Fleeing to the New World was supposed to bring safety. That hope proved to be a cruel deception.
When she was six, Prudence Woolrich found out she was a witch. Her grandmother, who had kept a close eye on her many grandchildren, soon realized that Prudence stood out from the others. When Prudence was angry, milk curdled and flowers wilted.
Goodwife Harper (the grandmother and herself a witch) took the six-year-old aside for The Talk.
“Prudence,” she said, “do you know that you have special powers?”
“I know when I get mad, bad things happen,” the child replied.
“You’re a witch,” Goody Harper said. “And I believe, a powerful one. That’s very special, but it also can be very dangerous. I’m going to tell you a few things you must remember. They are the rules my grandmother told me.”
Goody Harper continued: “There are people here in England who hate witches. They want to hang us or burn us at the stake.”
Prudence began to cry.
“No need to worry,” the grandmother said. “I’ve lived a long life, and I plan to make it even longer. Just follow these simple rules: Be kind to everyone. Don’t get into quarrels. And if you do practice magic, do it so no one notices. Do you think you can do that?”
Prudence quieted her sobs and nodded: “I think I can.”
Goody Harper explained: “Very few of the women accused of witchcraft are really witches. There aren’t many of us. Rather, those women are the ones who fight with their neighbours. Or they had the bad luck of being around when something terrible happened. A few of them tempted other men.”
Prudence nodded: “Everyone says I have very good manners.”
Her grandmother concluded: “Most witch hunters are fools. But watch out for the one or two who can peer into our souls. Your parents gave you a very good name: Prudence. Just remember it and you’ll be fine.”
Prudence’s grandmother died four years later. During those four years, she taught Prudence spells and incantations and discussed the powers she would develop. She also showed her the healing plants in the woods. Helping others who were sick was a good way of combining medicine and magic.
Shortly before Goody Harper died, Prudence asked her, “When you go into the woods, do you dance with the devil?”
Her grandmother looked deep into Prudence’s dark blue eyes: “Why do you ask that?”
“My friends say witches fly around on brooms and dine with Satan in the forest.”
“Don’t listen to such talk,” Goody Harper stated and said no more in reply to the question.
II
When Prudence was 15, the Reverend John Denton arrived in her town, Chelmsford.
Prudence had long since finished her formal schooling and had become her mother’s helpmate. She was the middle child of seven and looked after her younger sister and brothers. Sammy, who was two, loved the tricks she performed when no one was looking. She could spin a top in mid-air above his crib, making him laugh heartily.
Reverend Denton, who was young and intense with piercing dark eyes, accosted Prudence in the marketplace. “Mistress Woolrich,” he said, “I have been eager to meet you.”
“Good day, Reverend,” Prudence said. “How do you know my name?”
“I know many things,” he replied. “I want to invite you to the public square this Sunday. After church services we will hang two witches.”
“My parents tell me such sights are not for the eyes of children,” she answered. “So, I must turn down your invitation.”
“Well, then another time, I’m certain,” he said. “I will keep an eye on you.”
Prudence shuddered inwardly at his words, and rushed home, her shopping only half completed.
Fortunately for Prudence, Denton was an itinerant minister and came to Chelmsford only a few times a year. The sermons he preached always had the same message: the witches in their midst would be the ruination of England.
When Denton came to town, he sought her out, coming to her house if he didn’t see her in the marketplace. The first time he knocked on the door was typical of his many visits. Her mother, Goody Woolrich, welcomed him.
“I hope your family will come to church on Sunday,” he said. “Prudence particularly will benefit from my sermon.”
“We are a God-fearing family,” her mother said, “and will certainly be there. I thank you for the visit to our home.”
Prudence knew from her friends that she alone received such regular visits.
When Prudence was 18, she married Ethan Lockwood and moved into a small place that Ethan’s parents had secured for their son. Life was not easy. Land was hard to come by in Chelmsford, a long-settled community. Hence, Prudence and Ethan were receptive when they read a pamphlet, urging Puritans to move to the New World. It promised free land in the colony of Massachusetts-Bay. For the Lockwoods, the decision was an easy one and quickly made. They sold their possessions to pay for passage and for the expenses they would face when they arrived.
Prudence had a second strong motive for emigrating: she wanted to put an ocean between her and Reverend Denton who seemed relentless in the attention he paid to her.
When they landed in Boston, the group from Chelmsford decided to settle together in a new township – Salem village – just to the west of Salem town, a thriving seaport.
III
The first years in Salem fulfilled the promise that the New World offered. Ethan received more land than he ever could have imagined in Chelmsford. Fieldstones, which he piled in long stone fences, were the first crop he pulled from the ground. But after that the soil proved cooperative.
