Can I Adopt Bridget Bishop as My Ancestor?

Bridget Bishop's memorial stone at the Salem Witch Trials Memorial next to the Charter Street Cemetery in Salem, MA - photo taken by S. A. Sizemore

Bridget Bishop has lived rent free in my head for about six years now. Out of all the Salem Witch Trials victims, she always stood out for me. She was the first in so many things no one in their right mind would want to be first in. The first sent to trial. The first condemned. The first sent to the gallows. And she did it all by herself. Every other condemned victim over the course of the summer of 1692 went to Gallows Hill with other accused individuals. Bridget went through all of this alone.

She was born Bridget Magnus in Norwich, England around the 1630s. At some point, the family changed their surname to Playfer, which was her paternal grandmother’s maiden name. The reason for this is lost to time. It may have been to fit in. Magnus was more of a Scandinavian and German surname, whereas Playfer was more Anglo-Saxon.

When Bridget became a teenager in the 1640s, an infamous witch hunter, Matthew Hopkins, started terrorizing eastern England. His methods of extracting confessions were brutal, and he wrote a book called The Discovery of Witches to detail them in print. Along with sleep deprivation, the float test was perhaps his most well-known method for sussing out a witch. He would tie the victim to a chair and toss them into a body of water. If they floated, they were guilty of being a witch. If they sank to the bottom and drowned, they were innocent. He also came up with a method of locating a Devil’s mark on the accused witch. This played a part in the condemnation of Bridget Bishop decades later.

Prior to coming to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget married Samuel Wesselby in 1660. She had two sons by him, who presumably died in childbirth, since there was no later mention of them. A daughter, Mary, was born January of 1665 in Boston. The birth record listed Samuel as deceased.

There was no further mention of Bridget until July 1666 when she married a man in Salem Town, Thomas Oliver. He was a papermaker, also from Norwich, and about thirty years her senior. Since Bridget was approximately the same age as Thomas’ sons and daughters, it made things between her and her stepchildren prickly at best. Thomas’s first wife, Mary, was a bit of a firebrand, like Bridget. She was very outspoken on many topics, including the abolishment of slavery. After pissing off one too many people in the colony, she was banished in 1649, and the whole family went back to England with her. Since Thomas still had indebted property in the colony, he and some of his children returned there after Mary died in the 1650s.

Thomas and Bridget had a daughter, Christian, born in May of 1667, almost exactly nine months after they get married. She was the only child they had together most likely because their marriage quickly went off the rails. Bridget had a reputation of being a “quarrelsome woman,” just as much as Thomas’s first wife. Apparently, he liked women who were fiery but only in the quiet of his household. This time around he wasn’t about to return to England, so whenever Bridget went too far, he corrected her.

Correction was a polite term used for punishment and in 1600s New England. Punishing your wife with a fist was allowed but only unto a point and so long as it wasn’t excessive or disturbing the peace. In 1670, the Olivers were arrested for fighting in public. Their neighbor Mary Ropes testified that Bridget’s face was often bruised and cut, but that Thomas also complained of Bridget hitting him as well. They paid a fine and didn’t end up in court again until 1678.

This next public incident involved the Olivers screaming at each other on the Sabbath. Bridget was heard calling Thomas an “old rogue” and “an old devil”. The Oliver’s home was right around the corner from the Meeting House so it’s very possible that people walking to the service or taking their lunch break between sessions may have heard them shouting. The Olivers were both ordered to stand in the marketplace on lecture day, tied together and gagged with notes attached to their foreheads saying what they had done.

But on the day of their punishment, Thomas was not with Bridget. His daughter had bailed the 76-year-old out by paying a fine. She did not do the same for her stepmother. So, Bridget had to stand by herself while folks in the crowded market stared, jeered, or laughed at her. It must have been utterly humiliating.

A year later Thomas became ill and passed away. According to the list of his probate debts, a doctor had been called, but no one was asked to draw up a will. He died soon after with no plan to divvy up his estate. By default, Bridget inherited the house, land, an orchard, and additional acreage in the North Field. She also inherited his debt.

