16: The Abnormal Abby Hobbs

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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, the podcast about deliverance and devils, diabolical deaths, and, of course, the Salem Witch Trials. I’m your tour guide, Kate Devorak. 

[[Music: Lighthearted.]]

The Salem magistrates had really cleaned up at the last round of witch crisis examinations. They had started the day with two accused witches in custody, and ended it with three arrests. And all in front of the governor’s assistants from Boston! What fortune! As Hathorne and Corwin exchanged the Puritan equivalent of a high five (a stiff nod and no eye contact), Sarah Cloyce and the Proctors were taken from the Salem Town meetinghouse to the jail, where they would join their already arrested neighbors, including Sarah Cloyce’s sister and John’s kinswoman, Rebecca Nurse. But chains and cuffs couldn’t stop their spectors from wreaking havoc on Salem! John Indian had only recently joined the ranks of the afflicted, though his fits seemed to be met with less patience than those of the white girls screaming around him. Shocking, I know. He had actually been beaten out of seizure, yes, beaten, earlier that day by Edward Bishop (no relation to Bridget), who professed little sympathy for John’s plight. Despite the beating, Edward was to give John a ride back to the Village from the Town meetinghouse, with John in the saddle behind Bishop. At some point during their ride, John’s body suddenly seized up, forcing him to bite Edward’s back hard to keep from falling off the horse. Good for him. Once Bishop was able to whack John off him, it was clear that John’s hands had been bound by a cord. And not even an invisible one! A regular, non-magical cord. The men who cut John free in the Village concluded that this must have happened at the same time one of the accused was tied up in jail. Which tracks a lot better than Edward, a man with whom John was decidedly NOT on good terms with, or John himself tying the knot. Especially since Mary Walcott and her brother Jonathan also reported seeing the specter of Elizabeth Proctor follow them from the town to a tavern at the edge of the Village. So that one was probably real witchcraft. 

Another examination was held on April 12th, most likely to question their latest suspect, John Proctor. Given the events of his wife’s questioning, they were pretty sure he was a witch, but here, fair is fair when you’re a white man, and John was entitled to his own trial. Honestly, it wasn’t super eventful, relatively speaking. Samuel Parris had some trouble getting his notes together due to the usual antics of the afflicted. Abigail Williams and John Indian thrashed about, claiming that John Proctor’s spector was everywhere from the back of a dog in the meetinghouse to the magistrates’ laps. Apparently John Proctor’s spector really had a thing for sitting in people’s laps. Sarah Cloyce’s spector was also allegedly in the room, and John Indian screamed that she viciously attacked him. In his fit, he could barely be constrained by four men. Mary Walcott simply sat on the sidelines during the entire examination, quietly knitting. Which is really unsettling to me: Mary’s cold, calculated stillness while the others screamed and flailed around her. I don’t know if she was bored or just tired from all the yelling and flailing she had done the day before or if she was just a weirdo. But it didn’t discount her as a witness. Mary piped up a few times to confirm the visions of her fellow afflicted. Once, after Abigail and John had been taken out of the room to compose themselves, she gave a slight start in her chair. When asked what that was about, Mary explained that Goody Cloyce had pinched her. She later claimed to see the spectors of nearly all of the accused, and that John Proctor’s spirit had come to choke her. Then she gagged a bit, but you know, her heart wasn’t really in it. This shows me that the afflicted (or some of them, at the very least) were able to control the levels of their suffering at will.                                                                                                                                                                                           

[[Music: Ominous]]

That afternoon, all of the accused were transferred in anticipation of a more formal court setting. Now that the literal bigwigs from Boston had seen the threat the colony was up against, they figured it was time to gather up all those troublesome old folks and one actual child and plant them in a more accessible stronghold in the city. Even Sarah Good would be shipped down from Ipswich, and finally reunited with her daughter, whom she may not have even known was accused. Surprise!

