The New World Times

     John Proctor was the first male to be accused and executed in the Salem Witch Trials. His wife, Elizabeth Proctor, and children were all also accused. Abigail Williams, one of the accusers, was interviewed and said that Elizabeth Proctor would often hurt her. John Proctor made a petition for mercy to get his wife out of jail. The petition was signed by twenty people but did nothing to sway the court, so Elizabeth Proctor remained imprisoned. After this petition failed, John Proctor accused the girls that were responsible for his wife being imprisoned of being frauds and liars, and as a result, John Proctor himself was accused of being a witch and was eventually executed.

     In May 1692, three of the Proctors’ children were accused of witchcraft and were arrested. Elizabeth Proctor’s sister, Mary Bassett DeRich, and sister in-law, Sarah Bassett, were also arrested. The Proctors’ son, Benjamin, was accused on May 23, by Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersoll and Thomas Rayment, on behalf of Mary Warren, Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Hubbard. He was arrested by Marshal Deputy John Putnam. Their other son, William, was accused on May 28, by Mary Walcott and Susannah Sheldon and arrested by constable John Putnam. According to court records, the jury decided not to indict William Proctor or Sarah Bassett due to lack of evidence. Even John Proctor’s former servant, Mary Warren, was accused of witchcraft when the afflicted girls turned on her because she had been telling others that they had been lying about the witches and that the fits they had been having were fake. They testified that Proctor’s spirit beat her and forced her to sign the devil’s book. Abigail Williams even claimed that she touched Elizabeth Proctor and her fingers burned.

     On July 23, John Proctor wrote a letter to the clergy of Boston pleading with them to appoint different judges or move the trials to Boston, where he felt he and his family would get a fair trial. In his letter, he described the torture used against the prisoners, particularly against his son William, and declared that the accused were innocent victims. He wrote about his son in the letter, “Because he would not confess that he was guilty, when he was innocent, they tied him neck and heels until the blood gushed out of his nose, and would have kept him so for 24 hours, if one, more merciful than the rest, had not taken pity on him, and caused him to be unbound.” On August 1, eight Boston ministers met to discuss Proctor’s letter. They eventually changed their stance on allowing the use of spectral evidence in the trials, but it was too late to save Proctor’s life.

     John Proctor and his wife were both convicted of witchcraft on August 5. The couple were sentenced to the gallows, but Elizabeth’s sentence was delayed until the birth of her child. John Proctor was hanged near Gallows Hill on August 19 along with George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobs, and Martha Carrier. Local rumors suggest that Proctor’s family secretly retrieved his body from the execution site and buried it on the Proctors’ farm on Lowell Street in Peabody.

     Meanwhile, Elizabeth Proctor remained in jail to await the birth of her child. Even after she gave birth to her son on January 27, 1693 she was not executed, for reasons unknown. Elizabeth remained in jail until May, when Governor Phipps released the last few prisoners of the witch trials. It is not clear whether her child survived or not. Once Elizabeth Proctor was freed, not only had she been stripped of her legal rights due to her convictions, but she also discovered John Proctor had written her out of his will. John Proctor had probably done so because he expected Elizabeth to be convicted along with him and knew she would not be able to inherit his estate. To make matters worse, most of the Proctors’ belongings had been confiscated to pay for their imprisonment fees. Being stripped of her legal rights meant Elizabeth also could not inherit her widow’s third or her dowry that she brought to her marriage. As a result, she was left penniless for years.

     Finally, in May of 1696, Elizabeth Proctor petitioned the General Court to restore her own legal rights and asked for access to her husband’s estate, or at least, the dowry she brought to her marriage. A year later, Elizabeth Proctor was awarded her legal rights and dowry by the court on April 19, 1697.

The story of John Proctor provides us with useful information about the Salem Witch Trials. First, many people assumed that only women could be accused of being witches. The fact that John Proctor himself and his son William both were accused and the fact that John Proctor was convicted shows that men were not safe from the possibility of danger from the trials.  Second, the story of John Proctor shows what might happen to people in Salem who try to claim the accusing girls are lying because the accusing girls will likely turn on them and try to have them arrested and convicted also. This was a great danger and a complication for people like John Proctor who were trying to fight for their family members’ lives.