Andover Bewitched: The Abbot Accuser
Those who know about the 1692 witch trials know Martha Carrier's story well, but what about the man who led Andover to accuse her?
In today’s edition of “Andover Bewitched,” I’ll dive into the entwined stories of Benjamin Abbot and Martha Carrier. Benjamin accused Martha Carrier of practicing witchcraft, citing debates over property lines and Martha’s supposedly cruel language. Martha was the first person from Andover to be executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft.
Let’s start with the Abbot family…
The Abbots/Abbotts were some of the earliest settlers of Andover. Benjamin Abbot was born on December 20, 1661 to George Abbott and Hannah Chandler.
George and Hannah emigrated with their families from England, from “Bishop’s Stortford” in about 1637, possibly on the ship the “Arabella.” Hannah would have been about seven or eight years old on this trip. They arrived and settled in the Roxbury area, but soon moved to the new Andover town.
Andover as we know it is on land originally called Cochichawicke by the Indigenous people who lived there. The story goes that the land was purchased for a coat and 6 pounds from Cutshamache, a leader in the Pennacook Confederacy.1
Andover’s first European settlers were led by John Woodbridge, the original minister for the town.2 George Abbot was among the twenty founding families who moved into the newly purchased land and began constructing and adding to garrison houses, farms, plantations, and new houses.
In 1646, Hannah and George were married. They lived in a “humble cabin” (a former garrison house) near what is now Central St in Andover.3 They kept a large farm with horses and cattle with a significant plot of land.4 And importantly — they had many, many children, who moved throughout Andover and nearby towns.
Benjamin Abbot was the eighth in line to this well-known and wealthy family. He married Sarah Farnum in 1685 and began a family. He built a large house — larger than his father’s, or so the records claim — near the Shawsheen River.
In the map above, I’ve indicated Benjamin’s house in red, his father George’s property in blue, and Martha and Thomas Carrier’s property in green.
The Carriers came to Andover in 1688…
Martha Carrier is one of the most well-known accused witches in Andover, so I will be brief with her story.5 She was born in Andover as Martha Allen, but moved to Billerica when she was married to Thomas Carrier.
Facing poverty, Martha and Thomas Carrier returned to Andover in 1688, moving into Martha’s family property in Andover. Unfortunately for the Carriers, their return concurred with the arrival of a smallpox epidemic. Thirteen people in Andover died of the disease while the ill members of the Carrier family recovered.
The Carriers were blamed for the disease (whether or not they actually brought it to Andover is still up for debate!) and the towns of Andover and Billerica effectively quarantined the family to their home.
Perhaps if the Carriers had not had financial struggles, or if they had been more easily accepted into the town, or if more time had passed between the epidemic and the witch trials, things wouldn’t have happened as they did. Unfortunately for the family, smallpox was only the beginning of their troubles.
The Witch Trials began in Salem Village and spread to Andover…
The first four months of the witch trials moved slowly. Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams of Salem Village (today Danvers) cast the first accusations — against three otherwise marginalized women, Tituba, an enslaved woman, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne.6
As these three very public trials continued, other young girls joined in, namely Ann Putnam, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard, also of Salem Village. Because the accusations continued to fly (with increasing speed and decreasing reliability), the governor established a special court to hear witchcraft cases.
Rather than slow things down in the name of justice, the new court created a kind of frenzy. The afflicted girls began to travel, visiting homes in search of who might be tormenting them — causing fits of illness and nighttime apparitions. There are many, many theories about why these girls acted as they did, which I won’t delve into here. Suffice to say that they did accuse many people, and their initial accusations opened their victims up to the volatile court system.
On May 28, 1692, Mary Walcott and Ann Putnam accused Martha Carrier of practicing witchcraft upon them. They claimed that they saw the specters of the Andover residents who died of smallpox in 1690 — Martha Carrier’s alleged first “victims.”
Their testimony alone may not have been enough to convict Martha, but when they pointed a finger at her, the court began to investigate. They summoned witnesses from Andover to testify against her, adding their evidence to that of Mary’s and Ann’s.