Prudence flourished as well. She bore four children and had thoughts of more to come. Her reputation as a healer grew. The lore her grandmother taught her, knowledge she garnered from Indigenous people, and magic helped her succeed. She was careful not to be too successful: she wanted to be viewed as skilled practitioner, not as a miracle worker.
Ethan and Prudence’s lives might have gone along peacefully and unremarkably, but that was not to be. In February 1692, two Salem village girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, announced that witches were pinching and poking them. They spewed accusations, mostly against elderly women, beginning with a pair of quarrelsome spinsters. Other girls joined Parris and Williams, claiming they too were afflicted.
In all, the girls would accuse 200 people. Many were examined and released. Some confessed, and remarkably were also let go. In the summer, hangings began.
Prudence hoped to escape the hysteria. She had followed her grandmother’s precepts: avoid quarrels, stay on good terms with neighbours. She guessed that none of the people accused, including those who confessed and those executed, were really witches. Thankfully, none of the “afflicted” girls singled her out.
Then on July 18, a day when four bodies dangled from the gallows, the Portsmouth Packet docked in Salem harbor, and Reverend John Denton came ashore. He had read in the London papers about the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem, and wanted to pursue the one real witch he was sure was part of it.
After renting lodgings, and resting for a day, he hired a horse and rode to Salem village. He found Prudence at home.
“At long last, we meet again,” he said, when she opened the door.
Her heart sunk. He was older and leaner than before. His eyes glowered from deep in his skull. His obsession had become a fire burning him from inside.
“Mistress Lockwood,” he said, “you should have accompanied me to the gallows in Chelmsford. You would have seen what awaits you. Unless you prefer the stake and a fire.”
“I prefer neither. Your suggestions are foolish ones.”
“I will return tomorrow night after I explain to the worthies in Salem who you really are,” the minister continued. “Do not try to flee. As you can see, I will follow you to the ends of the earth. One of my regrets was that your grandmother, who I learned was a witch, eluded me with her death. I will not let you do the same.”
“If you come tomorrow evening,” Prudence said calmly, “you will have no trouble finding me. I will be on the edge of the woods that border Salem village. It’s where I go to collect the plants that I use. I am a healer, not what you think I am.”
That night, when Ethan returned from his fields, Prudence explained that Reverend Denton had pursued her to the New World and would return the next evening to arrest her. She told him he must take the four children and wait on the edge of the forest near the road to Lynn. She assured Ethan that she would speak to the minister and if he was not open to reason, she would flee into the forest and join the family.
Ethan, who cherished his wife and their life together, agreed.
Prudence knew in her heart that, despite the tale she told Ethan, Denton would never let her escape so easily. What she saw the next evening, as she cut sprigs of wolfsbane, confirmed her suspicion. Denton arrived with seven other men. Four, including Denton, were ministers. They were clothed in their Sunday outfits, complete with high top hats. All held large Bibles.
The other four were stout farmers, two with flintlocks and two with pitchforks.
“Good evening, Reverend and worthy neighbours,” Prudence said to them.
“Come with us peacefully,” Denton said, “so your trial and execution will take place in town and not here on the edge of this evil forest.”
“But this evil forest is my home,” she replied. She cast a spell, and a large, protective circle of flames shot up around her. The acrid smoke forced the men back.
“Shoot the demon,” Denton shouted. Two shots went off, but they were wildly askew since her persecutors could no longer see their prey.
The ring of fire gave Prudence time to begin the summoning. She recited the words in a language that dated back to the dawn of time. She heard a rustling in the forest and knew she had succeeded. Seemingly off in the distance, the ministers responded, chanting passages from their Bibles. But to no avail. The devil, the nightmare of every Christian, stood beside her. And gathering in the woods were at least a dozen demons, fierce creatures with sharp claws and mouths that bristled with fangs.
They fell upon the eight men, quickly tearing them apart, and then raced into the village and town of Salem.
It pays, Prudence said to herself, to dance with the devil.
Prudence joined her family where they waited near the Lynn road. Fortunately, they didn’t have very far to go that night. A nearby farmhouse held a welcoming family, the Braithwaites. Earlier that year, relying more on magic than herbs, Prudence had healed their sickly three-year-old son. The grateful couple offered them lodging for the night and a horse and wagon for their journey south.
Prudence’s younger brother, Samuel, had a farm near Huntington on Long Island, and that is where they headed. If they settled there, Ethan agreed he would come back to sell their farm.
Prudence hoped they would start their life anew in Huntington. She had no desire to return to Salem.
Comments