Narrative, and headed to Cambridge to have it printed and distributed as soon as possible by Benjamin Harrison (not the 23rd president). 

Abigail Williams continued to be tormented by Elizabeth Proctor, who was now joined by her husband. Apparently, spectral John could pinch as well as his wife. This marks the first appearance of a named male witch. Tituba had described the “man all in black” as the coven’s leader, but this was the first wizard that anyone actually knew. That’s what I call #Diversity. 

Now that John Proctor had been named, the other men in the Village were determined to prove that not only girls wanna have fun. Stephen Bittford was woken in the middle of the night by the spectors of both Proctors and Rebecca Nurse, who may or may not have caused a, quote, “very great pain” in his neck. Farmer Benjamin Gould also reported waking in the night to see both Martha and Giles Corey staring at him from his bedside. They quickly vanished, but not before pinching Benjamin hard in his side. It’s nice to see Giles and Martha reunited, even though it seems that they only worked well together as a spectral duo. They returned the next night, this time joined by Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyse, both Proctors, and Rebecca Griggs, the wife of the good doctor. Sounds like a real party. 

Tituba’s husband, John, had also joined the ranks of the afflicted. He had escaped punishment for his part in the witch cake incident, but seeing as the afflicted kept referring to the devil as both “the Black man” and “like an Indian”, he could probably see which way the wind was blowing. If you can’t beat em, join em. Goody Cloyse’s spector apparently drew blood from him in an attack during Samuel Parris’ Sunday sermon, which I’m sure Sammy P just loved. Now he was down two slaves and one daughter, with his niece growing worse by the day. And on top of that, despite his elevated role since the beginning of the witch crisis, his salary remained unpaid for the third quarter in a row. The Village congregation needed their spiritual leader, sure, but not that much.

[[MUSIC: Somber]]

On April 8th, Hathorne and Corwin got the go-ahead from Boston to continue their grim work in Salem. Members from the Governor’s Council of Assistants would observe the examinations of Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyse, which would take place the following Monday. They were to take notes and, should the accusations continue, determine the best course of action. They were kind of on their own; the newly-appointed Governor wasn’t even in the Colony yet. At this point, he was on a ship headed to Massachusetts, blissfully unaware of this whole witchery business. But I’ll get into that whole mess later. 

Salem Town hosted the examinations for the convenience of the representatives from Boston. The Town’s meetinghouse was also bigger, and could better accommodate the Salemites who were no doubt curious to see these witches that the Villagers were losing their minds over. Deputy Governor Thomas Danfort and four of his assistants rode into town to watch Corwin and Hathorne do their thing. One of the assistants, Samuel Sewell, would later serve as a judge once the official court in Boston got involved. At this point, he simply detailed the examinations in his diary. He noted that the suffering of the afflicted was terrible to watch, and jotted in the margin of his entry, “Vae, vae, vae, Witchcraft!”, which translates from the Latin, “Woe, woe, woe, witchcraft!” Which is coincidentally my favorite Elvis B-side. Samuel Parris was there to take notes as well, and the Town’s minister Nicholas Noyes led the opening prayer.

The usual afflicted were all there, ready to get rowdy, except for Elizabeth Hubbard, who sat in a catatonic trance the whole time. John Indian joined the group, and since he claimed to have been attacked by Sarah Cloyse the day before, the magistrates focused on him as their first witness. John explained that he had first been visited by an unknown gentlewoman, likely one of the women from Boston that his wife had described in her confession. Next, Sarah Cloyce came to torment him, followed by Goody Proctor. Both women had hurt him, quote, “a great many times”. Goody Proctor had tried to choke him and offered him a book that would take away his suffering. Cloyce had bitten and pinched him until he bled. The real Goody Cloyce piped up and called him, quote, “a grievous liar”.

Mary Walcott was up next. She described how Goody Cloyce had come to her with a book, saying that if Mary touched it, she would be well. She then immediately fell into a fit. The other afflicted stepped forward in turn to describe their various visions, including the Devil’s Sabbath that had apparently occurred in Samuel Parris’ backyard at the end of March, during which Goody Cloyce had served as deacon. Mary Walcott recovered enough to report seeing a fine white man whose appearance seemed to frighten the witches. The afflicted had seen this Day Man several times, including once at the Ingersoll Ordinary, where he appeared in defiance of Goodys Cloyce, Nurse, Good, and Corey. 

