Mary Eastey

In April, John and Elizabeth Proctor were thrown in jail.

Sarah Cloyce, Giles Corey, Bridget Bishop, Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren, then Edward and Sarah Bishop, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Mary Black, Mary English, Sarah Wilds, Mary Esty.

She's released and then they re-arrest her.

And by early May, Lydia Dustin, Susanna Martin, Dorcas, another Dorcas, honey, Dorcas Hoare, Sarah Morey.

But today we can still hear the voices of those people in Salem.

Tituba describing the devil, Rebecca Nurse insisting on her innocence, and Mary Easty pleading with the authorities to prevent more deaths.

Their experiences were very different, but they became part of the same series of prosecutions, and by the time the authorities finally changed how they viewed the evidence, that damage could never be undone.

And with that, we've come to the end of another episode of Historical True Crime.

Thomas picked his targets carefully, focusing on landowners whose properties he wanted.

The accusations against the Townsisters, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, and Sarah Cloyce, plus the Topsfields, Sarah Wilds, and Elizabeth Howe likely came from land arguments.

those families had fought with the Putnams over property lines.

Historian George Francis Dow observed that, "...children absorb the feelings of their elders.

exactly.

Mary Easty married Isaac Easty, who was a farmer, in 1654.

Their farm stood near the town family property in Topsfield, north of Salem Village.

And like Rebecca Nurse, Mary had an established family and a respectable place in her community.

Puterator rebutted these claims, saying, quote, my life may not be taken away by such false evidence and witnesses as these be.

She was wrong and was convicted on September 10th and hanged on Proctor's Ledge at Gallows Hill on September 22nd, along with Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Wilmot Reed, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker.

Centuries after her execution following a family effort that lasted some 12 years.

Anne Pewterator was exonerated in 1957.

Two other accused Andover residents, William Barker Sr. and Mercy Wardwell, both of whom had confessed to witchcraft, claimed that they had seen Mary Parker afflict Martha Sprague and the ailing Timothy Swan.

Parker claimed innocence to the end.

She was hanged along with Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Anne Puditerve, Martha Corey, Samuel Wardwell, Margaret Scott, and Wilmot Redd on September 22nd on Proctor's Ledge at Gallows Hill.

The location of Mary Parker's remains is unknown.

Seven people were hanged with her.

Mary Esty, who was Rebecca the nurse's sister, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Ann Padeter, Wilmont Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell.

September 22nd was the last hanging day, but nobody knew that yet.

So what changed? Well, the ministers did, partly.

On September 22nd, 1692, they were the last executions of the Salem Witch Trials.

Eight people were hanged, Martha Corey, who we just mentioned, and also Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Ann Putater, Wilmot Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell.

Several of those names have nearly disappeared from the popular versions of the Salem story, so we are going to give them the respect that the court did not for a minute and tell you who some of them were.

Wilmot Redd came from Marblehead, a fishing community with a culture and economy that was very different from Salem Village.

What joined them was not a shared practice of witchcraft.

It was a court willing to convert reputation, coincidence, and invisible assault into evidence in this capital case, or capital cases.

Mary Easty was Rebecca Nurse's sister.

A third sister, Sarah Cloyce, was also accused, but she was not convicted, and she survived.

Volume 2, page 483.

Mary Easty Such was the fate of Rebecca, the eldest of the three sisters.

Mary, the next, once her playmate in the sands of Yarmouth in the old country, was her companion to the last in love and destiny.

Mrs. Easty was arrested with many other accused persons on the 21st of April while her sister was in jail in irons.

She was at large for two days and no more.

The convulsions and tortures of the children returned instantly on the news being told of Goody Easty being abroad again and the ministers and elders and deacons and all the zealous antagonists of Satan went to work so vigorously to get up a fresh case that they bore down all before them.

Mercy Lewis was so near death under the hands of Mrs. Easty's apparition that she was crying out, Dear Lord, receive my soul! And thus there was clearly no time to be lost and this choking and convulsions as an eminent citizen acting as a witness occurred very often until such time as we understood Mary Easty was laid in irons.

There she was lying when her sister Nurse was tried, excommunicated, and executed.

Border disputes between Salem and Topsfield came out in Topsfield's favor.

On the 21st of April, 1692, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin ordered Sarah, along with her stepdaughter, Sarah Wilds Bishop, Sarah Bishop's husband, Edward Bishop, and six others, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Nahamy Abbott, Mary Easty, Mary Black, and Mary English, to be arrested on high suspicion of witchcraft performed on Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and others due to a complaint by Thomas Putnam and John Buxton.

Sarah was arrested by the marshal George Herrick, who then ordered Constable Ephraim Wilds to arrest Deliverance Hobbs.

Hobbs, whether through coercion or not, made a jailhouse confession and implicated Sarah Wilds as a witch.

... things like that, that they just can't be bothered with, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, okay, number 13 is Mary Easty.

Mary Easty was born Mary Town to William Town and Joanna Town in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England.