Andover Bewitched: Accused Turned Accuser
The story of William Barker Jr.
Hello and Happy December! I’ll be taking a brief break from adding to the list of Andover Accused with today’s article, which is all about William Barker Jr. If you’re just joining us now, try the first entry in “Andover Bewitched” for an introduction the 1692 witch trials and hysteria, which took the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Essex County by storm.
Today’s article is about William Barker Jr., a fourteen-year-old whose whole family was accused of witchcraft during the trials. He too was accused and in turn pointed a finger at other members of Andover and his own family. His story shows us how accused people could so easily be swept up in the chaos, and how — though it seems counter-intuitive — confessing to witchcraft and accusing others was sometimes the safest option.
The Barker Family settled in Andover...
William Barker Jr. was the son of William Barker Sr. and Mary Dix Barker, born in 1677. He was fourteen when the witch trials broke out and swept the Barker family into the dangerous hysteria.
The Barkers were an affluent and well-known family, with a lot of land and seemingly few disputes. Of course, it’s always possible that there were more tensions in the village than the surviving records show, but it seems like the Barkers were well-respected members of Andover before the hysteria began.1
Joseph Ballard brought suspicion to Andover…
Accusations of witchcraft in Andover were slow to start after the first accusations in Salem. The first accused witch in Andover was Martha Carrier, who was arrested in May 1692 and later executed. After Carrier was accused, it seemed like the town might be able to survive the trials unscathed, since Carrier was already ostracized in the town when she was accused. Suspicion about her didn’t necessarily indict anyone else.2
Then, fellow Andoverite Elizabeth Ballard became sicker. As her illness worsened, her husband, Joseph Ballard became suspicious of foul play. He believed that witchcraft was the real cause of her illness.
Though illness caused by witchcraft seems unbelievable to us now, Ballard would have had little understanding of disease and genuinely believed in the power of the Devil. Plus, tensions were rising in Salem as more and more people there were accused of practicing witchcraft. It’s not much of a leap to understand why Joseph Ballard, at wit’s end and desperate to save his wife, might have tried to find a culprit to end Elizabeth Ballard’s illness.
Of course, we now know that Ballard’s choice to bring several of Salem’s afflicted girls to Andover led to a big increase in people accused in Andover.
The Barker Family was accused of witchcraft…
Among those first accusations led by Ballard and the afflicted girls from Salem was William Barker Sr., accused in August 1692. William Sr., Mary Barker, and Mary Marston were all apprehended and brought to Salem.3 Mary Barker was William’s young niece (daughter of John Barker) and Mary Marston was his 27-year-old niece-in-law (stepdaughter of Hannah Barker Osgood).4 The Marstons and Barkers were close neighbors as well as family.
William Sr., Mary Barker, and Mary Marston all confessed to practicing witchcraft. There’s a few reasons why they did this. First, they were probably aware that a confession was likely to spare their lives. Denying witchcraft was far more likely to bring a conviction, while confessing and repenting was an opportunity to cooperate with the court. And second, we know that the courts were rigorous and unkind, often pushing children to testify after being arrested and taken to prison and held in terrible conditions.
Mary Marston confessed to witchcraft, claiming that she’d been led astray by the Devil. In the process, she indicted other members of Andover and her uncle-in-law, William Barker Sr. Mary’s confession includes:
“With W[illia]m Barker & she afflicted in comp[an]y together last Sat[ur]day & it was by their spirits they conversed and agreed to do so…”5
Because so many members of his family were confessed witches, young William Barker Jr. was also cast under suspicion. William Barker Jr., William Sr.’s son, was arrested a few days later.
“He is accused for Exercising acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of Martha Sprague, Rose Foster, and Abigail Martin, which he did not deny but could not remember it. He confesses now that he hath not be in the snare of the Devil above six days…”6
Like many accused, William Jr. had a fanciful story of meeting unusual creatures (“a black dog”) in the woods who lead him to the Devil. The Devil supposedly invited William to “set his hand to this book” and leave his mark, thereby making an illegal covenant with the Devil.7 How much of this was made up on the spot? How much of this confession was gained from listening to others’ confessions or the reports about them? It’s difficult to know exactly what William was thinking.
Amid his confession to covenanting with the Devil and afflicting Martha Sprague, William Barker accused a “Goody Parker” of practicing witchcraft with him. Mercy Wardwell, another Andover accused, joined William Barker in raising this accusation.8 Hannah Bixby, Sarah Phelps, and Martha Sprague, afflicted Salem and Andover girls, joined in too. Once these accusations were made, it was too late for Mary Parker.
Mary Parker & William Barker Jr. had opposite fates…
Was Mary Ayer Parker the intended target and not another Mary Parker in town? We don’t know. There were several Mary Parkers in Andover at the time, and there is no recorded reason why William Barker Jr. would have accused this Mary Parker as their respective families seem to have no ill will for each other. Perhaps fourteen-year-old William Barker Jr. had heard stories of the more infamous Mary Parkers in town and gave a name in a panic, only to double down as the questioning grew more intense.9
While William Barker Jr. and the other Barkers were released from prison (or escaped, in the case of William Barker Sr.), Mary Parker did not survive.10 Unlike William Jr., Mary Parker refused to confess to witchcraft. This refusal was probably why she was condemned and executed in September 1692. Perhaps if she had confessed like William did, she would have survived.
A marker to commemorate her life and mourn her death remains in Salem to this day.
Meanwhile, William Barker Jr. was released from prison and married his cousin, Mary Barker, as the two had gone through the ordeal of imprisonment and the trials together. Both were declared “not guilty” in 1693 and later received restitution for their time in prison.
They had several children, Nathan, David, Deborah, Timothy, and others, and descendants of the Barker family are still alive today.
Thank you for reading! Tune in two weeks from now for our next edition of Andover Bewitched for even more of this fascinating story.
I’m excited to hear from you, so if you have any questions or if there’s any aspect of the trials you’d like to learn more about, leave a comment.
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— Toni
Charlotte Helen Abbott, Early Records of the Barker Family of Andover. Memorial Hall Library.
Juliet Haines Mofford, Andover Massachusetts: Historical Selections from Four Centuries, 32-34.
See also: Charlotte Helen Abbott, The Marston Family of Andover and The Osgood Family of Andover. The Osgoods and Ayers were two important early families in Andover, who were somewhat connected through marriage (in the case of John Osgood and Hannah Ayer, and Mary Osgood and John Aslet). And Early Records of the Parker Family of Andover also Peabody, MHL.
For Mary, William, and Mary’s arrest record, see Warrant for the Apprehension of William Barker Sr., Mary Marston, & Mary Barker, and Officer's Return
Abbott, Early Records of the Barker Family. See also The Barker Family, Salem Witch Museum.
Ibid.
Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem witch trials: A day-by-day chronicle of a community under siege (Taylor Trade Publications, 2004): 234-235.
Great story, Toni! You really make the time period come alive.