A Milk-stealing Witch Magically Turns into a Cat, a Hellhound Stubs His Toe, and Men Threaten to Murder a Woman
Episode Description
In this episode of Salem Witch Trials Daily, we cover Wednesday, March 30, 1692, when Rachel Clinton—arrested the day before—was slated for examination, though no record of that hearing survives. We focus on three depositions made against her that day: Thomas Burnam Jr. describes watching for a cow-milker he associates with Clinton and claims the figure vanished and later turned into a gray cat; Mary Fuller Sr. recounts Clinton confronting her at home amid a crisis involving her niece Betty Fuller, who later indicated Clinton was responsible; and Thomas Knowlton Jr. reports an incident at the John Rogers household involving demands for food, insults, a thrown stone followed by severe toe pain, and earlier claims about his daughter being harmed by Clinton’s specter. We also discuss how wartime language and imagery appear in these records.
00:00 Welcome and Date
00:15 Rachel Clinton Arrested
00:43 Burnam Cow Milking Tale
01:36 Fuller Family Accusation
02:42 Knowlton Confrontation
03:40 Specter Pricking Threats
04:03 Warfare Imagery Context
04:30 Closing Reflections
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The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel
Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege