You're listening to Unexplained, Season seven, episode twenty five, The City upon a Hill, Part two of three. On Saturday March first, sixteen ninety two, the congregation of Salem Village shuffled nervously into the meeting house, squeezing into whatever space they can find. At the front of the hawk, sat behind a desk on a raised platform, are the pale, hardened faces of Magistrates John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwyn. The pair survey the scene before them with ominous stony authority.
Minister Samuel Parris and his family watch on at the front of the crowd, alongside the Putner. Among them are the four young accusers, nine year old Betty Paris, her cousin, eleven year old Abigail Williams, twelve year old and Putnam Junior, and seventeen year old Elizabeth Hubbard, the great niece of doctor William Griggs. Pastor John Hale, minister of nearby Beverly, who Minister Paris had first consulted over the whole beguiling matter,
stands watch alongside them. All are there to witness the examinations of Sarah good Sarah Osborne, and Titchuba. This is the first part of the legal process. If after examination, enough evidence is found to try the defendants, they will be reminded in custody to await trial. As stunned looking Sarah Good is led into the room by Constable Joseph Herrick, the principal law law enforcement officer in Salem, there are
gasps and cries at the sight of her. Good desperately searches the crowd for any sign of a friendly face, imploring begging anyone to believe she is innocent, but all turn away or avert their gaze. Just as her eyes threaten to meet theirs, the magistrates call for order. Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with? Asks Hawthorne. None, she replies, have you made a contract with the devil? No, says Sarah again. Then Sarah is ordered to look upon
the four young girls her accuses. As she turns to face them, Abigail lets out a cry, and soon all four of them are writhing about in apparent agony. There, hands and arms twisting into strange configurations. They scream out for Sarah to stop attacking them. There are numerous shouts, of which from the crowd. Why do you torment them? Yells Magistrate Corwyn over the din I torment. Nobody replies Sarah, growing increasingly angry. So who is it? Then? It must
be Sarah Osborne. She is doing this, shouts Good in reply. More gasps ring out as the magistrates call for order again. Sarah Good is returned to Salem jail to await trial. Then Sarah Osborne is led into the meeting house. The children writhe and twist again in apparent pain at the first sight of her. Though only ten years older than thirty nine year old Sarah Good, Osborne is a much
meeker figure and far less combative. In front of the feverish crowd, The children accuse her again of tormenting them. They tell the congregation that Osborne takes a spectral form with her witchy powers to poke and pinch them from a distance. Osborne softly denies the accusation. The magistrates want to know about something peculiar Osborne said to one of the jailers. Earlier in the day. Osborne had told them that she was more likely to be a victim of
witchcraft than be a witch herself. And why did you say that, asks Magistrate Hawthorne. Osborne explained it was because of a nightmare she'd had in which she was attacked by what she described as a dark skinned Indian. Then a voice had told her never to go to a church service again. She insisted that she'd not obeyed it only as someone shouts from the crowd, Osborne hasn't been to church for over a year. Proof, surely, they say that she is in league with the strange figure from
her dream, who is clearly the devil. The crowd roars in agreement. Osborne tries to plead her innocence. She's been sick, she says, that's why she hasn't attended church, but her voice is barely audible over the din. She too, is sent back to jail to await trial, and then it's Titchiba's turn. When she enters the room, a hush falls over the crowd. Some visibly draw back as this woman, more strange and unknown to them than any other they knew,
is pushed to the front. Constable Herrick, even the young accusers are stilled as she takes the stand. And what evil spirit are you familiar with? Asks Magistrate Hawthorne. None, says Titchubah, Why do you hurt these children? But I do not hurt them, she replies, tell the truth. Who is it that hurts them? Tituba looks round at the assembled crowd hanging on her every word. Among them the tall, imposing frame of Minister Samuel Parris, dressed all in black,
his eyes bore into her. Titchuba shifts uneasily on her feet, her body still tender from the beating he gave her only a few days before. The truth, Titchuba, who hurts these girls? Repeats Hawthorne. Tichiba pauses for a moment, collecting her thoughts. Then, to the horror of all present, she says, I do I am the one who hurts them. I do it for the devil. The meeting house erupts. After the initial shock of Titchiba's confession, a strange calm descends
over the congregation. It's almost cathartic to hear her admit it. Not only is there an explanation for the strange and terrifying harm being seemingly inflicted on the young girls, but here was physical proof too, of everything The congregation stood for, proof of the very evil it was their divine mission to expunge. But few could have anticipated the story that followed. It all began late one frigid January night, while Titchuba
was settling down to sleep. The parsonage was silent, her cramped room lit only by the soft light of a quarter moon. It was then she said that something resembling a man suddenly appeared before her. The figure said he was God and that she had to serve him for six years. In return, she'd receive many fine things. Titchuba said she refused at first, but the figure told her that if she didn't do as he asked, he would kill Betty and Abigail, and he would kill her too.
The next time he appeared, he brought a small green and white bird for her to stroke. She thought then that perhaps he was God after all. A few days later, while tit was sweeping the kitchen, four women appeared to her. Two of them, she says to more startled cries from the congregation, were Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. The other two she didn't recognize. The strange man was there too. Standing behind her. He grabbed her arms and told her
to go into the children's bedroom and pinch them. The coven of five watched, she said, as she reluctantly did what she was told, and so it began. Over the following weeks and months, she tells the congregation the devil, who she now believed the strange man to be, made cats appear to her and told her to pinch them in terror. She obeyed, and each time she pinched them, she heard the girls cry out in pain, as if they were somehow linked to the animals. Whenever she refused
to continue, other cats appeared to her. They scratched and threatened her if she didn't continue to obey. One day, the devil came again and presented Titchuba with a book and a stick with a pin tied to the end of it. He instructed her to prick her finger and write her name in blood in the book. When she did just that, she said she observed other names in the book written in blood just like hers. Unable to read,
she asked the devil whose names they were. He revealed only that two of them belonged to Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. More cries went up from the crowd, and the young accusers writhed again, in apparent agony, how many names were in the book? Shouts Magistrate Hawthorne over the din nine replies Titchuba nine witches to that gasps from the crowd. For two days, Titchubur relays her bizarre story
to the congregation. One night, she says, Osborne and Good came to her at the Paris home while the family were at prayer. Good was accompanied by a cat and a yellow bird, familiars of the devil. This same yellow bird, she said, had apparently been seen numerous times by the children in and around the parsonage. Osborne, on the other hand,
was accompanied by things altogether more strange. One had the head of a woman, two legs, and wings that seemed to shapeshift in and out of a likeness of Osborne, as though it were mimicking her. The other was covered all over in dark hair and had an eerily long nose. Good had stood silently feeding her yellow bird with pieces of meat as Osborne ordered Titchuba to travel with them to Boston. Or three of them then flew off into
the night on a stick. Titchiba didn't quite recall how they got there, only that one moment they were in Salem Village, the next they were in Boston. There they met with two other women and a man whom Titchuber didn't recognize what were these devilish creatures wearing? Asks Hawthorne. Titchiburh looks out at the throng of Puritans or crowding around her. They wore black, she says, and the man the enslaved. Titchiba turns to her master, Samuelaris, then back
to the magistrates. He wore black too, she says. And what exactly did they ask you to do there in Boston? They said that I should go to Thomas Putnam's house and cut off his daughter's head. Another scream rings out as all four children shake and hurl themselves to the ground, their eyes rolling back into their heads. In the seventeenth century,
science blended inextricably with witchcraft and religion. Through the genius of Galileo in sixteen oh four to Isaac Newton in sixteen eighty six, it had been proved beyond doubt that invisible forces existed in the world. If gravity and magnetism existed, it stood reason thought many that so too could satanic possession, divine intervention, and witchcraft. And in the Bible, the existence of witches is made explicitly clear Exodus twenty two eighteen.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Deuteronomy eighteen ten to eleven there shall not be found among you any that useth divination, or an enchanter, or a witch, and Leviticus twenty twenty seven makes it very clear how any upstanding Christian should respond to the discovery of a witch or wizard. A man or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a witch shall be put to death. They shall be stoned, their blood shall be
upon them. If Salem Village had been a fractured place before, now there was finally something to rally around, something they could all come together and agree on that the three women in custody had to be punished for their despicable crimes. For Samuel Parris, though deeply troubled by the events for so long a pariah to many in the congregation, it seemed he'd finally achieved the impossible of bringing them all
closer together. But all that was about to change. On the eleventh of March, just over a week since the examinations, and Putnam Junior collapses before her parents. Swiping at something in the air, she cries out that she's being attacked by a spectral form of Martha Cory that pinches and bites her with gnashing teeth. Unlike the three previously accused women,
Martha Corey is largely popular in Salem Village. Both her and her husband Giles are considered respectable and pious, But Martha has also spent the last few days telling anyone and everyone that she thinks the children are making it all up. On March twelfth, a group of men, including Thomas Putnam, visit Corey at her home and accuse her of attacking Anne. But Martha doesn't have any of it.
If it's really true that Anne saw her in spirit form, she says, then ask her what I was wearing last night. But Thomas Putnam is one step ahead. He'd already asked her that, he says. However, Anne had told him that she'd been struck blind at the time and so couldn't see. Of course, said Martha with a wry smile. Later that day, there is a new rumor in town that when Martha Corey was told about Anne's accusation, she had smiled in scorn, as though she was pleased to hear that Anne had
been violently attacked. The day after being informed of the accusation, Martha Corey pays a visit to the Putnam's home, demanding to speak with Anne Junior. No sooner has she stepped inside the house, Anne slips into a violent seizure than the Putnam's servant Mercy Lewis, who was beside her at the time, also collapses to the ground. Lewis had borne
many scars in her short sixteen years of life. Only a few years before, she was orphaned when a series of Native American attacks on the village where she used to live resulted in the death of most of her family. Together, her and Anne writhe chaotically on the floor, their eyes rolling as they shriek in apparent torment. Then Anne points suddenly at the fire in the hearth and screams, see there a man in chains, stabbed through on a spit. Good wife Cory is roasting him, turning him on the spit.
See him burn. Mercy staggers to her feet and grabs the poker from the fire. She swipes at the supposed apparition, yelling for Martha to stop hurting them and to stop roasting the man on the spit. Martha is seen fleeing from the house soon after three days later, she is arrested and accused of witchcraft. At first it seems that this will be the last of the accusations. Then Mary Wallen,
servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor, begins fitting too. As owners of a local tavern and a number of farm properties in Salem and nearby Ipswich, the Proctors are one of the more prosperous families in the community. Elizabeth, who runs the tavern, was John's third wife. The first two had died in childbirth, having bared eleven children between them.
Inside the Proctor's home, Mary Wollen wails in apparent pain on the floor, claiming that she is being attacked by the specter of Giles Corey, Martha Corey's husband of amused John Proctor tells her to get up immediately and to stop playing games. It is only his shadow she is seeing, he says, when he threatens to beat Mary if she doesn't stop it. The apparent fit abates, and she dutifully
returns to work. A few days later, on March nineteenth, former Minister of Salem Deo Dat Lawson travels to Salem village, where he's met by Mary Walcott. The sixteen year old cousin of Anne Putnam Junior and niece of Mary Sibley, who'd instructed Tituba to make a witch's cake all those weeks ago. Mary is at Lawson's lodgings to pass on her parents' well wishes, when suddenly she cries out, my wrist,
my wrist. Lawson grabs a nearby candle and holds it over the inflicted area to reveal what appears to be teeth marks from a small human mouth. It's Dorothy Good, said Mary, she has done this. Dorothy Good is Sarah Good's four year old daughter. Deeply disturbed by what he'd seen on Mary Walcott's wrist. Minister Lawson travels to the parsonage to see Minister Samuel Parris. While there, Paris and Lawson are deep in conversation when an almighty wail is heard.
The two men rush into an adjoining room to find eleven year old Abigail Williams being seemingly hurled about by an invisible force. Do you not see her? She screams, there, Look, it's Rebecca Nurse tormenting me. Seventy two year old Rebecca Nurse is another prominent figure in the community, regarded by many as a deeply devout Christian. Abigail accuses her of trying to make her sign her name in the Devil's Book.
As a shocked Paris and Lawson continue to look on, Abigail, seemingly in the grip of some kind of spell, begins pulling pieces of burning wood out at the fire and throwing them about the room, whom at one point she appears to be flung straight toward the fire, only to stop at the last moment, having been seemingly released suddenly from the spell. On March twenty first, Martha Corey is brought before magistrates Hawthorne and Corwyn, this time at the
Ingersol's tavern. Once again, all the afflicted girls are present as the defendant desperately pleads her innocence. Look says one, I see that little yellow bird again, dancing between her fingers. Yes, yes, I see it too, say the others. Martha turns to her husband George and begs him to back her up, but instead he also testifies against her. He says that she refuses to follow his leadership as all wives ought to do. He says she reads dangerous literature and that
whenever she claims to be praying. He never actually hears the words coming from her lips. Maybe she isn't praying at all, he says, but casting spells. The crowd shout and jeer in response. Then from somewhere out of the back of the room, a heavy black shoe hurtles through the air and smacks Martha square on the head, And with that she is formally charged and taken to jail to await trial. A few days later, its Nurse Rebecca's
turn to be hauled in front of the congregation. Despite thirty nine prominent villages signing a petition defending her, including Elizabeth Hawthorne, the wife of Magistrate John Hawthorne, it's not enough to save her now. Among the girls accusing her is Mary Warren. Despite her boss, John Proctor's threats, she continued to claim she was being psychically attacked by witchcraft. She and the others cry out in such apparent anguish at the site of Nurse Rebeccah, the magistrates are forced