On April 13th, Ann Putnam Jr. threw a new name into the fray: the notoriously unruly Abigail Hobbs of Topsfield. Giles Corey had also taken part in that attack, though his arrest was inevitable, despite his best efforts to distance himself from his imprisoned wife, who was dead weight to him by now. Witchcraft was often considered a tag team effort with spouses, as evidenced by the arrests of the Proctors, though John and Tituba Indian might disagree. As we’ve seen before, as soon as Abigail Hobbs was named, the teenager became the new It Girl for the rest of the afflicted. Mary Walcott claimed to be attacked by her on April 14th, and Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard joined in three days later. We’ll get into Abigail’s backstory a bit more later, but I’m telling you now: I love Abigail Hobbs. Definitely a problematic fave, but boy oh boy is she fun. 

By the weekend, two more women had been named by various afflicted: Bridget Bishop of Salem Town, and Mary Warren, who was realizing that life really does come at you fast. Two weeks ago, Mary had been counted amongst the afflicted. Now she joined the ranks of those she had helped put away, like a prosecutor framed for murder in an ABC drama. She would be hated by the public and unfairly cancelled, also like an ABC drama. During the next Sabbath, Abigail’s stepmother Deliverance Hobbs, was struck with a fit. A voice outside the meetinghouse beckoned her to, quote, “Come away,” though Deliverance only saw the spectors of cats, dogs, and birds. But now was not the time to throw her difficult stepdaughter under the bus. Goody Hobbs had a different suspect at the ready: Sarah Wildes, one of their neighbors in Topsfield. 

[[Music: Peaceful.]]

Meanwhile, tragedy rocked the Putnam clan. The eight week old child of John and Hannah Putnam, though reportedly healthy and thriving, died in mid-April. In their formal deposition, John described how he had himself been taken with strange fits after spreading gossip he had heard concerning Joanna Towne, the mother of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce, perhaps saying that she had been a witch. His fits subsided by, what else, the Grace of God, but soon afterward his child fell violently ill, behaving like many of the afflicted. Or as much as any infant could, I imagine. John called his mother for help, and she suggested that the child was bewitched. They called in a doctor, but nothing he did seemed to help. After two days, the baby died.  

Soon after, John Putnam Jr. accompanied Ezekiel Cheever to file official complaints against Giles Corey, Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, and Mary Warren on Monday, April 18th. Of the four, only Giles officially lived within the bounds of the Village, which marks a new direction for the trials: expansion, the great American tradition. If the representatives from Boston weren’t indication enough, the arrests of Abigail and Bridget made it clear that this was no longer just a Salem issue. Satan, it seems, wasn’t beholden to the boundaries of any community, even if the Puritans were obsessed with them. Salem Village’s favorite pastime is making their bullshit everyone else’s problem. All four accused were in custody and more or less ready for examination in the Village meetinghouse the next morning. 

First up to bat was Giles Corey, who denied having a hand in any sort of witchcraft, even if his wife was already condemned. The usual afflicted, except for Elizabeth Hubbard, whose fits prevented her from speaking, told the magistrates of the harm inflicted upon them by Giles. Benjamin Gould was also questioned about his visions and injuries, and though he admitted to seeing Giles among the specters in his bedroom witch party, he couldn’t say for sure that Giles was the one who hurt his foot. 

The afflicted pulled from their usual bag of tricks. They flinched and screamed at every subtle movement of Giles’ hands, so much that the court was forced to tie them behind his back. At one point, Giles sucked his cheeks in, and the afflicted did the same to an absurd degree. While it’s funny to imagine a bunch of teens and a few stray adults struggling to maintain exaggerated fish faces in order to get an old man arrested for magic spells, this is serious business, folks. 

Giles’s examination is a bit chaotic, less for the afflicted, and more because everybody seemed to have questions for him.

[[Music: Chaotic.]]

