Andover Bewitched: Martha Carrier (Part I)
Martha Allen Carrier was the first Andover resident arrested for practicing witchcraft in 1692.
Hello all, and thank you for joining me for another “Andover Bewitched.” I’m excited and sad to say that this will be our penultimate edition of Bewitched – the next article will be the last in the “Bewitched” series. Not to worry! There are many more amazing History Buzz articles to come...
To celebrate the end of this series, I’ve composed a two-part discussion of Martha Carrier. Martha was the first person accused of and executed for witchcraft in Andover in 1692.
To tell the story of Martha Carrier’s involvement in the witch trials, we need to go backwards in time and look at her family too. Before 1692, she was a social pariah, which contributed to suspicion about her. Plus, her family’s negative involvement in the trials encouraged Martha’s neighbors to accuse her of practicing witchcraft.
Martha was born to Andrew Allen and Faith Ingalls. Andrew Allen was among the first European residents of Andover; his name appears on the register of founding colonists.1
Martha married Thomas Carrier, a Welsh indentured servant. From the start, Martha was marked as a social outsider. Her first child, Richard Carrier, was born within two months of her marriage to Thomas, so they had conceived him out of wedlock.2
In addition, Thomas’ financial situation continued to cause problems for them. Billerica’s town selectmen ordered the Carriers to leave, concerned that the town would end up financially responsible for the family.3 As early as 1676, Billerica demanded a 20-shilling surety, or the Carriers would have to move out of the town.4 Eventually, perhaps due to this conflict with the town, Martha and her husband left for Andover.
Suspicions of smallpox put the Carrier family on the outs…
By 1690, the Carriers had settled in Andover, living with Martha Carrier’s mother. Here is where the problems continued to grow.
Soon after the Carrier family arrived, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Andover. The disease was extremely contagious and often deadly as it killed 3 out of 10 infected people.5 Despite attempts at quarantine in Andover, thirteen people died including seven members of Martha Carrier’s family.6
Martha and her family were blamed for this epidemic. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why they received such suspicion around this disease. Perhaps it was because they had recently moved to Andover, or because two of the Carrier children had already died from smallpox in Billerica. The town demanded that the Carrier family leave Andover and refused to offer support during the epidemic.
Martha gained access to her father’s property, painting a target on her back…
As if her association with the smallpox epidemic was not enough, Martha became a target because she had significant access to land. During the epidemic, two of her brothers died, which meant that Martha would have control over her father’s property and affairs.
This, of course, put her into conflict with her neighbors over property line disputes and claims that they had cheated her husband. She got into an infamous argument with Benjamin Abbot who claimed she had crossed over his boundary lines, and then immediately fell ill.7 Once Martha was arrested, Abbot supposedly made a full recovery, adding to the evidence against her.8
Not everyone with property or power was targeted during the trials. However, Martha was already socially on the outs with the town, and her sudden access to greater financial power must have made her seem like a social and political threat.
Martha’s family set the stage for suspicion in Andover…
Martha’s situation was made worse by other hints of witchcraft in her family. She was related by marriage to Reverend Francis Dane, a controversial figure in town. Plus, her brother-in-law was a physician with a supernatural reputation.
In 1665, Mary Allen (Martha’s sister) married Roger Toothaker and moved with him to Billerica. They had several children and lived successfully for many years. Roger Toothaker became a physician after training with Samuel Eldred.
In the seventeenth century, medicine was hardly an official field – physicians received little standardized training and the general population’s understanding of medicine was weak at best.9 Though there were methods of treating injury and illness, these remedies were often ineffective. Because the 17th-century people could not always see the cause of malady, medicine and superstition often overlapped.
Roger Toothaker, like other physicians, suspected witchcraft as a cause for illness. He claimed to have killed a witch and cured one of his patients.10 Perhaps in another year, Roger’s claim would have been ignored or even celebrated… but in 1692, as residents of Salem had already begun to suspect each other of witchcraft, Roger’s claim put a target on his back — and the suspicion spread to his family too. Roger Toothaker died while in prison on June 16, only a month after his arrest for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
Meanwhile, on May 28, 1692, his wife (Mary Allen Toothaker), his nine-year-old daughter Margaret Toothaker, and his in-law, Martha Carrier, were all arrested and brought to jail to face trial…
Check back in two weeks to read the next (and last) “Andover Bewitched” to learn what happened next! Martha’s trial is full of fascinating moments, and I can’t wait to tell the rest of her story.
If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you! Plus, don’t forget to click here to open a free Substack account, so you can like, share, and comment.
Thanks for reading!
— Toni
Juliet Haines Mofford, Andover Massachusetts: Historical Selections from Four Centuries (Merrimack Valley Press, 2004): 28-30.
Mofford, Andover Massachusetts, 28. See also Enders Anthony Robinson, Andover Witchcraft Genealogy (Goose Pond Press, 2013): 40-41.
Testimony of Benjamin Abbot v. Martha Carrier, August 3, 1692. Via Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive.
Robinson, 38-39.
I'm so glad you're concluding the series with Martha Carrier. It's a tragic story that needs to be told.