All of the Salem Witches

The Salem witch hunt of 1692 is made up of two parts, namely one in Salem Village followed by another in Andover. The extant written records reveal a hard core of accusers in the Salem Village witch hunt. Besides Thomas Putnam there were his brother Edward Putnam, his brother-in-law Jonathan Walcott, his uncle-in-law Nathaniel Ingersoll, his uncles John Putnam Sr. and Nathaniel Putnam, and his first cousins Jonathan Putnam and John Putnam, Jr. This closely-knit group formed a conspiracy sanctioned by the authorities that accused essentially all of the so-called witches in the Salem Village witch hunt. A similar analysis reveals the names of ten legal accusers in the Andover witch hunt. Because this small group filed all the complaints in the Andover witch hunt, it appears that they also colluded. However, this group is not closely-knit. They are held together only by the fact that they were sanctioned by the authorities to file complaints. Like the Salem Village witch hunt, the Andover witch hunt was not driven by uncontrolled mass hysteria, but by the deliberate actions of the authorities. This book looks at each person separately and tries to find out why the person was accused of witchcraft. In the words of Shakespeare, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."