Hathorne asked if Giles had entered into a contract with the Devil. Giles denied it. Hathorne asked what temptations he had. Giles had never been tempted in his life. I guess Martha wasn’t the only holier-than-thou Corey. Hathorne was incredulous. Sarah Bibber and her family claimed to hear Giles mention that he had been frightened by something in his barn, and repeatedly interjected to ask him to explain himself. Several witnesses interrogated him about statements that he had made about Martha, including his assertion that she had stopped him from praying, and that he, quote, “knew enough against his wife that would do her business.” As you might expect, whenever Giles did speak, it didn’t do him much good. Then the Bibbers told the court that they had heard Giles express his desire to, quote, “do away with himself.” Because they’re narcs. So much for claiming to live without temptation, Hathorne reasoned. Giles snapped that he meant he had never been tempted by witchcraft, but made no move to deny his suicidal declarations. It’s interesting to note these feelings now, as it may shed some light on his willingness to subject himself to torture later. More weight, indeed. Hathorne figured that if Giles could be tempted to, quote, “self-murder”, witchcraft couldn’t be far behind. Giles would soon be joining his wife in Boston.

Next, the teenaged Abigail Hobbs was brought in. Anyone in the colony who knew the Hobbs family could agree that Abigail was a strange girl. She was a wild child–running through the woods at all hours and talking back to her elders, she showed deference to neither the conventions of Puritan society or the unknown wilds of the new world. She’s not like other girls. Once, while visiting a neighbor with her stepmother, Abigail announced that Deliverance was not baptized, but that she would remedy that. She then took some water and splashed it in her long-suffering stepmother’s face, baptising her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. When confronted about her unseemly behavior, Abigail retorted that she was not afraid of anything because Satan was on her side. She proudly claimed to know the Devil, even declaring that she had, quote, “sold herself body and soul to the old boy.” Nice. Another time when one of her more proper peers asked Abigail why she was not ashamed of her behavior, Abigail basically told her to shut up and pointed to her bedside where she said the Devil sat. She even referred to Satan as “Old Nick”, so you know they’re tight. And this was all before she was even accused. 

Personally, I think she’s having some fun. I think Abigail was able to see the bullshit through the trees, and had decided to embrace her calling as an agent of chaos. Hathorne was likely briefed on Abigail’s whole deal, and was probably even more confident than usual when he asked:

JOHN HATHORNE: Are you guilty, or not? Speak the truth.

But Hathorne wouldn’t be getting the truth. He would be getting something much better: a confession. 

ABIGAIL HOBBS: I have seen sights and been scared. I have been very wicked. I hope I shall be better, if God will keep me.

JOHN: What sights did you see?

KATE: Abigail had apparently seen a lot of things. She had seen many animals, including demon dogs and cats, and had even seen the Devil in the shape of a man, once. That had been in the woods at Casco Bay, Maine, where her family had lived some years before. She may have known Mercy Lewis from the frontier, though Abigail had returned to Massachusetts with her family intact. She definitely knew George Burroughs from her time up north, as she made clear in her later statements. The Casco Devil had offered her many fine things if she would serve him. I imagine Hathorne was as giddy with excitement as his petrified heart was capable of. It had been nearly six weeks since Tituba’s confession, and now, finally, someone was answering his questions correctly. 

JOHN: What would he have you do?

ABIGAIL: Why, he would have me be a witch.

JOHN: Would he have you make a covenant with him?

ABIGAIL: Yes.

JOHN: And did you make a covenant with him?

ABIGAIL: Yes, I did, but I hope God will forgive me.

KATE: Abigail had also been presented with the Devil’s Book a few times, though she said she only signed it once. First, a demon in the shape of a cat had tempted her, but she resisted. Then, quote, “things like men” tried to persuade her to put her hand to the book. The humanoids also promised her fine clothes, though they never followed through. Abigail said that she had agreed to serve them for about two or three years, though about two questions later she says it was four. Coincidentally, that had been about four years ago, so her time was about up anyway. Abigail confirmed that the Devil could do harm in her shape, or use her as a disguise, but that she had given him consent to do so. While Abigail admitted to wreaking havoc on Salem Village, she claimed that she had never done harm in person, nor had she joined her fellow witches for any coven meetings. Hathorne asked her if she had afflicted her stepmother on the Sabbath. No, Abigail replied, and though she heard Deliverance say it was Sarah Wildes, she never saw Goody Wildes during any of her witchy escapades, because she’d be damned if she’d give her stepmom a break. Who were her companions then? Unfortunately for the court, Abigail did not implicate any of her fellow accused, but rather doubled back to one of the first suspects: Sarah Good. She knew Sarah was a witch when she first appeared to her, because the Devil had given her a heads-up. Sarah had apparently offered another book to Abigail, which she admitted to making a mark in, though she didn’t elaborate on that deal. Abigail’s testimony is super inconsistent. I imagine she’s just throwing out whatever pops into her head and seeing what sticks. 