This, of course, is where we return to Benjamin Abbot.
Benjamin Abbot accused Martha of afflicting him by witchcraft…
Benjamin and Martha had evidently had some property disputes — their land bordered each other, and there was certainly conflict about Martha already in town. Further concerns about Martha’s significant land ownership (which she had inherited from her father) might have led to Benjamin’s suspicion of her.7
When the opportunity to oust Martha came to pass, Benjamin and Sarah Abbot testified strongly against her. Benjamin claimed:
Then having some land granted to me by the Town of Andover, near to Goodman Carrier’s [land] & when this land came to be laid out, Goodwife Carrier was very angry, and she said she would stick as close to [me] as the bark stuck to a tree & that I would repent of it before seven years came to an end, and that Doctor Prescott could never cure me…8
He said that he’d been struck ill with a swollen foot and a “pain in my side,” which turned into an illness-filled sore. Accordingly, when Martha Carrier was arrested, Benjamin’s illness was magically cured and he “began to feel better every day.”9 His wife testified too, adding that their cattle had been oddly afflicted for “no reason… unless it should be the effects of Martha Carrier’s threatenings.”10
Young Phoebe Chandler, another member of a prominent Andover family and related to Benjamin, also testified against Martha. So did much of the rest of the town.11 It was easy to turn against a woman who already held much of the town’s suspicion, especially when the well-established Benjamin Abbot had reason to accuse her. Though she was never formally indicted for afflicting Benjamin (or indeed any of the other Andover residents), his testimony supported the Salem Village girls’ accusations.12
Along with Martha, her young children, and her sister Mary Toothtaker, were arrested, probably to encourage Martha’s confession. Unlike many other accused witches in the era, Martha refused to confess, claiming again and again that she did not practice witchcraft. Her insistence on innocence led to her death — confession was the only thing that might have saved her life once so many town members turned against her.
Martha was pronounced guilty in early August 1692, and was hanged on August 20. She left behind two young children, her husband, her sister, and other family in Andover and Billerica.
Today, it is possible to visit memorials to Martha in Salem, at Proctor’s Ledge, and in Danvers.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Abbot lived until 1703. Benjamin and Sarah had at least four children, who continued to live in the area.
The Benjamin Abbot House at 9 Andover St is a private residence and isn’t open to the public.13 For many years, it was thought to have been constructed by the Benjamin Abbot of this story. It’s on the same property and near the house that Benjamin Abbot Sr. built a home for his wife, Sarah Farnum, in 1685. However, recent chemical dating of the house’s materials places it in about 1711, so it was probably constructed by Benjamin Abbot Jr. instead as he continued the family line and maintained the property.14
Thank you for reading!
If you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the trials or this period of history you’d like to learn more about, leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you.
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— Toni
The ‘Pennacook Confederacy’ was an alliance of several Indigenous tribes who generally shared the Algonquin language. Find more resources on this story (and the complexities therein) from the Massachusett Tribe website, the Pequot Museum, Phillips Academy’s article on Cutshamache and Native Land (a mapping and data site).
“Founding Families of Cochichawick Plantation,” North Andover Historical Society. The Chandlers were also among the first residents of the town — George and Hannah were married at around the same time as the town’s establishment.
See Juliet Haines Mofford, Andover Massachusetts: Historical Selections From Four Centuries (Merrimack Valley Preservation Press: 2004) for more.
Jeff Wallenfeldt, "Salem witch trials,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021.
See Mofford, Andover, Massachusetts (2004).
“9 Andover St,” Andover Preservation Society. See also Bill Dalton, “Dalton Column: Witches and Switches - The Benjamin Abbot House,” Andover Townsman (June 24, 2010).
Toni, great article. It was easy to follow the complicated story of Martha Currier & Benjamin Abbott. Barbara Bunn
I discovered, in a discussion with a Kansas cousin about our German ancestry, that his father's side, last name Patton is related to the Carrier family! So have passed several items to him.