Andover Bewitched: Signing the Devil's Book
How did 17th century people think about and use documents? What do the documents that we have today tell us about their thoughts and ideas?
One of the things I love most about writing “Andover Bewitched” is getting to dive into the primary source documents. We are lucky that so many of the court documents, arrest records, statements, and more have been preserved and are now digitized. This means that we can look closely and see what seventeenth century people actually thought and said.
Today, I’m trying something a little bit different — this entry of “Andover Bewitched” will speak about documents and what they might have meant to those who lived through the 1692 witch trials. If you’d like an introduction to the trials first, check out this post!
17th century people were more literate than you might think…
When we look backwards to this period, we often judge literacy based on whether or not someone could sign their name. The witch trials documents are littered with different variations — an ‘x’ to mark the signature of someone who could not write their name, signatures of those who could, and phrases like “John Marston’s Wife” to indicate the agreement of a certain woman.1
There were schools in this period, especially in major cities, like Boston. For example, one of the judges in the witch trials cases, Samuel Sewall, sent his son to school in Boston, where he might have been trained to read and write.2 There were printed textbooks too, especially on Scripture, and penmanship training texts which were used in the early schools.
Education and literacy became more significant in the early eighteenth century as more schools were founded. Phillips Academy in Andover was founded in 1778, the first boarding school founded in the United States.3
But in the seventeenth century and in the period relevant to the witch trials, reading was more important than writing. It’s very possible that the same person who indicated their agreement with an ‘x’ could read the document they had signed. Historian Jennifer Monaghan argues that women might have been far more literate (in terms of reading) than the historical record might indicate!4
Why do documents like these matter to the witch trials story?
Literacy matters when we’re talking about these documents for two primary reasons:
First, many of the stories of working with the Devil offered during the witch trials involve signing one’s name or making a mark in the Devil’s book as a form of official agreement. That means that many people in this period, literate or otherwise, were thinking about how documents shaped their lives.
Here, the Court records Sarah Wardwell’s statement:
“... she saith she signed a piece of paper by putting her finger to it, which (as she thinks) made a black mark… being asked why she did not weep & lament for it she answered she could not weep…”5
And Sarah’s not the only one! During Martha Carrier’s trial, she was accused of “bringing the Devil’s book” to encourage others to turn into witches with her.6
Susannah Post confessed similarly:
“the next time he appeared… he brought a book & she touched it with a stick that was dipp[ed] in an ink horne & it made a red mark.”7
This story comes up again and again throughout the trials: accused witches confessed to signing the book, and accusers claimed that they were asked to sign and refused. Even before the trials, the Puritans believed that a deal with the Devil was key to turning into a witch.
The idea that this deal was a literal written contract, however, was particular to the 1692 trials. And, like the accusations themselves, the idea was contagious — once one person confessed to signing the Devil’s book, others followed suit!
A signature verified the “truth” of court documents, even when the confession wasn’t accurate…
Besides the metaphorical idea of signing the Devil’s book, it’s interesting to explore how written documents followed each step of the 1692 trials.
These same records that help us tell the story of 1692 also documented and structured the legal and social lives of those accused; we know as much as we do because they have been preserved.
An accused witch’s literacy — or lack thereof — was important, because they would need to verify the truth of their own confession whether or not they could read. Below are two examples.
Henry Salter was accused of practicing witchcraft during the town-wide “touch test,” which was meant to search for potential witches — and supposedly found them. Salter was arrested with seventeen other Andover residents and brought to Salem to sit trial. Salter’s story has a happy ending: although he was indicted for practicing witchcraft in 1693, he was released from prison and never executed. This is consistent with others whose trials were held in January 1693, after the hysteria had died down.
Here, William Murray, the court’s scribe, has written:
“I underwritten being appointed by [oath] to take in writing the above
examination do testify upon oath taken in court that this is a
true copy of the substance of it, to the best of my knowledge — William Murray”8
The judge has added a note signifying that the “above Henry Salter was examined” before the courts, with the Judge Higginson’s signature at the bottom of the page.
Henry Salter has not signed this document, and yet it is recorded as fact. The scribe, a literate man, has verified the truth of the document on Salter’s behalf — but we cannot know what Salter actually thought. The document records horrible claims that he nearly choked a neighbor to death with his supernatural powers.
Salter was on trial for his life; confessing to these crimes might have been the only thing that could prevent him from execution. William Murray’s choice to place his mark meant claiming Salter’s confession was the truth, even though it likely wasn’t.
In another example, Sarah Wardwell, who could not write her name, has verified the document with a large “X.”
Judge Higginson records below:
“Sarah Wardwell signed & owned the
Above Examination & Confession
Before me, John Higginson, Justice of the Peace”9
Like many others, Sarah confessed to witchcraft, terrified for her life, and claimed that she had dealt with the Devil to hurt her neighbors. Separated from her family, arrested, and investigated in a public trial, she must have been terrified!
She confessed to signing the Devil’s book, to afflicting her neighbors, and to practicing witchcraft — and signed her ‘x’ to verify the truth of her statement even though she may not have been able to read it herself.
In September 1692, when Sarah Wardwell gave this statement, her husband was also on trial. While Sarah would eventually escape with her life, Samuel was convicted of practicing witchcraft and executed on September 22, 1692.
If you’ve enjoyed this taste of documents, check out some of the fantastic online resources on the trials: A Guide to the Primary Sources of the Salem Witch Trials lists the accused by name and collates relevant documents. The University of Virginia’s Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive hosts transcriptions and images of many documents. And Cornell University also holds a large collection, including printed books published in the period (which are often easier to read than 17th century penmanship!)
As always, thank you for reading, and I love to hear from you! Let me know if you have any questions, or if you discover anything exciting in these archives. There’s always so much to learn about the trials and the people who lived during this time.
And of course, stay tuned for more entries of Andover Bewitched! Click here to open a free Substack account, so you can like, share, and comment.
— Toni
See Jennifer Monaghan, "Literacy instruction and gender in colonial New England." American Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1988): 18-41, and Richard Vann, "Literacy in seventeenth-century England: Some hearth-tax evidence," The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5, no. 2 (1974): 287-293.
Monaghan, 20.
Phillips Academy History; Juliet Haines Mofford, Andover, Massachusetts: Historical Selections from Four Centuries (Merrimack Valley Preservation Group, 2004): 68-70.
Monaghan, 37.
Examination of Sarah Wardwell.
Fascinating, Toni! Thanks for giving us a new lens through which to explore the witch trials. It's a question I hadn't thought to ask.