The Thing About Salem

More than 150 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Had the Court of Oyer and Terminer tried them all, they may all have been hanged.

They sat chained in dungeons to prevent their specters from roaming. They watched as friends and neighbors were dragged to the gallows. As the body count rose, the terror must have reached unimaginable levels. And yet the accusations kept coming.

How did an entire community participate in its own destruction?

In this essential introduction to The Thing About Salem, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack explore what made Salem different from every other witch hunt in American history. The mystery isn’t what ailed the afflicted girls. Why were people at the highest levels of society accused right alongside the usual suspects?

This episode reveals the forces that turned Salem Village into America’s deadliest witch hunt: warfare closing in on Massachusetts settlements, economic devastation, the collapse of political and religious certainty, and the kind of existential terror that makes the unthinkable seem reasonable.

**Length:** 15 minutes

## What You’ll Learn

• Why 150+ people faced execution when typical New England witch hunts involved 2 to 3 accusations

• What conditions make rational people accept supernatural explanations for their suffering

• How fear and crisis override legal safeguards and community bonds

• Why focusing on the accusers matters more than diagnosing the afflicted

## Key Stats

• 150+ people accused in Salem

• 30 convictions (vs. 4 in Hartford’s 1662 witch panic)

• Only 1 witch hanged in Massachusetts in the 36 years before Salem

• People at the highest levels of society were named as witches

## Topics Covered

• The terror of Salem’s dungeons and the rising panic

• What made Salem different from other colonial witch hunts

• The perfect storm: war, disease, political collapse, and religious crisis

• Why popular theories like ergotism miss the point

• What Salem reveals about fear, judgment, and human nature

When a seventh grader reached out with questions for their National History Day documentary, podcast hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack knew they'd been asked something special. The student's thoughtful inquiries became the foundation for this episode of The Thing About Salem.

This wasn't just another school assignment. The questions this student asked revealed a depth of engagement that many adults never reach when studying 1692. They saw past the surface story to the human complexity underneath, the kind of questions that don't have easy answers but force you to truly reckon with what happened in Salem.

We knew immediately these questions needed to be shared. They're the kind that make history stop being about memorizing events and start being about understanding people, choices, and consequences that still echo today.

Sometimes the best teachers are the ones still in school.

Keywords: Salem Witch Trials, National History Day, student history project, Rebecca Nurse, Joseph Hutchinson, Bridget Bishop, family history research, witch trial education, historical questions, Salem descendants, Tituba, Abigail Williams

In May 1692, one of Boston's most respected citizens walked into a Salem courtroom—and the accusers couldn't even identify him. Captain John Alden Jr., son of Mayflower passengers and decorated war hero, seemed an unlikely target for witchcraft accusations. But his connections to Native Americans and the French made him dangerous in the eyes of wartime Massachusetts.

What happened when Salem's witch hunt reached beyond the village to pull in a prominent Bostonian with impeccable colonial credentials? This episode examines how Captain Alden's examination revealed the absurdity and danger of the spectral evidence system and how his escape became one of the trial period's most dramatic moments.

From his parents' legendary Plymouth courtship to his own flight from justice, Captain Alden's story shows us who could be accused, who could survive, and what it took to navigate Salem's machinery of suspicion.

Episode Highlights:

• John Alden Sr. and Priscilla: The last surviving Mayflower passenger and the marriage that inspired Longfellow

• Captain Alden's controversial fur trading and the rumors that made him a target

• The chaotic May 31st examination where accusers needed prompting

• The touch test, the sword, and the claims of "Indian Papooses"

• His September escape to Duxbury and surprising return

Key Figures: Captain John Alden Jr., John & Priscilla Alden, Judges Bartholomew Gedney and John Richards, Rev. Samuel Willard, Robert Calef

The Thing About Salem examines the people, places, and events of the 1692 Salem witch trials. New episodes weekly.

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In this episode of The Thing About Salem, co-hosts Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson examine one of the most invasive and degrading practices used during the Salem Witch Trials: the search for witch's marks and devil's teats. Discover how this invented "evidence" was used to convict innocent people—including the hosts' ancestors.

What You'll Learn:

The Origins of Witch Mark Theory

• How English legal writers like Michael Dalton (1618) and William Perkins created detailed instructions for finding "devil's marks"

• Why Richard Bernard claimed these marks appeared in "secretest parts" requiring invasive searches

• The shocking truth: none of this evidence appears in the Bible

Familiar Spirits in Salem

• Cotton Mather's definition of familiar spirits as "devils in bodily shapes"

• Strange creatures described in testimony: hairless cats with human ears, rooster-monkey hybrids, and hairy upright beings

• How these supposed demons were believed to feed from witch's teats

The Salem Examinations

• Documented searches of accused witches including Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, and Elizabeth Procter

• George Jacobs Sr.'s brutal examination with pins driven through his flesh

• Four-year-old Dorothy Good's traumatic examination and the "flea bite" used as evidence

• Why some marks disappeared between examinations—and what that tells us

Dehumanizing Practices

• The invasive nature of stripping and examining prisoners in their "most intimate areas"

• How postpartum scarring from childbirth was twisted into evidence of witchcraft

• Why the Court of Oyer and Terminer convicted all 27 people tried in 1692—whether marks were found or not

Modern Connections As Robert Calef pointed out in More Wonders of the Invisible World, witch marks weren't biblical—they were man-made tests designed to find guilt. This pattern continues in modern witch hunts worldwide, where accusers still decide what constitutes "evidence" against innocent victims.

Perfect for listeners interested in:

• Salem Witch Trials history

• Colonial American history

• Wrongful convictions and false evidence

• Women's history and bodily autonomy

• Modern witch hunts and human rights

• Historical witchcraft accusations

• Legal history and justice reform

Featured Historical Sources:

• William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft

• Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice (1618)

• Richard Bernard, The Certainty of the World of Spirits

• Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World

• Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World

• Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative

• Original Salem Witch Trial examination records

About the Hosts: Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson are descendants of Salem witch trial victims and co-founders of End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit addressing modern witch hunts globally. Together, they co-host The Thing About Salem and The Thing About Witch Hunts (265+ episodes).

Related Episodes: [Links to episodes about Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, familiar spirits, spectral evidence, etc.]

Support Our Work: Learn more about modern witch hunts and how to help at EndWitchHunts.org

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