The New Jerusalem Witch Trials of 1692

A well-documented historical fact that places New Jerusalem in the darkest chapters of New England History are the Witch Trials of 1692. According to the testimonies during the trial the people in New Jerusalem had long suspected that there was an individual, or individuals, practicing witchcraft in the area. The number of cows catching diseases and odd occurrences increased in the region during the years prior to the incident in the ravine behind Meadow Hill on All Hallows' 1690. As well the fact that several children had gone missing and never been found
The exact details connected with the ravine incident are still rather unclear. The Town Marshall Heskiel Brown caught a group of men and women in the midst of some kind of celebration. Afterwards the apprehended were accused of having communed with Devils and Demons. According to the official records some of the accused admitted to having signed a contract with their own blood. According to the testimonies the contract had been dictated by a dark-skinned stranger present at the celebration. The dark man had offered magical knowledge in return for signing the contract - or so the records tell. Inspired by a local woman named Hekeziah Massey the group had gathered on the Eve All Hallows' 1690. The group convened in a ravine behind Meadow Hill, outside New Jerusalem. The place was probably chosen because of a geological oddity known as the White Stone that can be found in this very ravine even today. There are reasons to believe that the stone in question was the subject of religious worship among local Indian tribes long before the first Europeans arrived in the New Jerusalem area.
The whole incident occurs during roughly the same time as the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and there are reasons to believe that the paranoid atmosphere of the Salem trials might have affected the Jerusalemites. However, the whole New Jerusalem affair takes an odd twist when, unlike the Salem trials, it became a matter for the British Crown directly - not just a matter for the Town magistrate. The Salem trials were watched over by Governor Sir William Phips and the Deputy Governor, who served as Chief Judge at the trial. The Salem trials were later declared as unlawful (in 1701), and thus they were soon seen as a mistake by the judicial authorities in both Salem and the governor's office in Boston. The New Jerusalem trials were never declared unlawful, and the presence of certain Crown Prosecutors appointed by London Parliament made them unique. The Crown nor the Parliament seldom, if ever, interfered in common judicial matters in the American colonies. The New Jerusalem trials were an exception.
Most likely London reacted to a secret depeche sent by the Governor's office in Boston during the spring of 1691. The response was to have an official appointed by the Crown with special authorities to conduct a full investigation into the matter of the New Jerusalem incident. The man sent to New Jerusalem was a certain Sir Bartholomew Cunningham - a high ranking judicial expert at the court of St. James. Cunningham had more or less carte blanche during the investigation of the crime and the questioning of the arrested subjects. Unlike many similar trials Cunningham was never known to use torture or other physical methods during the interrogation. He also managed to get full confessions from all involved except Hekeziah Massey. Some say this was due to some extraordinary knowledge possessed by Cunningham's assistant, a certain half-blooded Indian named Benjamin Black. Little is known about this Benjamin Black, but the story has it that Cunningham met him shortly after his arrival in Boston in June 1691. Nothing is ever mentioned about this mysterious character after the trials had been concluded.
Most of the trial proceedings took place during September and October 1692. The accused had then spent almost two years in Prison, and most of them were in bad condition. That might explain why Cunningham and Black had very little resistance to receiving full confessions from the accused. As mentioned before, only Hekeziah Massey resisted, but in her case there was some physical evidence - she had left some written materials in her home that linked her to the practitioning of the "Black Arts".
In October 1692 the trails were over, and all coven members were sent to the gaols - except for Hekeziah Massey, who somehow escaped her imprisonment. This later led to a rumor that Massey had revived the New Jerusalem Coven. However, it is hard to believe that a lone woman on the run could survive for that long in a hostile environment like New England of the late 17th century. It is also unclear if Massey and her fellow cult members were in fact true practitioners of Black magic or just another group of women performing some harmless (and ineffectual) old school Hedge Magic.
The paranoia of the 17th century Protestant world led to the death of many innocent men and women who happened to follow philosophical or theological ideas that did not align with mainstream Christendom. The lack of education among the populace often led to situations where the gap in theological knowledge was filled with various folkish believes that mistakenly could be taken for Devil-worship. There were also persecutions of people who happened to possess knowledge of herbal remedies that could cure common diseases. What makes the New Jerusalem trials different from most other Witch trials is that there was little doubt that a coven had, in fact, existed. There are even written documents found in the home of Hekeziah Massey that stated that the coven did worship something called "The Old Ones". There is not a single mention of any Devil in these papers, thus one can say that the coven did not have any ties to any Christian cosmology (with God and the Devil), nor are there any references to any known pre-Christian pagan religions. In fact, it all might have been the fabrication of a single woman's vivid imagination (that of Hekeziah Massey). The Massey papers are hard to interpret and some scholars do believe that Hekeziah suffered from some kind of mental disorder that caused her to hallucinate. Her scruffy scribblings are more or less unreadable and do seem to lack a logical coherence. The papers can be accessed through the New Jerusalem Historical Society.