Did Thomas purposefully not draw up a will to protect Bridget and their twelve-year-old daughter? If he had left a will, his sons would have worked their way in to wrestle the property away from Bridget, leaving her and the child without a home. Not drawing up a will ensured that Bridget and Christian kept a roof over their heads. It also made sure that any debts to be paid would be done so soberly. Thomas knew full well how frugal his wife was and that she would cut the best deals for the family.

The Oliver children did not take the news about the probate well and performed a dangerous move to break the court’s ruling. They accused Bridget of bewitching their father to death. She was arrested but paid bail almost immediately, only furthering her debt in order to care for her young daughter. The accusation of witchcraft was potentially a very risky case for her considering the amount of times Bridget and Thomas had fought publicly. Luckily the court saw right through the adult children’s accusations and Bridget was not convicted.

However, the stigma of being branded a witch did not leave her. Even friends turned against Bridget. William Stacy, a young man half her age, who may also have been infatuated with her, told others she had visited him in the middle of the night. He claimed something cold was pushed through his lips and woke him. He found Bridget sitting on his bed staring at him. Then she hopped around the room before disappearing through a crack in the wall. Bridget confronted him in the street about it and was very distraught when she found out he had betrayed her with such a wild story. That altercation with Stacy came back to haunt her in a few years.

In 1685 Bridget’s life took a turn for the better. She married a sawyer (lumberman) named Edward Bishop, who was about the same age as her in his 50s. Lumber mills hadn’t yet been invented, so sawyers were men who physically hand-sawed trees into planks. Given his profession, it wasn’t surprising that Edward convinced Bridget to rebuild the fifty-year-old house on the Oliver property. In 1686, Christian married Thomas Mason, who lived just north of what is now the Salem Common. At the time the Commons was nothing more than a large marshy swamp, allowing the properties to the north and the east of it to remain a bit more rural from the overly crowded rest of town. It’s very probable that Bridget and Edward moved in with the Masons while their house was being rebuilt. At the time Christian would have welcomed her mother’s help, since she became pregnant later that year.

Life was good for Bridget in the summer of 1687. She moved back into her house on the Oliver property and was fixing up the garden with her very pregnant daughter. A little bit of exercise would help her contractions begin. But while they were pulling weeds, according to Bridget, Christian found an odd piece of brass on the ground by the house. They both agreed Christian should take it into the main part of town and see if the pewterer, Edmund Dolbier, could tell her what it was. However, Edmund had already been contacted by Thomas Stacy, William Stacy’s father, a month earlier. He was missing a very expensive brass part that belonged at his mill. Christian was accused of theft.

By the end of the year, Bridget and Edward were both brought in for questioning in front of Magistrate Sewell. According to Thomas Stacy, he went to Bridget’s house to accuse her daughter of theft, and Bridget immediately fell to her knees and begged for forgiveness. This seems a little far-fetched from a woman who always spoke her mind and didn’t suffer fools lightly. According to Bridget, she told Thomas to get lost, which sounds way more likely.

Sewell felt there was enough evidence to send Bridget to trial and after the new year she was ordered to the jail. Her case was handed over to Judge John Hathorne, but before he could try her, Edward and a friend bailed her out of prison. The case was never mentioned again. Was there not enough evidence, or did Thomas drop the charges for a good reason?

During his testimony at Bridget’s 1692 witchcraft trial, William Stacy mentioned how they would play pranks on one another. Was the brass incident a prank that went too far, or something more insidious? William’s wife died in 1683. Did he put his sights on Bridget Bishop, a landed widow, and then did she rebuke him by marrying Edward Bishop instead? Was this revenge for the times they quarreled after Thomas Oliver’s death? Clearly whatever the bad blood was, it remained until 1692, and William Stacy’s testimony helped send her to the gallows.