Even though Abigail said that the Devil only appeared to her as a man once in Maine, she later claimed that she was visited by him again about two weeks before her arrest. Interestingly, unlike Tituba’s description of “a tall man in black”, Abigail described the most recent devil as, quote, “a black man in a hat.” This particular wording is probably meant to convey that the man with the hat was Indigenous. As I mentioned last season, the Puritans’ perception of race is less nuanced than our sensibilities. Is this racialization of the devil a result of Abigail’s time in the Maine frontier? Probably! 

[[Music: Dramatic.]]

Then, like Tituba before her, Abigail claimed she had been struck deaf by her fellow witches. The afflicted agreed, saying that the specters of Sarahs Good and Osbourne had appeared to keep Abigail from answering any more questions. After she was led out, the afflicted agreed that they were sympathetic to Abigail’s condition. No compassion was left for any of the others, I’m afraid. 

In any other examination, Abigail’s confession would have been the showstopper. But April 19th was packed with heavy hitters. Unlike the flippant Miss Hobbs, Mary Warren was acutely aware of the gravity of her situation. But as we’ve seen, Mary wasn’t the best at long term planning. I don’t know what she was thinking as she readied herself for Hathorne’s questions. She had tried to fix things already, and look where that got her. No good deed goes unpunished. Mary Warren knew that better than anyone.

The afflicted were in such a bad way that only Elizabeth Hubbard was able to testify against Mary before falling into a violent fit. Then, Hathorne asked the question that must have been on everyone’s minds:

JOHN: You were a little while ago an afflicted person. Now you are an afflicter. How comes this to pass?

MARY WARREN: I look up to God, and take it to be a great mercy of God.

JOHN: What, do you take it to be a great mercy to afflict others?

Elizabeth recovered long enough to tell how after Mary was cured, she had written in her note that the afflicted “did but dissemble”. At this point, the whole afflicted gang, including Mrs. Pope, who had been a spectator up to this point, fell into grievous fits. Mary had implied that they were liars. Now they seemed determined to make her pay. Hathorne wasn’t quite able to put two and two together. The guy had no legal training after all, and was evidently averse to context clues. So he bravely carried on, noting that Abigail had confessed to being in league with the devil. Maybe Mary would do the same. Not quite. Instead, Mary did what, honestly, I probably would have done under that much pressure: she broke down. Some of the afflicted composed themselves enough to explain that Mary was about to confess, but she was stopped by the sudden spectral sighting of Martha Corey and the Proctors, who struck her down as revenge for speaking against them. Like I’ve said, Mary just can’t win. 

[[Music: Dramatic.]]

What really happened, I’m guessing, was a mix of deflection, an attempt to buy time, and a full blown panic attack. Maybe she thought that joining the ranks of the afflicted again would save her from a jail cell. Alas, they had spent all their pity on Abigail Hobbs. Her fit lasted, quote, “a good space”, where she could not see, hear, or talk, then she cried out:

MARY: I will speak! Oh, I am sorry for it, I am sorry for it. Oh Lord help me! Oh good Lord save me!

Samuel Parris noted that as soon as Mary hinted at confession, the sufferings of the afflicted abruptly stopped. I guess once Mary was resigned to digging her own grave, they figured they could save their breath. Mary continued to fall in and out of her fit, wringing her hands and repeating variations of “I will tell, I will tell”, until she cryptically cried, “They brought me to it!”, after which she was so afflicted that she was ordered out of the meetinghouse to collect herself. In the meantime, the magistrates’ attention was turned to Bridget Bishop. 

