Next Sunday will be Halloween. There was a time and place when witches were thought to be real–not just costumes for children to wear ‘trick or treating’.
In 1692, the English settlers of Salem, Massachusetts, conducted a witch hunt, declared twenty women to be evil and executed them. That was just a part of the history I studied in school.
My thinking changed in 1990 when I interviewed Harold King to write an article about genealogy for an Elgin magazine. My first-cousin-once-removed had spent more than fifty years climbing his family tree. While pursuing his ancestors’ records, he’d discovered that one of the Salem women executed as a witch, Susanna North Martin, was also his grandmother with a bunch of ‘greats’ added.
Harold also mentioned the annual King-Knight family reunion held in Albany, Wisconsin, each summer. Mom’s mother had been a King and I remembered attending that gathering when I was a youngster. It was easy to locate the group in a forest preserve–just look for little, redheaded kids running around.
Realizing Susanna North Martin was also my forbearer, I looked her up on the internet and discovered she was a redhead. The Salem witch hunt was the second time she had been accused of witchcraft. In 1669, her husband, Gorge Martin, fought a protracted legal defense against her accuser.
By 1692, Susanna’s circumstances had drastically changed. The mother of five boys and three girls was a 71-year-old, impoverished widow who had a history of flouting authority and was widely disliked. She was arrested May 1 for practicing witchcraft and pleaded not guilty. A preliminary examination by presiding magistrates followed. Her vigorous answers and lack of respect she showed the officials was noted. She kept her sharp tongue to the end of the hearing.
The magistrates pronounced Susanna guilty of witchcraft and sentenced her to hang.
What would have gone through the woman’s mind as she awaited execution although she’d committed no crime? On July 19, 1692, Susanna was hanged with four others who had been tried at the same time. All five were placed in a shallow, unmarked grave.
It took more than three hundred years for Susanna North Martin to be declared innocent. October 31, 2001, Acting Massachusetts’s Governor Jane Swift signed a bill exonerating Susanna and four other convicted witches. A memorial service for the five women was held in Salem June 9, 2002.
I’ve never had much interest in genealogy, but Susanna came alive for me. I know of no redheads in our branch of the family, but the females have inherited her sharp tongue.
Have you come to know any of your ancestors?
You know Lolita, obviously, that I have a BIG interest in genealogy, but I have no proof of witches in our family. To bad for that kind of information really does bring history to life. Mother’s line is quite interesting – more so than dad’s lines as his are German & came in much later than mother’s people. She has an Elmore that came into Virginia around 1638; a Boyer that came in before the Revolutionary War & helped the Patriots from Pennsylvania defeat the British; an Asbach that fought & died for the North in Kansas (one of the Western Front Battles); & possibly a Parr that also served & died from Ohio in the Civil War. It’s fun to find out this information, for me.