August 10, 2025 • 16 mins
Josh and Sarah tell the TL;DR version of the story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93, where 156 people faced formal accusations and over 1,000 became entangled in a legal system that had lost its moral compass. They examine what transformed a small Massachusetts community into the epicenter of mass persecution, from the unprecedented scale of the proceedings to the types of people targeted. This wasn’t just colonial paranoia—it was a perfect storm of social tensions, legal failures, and human frailty that contemporaries recognized as extraordinary even by their own standards. The hosts discuss why Salem continues to captivate us centuries later, serving as both historical cautionary tale and enduring reminder of how quickly justice can derail when fear takes the wheel.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
The Thing About Salem Patreon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Picture this, you're in your small farming village of about
550 people in 1692 when you havean argument with your neighbor.
It goes back and forth and towards the end you say some
harsh words saying the devil take you away from me and your
neighbor's cow a month later stops giving milk.
(00:21):
So what happens in this kind of scenario?
Well, in 1692, Salem, you could have been accused of flying
through the night to bewitched the cow, to stop it giving milk
because you had this little tussle with your neighbor, and
you're just such an angry person.
So this was real scenarios in the Salem witch trials 1692 and
(00:44):
1693. Welcome to the thing about
Salem. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
I'm Sarah Jack. We are descendants of families
who experienced the Salem witch Trials.
What was the Salem witch hunt? Well, the Salem Witch Childs
were the largest, most infamous group of witchcraft prosecutions
(01:06):
in what is now the United States.
What happened in Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693 is considered
to be a witch panic. It was a witch hunt that grew so
large so quickly that the usual rules and the usual suspects
were disregarded. In between February 1692 and May
(01:28):
1693, at least 156 individuals were formally accused of
witchcraft and many others were named but not prosecuted.
This prosecution resulted in 25 deaths.
At the least, there were 19 innocent victims hanged.
(01:48):
One man was pressed to death with heavy stones for refusing
to stand trial, and at least 5 individuals died in jail due to
the harsh conditions, including an infant child.
What began in the small farming community that we mentioned at
the beginning of the episode? Salem Village, with its
(02:10):
population of 500 to 550 people,spread to involve suspects from
25 different communities stretching from Boston in the
South N to Wells, ME. The Salem witch trials was New
England's largest witch hunt, exceeding the total from all
prior witch trials in New England, which included Boston
(02:34):
and Hartford, CT witch trials and others.
Salem was one of the least typical hunts in England or New
England, as victims were accusedindiscriminately and the jails
were full of unexpected alleged witches.
While called the Salem Witch Hunt, prosecution was led by men
(02:57):
from Boston, and the witch trials included accusations for
Massachusetts, New Hampshire andMaine.
In January 1692, strange symptoms began in the household
of Minister Samuel Barris in thecenter of Salem Village.
His daughter Betty, who was about 9 years old, and his niece
Abigail Williams, who in real life was around 11, started
(03:21):
behaving very strangely. They were barking, quacking,
hiding under tables, attempting to walk into fireplaces or
wells. William Griggs, the local
doctor, came to check on the girls to determine what is going
on here. He concluded they were under an
(03:43):
evil hand, implying diabolical influence.
That's influence of the devil. Then there was an incident
involving a neighbor, Mary Sibley.
Reverend Paris and his wife weregone.
Tituba, the enslaved servant of the Paris household, would have
(04:04):
been taking care of the girls. And we know from her testimony
that she was very concerned and upset about the state they were
in. So Mary Sibley, the neighbor,
wanted to help out. And so she came over and she
instructed Tituba and her husband John Indian to make a
witch cake and that cake would help identify who is bewitching
(04:31):
these girls. Later Mary Sibley was
reprimanded in church by Samuel Parris.
He condemned this folk magic usebecause using folk magic to
identify who is working with thedevil was considered a dangerous
action. And after the baking of the
(04:51):
witch cake, the girls who were afflicted, Betty and Abigail,
did begin to identify witches. They started to name the names.
There were two other afflicted girls by this point also, and
Putnam Junior and Elizabeth Hubbard.
And between these 4 afflicted girls they accused Tichiba,
(05:13):
Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of witchcraft.
And then on March 1st, the threewomen were arrested.
Tituba's testimony when she was examined and interrogated in the
Salem Village meetinghouse on March 1st, 1692 really confirmed
(05:35):
a lot of the fears in the community and also got them to
think about what if there are more than these three people who
are committing witchcraft in ourcommunity.
Sarah Osborne was a typical suspect because she had
transgressed social norms by marrying a younger indentured
(05:56):
servant and failing to attend Sunday meetings, even though
that she expressed that was due to her health.
And Sarah Goode was a usual suspect because she was an
impoverished woman who went doorto door asking for help to take
care of herself and her children.
(06:19):
That fits into your stereotypical lineup of who
might be a witch in the community.
But with Salem, things got so out of hand that other people
started to get accused as well who weren't so typical.
Some of those unexpected individuals were church members
(06:39):
like Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse and four year old Dorothy
Good. Sarah Good.
We talked about her. She was arrested, but then so
was her four year old daughter. These individuals were atypical
because in a normal witch trial situation, you'd be looking at
people on the outside of society, people who were not
(07:04):
formal members of the church. So Martha Corey and Rebecca
Nurse were shocking selections to be accused, and then the four
year old Dorothy Good was just so out of the normal age range
of people you'd expect to be harming you that of course that
was also very shocking and amazing that she was caught up
(07:29):
in this. And they treated her so badly,
making very small shackles for her little tiny wrists and
chaining her up in a dungeon formonths and months and months.
One of the ways that they got tothat state was because of the
role of unreasonable evidence. If you look back to the original
(07:53):
examinations with Tituba, some of the story that she was
pressed to share, some of the things that she used to identify
witches, it wasn't enough to pursue a conviction in previous
(08:13):
cases. In other communities in earlier
years, there's some pretty wild stories of witch spectres.
Yeah, I had this uncle Benjamin Hutchinson.
He's my 9th great grand uncle from Salem Village, and he got
involved in some of these spectral accusations.
(08:36):
In one case, Abigail Williams told him, hey, look over there.
There's George Burroughs, the minister for Maine.
He's SPECTRE over there, which is his shape, that is to say,
basically his spirit left from his body while his body's
somewhere else, in this case in Maine.
But he's in Salem Village, Massachusetts, supposedly
(08:59):
tormenting these afflicted children.
And what does Benjamin Hutchinson do?
He unsheets his rapier. It's just starts swinging and
stabbing and slashing and hacking.
And Abigail's like, oh, you got him, you got him.
The Spectres were so feared because the Spectres were in
league with Satan. And according to the beliefs of
(09:24):
the Massachusetts colonists and generally European people at the
time, witches entered into a diabolical pact to get their
powers. They signed a contract with
Satan. So all throughout the Salem
witch trials, you have references to the Devil's book
and people signing or making their mark in the Devil's book.
(09:47):
This is part of this Satanic pact, and it's all part of this
vast conspiracy of the devil andthe witches and the devil's
other allies to defeat Massachusetts and this Puritan
experiment. According to testimony that's
given, the devils and witches want to tear down Christchurch
(10:10):
in Massachusetts and raise up the devil's Kingdom in its
place. So this is a very fundamental
existential threat to society, civil order and church.
And in previous New England witch trials, afflicted girls
(10:31):
weren't the reverence children this like started in the home of
the minister. Yes, it was a direct assault on
the faith, and Massachusetts being founded as a colony
largely to practice this faith, this is devastating.
(10:52):
The other thing that is really devastating about the Salem
witch hunt is the extent of the suffering and the casualties
there. As we said, we're 19 convicted
alleged witches who were executed, but there was lots of
other suffering during the examinations.
(11:16):
There was suffering. They checked for witch's teeth
and double marks on the bodies of the women.
The women and men and children that were accused were
interrogated, grilled so hard and intensely that that's why
(11:38):
you get these confessions. It's people desperate to end
badgering, to be released from this suffering and get out of
these horrible jails and people in the families of the accused.
We're having to travel miles andmiles and miles every week, as
(12:03):
often as they could, leaving their farms and businesses
behind to visit their relatives because they needed food and
clothing and bedding and these things weren't provided by the
jails. So the suffering just goes on
through ripples through every family and friend and loved one
(12:25):
that you have. If you're accused.
It wasn't just these 156 accusedthat were even paying a price,
it's their families and friends and neighbors.