to pause proceedings on a number of occasions. Like all the others save for Tituba, Nurse Rebeccah too protests her innocence, and despite having nothing but kind words and prayers for the girls who accuse her. She too is remanded in custody to await her trial. The same day as Nurse Rebecca's examination, a group of men are despatched to the home of Sarah Good, who continues to languish in jail
with the other accused. It's not her husband William they have come for, however, but rather her four year old daughter Dorothy. In the previous few days, and Putnam Junior had added to her cousin Mary Walcott's accusation, claiming that she too had been bitten by the child. It was clear she said that little Dorothy had been enticed by her mother to consort with the devil, and so the following day, the tiny, helpless Dorothy is led into the
meeting hall to face the magistrates. Without much comprehension of what she is being accused of, the terrified young girl admits to owning a pet snake that had been given to her by her mother. She describes how it recently bitter on the finger and sucked at her blood. Then she holds up her forefinger, where at the lower joint a dark red spot is found. It is all the evidence the magistrate's need Dorothee is immediately thrown in jail
along with the others. So small her wrists that the jailers are forced to have a smaller set of manacles forged especially for her. Most jails in the seventeenth century were grim, and Salem jail is no different. The smell of vomit and feces of unwashed bodies and stale food
hangs thick and heavy in the air. Rats scurry about endlessly while inside, the accused are routinely starved and kept sleep deprived in the hope that they might crack and finally confess, but all save for Tituba, refuse to do so. At the end of March, they are joined by Rebecca Nurse's sister, Sarah Klois. Kloys had spent the days since Rebecca's arrest loudly protesting her innocence and, like Martha Corey,
accusing the apparent victims of making it all up. Then Abigail and Mary Walcott accused her of being a witch too, and she was promptly thrown in jail. By now, fear in the village is at a fever pitch. Not only does the devil seem to be running a Mark among them, but there is no telling who the next victim might be, and everybody is under suspicion. On March twenty sixth, Elizabeth Proctor becomes the seventh supposed witch to be accused by not only Mercy Lewis and Abigail Williams, but also her
own servant, Mary Warren. A furious John Proctor orders Mary to publicly retract her accusation, and so in early April, Mary does exactly that in front of the whole congregation during a Sunday service, but it's too late for Elizabeth, who is arrested a few days later to Unlike all the others accused to date, Elizabeth and Sarah Cloyse are
examined by Deputy Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Danforth. After being informed at the beguiling events threatening to get out of hand in Salem, Danforth is determined to get a handle on it, but even he is left bewildered by the
sheer chaos of it all. Throughout Elizabeth and Sarah's examination, the accusers, Abigail Williams, Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Anne Putnam Junior, scream and wail whenever the defendants try to speak, they hurl themselves to the floor, tremble and shake, seemingly uncontrollably as they cry out for Elizabeth and Sarah to stop tormenting them. Other times, when asked how the women are hurting them exactly, they seem struck, dumb, or stick
their hands in their mouths instead of talking. Joining them as an accuser is also the enslaved John Indian Titchiba's husband. John testifies that the specters of both Elizabeth and Sarah had choked him and tried to force him to write his name in the Devil's book. At one point, Abigail rushes out to strike Elizabeth. When she pulls away instinctively, Abigail's fingers lightly brushed the hood covering her head, a
customary uniform for Puritan women. At the slightest contact with the material, Abigail staggers back, crying out that her fingers are burning, and Putnam Junior falls to the floor, clutching her head. Elizabeth and Sarah are immediately despatched to Salem jail. In the following days, a number of the accusers turned their ire on Mary Warren, maybe scornful of her decision to retract her accusation, they begin to accuse her of being a witch too, perhaps seeing a way out of
her predicament. Warren then accuses John Proctor of being a witch, telling magistrates that late one night, he and his wife had tried to make her touch the Devil's Book. Around the same time, Anne Putnam Junior and Mercy Lewis accused Giles Corey of attacking them. Lewis claims she was beaten so hard by Giles's spectral form he almost broke her back. And so it is that John Proctor and Cory become the eighth and ninth after titchuba accused of witchcraft, to
be arrested. Nine Witches of Salem, just as Titchubah had foretold Sarah Osborne, Sarah and Dorothy Good, Martha and Giles Corey, Rebecca Nurse and her sister, Sarah Cloyse, and Elizabeth and John Proctor. But things were far far from over. You've been listening to Unexplained Season seven episode twenty five, The City upon a Hill, Part two of three. The third and final part will be released next Friday, July twelfth. This episode was written by Ella McLoud and Richard McLain.
Smith Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mclin Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also produced by me Richard McClean Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores.
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