In the Devil's Snare

With the court established, grand and petty (trial) juries would review the evidence and decide on the fates of those accused. In preparation for the trials, jurors were assembled and judges selected. William Stoughton, a man who could be “rigid and imperious” and unwilling to tolerate opposition (197), was named the chief judge. The other judges knew one another and familiarized themselves with the applicable treatises on witchcraft and the 1604 English law on the subject that “defined as a capital offense occult practices that employed” witchcraft or sorcery with people killed or “pined or lamed” in body (200).

The first person who was tried and convicted was Bridget Bishop, with the jury hearing evidence of her spectral torment of the afflicted, her past malefic practices, and a mark on her body. She was sentenced to be hanged. After her conviction, there was a decline in allegations of witchcraft, but they did not cease completely. Minor disputes and differences of opinion continued to be interpreted as motives for murder, with people feeling the potential for evil everywhere. On June 10, Bishop was hanged. The following day, a large band of Wabanakis and French attacked Wells, Maine, with the town and livestock destroyed.