After the 1687-8 incident there is no mention of Bridget again in court documents or anything else for another four years. We can assume life returned to normal again. Her granddaughter was growing fast, her husband had a good business, and she had a brand-new house to help erase the brutal years she had spent with Thomas Oliver.

But in late February of 1692, there were whispers of something strange happening in Salem Village. Several young girls came down with an affliction that only could be explained by witchcraft. Three women in the Village were accused of harming the girls and making them sign the Devil’s book. The rumors probably sent a chill through Bridget. Even though her life was completely different now, she never truly got rid of the stain of being accused a witch. Her way of dressing in a black cap and hat (which was an expensive and ostentatious fashion choice at the time) with a red bodice and petticoat that had colored details (which was less unusual), along with her reputation of being flattering and quarrelsome, made her a target that stood out in a crowd.

Another Edward Bishop, one of the ones that lived in Salem Village, came to town on April 11^th to watch the questioning of Elizabeth Procter and Sarah Cloyce. Bridget probably would have steered clear of the Meeting House at all costs that day. The Salem Village Edward Bishop wasn’t a relation of her Edward Bishop, the sawyer.

The Village Bishop was Edward Jr., was married to Sarah Bishop. They were both in their mid-forties and ran an unlicensed tavern. Recently a neighbor accused them of causing a commotion at night with drinking and playing shovel board at all hours with young people. His father, Edward Bishop Sr, and mother Hannah Bishop just signed a letter in March supporting Rebecca Nurse during her questioning. His son, Edward Bishop III was married to Susannah Putnam, a cousin of Thomas Putnam, whose daughter, Ann Putnam Jr., was one of the main afflicted girls.

According to author Robert Calef, during Elizabeth Proctor’s questioning in town, Edward Bishop Jr. was asked to bring John Indian, the enslaved person of Reverend Samuel Parris, back to the parsonage in Salem Village. Edward Jr. had watched John Indian fall into fits as he claimed Elizabeth Procter and Sarah Cloyce were afflicting him. During the hour-long journey along the dirt highway to the parsonage, John Indian again went into fits. Edward Jr. questioned his validity stopped the cart and proceeded to beat John Indian, thinking that would get him to stop fibbing.

Seven days later on April 18^th another warrant was issued for constables to detain three more people: Giles Corey, Abigail Hobbs, and Mary Warren (who had previously been one of the afflicted). John Putnam, the father of Susannah Putnam Bishop, was the one who filed that complaint along with Ezekial Cheevers, who was the court clerk. Giles Corey started making a fuss after his wife was arrested in March, so he was someone who needed to be quieted. Abigail Hobbs had a bad habit of running through the woods at night, so she was an easy target. Mary Warren all but claimed the afflicted girls were lying when she miraculously made a recovery after sending both of her employers to prison. She had to be taught a lesson.

But then one more person, almost as an afterthought, was added to the warrant at the last minute. The sentence was literally written above and almost on top of the original lines: “and Bridget Bishop the wife of Edward Bishop of Salem Sawyer”.

Salem Witch Trials document archive - The University of Virginia

Did Bridget think it was only a matter of time for her to be drawn in to this madness? The last questionings on April 11^th took place practically in her own backyard. The front of her house faced Townhouse Lane, what is now Washington Street, and the Meeting House was just a block away from there. One of the main magistrates handling the case was John Hathorne, who had Bridget in his court just four years previously for the brass stealing incident.

So here are my questions….

When John Putnam came to town to file his complaint, was it him who complained about Goody Bishop? His daughter’s mother-in-law was the rabblerousing Sarah Bishop, married to Edward Bishop Jr. Did he call out Bridget Bishop by her full name in the complaint, or did he just say Goody Bishop, wife of Edward Bishop and describe a middle-aged couple?

