The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials

What does the American Red Cross have to do with the Salem Witch Trials? The answer runs through one of the most defiant women of 1692.
Sarah Cloyce was the youngest of the three Towne sisters, the sibling who survived when Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty did not. Born in Salem in 1642, Sarah lived a relatively ordinary Puritan life until March 1692, when her sister Rebecca was arrested for witchcraft and Reverend Samuel Parris delivered a sermon that changed everything. Sarah's response, walking out of the meetinghouse and reportedly slamming the door behind her, put a target on her back. Eight days later, she was formally accused.
Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack tell the full story of Sarah Cloyce's accusation, her examination at the Salem Town meetinghouse on April 11, 1692, and her nine months of imprisonment in chains before the charges against her were finally dismissed in January 1693. They also cover the joint petition Sarah authored with her sister Mary Easty while both were imprisoned, Peter Cloyce's remarkable devotion to his wife throughout her ordeal, and the family's journey west to what would become Framingham, Massachusetts, where Salem End Road still marks the path the witch trial refugees traveled.
And that famous descendant? Sarah Cloyce's daughter Hannah married Samuel Barton, and five generations later, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born in Oxford, Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1821.
What You Will Learn:
What one act in a church doorway made Sarah Cloyce a target of the accusations

What role the afflicted claimed she played at the devil's sacrament

Why one of the most active accusers of 1692 held back when it came to Sarah

What her husband did during her nine months of imprisonment that set him apart

Why Sarah survived when her sisters did not

Where Sarah and the other Salem refugees went, and what they left behind

How Sarah Cloyce's bloodline connects directly to one of the most celebrated women in American history

The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, descendants of Salem Witch Trial victims. New episodes every week.
Also mentioned: the PBS miniseries Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1985) starring Vanessa Redgrave, authors Antonio Stuckey and Janice C. Thompson, and Salem Witch Trials Daily, the companion daily podcast. 
Visit aboutsalem.com for more 
Visit youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts for The Salem Witch Trials Daily Podcast

She accused 16 people, was named a victim in 13 indictments, and may have been the most powerful force driving the Salem witch trials of 1692. So why does history overlook Mercy Lewis?
What You'll Learn
Why some historians consider Mercy Lewis the ringleader among the afflicted girls

How surviving the Wabanaki wars shaped her role in the Salem witch trials

The full content of her April 1st visions, including the biblical passages a glittering multitude sang

What she claimed George Burroughs offered her on top of a high mountain

How her near-death episode sent the Marshal of Essex County riding through the night to re-arrest Mary Esty

Why former employers testified she was a pathological liar

At 19, Mercy Lewis was a maidservant in the Thomas Putnam household, carrying the trauma of war, probable orphanhood, and displacement from Maine. Her visions were among the most vivid and theologically detailed of the entire crisis. Her accusations helped send people to the gallows.
Were those visions vivid dreams, trauma responses, or deliberate fabrications? Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack dig into the evidence.
Follow 1692 day by day on Salem Witch Trials Daily Podcast. Resources and episodes at www.aboutsalem.com.
Links
Buy the Books Mentioned in this Episode
Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course
The Thing About Salem Website
⁠The Thing on YouTube
⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website
Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project
www.massachusettswitchtrials.org
Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

Follow the events of April 4, 1692, as new testimony and complaints target recent suspects. We cover a reported spectral attack involving the shape of John Proctor afflicting Abigail Williams, then dig into multiple depositions against Rachel Clinton, including claims of meetinghouse disturbances, strange animal apparitions, a mysterious loss of beer, and a tense late-night confrontation followed by an apparent affliction and near-death of Betty Fuller. We also examine Mercy Lewis’s statements about being bitten, pinched, choked, and urged to “write in a book,” attributed to the shape of four-year-old Dorothy Good and to Sarah Osburn. Finally, we follow new complaints filed against Sarah Cloyce and Elizabeth Proctor, including an early mention of John Indian among the afflicted.
00:00 April 4 Overview
00:23 Proctor Spectral Attack
00:38 Boarman vs Clinton
01:49 Beer Barrel Curse
02:56 Edwards Livestock Losses
04:38 Fuller Night Visit
06:10 Dorothy Good Accusation
06:34 Osburn Book Pressure
06:54 New Complaint Filed
07:19 Afflicted List Update

A Brief and True Narrative by Deodat Lawson
Sign the petition to exonerate Massachusetts witch trial victims
Find My Massachusetts Legislators
The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel
⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub
⁠The Thing About Salem⁠
⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts
⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
High Quality Scans of the Original Court Documents -Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

We explore a striking claim from within the crisis itself: that the afflicted may have been “dissembling.” We revisit Sunday, April 3, 1692, when Samuel Parris read aloud a note Mary Warren had posted at the Salem Village meetinghouse, inviting the congregation to offer prayers of gratitude for her deliverance—yet the note’s contents are unknown because Parris never copied it into his church record book. We also examine the puzzling gaps in Parris’s records during the most active months of the trials, raising questions about what was happening in the meetinghouse. Finally, we tease an April 19 court record showing Elizabeth Hubbard accusing Mary Warren of making the “dissemble” remark, which we’ll dig into next.

Note: We will soon publish Salem Witch Trials Daily only to its own podcast feed
00:00 Afflicted Dissembling
00:10 Daily Show Intro
00:17 Mary Warren Note
00:42 Parris Missing Records
01:22 Silence Raises Questions
01:38 Hubbard Accusation Tease
A Brief and True Narrative by Deodat Lawson
Sign the petition to exonerate Massachusetts witch trial victims
Find My Massachusetts Legislators
The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel
⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub
⁠The Thing About Salem
⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts
⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
High Quality Scans of the Original Court Documents -Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

In today’s Salem Witch Trials Daily, we walk through Saturday, April 2, 1692, focusing on Abigail Williams’ claims that the specters of Elizabeth Procter and Rebecca Nurse repeatedly afflicted her in March and April, including being “grievously pinched” and tempted with fine things to sign the book. We also explore how accusers often listed dates of spectral attacks and why our day-by-day approach helps reveal what life was like during the witch-hunt. Elsewhere in Salem Village, we cover Mary Warren’s recovery and her meetinghouse note requesting prayers of gratitude—then hint at the serious drama that follows when, in Mary’s later testimony, Elizabeth Procter reportedly appeared to her that night in “her bodily person” and confessed to witchcraft.
00:00 Daily Introduction
00:14 Abigail's Spectral Attacks
00:26 Why Track Day by Day
00:59 Temptation to Sign the Book
01:06 Mary Warren's Note
01:27 Elizabeth Appears Bodily
01:46 Spectral vs Physical Assaults
A Brief and True Narrative by Deodat Lawson
Sign the petition to exonerate Massachusetts witch trial victims
Find My Massachusetts Legislators
The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel
⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub
⁠The Thing About Salem
⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts
⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection