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Author of "The Phantom Farmhouse," "Out of the Long Ago," etc.
WHEN the sightseeing 'bus from Boston carries tourists from the West and South through the crooked and historic streets of Salem, Massachusetts, the lecturer waves his megaphone toward a long, turtle-backed rise of land with the stereotyped announcement, "On your left, ladees and gentlemun, is the famous gallows hill where witches were hanged in the Colonial days."
Just that. A nineteen-word sentence, a craning of curious necks, a raising of perfunctorily interested eyes, and the cumbersome omnibus rumbles and bumps away on its homeward trip, Jeaving behind the monument of the most dreadful chapter in American history, a spot accursed to this day by the blood of innocent victims of fanaticism, a landmark bearing testimony to the terrible conflagration kindled by the effort of a bigoted, ignorant, self-righteous man to reassert his sway over the community and retain the pitiful salary of a parson in a small and none too thriving Colonial church.
Let us push back the hands of the clock two and a half centuries: Salem Village, small, but even now prosperous, clings to the rocky promontory jutting Europeward into the Atlantic Ocean, a few substantial houses of clapboard, fewer mansions of brick, brought as ballast in ships from England, and a foursquare, white-doored church. Four men, heavily cloaked against the shrewish October wind, stride determinedly through the narrow, unpaved street, talking earnestly. They are Joseph Parker, Joseph Hutchinson, Joseph Putnam and Daniel Andrews, all free-holders in Salem Village, appointed at a recent town meeting to consider ways and means for adjusting the controversy raging between the Reverend Samuel Parris, pastor of Salem Village Church, and his congregation.
Two years before, the Reverend Mr. Parris was called to the pulpit of Salem Village Church in an effort to heal the dissension cleaving the congregation. In settling in his position the reverend gentleman drove a hard bargain with his people, extracting in pay the last brass farthing the congregation could raise. Since his installation he has intrigued continually for greater power in the community. Failing to secure a deed to the parsonage property in his own name, he has set one faction of the
