![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootI thought our Porter ancestors had departed Salem before the rubbish started. Turns out I was entirely wrong.
There was Salem Town on the coast and Salem village a few miles inland. Salem town had growing industries, fur, timber, fishing. Salem Village seems to have been almost entirely agrarian, a subsidiary of the town; in the area two families flourished greatly though they appear to have taken to each other like Jets and Sharks. The Putnams were Puritan farmers, conservative, austere, the largest family around Salem village. The Porters had agrarian interests too, but they were more mercantile, more international in outlook. They began trading across New England and in the Caribbean (I haven't seen any connections to the slave trade yet, but I'll keep looking) and they grew to be the richest family in Salem Town.
Not that they weren't cheeky. In 1672, a Porter dam and sawmill flooded some of the Putnam farms. A lawsuit ensued though I don't know who won it. Years later a petition for political independence for Salem village was put forward to the town by the Putnams. The Porters opposed it. Then came the Reverend Samuel Parris in 1689, and things officially got weird.
Better profiling of Samuel Parris can easily be found elsewhere; what I gather from my momentary researches is that the same characteristics that made him appeal to traditionalists made him singularly unable to cope with the fractious politics of Salem. His rigid orthodoxy did not go down well in the ever more relaxed and secular town, but the village gave him support including that of the Putnams. They voted to give him a parsonage, a barn, some land, pay him a salary, bring him firewood... These were not universally popular decisions. In late 1691 a faction of Parris-Putnam supporters were ousted from the village committee, replaced by Porter allies who voted down a tax to pay Parris' salary. The details seem like a Handforth parish council meeting on steroids. Did he own the parsonage and lands outright or were they his only for as long as he remained minister? He thought one, they thought the other, I don't know and can only handle so much of the minutiae. Let us just say that the environment was febrile, steaming with umbrage. And the very next year in his own household, the craziness began.
Parris' 9 year old daughter Elizabeth, her 11 year old cousin Abigail, their 12 year old friend Ann Putnam, and the Parris family slave Tituba appear to have been experimenting with fortune telling. It looks as though they were found out by the reverend himself, and suddenly the fits began, the convulsions, the haunting apparitions that tormented them... The local doctor pronounced them to be 'under an evil hand.' Then came the accusations, principle among the accusers Ann and Thomas Putnam, close friends to the reverend, and parents of Ann Putnam.
I am not going to go over the details of the trials, for all they are the most dramatic part of the story. It's told better elsewhere, and all too absurd and horrible for my Sunday morning. Though the accused varied greatly, they had a couple of things in common; some were not traditional insiders, others were associated in some way with the Porters, who tried to rally resistance only to find that 19 of the family's allies including a son-in-law had been accused of witchcraft.
The Porters were loudly sceptical. Israel Porter signed the petition defending poor old Rebecca Nurse; John and Lydia Porter took the witness stand to speak against 'Goody Bibber' who accused one Sarah Widdes of bewitching her. One of the most vehement, and proof that not every Putnam was a mentalist, was Joseph Putnam, husband to Elizabeth Porter, Israel's daughter (bet that was the wedding of the year!) He spoke to his sister-in-law Ann Putnam thus: "If you dare to touch with your foul lies anyone belonging to my household, you shall answer for it." This Puritanese for touch my peeps and I will end you was fine and fierce, but Joseph was reputed to keep horses saddled at all times in case accusations made flight necessary. And yet, it comes as no surprise that no accusations were levied at him or his. Sometimes even devils can be discreet.
I know it's easier when you have money and influence, but it pleases me that these long lost relatives stood against such shameful rubbish. It doesn't change anything real or now, but I've always hated witch hunters in all their forms. I am pleased that in the depths of family, where many wrongs doubtless lie because that's the way of humans, some stood against such ridiculous sh*te, even when it was very dangerous to do so. Good for you, old fam, I'm right proud of you X
There was Salem Town on the coast and Salem village a few miles inland. Salem town had growing industries, fur, timber, fishing. Salem Village seems to have been almost entirely agrarian, a subsidiary of the town; in the area two families flourished greatly though they appear to have taken to each other like Jets and Sharks. The Putnams were Puritan farmers, conservative, austere, the largest family around Salem village. The Porters had agrarian interests too, but they were more mercantile, more international in outlook. They began trading across New England and in the Caribbean (I haven't seen any connections to the slave trade yet, but I'll keep looking) and they grew to be the richest family in Salem Town.
Not that they weren't cheeky. In 1672, a Porter dam and sawmill flooded some of the Putnam farms. A lawsuit ensued though I don't know who won it. Years later a petition for political independence for Salem village was put forward to the town by the Putnams. The Porters opposed it. Then came the Reverend Samuel Parris in 1689, and things officially got weird.
Better profiling of Samuel Parris can easily be found elsewhere; what I gather from my momentary researches is that the same characteristics that made him appeal to traditionalists made him singularly unable to cope with the fractious politics of Salem. His rigid orthodoxy did not go down well in the ever more relaxed and secular town, but the village gave him support including that of the Putnams. They voted to give him a parsonage, a barn, some land, pay him a salary, bring him firewood... These were not universally popular decisions. In late 1691 a faction of Parris-Putnam supporters were ousted from the village committee, replaced by Porter allies who voted down a tax to pay Parris' salary. The details seem like a Handforth parish council meeting on steroids. Did he own the parsonage and lands outright or were they his only for as long as he remained minister? He thought one, they thought the other, I don't know and can only handle so much of the minutiae. Let us just say that the environment was febrile, steaming with umbrage. And the very next year in his own household, the craziness began.
Parris' 9 year old daughter Elizabeth, her 11 year old cousin Abigail, their 12 year old friend Ann Putnam, and the Parris family slave Tituba appear to have been experimenting with fortune telling. It looks as though they were found out by the reverend himself, and suddenly the fits began, the convulsions, the haunting apparitions that tormented them... The local doctor pronounced them to be 'under an evil hand.' Then came the accusations, principle among the accusers Ann and Thomas Putnam, close friends to the reverend, and parents of Ann Putnam.
I am not going to go over the details of the trials, for all they are the most dramatic part of the story. It's told better elsewhere, and all too absurd and horrible for my Sunday morning. Though the accused varied greatly, they had a couple of things in common; some were not traditional insiders, others were associated in some way with the Porters, who tried to rally resistance only to find that 19 of the family's allies including a son-in-law had been accused of witchcraft.
The Porters were loudly sceptical. Israel Porter signed the petition defending poor old Rebecca Nurse; John and Lydia Porter took the witness stand to speak against 'Goody Bibber' who accused one Sarah Widdes of bewitching her. One of the most vehement, and proof that not every Putnam was a mentalist, was Joseph Putnam, husband to Elizabeth Porter, Israel's daughter (bet that was the wedding of the year!) He spoke to his sister-in-law Ann Putnam thus: "If you dare to touch with your foul lies anyone belonging to my household, you shall answer for it." This Puritanese for touch my peeps and I will end you was fine and fierce, but Joseph was reputed to keep horses saddled at all times in case accusations made flight necessary. And yet, it comes as no surprise that no accusations were levied at him or his. Sometimes even devils can be discreet.
I know it's easier when you have money and influence, but it pleases me that these long lost relatives stood against such shameful rubbish. It doesn't change anything real or now, but I've always hated witch hunters in all their forms. I am pleased that in the depths of family, where many wrongs doubtless lie because that's the way of humans, some stood against such ridiculous sh*te, even when it was very dangerous to do so. Good for you, old fam, I'm right proud of you X
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}