For centuries historians had confused the details and testimonies of Bridget Bishop and Sarah Bishop. They were close in age, married to men with the same name, and had reputations for quarreling with their spouses (Thomas Oliver for Bridget and Edward Bishop Jr. for Sarah). This confusion still lingered into present day even after a genealogist did a thorough study in 1981 proving Bridget Bishop was not related to Sarah Bishop. Since there were so many women in Salem Village and Salem Town married to Edward Bishops, was it likely the two women may have also been confused at the time of the Trials themselves? So many, many Goody Bishops.

Even if Putnam did call out Sarah Bishop by name, did Hathorne reflexively put down Bridget’s name anyway? He knew she had been accused of witchcraft in the past. In his mind maybe the Putnam man misspoke. If Hathorne wrote down the wrong name, it wouldn’t have been the first instance. Just a few weeks prior, he wrote “Dorcas” Good on the arrest warrant for four-year-old Dorothy Good. Did he make a similar mistake on April 18^th, or was it on purpose?

An interesting side note, the names Goody Wilds and Goody Oliver were written randomly on the back of Martha Corey’s arrest warrant (dated March 19^th) in a separate hand other than John Hathorne or Joseph Herrick’s handwriting. Was it Ezekiel Cheever’s note? Both women had been accused of being witches in the 1670s. Was the court gunning for Bridget Bishop from the very beginning of the witch hunt? Both Judges Hathorne and Corwin lived in Salem Town not far from Bridget. Most everyone in town knew that Bridget had been accused of being a witch. Of course it made sense to bring her in for questioning.

The next day on April 19^th, Bridget was held at Lt. Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll’s tavern until it was time for her questioning to begin down the road at the Meeting House. Her testimony seemed to prove that something may have gone awry with her arrest warrant. At least two times she said to the magistrates that she didn’t know the people who are accusing her and that she hadn’t ever been in the center of the Village.

“I never did hurt them in my life I never did see these persons before.”

“I do tell the truth I never hurt these persons in my life I never saw them before.”

“I have never seen these persons before; nor I never was in this place before.”

In addition, Bridget’s accusers didn’t seem to have stories to tell about her past. She was one of the more infamous characters in Salem Town, but the people in Salem Village had none of these anecdotes to share with Hathorne and Corwin. The only one who did make an attempt to tell a story about Bridget was Mary Walcott. She claimed that a few days before she was apprehended, Goody Bishop tried to attack her. During the altercation, Mary’s brother pulled out his sword and stabbed at the apparition, tearing Goody Bishop’s petticoat. Mary even heard the rip.

The court immediately stopped the questioning to examine Bridget’s red petticoat. They didn’t find anything which looked like a cut from a sword, so Mary’s brother offered up another explanation. His sword was still sheathed when he attacked Goody Bishop’s ghost. No one questioned why he just changed up his story. Instead, a fold or a pocket in Bridget’s petticoat seemed to corroborate his lies for the court.

Hathorne was the only one who brought up Bridget’s past. When he mentioned her dead husband, Thomas Oliver, and that she might have bewitched him to death, it triggered Bridget’s temper. She had previously been calling Judge Hathorne, “your worship”, but after the accusation she leaned in to threaten him. “If I were [a witch] you should know it.” With that, Hathorne had her in a vise and he sent her off to prison.

Two days later, on April 21^st, Edward Bishop Jr., Sarah Bishop, and her stepmother Sarah Wilds were brought in for questioning. Was this a do-over after Bridget’s testimony? We don’t know what was asked or what went on during Edward Jr. and Sarah’s questioning because those transcripts have gone missing. I hope someday they are found so we can learn more details.

We do know that Edward Jr. and Sarah Bishop had no problem whatsoever throwing Sarah’s stepmother, Goody Wilds, under the bus when they were asked to. Why didn’t they also do the same against Bridget Bishop? Hathorne must have been actively amassing a case against Bridget at the time. The answer lies in the preponderance that they didn’t know her and therefore couldn’t provide any information. In the middle of May, the Village Bishops and Bridget Bishop were moved from the Salem jail to the larger one in Boston. The time they spent in the Salem jail may have been the first time they ever met.