Bridget Bishop was one of those witchcraft usual suspects. If she had lived any closer to Salem Village, I suspect that she would have been accused much earlier. Actually, she had been accused of witchcraft about ten years earlier, though nothing had really come of that. Now, the lingering suspicion of Goody Bishop’s neighbors had caught up with her, and she was once again brought in for questioning. Among the charges against her were her torture of Salem Village’s afflicted, the murder of her first husband Samuel Wasselbe, and the assertion that she had lived the past decade as a witch. All of these claims are absolute bullshit, but we’re not here for constructive criticism. Just blood. As soon as Bridget was brought into the meetinghouse, the afflicted all fell into fits. It’s odd that the afflicted were so quick to identify their tormentor as Bridget, given that many of the girls had never seen her before they met in the meetinghouse. Bridget actually said as much when questioned about her involvement in the group’s affliction. That’s magic for you, I guess. Mary Walcott’s brother came forward with a story of how he had slashed at Goody Bishop’s spector during one of Mary’s fits, and that they had heard the tearing of fabric. The magistrates examined Bridget’s clothes, and found a tear in her cloak where Jonathan claimed to have hit her. How very spooky. As Bridget protested her innocence, the afflicted were affected by every turn of her head and twitch of her hand. At one point, she simply, quote, “turned up her eyes”, and the afflicted’s eyes rolled back into their heads. You can’t say they’re not quick on their feet. Hathorne pointed to this as clear evidence of her guilt. How could she say she was innocent when the afflicted were clearly responding to her gestures? Bridget, I think panicked, cried that she was innocent, that she wasn’t a witch, and that she didn’t even know what a witch was. Hathorne asked how she could be so certain that she wasn’t a witch if she didn’t know what a witch was. Touche. 

BRIDGET BISHOP: I am clear: If I were any such person, you should know it.

Threats would do her no good here. Hathorne asked Bridget if she was aware that there had already been a confession that morning. One confession implicates the bunch, so they say. Bridget says that she didn’t know. John Hutchinson and John Hewes, who were somehow involved with this whole operation, attested that they did tell her about Abigail’s confession. Goody Bishop had not heard them, apparently. As she was led out, Samuel Gould asked Bridget if she was troubled by the afflictions of the witnesses. No, she said, she was not. Did she think the girls were bewitched, Samuel pressed. She couldn’t tell what to think of them. Finally, a deeply shaken Mary Warren was brought back to continue her examination. She immediately fell into another fit. I imagine Hathorne was quickly losing patience with her. He decided to address something that the afflicted had mentioned during Elizabeth Proctor’s pretrial: did Mary sign the Devil’s book? Mary denied even touching it, and was so afflicted that she was sent out for air again. It was clear that this line of questioning was going nowhere fast. As Mary attempted to pull herself together, the magistrates and ministers cleared the meetinghouse of the afflicted and the audience. Maybe Mary would be more forthcoming in private? She wasn’t. The stress of the day had taken its toll on her (though the adults in the room interpreted “stress” as “witchcraft”), and she wasn’t able to do much more than defy Satan enough to tell the men that, quote, “she saith she will kill me”. The “she”, we can guess, was Elizabeth Proctor. The magistrates would have to circle back to Mary later. 

For now, Mary Warren joined Abigail, Giles, and Bridget in the Salem Town jail. At least Mary would have a few days before she’d have to face the Proctors in the Boston prison. I imagine that it would have been awkward with Giles and Bridget, sitting across from the formerly afflicted Mary and the abnormal Abby Hobbs, whom I can only assume was quite pleased with herself. She would surely make it out of this mess, unlike the other three. After all, as she had declared before, she was not afraid of anything. 

She had Satan on her side. 

[[MUSIC: Outro]]

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, NJ. This episode features the voices of James Oliva as John Hathorne, Beth May as Abigail Hobbs, Emma Bernhardt as Mary Warren, and introducing Julia Schifini as Bridget Bishop. Consulting production provided by Mischa Stanton. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

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