In Search of Mary Easty

Our tour focuses on one witchcraft victim, Mary (Towne) Easty of Topsfield, among the last eight convicted witches hanged at Proctor's Ledge in Salem on September 22, 1692, after an eloquent plea to end the hysteria that had taken 12 innocent lives. Mary's sister, Rebecca Nurse, had already been executed, while her sister Sarah Cloyce, still languishing in prison, was ultimately spared. At the rural town of Topsfield, north of Salem, where these Towne sisters were raised we see the sites of their farms and the 400-year-old gnarled white oak tree that they knew. We go on to the 1678 home of Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village and replica of the 1672 Puritan meeting house, used for worship, but also for taking the testimony of those accusing their neighbors of familiarity with the devil. We tour the 1675 home of Judge Jonathan Curwen, where testimony was also heard, and conclude with a walk to the site of the gallows at Proctor's Ledge, where jeering crowds taunted those about to die.