Bridget didn’t return to Salem again until June 2^nd. By this point the new Massachusetts Bay Colony’s governor, William Phipps, returned from England with a new charter. This allowed the local justices to finally reform a judiciary. On May 24^th the Court of Oyer and Terminer was established to deal with those accused of witchcraft. Seven days later, they requested Bridget’s old files from 1679. This helped them build a case and find witnesses, including William Stacy, who filed a written statement for the court.

On the morning of June 2^nd nine midwives and a doctor arrived at the jail to search five of the accused women for a witch’s mark. You recall witchhunter Matthew Hopkins’ method of looking for a Devil’s mark? This was pretty much the same principal but had been perfected since then. In England the accused often had their heads shaved, they were stripped naked, and then the midwives examined their entire body looking for something that looked like a nipple.

It was believed that the Devil received nourishment from this extra nipple and took the form of an animal while doing so. Several of the afflicted girls testified that they saw familiars of the devil in the shape of dogs, birds, cats, or strange creatures suckle on the accused witches. If they found something like a mole that might be considered a nipple, the examiners used pins to see if it bled or not. The whole thing was extremely invasive and cruel, not to mention ridiculously stupid.

During this examination the midwives did find some unusual skin anomalies on Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse, and Elizabeth Procter. Afterward Bridget was immediately brought to trial at the courthouse. Ironically the building sat almost directly in front of her house. Five indictments were already written up. Nathaniel Ingersoll was one of those who signed them on behalf of his great-niece and afflicted girl, Mary Walcott.

After the trial, Bridget was brought back to the jail for another round of witch mark examinations. This time they found her mark was gone. The midwife jury signed testimony that was added to her case file.

On June 8^th the male jury assigned to her case returned their verdict. Bridget Bishop was found guilty and condemned. Her punishment was to be hanged by the neck until she was dead two days later. There was only one catch; witchcraft was no longer a capital punishment crime in the colony. The court went to the governor to get permission to reinstate it.

What was it like for Bridget the night before her execution? Did she sleep? Could she eat whatever horrible porridge they gave her as a last meal? If they shaved her head a week earlier for the witch’s mark examination, did her scalp itch from the stubble as her hair grew back?

The warrant said Bridget Bishop was to die by ten in the morning on Friday, June 10^th. Her journey on a cart to Gallows Hill started at the Salem Gaol, which was located at the end of what is now St. Peter’s Street. Back then it was called the Gaol Road.

From there they may have easily brought her past her own house and orchard over to the Townhouse Lane. Were Edward and Christian at the house waiting to see her one last time, or was the thought of seeing her in such a sad state too much for them? Next she was brought past the courthouse and her own Meeting House where she once congregated with her family and neighbors on Sundays, and then made a right turn onto Main Street (which is now Essex). From there the crowd grew and began following the cart as the road curved to the south. Some may have jeered and even spit on her. The chant of “witch, witch, witch” may have echoed against the wood houses. Some would have somberly watched the death procession in silence. Some, like Judge Hathorne, would have smiled.

When the cart reached the rocky outcropping, tools for the hanging were already in place. The slip knot rope slung over the Black Locust tree that stood between the rocks, hung down waiting for her. A ladder leaned against the rocks was for the last part of her journey. The constables took Bridget down from the cart and then helped her climb up the ladder. The executioner was there to slip the rope around her neck, so she had no chance of escape.

After her sentence was read to the crowd, she would have been given the ability to say something. We have no record of what Bridget may have said. I hope she was able to find her husband and daughter somewhere in the crowd. If they were there, she may have told Edward Bishop, the sawyer, to take care of her girls, her daughter and granddaughter.

Once she was ready, the executioner put a cloth over her head and then performed what was called the Turning in which the ladder was turned or kicked out from under Bridget. The drop was short, not like the longer and more humane version of a gallows, which was meant to break the next instantly.