By the end of September, in 16924 rounds of hangings had
occurred and the jail still remained overcrowded with people
(12:50):
accused of witchcraft. As summer became fall,
opposition to the witch trials mounted through citizen
petitions, letters, sermons and pamphlets.
Many people cautiously but anonymously spoke out, while
others risk putting their names on paper to voice their
concerns. And went to jail for it.
(13:12):
Eventually, prominent citizens, including the minister,
increased. Mather urged caution, leading to
changes in how cases were prosecuted later on in 1693.
In 1692, 27 up to 27 people who were tried were convicted.
That's 100% conviction rate, unprecedented.
(13:37):
But in 1693, after spectral evidence was dropped, only three
people were found guilty out of over 50 trials and none of these
last three were executed. They were reprieved by the
governor with everyone else who had been convicted.
So no executions occurred in 1693.
(13:57):
End of figure. The jails were clear.
And is that because people started confessing?
No. Confessing didn't save lives.
Confessors were basically just kept alive long enough to
testify against other suspects, but their own trials and
executions were planned. A group of confessors was indeed
(14:18):
convicted and condemned in September 1692.
However, their executions were postponed until after the non
confessors, the people who had maintained their innocence
throughout. They were executed September
22nd, the last eight of them. A death warrant was actually
issued for these confessors, butthe governor stepped in at the
(14:43):
last minute and reprieved them all over. 1400 people are named
in the Salem Witch Hunt records that has led to 10s of millions
of descendants today and many discover they are related to
both accused and accusers. Today, one way that we remember
(15:04):
the Salem Witch Trials is through physical memorials.
There's also a pop culture and artistic legacy.
The Crucible, film, fantasy books, it's endless.
And as we think about the legacyof the Salem Witch House, we
should also think about what lessons we can take to apply to
(15:28):
our daily lives now from these witch hunt.
Because we don't want this to happen again.
We see that panics do happen from time to time because fear
becomes prevalent in our communities.
So be the voice of reason in times of fear and panic, Treat.
(15:50):
Every human with dignity and respect, especially in our
differences. Don't rush to judgement and seek
to understand different backgrounds or beliefs, the
patterns. Of blame and scapegoating are
all around us in our modern world.
We have to take individual action and lead by example to
(16:13):
stop this pattern. And finally, if you see your
neighbor or their cow fly by on or off a broom this week, put
down your rotten milk and write that fantasy novel you've been
putting off. Come see us on Patreon and chat
with us about the Salem Witch Trials.
Picture this, you're in your small farming village of about
550 people in 1692 when you havean argument with your neighbor.
It goes back and forth and towards the end you say some
harsh words saying the devil take you away from me and your
neighbor's cow a month later stops giving milk.
(00:21):
So what happens in this kind of scenario?
Well, in 1692, Salem, you could have been accused of flying
through the night to bewitched the cow, to stop it giving milk
because you had this little tussle with your neighbor, and
you're just such an angry person.
So this was real scenarios in the Salem witch trials 1692 and
(00:44):
1693. Welcome to the thing about
Salem. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
I'm Sarah Jack. We are descendants of families
who experienced the Salem witch Trials.
What was the Salem witch hunt? Well, the Salem Witch Childs
were the largest, most infamous group of witchcraft prosecutions
(01:06):
in what is now the United States.
What happened in Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693 is considered
to be a witch panic. It was a witch hunt that grew so
large so quickly that the usual rules and the usual suspects
were disregarded. In between February 1692 and May
(01:28):
1693, at least 156 individuals were formally accused of
witchcraft and many others were named but not prosecuted.
This prosecution resulted in 25 deaths.
At the least, there were 19 innocent victims hanged.
(01:48):
One man was pressed to death with heavy stones for refusing
to stand trial, and at least 5 individuals died in jail due to
the harsh conditions, including an infant child.
What began in the small farming community that we mentioned at
the beginning of the episode? Salem Village, with its
(02:10):
population of 500 to 550 people,spread to involve suspects from
25 different communities stretching from Boston in the
South N to Wells, ME. The Salem witch trials was New
England's largest witch hunt, exceeding the total from all
prior witch trials in New England, which included Boston
(02:34):
and Hartford, CT witch trials and others.
Salem was one of the least typical hunts in England or New
England, as victims were accusedindiscriminately and the jails
were full of unexpected alleged witches.