The flesh and blood Sarah Cloyce asked for water, then fainted in her seat. Her spirit had gone to visit her sister in prison, the afflicted explained. Weird time for that, but sure, whatever. They needed to move on to Goody Proctor anyhow. 

It was finally time for Elizabeth Proctor to face her accusers, who had been certain of her guilt since early March. But wouldn’t you know it, once Goody Proctor was brought out, the bullshit started right back up. Mary Walcott told the court that she had herself never been targeted by Elizabeth’s spector before, while Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam, and Abigail Williams were apparently unable to speak when asked by the court to formally identify their witch. Parris’ account notes that Abigail had her hand shoved in her mouth, so that might’ve had something to do with it. John Indian again told the magistrates how Goody Proctor had choked him and offered her book, though this time he made sure to specify that she had appeared to him in her shift. Sexy. In the audience, John Proctor commented to nobody in particular that if he had John Indian in his custody, he would beat the devil out of him. How novel. John Proctor was ready to freakin’ lose it. He’d kick John Indian’s ass. He’d kick Mary Warren’s ass. He’d kick his own ass if it helped him prove a point. 

Seeing as the key witnesses were still unable to answer the court’s questions, the magistrates figured they might as well let Goody Proctor weigh in on things. God as her witness, she cried, she knew nothing about tormenting any girls! In spectral form anyhow. She probably knew a bit about tormenting one specific girl irl, but there’s a time and place. 

Elizabeth’s declaration of her innocence was just the ticket for getting the afflicteds’ heads back in the game. Ann Jr. was now able to confidently say that Elizabeth had hurt her many times. Goody Proctor turned to look at the group, who all promptly fell into fits. The magistrates asked Ann Jr. if Elizabeth had ever offered her the Devil’s book. Ann said yes, and claimed that Goody Proctor told her that Mary Warren had already signed it. Abigail Williams backed this up, saying that Elizabeth had told Mary to, quote, “write in it and she shall be well.” Abigail also addressed Elizabeth directly, saying that she had told her that Mary Warren had signed it. Elizabeth denied this, and warned of another judgement. She might be at the mercy of the magistrates now, but if they were lying, Abigail and the rest would have a higher power to answer to in the hereafter. 

The afflicted did not take kindly to this threat. In an attempt at deflection, they cried that Goody Proctor’s spector was now perched on a beam in the meetinghouse rafters, ready to strike. The group fell into fits, but it wasn’t Elizabeth who attacked them. It was her husband. John’s spector had joined the fray, delivering blows that the real John Proctor had been threatening for weeks. One of the afflicted cried that he was about to pull Mrs. Pope’s feet from under her. Of course, a moment later, Bethsua was on the floor. Abigail said Goodman Proctor was moving to attack the prone Mrs. Pope, who promptly began to thrash about. I appreciate her commitment to the bit. The Proctors went through several of the afflicted like this before another witness was called forward.

Benjamin Gould gave his less than theatrical testimony, telling the magistrates all about his late night visitors. 

[[MUSIC: Jaunty reflective]]

By this point, the guards had seized John Proctor from the audience to stand trial with his wife. He also declared his innocence, but the point was pretty moot. 

At some point, both Abigail and Ann Jr. attempted to strike the real Elizabeth Proctor, without much success. Abigail got close, but when her fingertips grazed the edge of Goody Proctor’s hood, she screamed that they were burned. This somehow also affected Ann, who fell to the floor, clutching her head. 

At least the men from Boston could leave satisfied. Well, satisfied might not be the right word. It was definitely worse than they had suspected. They had come for the examinations of two women, but were leaving the Town with three arrests. Both Proctors and Sarah Cloyce would be sent to the Salem jail to await further judgement.  

[[MUSIC continues]]

A stunned Mary Warren returned to the Proctor homestead, probably accompanied by John’s oldest son, Benjamin, in what I can only imagine as an incredibly awkward walk home. Benjamin would be in charge of both the estate and Mary until his father was freed, or the colony came for his assets. In the meantime, he would need to make sure things ran smoothly, if not for his father’s sake, then for his half-siblings. Now that their parents were both in prison, Mary was left to care for the Proctor children, for as long as she could, at least. She had been named twice during her mistress’s examination. It was only a matter of time before they came for her too. She would be seeing her masters again soon enough. And heaven help her when she did.

[[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 at my home in beautiful Jersey City, New Jersey. Consulting production provided by Mischa Stanton. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Follow us on Twitter @RemarkablePod, and everywhere else @RemarkableProvidences. For transcripts and links to everything, visit whisperforge.org/remarkableprovidences. 

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