The Curse Of New Hampshire, And The Salem Witch Trials.

Published by Martin McGregor at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Martin McGregor

Discover other titles by Martin McGregor at Smashwords.com

Discover other titles by Martin McGregor at Smashwords.com:

The town the God forgot

The curse of New Hampshire and the Salem witch trials

2012 Doomsday. The Mayan prophecy

The Collected Poems

Deathbed Confessions

In August 2010 I published my first non fiction book, and it was titled ‘The Town that God Forgot’. It was during my time spent researching this book that I noticed that time and time again murders were also rife in another place called New Hampshire. Well I soon decided that this was probably worth some further investigation.

So, here am I, sat down on a Saturday afternoon, when I should be resting from my day job, about to embark on a new journey. The path seems to have been trodden a few times before, but this is a new journey of discovery for me. The main attraction for me personally, was the story of a little place called Salem.

If you are a child of the 80’s like me, then the word Salem may conjure up images of vampires, largely thanks to the literary efforts of one Stephen King. In fact it is better known for the Salem witch trials of 1692. This is where I shall begin my journey, with the account of Murders in Andover, Massachusetts. There certainly seems to be echoes of the Devil hard at work here.

Thanks to: Google, Wikipedia, Maine Sunday Telegram, Peace for the missing, Facebook, Smashbooks. Smithsonian Magazine, Boston News, IMDB.com, wbztv.com, unionleader.com, activemostwanted.com, coldcasecenter.com, Yahoo, Altavista, The Andover Advertiser.

Contents

The Salem Witch Trials

Alexander Stolte

The Dartmouth Murders

Melanie Melanson

Pamela Smart

Kathy Gloddy

The Murder of Dr. William Dean

The Connecticut River Valley Killer

Sivaguru

Middle School Animal Cruelty Case

Kimberley Cates

This second of the three books is dedicated to my four sons,

Nicholas, Christian, Jordan and Owen.

I love you all.

Follow your dreams, always do everything to the best standard that you can love your wives and children for they are what make you whole.

Never let the zeroes bring you down.

Love you always, Dad x.

A special thank you also to: My long suffering wife Sarah, Mum, Brother Wayne John Proudfoot, Michelle, Stuart, Katie, All at Le Creuset for their continued suppot. All those who bought the first two books, Alan ‘Baggy’ Batchelor, Rebecca, Steve, Karl, all those who have supported me on Facebook. To the other loves of my life Liverpool F.C.and Duran Duran. To anyone I may have forgotten, the memory fades with time so please accept this as my apology.

I would also like to thank those who got me into this in the first place. A special thank you to:

Stephen King

James Herbert

Shaun Hutson

Dean R Koontz

Sam Raimi

John Carpenter

Anthony Hopkins

Thanks for the nightmares, you have made my life a little more tense, but I wouldn’t have given you up for the world.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692

The story begins in June 1692. It ends with one of the most unjust and inhumane mass killings in American history. By the time these trials had concluded, nineteen people would have met cruel deaths by being hung. Another would be mercilessly killed, in what would be an even more barbaric manner.

John Putnam was one of the most influential elders of the village of Salem. As such he invited a man named Samuel Parris to come and preach in the village church. Parris was formerly a successful farmer and a merchant trader in Barbados. It took a year of strong negotiations, Parris was unsure, but after deciding on his salary, Parris finally relented and he accepted the role as the village minister.

Parris relocated with his wife named Elizabeth, and his one year old daughter named Betty. His niece also decided to accompany the family they were also accompanied by their Indian slave named Tibuta. Tibuta had been acquired by Parris whilst he was in Barbados. When they arrived in Salem, they arrived at a town that was in the middle of a process of evolution.

Within the villagers a new social elite was beginning to develop. The townspeople were now less willing to assume the once prestigious positions of town leaders, and two leading clans named the Putnams, and the Porters had begun to compete for control of the village. Whereas the town of Salem was a sea trade center, the village of Salem had begun to debate the independence of the village, which was tied to the more agricultural regions.

In 1692 there was an exceptionally cold winter in the village of Salem. During February, what was reported as a strange illness, overcame the young Betty Parris. Her symptoms made her body contort in pain. She would dash about the place, and then dive under furniture. She also complained of a fever. To the family, these were all strange and very unusual symptoms.

The cause of her illness could have been any one of many. She may have suffered from some form of epilepsy, or it may have been the stress of moving to the new environment, it may also have been delusional psychosis. A staple part of the diet around that time would have been rye eaten as a cereal, it was also an ingredient of bread that may have been infected with Ergot.

Ergot is caused by a fungus, which invades kernels of rye grain as they develop. This is more common when the conditions are warm but damp. These were the conditions that prevailed during the previous rye harvest. It may have triggered a disease called Convulsive Ergotism, bought on by ingesting the rye. This disease can cause violent fits, a feeling of crawling on the skin, vomiting, choking, and violent hallucinations.

A derivative of Ergot, was later used to make L.S.D, the hallucinogenic. It does appear that the young girl may have suffered the symptoms of this disease, another theory, was that she simply may have been bored and was just pretending to have those symptoms. It would not however explain what was to happen to the other residents of Salem later that year.

Around this time, an author named Cotton Mathers, had published a popular book named Memorable Providences. It described in detail the suspected act of witchcraft and the supposed possession of an Irish washer woman from Boston. The behaviour of young Betty mirrored the events that had been described in the book. The very book was now becoming widely read and openly discussed.

An Indian war was raging less than seventy miles from the village and at the time superstition and fear was rife. Death was close to the door of the village, and many of the refugees from the war were now even taking haven within the village. Talk of more deaths was never far away, and neither were rumours that what was happening to the child, her possession was in fact the work of the Devil.

Three more young girls were then struck down with similar symptoms to those of Betty, All three were playmates of the girl. The three were named as Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, and were soon showing the same sings of affliction. Talk of this being the Devils work and witchcraft became even more rampant amongst the villagers.

The local doctor named William Griggs examined the girls. He failed to diagnose the illness effectively, and despite trying different cures, nothing seemed to have any positive effect. The Doctor himself being able to offer any rational explanation, then himself suggested that the disease may indeed by supernatural in origin. At the time, it was a common belief that witches targeted children, and this made the doctors diagnosis even more prudent.

The townsfolk decided that they would have to fight fire with fire, and a woman named Mary Sibley proposed a form of counter magic. She told the Indian slave Tibuta, that she was to bake a cake made with the urine of the affected girls, she should then feed the cake to a dog (dogs were thought to be instruments that were used by witches to carry out tasks).

For Tibuta (who was commonly known to tell tales of Omens, Voodoo and witchcraft that she recalled from her native tribe, suspicions had already started to be raised at the part she had played a part in the witchcraft herself. By allowing herself to participate in the cake baking, it was to make her a more obvious scapegoat for the girl’s affliction.

The number of the affected then began to grow at a more alarming rate. Soon seven more girls became afflicted with the same illness. The girls turned into what was then described as a gang of ‘juvenile delinquents’. They would fall down in frozen postures and contort into horrifying poses, they would also complain of being bitten or pinched. In the village it was now the common belief that this was indeed the work of the devil, and the affliction of the girls was fast becoming the villager’s obsession.

  Tibuta did indeed do as she had been instructed and baked the witch cake, and as her reward for trying to help the girls, she was promptly arrested, along with two other women. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, had both now in fact falsely named those who had been responsible and so began the start of the infamous witch hunt. That the two girls actually named the people responsible, points to a conspiracy concocted between the two girls.