The Daily Populous Saturday July 30th, 2022 night edition
Authored by courthousenews.com and submitted by speckz

In Salem, 30 people were convicted and 19 were put to death within a four-month period. Five others died in jail, and one man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death by rocks in an effort to torture him into confessing. Johnson herself was spared death when her sentence was commuted by then-Governor William Phips.

Although the reason for Johnson’s confession is unknown, Hite noted that accused witches in Massachusetts were generally put to death only if they professed their innocence. Those who confessed were spared so that they could provide evidence against others.

The Andover hysteria centered largely on Mary Lacey, who accused fellow resident Martha Carrier of negotiating a deal with the devil that would allow her to become Queen of Hell. Seventeen members of Carrier’s family, including Johnson’s mother who was Carrier’s first cousin, ended up being arrested.

Once the hysteria died down, many of the convicted (or their families) petitioned to have the convictions reversed. Johnson submitted a petition in 1712 but was turned down. It’s not clear why, although the fact that she had developmental difficulties and never married or had children may have caused her to be treated as less of a priority.

The home of Benjamin Abbot, built in 1685. Abbot was one of the people that Elizabeth Johnson confessed to "afflicting" by means of witchcraft. (Cassandra Michael photo courtesy of Richard Hite via Courthouse News)

The Massachusetts Legislature passed bills to exonerate the accused in 1957, shortly after Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” dramatized the Salem trials, and again in 2001, although the bills focused primarily on people who were put to death. Johnson was once again overlooked and remained the last person in the state guilty of witchcraft in the eyes of the law.

Johnson is believed to have died in 1747 and been buried in an unmarked grave in the Old Burying Ground in North Andover.

Film producer Cassandra Hesseltine, a descendant of Martha Carrier, is working with director Annika Hylmö on a documentary about Johnson’s exoneration. The project set to be called “The Last Witch” grew out of a discussion the pair had when they met in a women’s restroom at the Sundance Film Festival.

Ceremonial laws — those that don’t have a practical effect — are frequently taken up by school civics classes, and as many as 200 state laws have been passed as a result of schoolchildren, according to Kevin Underhill, the author of “The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance,” a book about obscure laws.

A litigator at Shook, Hardy & Bacon in San Francisco who blogs regularly on the topic, Underhill said the witch bill is better than most such efforts that tend, for example, to name an official state dinosaur.

“A bill or resolution can still send an important message even if it’s not binding legislation or is a couple of centuries late,” he said. “This one might help in a small way to remind people that it’s better to make decisions based on evidence as opposed to just believing what Goody Putnam posted about witches on Ye Facebooke.”

Although some may believe that legislatures have better things to do with their time, “we shouldn’t exaggerate the amount of time and effort that lawmakers actually spend on this stuff,” Underhill said. He noted that Florida legislators approved a bill to make porpoises the official state saltwater mammal because they didn’t bother looking up the fact that porpoises are a different species from dolphins and aren’t native to Florida.

Laws without substantive effect do have their critics. Congressman Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, was notorious for opposing such legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, often casting the lone “no” vote on measures to commend organ donors, endorse free and fair elections overseas, or express condolences to earthquake victims.

If nothing else, the exoneration effort in Massachusetts shines light on the fact that it was nearby Andover, not Salem, that was the real epicenter of the hysteria.

Salem gets the attention in part because it has found it profitable to embrace its witch history. The city actively lures tourists with a “witch house,” a witch museum and a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of the 1960s TV show “Bewitched.” Police cars have a witch logo, a public elementary school is known as Witchcraft Heights and the high school athletic teams are called the Witches. And each year the city has an extremely elaborate Halloween celebration.

The tombstone of Ephraim Foster (1657-1746), the Andover constable who arrested Elizabeth Johnson for witchcraft. (Cassandra Michael photo courtesy of Richard Hite via Courthouse News)

By contrast, Andover downplays its spooky backstory. The town is best known today as the home of prestigious Phillips Academy, the country’s oldest prep school that is the alma mater of both Presidents Bush.

Interest in the Salem witch hysteria has endured in part because it can be used as a metaphor for continuing political debates. “The Crucible” was widely interpreted as a parable about McCarthyism, and in our own day Robert Mueller felt compelled to testify to Congress that his investigation of Russian election collusion “was not a witch hunt.”

The effort to grant Johnson clemency also highlights the historical mistreatment of socially marginal people and those with intellectual challenges.

Exonerating Johnson “was not deemed necessary in the past because she was not a wife or a mother” and had disabilities, said DiZoglio, the state senator, who also noted the “parallels today to people who don’t look or sound like us or have characteristics that might make people value them as worthy and important.”

Three centuries later, DiZoglio added, Johnson’s cause is relevant because “we see folks targeted all the time for political purposes or agendas.”

“Women’s rights are under attack,” DiZoglio said. “Reproductive rights are under attack.”

Hesseltine, the film producer, emphasized meanwhile that it’s “very easy for somebody who doesn’t have familial ties to be forgotten.”

“Single women without kids might end up homeless or have to fight harder to get jobs,” she said. “A lot of people end up forgotten in mental hospitals or accused of a crime.”

LaPierre was more reticent to draw contemporary parallels in her classroom. “Current events are not a safe area because people might start talking about Trump,” she noted.

No class celebration of the bill-signing has been planned because the students are on summer vacation, “and they don’t care as much,” La Pierre said. “Maybe in 10 years it will sink in.”

LoganH1219 on July 29th, 2022 at 13:46 UTC »

Idk man if she’s still kicking after 300+ years maybe it’s time to start looking into witch charges again

OakInIowa on July 29th, 2022 at 13:07 UTC »

"“It’s a great way to do civics education, and it has nothing to do with critical race theory, so everyone feels good about it,” LaPierre explained. " FFS.

BigGrayBeast on July 29th, 2022 at 12:47 UTC »

From her home in Salem, the woman said, "I told them back then I wasn't a witch.'