1692

Bridget Bishop was a target of witchcraft accusations for a variety of reasons. There was gossip that she was responsible for the deaths of her first two husbands. She had been previously accused of witchcraft in 1680, when John Ingersoll’s slave Juan claimed her specter had pinched him, that she had stolen eggs, and that she had frightened horses. Ten neighbors now testified against her. Among the accusations were stories of her pressuring the afflicted girls to “sign the Devil’s book.” Men who had worked on her house in 1685 told of discovering poppets stuck with pins in her cellar wall, an example of “counter-magic.” Her specter was said to have visited several men at night. Samuel Shattuck, a dyer in Salem Town, thought she was making poppets because of the small pieces of lace she’d brought to him to dye. Shattuck and his wife also accused Bishop of bewitching their son and causing his declining health. Others claimed that small items went missing when Bishop was around – a spoon, money, a mill brass. After arguments with Bishop, trouble and disaster always seemed to follow.  John Louder, who worked at the Ship Tavern, told of an argument after Bishop’s chickens got into the tavern’s gardens. He claimed to have seen a black pig and black imps in her yard, and even Bishop flying over her orchards afterward. When intimately examined on her trial date of June 2, a witch’s mark was reportedly found on her body. Cotton Mather reported that, on her way to trial, Bishop simply glanced at the Salem Meetinghouse, causing a board to tear from the wall inside and land some distance away.