While called the Salem Witch Hunt, prosecution was led by men
(02:57):
from Boston, and the witch trials included accusations for
Massachusetts, New Hampshire andMaine.
In January 1692, strange symptoms began in the household
of Minister Samuel Barris in thecenter of Salem Village.
His daughter Betty, who was about 9 years old, and his niece
Abigail Williams, who in real life was around 11, started
(03:21):
behaving very strangely. They were barking, quacking,
hiding under tables, attempting to walk into fireplaces or
wells. William Griggs, the local
doctor, came to check on the girls to determine what is going
on here. He concluded they were under an
(03:43):
evil hand, implying diabolical influence.
That's influence of the devil. Then there was an incident
involving a neighbor, Mary Sibley.
Reverend Paris and his wife weregone.
Tituba, the enslaved servant of the Paris household, would have
(04:04):
been taking care of the girls. And we know from her testimony
that she was very concerned and upset about the state they were
in. So Mary Sibley, the neighbor,
wanted to help out. And so she came over and she
instructed Tituba and her husband John Indian to make a
witch cake and that cake would help identify who is bewitching
(04:31):
these girls. Later Mary Sibley was
reprimanded in church by Samuel Parris.
He condemned this folk magic usebecause using folk magic to
identify who is working with thedevil was considered a dangerous
action. And after the baking of the
(04:51):
witch cake, the girls who were afflicted, Betty and Abigail,
did begin to identify witches. They started to name the names.
There were two other afflicted girls by this point also, and
Putnam Junior and Elizabeth Hubbard.
And between these 4 afflicted girls they accused Tichiba,
(05:13):
Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of witchcraft.
And then on March 1st, the threewomen were arrested.
Tituba's testimony when she was examined and interrogated in the
Salem Village meetinghouse on March 1st, 1692 really confirmed
(05:35):
a lot of the fears in the community and also got them to
think about what if there are more than these three people who
are committing witchcraft in ourcommunity.
Sarah Osborne was a typical suspect because she had
transgressed social norms by marrying a younger indentured
(05:56):
servant and failing to attend Sunday meetings, even though
that she expressed that was due to her health.
And Sarah Goode was a usual suspect because she was an
impoverished woman who went doorto door asking for help to take
care of herself and her children.
(06:19):
That fits into your stereotypical lineup of who
might be a witch in the community.
But with Salem, things got so out of hand that other people
started to get accused as well who weren't so typical.
Some of those unexpected individuals were church members
(06:39):
like Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse and four year old Dorothy
Good. Sarah Good.
We talked about her. She was arrested, but then so
was her four year old daughter. These individuals were atypical
because in a normal witch trial situation, you'd be looking at
people on the outside of society, people who were not
(07:04):
formal members of the church. So Martha Corey and Rebecca
Nurse were shocking selections to be accused, and then the four
year old Dorothy Good was just so out of the normal age range
of people you'd expect to be harming you that of course that
was also very shocking and amazing that she was caught up
(07:29):
in this. And they treated her so badly,
making very small shackles for her little tiny wrists and
chaining her up in a dungeon formonths and months and months.
One of the ways that they got tothat state was because of the
role of unreasonable evidence. If you look back to the original
(07:53):
examinations with Tituba, some of the story that she was
pressed to share, some of the things that she used to identify
witches, it wasn't enough to pursue a conviction in previous
(08:13):
cases. In other communities in earlier
years, there's some pretty wild stories of witch spectres.
Yeah, I had this uncle Benjamin Hutchinson.
He's my 9th great grand uncle from Salem Village, and he got
involved in some of these spectral accusations.
(08:36):
In one case, Abigail Williams told him, hey, look over there.
There's George Burroughs, the minister for Maine.
He's SPECTRE over there, which is his shape, that is to say,
basically his spirit left from his body while his body's
somewhere else, in this case in Maine.
But he's in Salem Village, Massachusetts, supposedly
(08:59):
tormenting these afflicted children.
And what does Benjamin Hutchinson do?
He unsheets his rapier. It's just starts swinging and
stabbing and slashing and hacking.
And Abigail's like, oh, you got him, you got him.
The Spectres were so feared because the Spectres were in
league with Satan. And according to the beliefs of
(09:24):
the Massachusetts colonists and generally European people at the
time, witches entered into a diabolical pact to get their
powers. They signed a contract with
Satan. So all throughout the Salem
witch trials, you have references to the Devil's book
and people signing or making their mark in the Devil's book.
(09:47):
This is part of this Satanic pact, and it's all part of this
vast conspiracy of the devil andthe witches and the devil's
other allies to defeat Massachusetts and this Puritan
experiment. According to testimony that's
given, the devils and witches want to tear down Christchurch
(10:10):
in Massachusetts and raise up the devil's Kingdom in its
place. So this is a very fundamental
existential threat to society, civil order and church.
And in previous New England witch trials, afflicted girls
(10:31):
weren't the reverence children this like started in the home of
the minister. Yes, it was a direct assault on
the faith, and Massachusetts being founded as a colony
largely to practice this faith, this is devastating.
(10:52):
The other thing that is really devastating about the Salem
witch hunt is the extent of the suffering and the casualties
there. As we said, we're 19 convicted
alleged witches who were executed, but there was lots of
other suffering during the examinations.
(11:16):
There was suffering. They checked for witch's teeth
and double marks on the bodies of the women.
The women and men and children that were accused were
interrogated, grilled so hard and intensely that that's why
(11:38):
you get these confessions. It's people desperate to end
badgering, to be released from this suffering and get out of
these horrible jails and people in the families of the accused.
We're having to travel miles andmiles and miles every week, as
(12:03):
often as they could, leaving their farms and businesses
behind to visit their relatives because they needed food and
clothing and bedding and these things weren't provided by the
jails. So the suffering just goes on
through ripples through every family and friend and loved one
(12:25):
that you have. If you're accused.
It wasn't just these 156 accusedthat were even paying a price,
it's their families and friends and neighbors.
By the end of September, in 16924 rounds of hangings had
occurred and the jail still remained overcrowded with people
(12:50):
accused of witchcraft. As summer became fall,
opposition to the witch trials mounted through citizen
petitions, letters, sermons and pamphlets.
Many people cautiously but anonymously spoke out, while
others risk putting their names on paper to voice their
concerns. And went to jail for it.
(13:12):
Eventually, prominent citizens, including the minister,
increased. Mather urged caution, leading to
changes in how cases were prosecuted later on in 1693.
In 1692, 27 up to 27 people who were tried were convicted.
That's 100% conviction rate, unprecedented.
(13:37):
But in 1693, after spectral evidence was dropped, only three
people were found guilty out of over 50 trials and none of these
last three were executed. They were reprieved by the
governor with everyone else who had been convicted.
So no executions occurred in 1693.
(13:57):
End of figure. The jails were clear.
And is that because people started confessing?
No. Confessing didn't save lives.
Confessors were basically just kept alive long enough to
testify against other suspects, but their own trials and
executions were planned. A group of confessors was indeed
(14:18):
convicted and condemned in September 1692.
However, their executions were postponed until after the non
confessors, the people who had maintained their innocence
throughout. They were executed September
22nd, the last eight of them. A death warrant was actually
issued for these confessors, butthe governor stepped in at the
(14:43):
last minute and reprieved them all over. 1400 people are named
in the Salem Witch Hunt records that has led to 10s of millions
of descendants today and many discover they are related to
both accused and accusers. Today, one way that we remember
(15:04):
the Salem Witch Trials is through physical memorials.
There's also a pop culture and artistic legacy.
The Crucible, film, fantasy books, it's endless.
And as we think about the legacyof the Salem Witch House, we
should also think about what lessons we can take to apply to
(15:28):
our daily lives now from these witch hunt.
Because we don't want this to happen again.
We see that panics do happen from time to time because fear
becomes prevalent in our communities.
So be the voice of reason in times of fear and panic, Treat.
(15:50):
Every human with dignity and respect, especially in our
differences. Don't rush to judgement and seek
to understand different backgrounds or beliefs, the
patterns. Of blame and scapegoating are
all around us in our modern world.
We have to take individual action and lead by example to
(16:13):
stop this pattern. And finally, if you see your
neighbor or their cow fly by on or off a broom this week, put
down your rotten milk and write that fantasy novel you've been
putting off. Come see us on Patreon and chat
with us about the Salem Witch Trials.
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