Instead, Bridget strangled to death as she fought to find footing and suffered through the excruciating pain of her windpipe being crushed. The weight of her body slowly caused her to go unconscious as the rope tightened. Someone with a smaller body weight, like a woman, took longer to go through this process. It could have been anywhere from several minutes up to a full hour for Bridget to finally die.

There are witness accounts that the bodies of the witch trials victims were left hanging for hours afterwards so everyone in town could see the condemned sway in the wind before they were finally cut down. In Sheriff Corwin’s return document to the Court, he confirmed Bridget’s execution had been completed and initially added the words “and buried in the pla” but crossed them out. That short phrase leaves one to wonder, was Bridget buried in the crevice between the rocks, later known as the Witch’s Gap, or did her family sneak back at night and remove her body for burial elsewhere?

Salem Witch Trials document archive - The University of Virginia

A year or so after Bridget’s death, her estate from Thomas Oliver was finally probated. At first, part of it was bestowed upon her daughter Christian Mason, until the Court was told she was no longer living. We don’t know how Christian died. She was only twenty-five years old in 1692. There had been a smallpox epidemic so it could have been from that or a similar illness. There was also a high chance she may have died in childbirth since that was the most common cause of death in young women. Due to her untimely death, Christian’s portion of the Oliver inheritance was passed on to her five-year-old daughter, Susannah Mason. Edward Bishop was named Susannah’s guardian. He took her inheritance, along with what was owed to him for building the new house on the Oliver estate, and purchased a house in a more affluent part of town, just west of Collins Cove where Becket Street now meets Essex Street.

Edward did right by Susannah by setting her up in a good neighborhood next to some of the most respected neighbors in Salem Town, the Beckets. They were a very prosperous ship building family and likely used some of Edward’s lumber to build their vessels. In 1711, Susannah Mason married Captain John Becket. This may have been one of the reasons why Edward did not seek restitution and acquittal for Bridget, and it would have been a horrible decision for him to make. He could have either ensured Bridget’s granddaughter had the best life possible or cleared his deceased wife’s name. In the end his choice had to be in the best interest of Susannah. Edward Bishop never remarried and passed away in 1715. The house and property went exclusively to Susannah Becket under the supervision of her husband.

Part of Salem in 1700, map by Sidney Perley, William W.K. Freeman, & James Duncan Phillips - The University of Virginia (with my notations)

Decades later, Susannah’s grandson, John Beckett, married Elizabeth Ingersoll, the 3^rd great-niece of Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll. The families of both the accused and the accuser were now joined. That union inspired me to call my book series, the Beckett Coven, and I gave my main character the heritage of both families.

Bridget Bishop was much more than a name on a memorial. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a wife. She was feisty as hell and had a good, quick wit. She stood her ground during an abusive marriage and kept things afloat for her only daughter when difficulties struck their family time and again. She didn’t suffer fools lightly and never missed a chance to bargain for the best price. She was a fashionista for her time and was brave enough to cross an ocean to find a new life. Out of all the condemned during the summer of 1692, she was the first person to go to Gallows Hill and the only one of the victims to do so alone. We don’t know exactly what her last moments were like but if they were anything like the rest of her life, she most certainly stood in defiance until the bitter end.

Am I crazy for wanting to adopt Bridget Bishop as my ancestor? Maybe. Although it isn’t that far off. She technically is a very distant relation to me via marriage. She’s also been an ever-present spirit while I write the Beckett Coven series. So, I might as well say she’s family at this point. Her life’s history is going to stay with me forever. I hope my retelling of it to you will also cause Bridget to stay in your heart and thereby continue to keep her memory alive.

Some sources that influenced this post:

Part of Salem in 1700 map by Sidney Perley, William W.K. Freeman, & James Duncan Phillips

Other Wonders of the Invisible World by Robert Calef

Six Women of Salem by Marilynne K. Roach

Records of the Salem Witch Hunt edited by Bernard Rosenthal

Salem Witchcraft by Charles W. Upham

Salem-Village Witchcraft by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum