52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Halloween Edition!
Note: This ancestor is from a client tree, and is used with their express permission.
Welcome to the fourth installment of my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series! This October, I decided to branch out a little from my usual posts and focus on the spooky and haunting. For this installment of the 52 in 52, I asked a client to "loan" me one of her spooky ancestors, a man whose family got caught up in one of the most terrifying and senseless tragedies ever to happen in the United States, the Salem Witch Trials. Accused two times, indicted two times, yet managed to escape trial, the story of Edward Farrington is a spooky tale fit for the most dramatic of novels.
Edward, sometimes called Edmund, Farrington was born 5 Jul 1662 in Andover, Massachusetts to John Farrington and his wife Elizabeth (Knight) Farrington. John had emigrated to the American Colonies with his parents Edmund and Elizabeth (Newhall) Farrington in June of 1636, with his siblings Sara, Matthew, and Elizabeth. John was probably only around 11 years old when he arrived in Boston from the town of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, England. The family settled in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. When John was in his early twenties, he became part of a small company of Essex County men sent by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts to scout land for a settlement in what is now Long Island, then in possession of the Dutch, landing in Schout's Bay, now Manhassett. This was an illegal settlement, and when arrested by the Dutch, the eight men claimed that they didn't know that Long Island was held by the Dutch, a ridiculous statement, but they agreed to leave. During their imprisonment in New Amsterdam, John Farrington was interrogated by the Dutch, during which he said that he was 24 years old, and was there with the knowledge and consent of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. The tiny group of settlers was ejected from New Amsterdam, and forbidden to return unless they had the express written permission of the governor of New Amsterdam.
John seems to have returned to Lynn, although record of his activities is sparse. He testified in a court case involving his brother and a horse in 1655, but there is no further trace of him until 1661. In that year, a family history of the Farrington family asserts John returned to Lynn from somewhere else, bringing with him "horses, saddle, stirup and gut, straightbodies, corsee coat, red coat, leather breeches, breastplate, sword, pistill boulster and snap hank musket." So where did John return from? There is one tantalizing clue, although it is only a clue: in 1660 or 1661, John married Elizabeth Knight, daughter of William Knight. Elizabeth's brother, John Knight, had served during this period in the English Civil Wars, on the side of Oliver Cromwell and his supporters. Was John Farrington with his brother-in-law in England? Certainly, he was equipped for a military engagement, so the thought that he also might have been in England with Cromwell is a very tempting idea. We cannot prove this, so it will probably have to remain a supposition, although it seems a likely one.
John and Elizabeth settled in Lynn, where they had three sons: Edward, John, and Jacob. John was a farmer and a cooper (barrel maker). He died in 1666, at the young age of 44. Elizabeth was promptly thrown into a legal battle with John's family over a share in a grist mill that had been promised to John by his father on the occasion of his marriage. Elizabeth was counting on the income from the mill to help her support her children in her widowhood, but John's brother contested this, Matthew was running the mill for his father, and he objected to the arrangement, and tried to buy Elizabeth's share out. Elizabeth, who had remarried, was never able to entirely get her children's rights for them.
Edward was four when his father died, and although he had been born in Lynn, he moved to Andover with his mother and step-father, Mark Graves, who was from Andover. Elizabeth Farrington Graves and Mark had four more children, half-siblings to Edward. Mark is listed in court papers as a weaver, so it is possible that Edward was trained in that profession, but we don't know for sure what he was doing as a profession. We actually know surprisingly little about what Edward was doing prior to his marriage, and only a very little about what happened immediately after his marriage. He married Martha Browne, daughter of William Browne in Andover, on 5 Apr 1690. His daughter Elizabeth, and the 7th great-grandmother of my client, was born the same year of his marriage, on the 5th of December. The family lived near the edge of Miller's Meadow, on the eastern edge of the town of Andover, so it might be that Edward was farming there.
The Farrington family probably would have continued along a peaceful and quiet trajectory, living their lives as most people do, simply and without fanfare, if it hadn't been for two little girls living 14 miles away in Salem Village. In 1691- 1692, Salem Village, so called to distinguish it from the neighboring town of Salem, was a fractious, messy place to be. There were disputes between the minister of the church in Salem Village, Samuel Parris, with the villagers threatening to stop paying his salary and trying to drive him out of the village. There were also disputes between Salem Village and Salem Town over land and the boundaries between the two. The first accusations of witchcraft came from Parris's daughter, 8 year-old Betty, and his niece 11 year-old Abigail Williams, against a slave woman, Tituba, a poverty-stricken elderly woman, Sarah Osborne, and a married mother, Sarah Good . One has to wonder if some of the ideas for the accusations might have come from Parris himself; it was a wonderful way to draw attention away from his dispute with the rest of the community. Certainly, Samuel Parris was an enthusiastic and robust participant in the trials afterward, making many, many depositions during trials.
Abigail and Betty were quickly joined by a number of other young girls in Salem Village including Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, and most importantly for this story, an 18 year-old girl named Mary Ann Warren. Warren was a servant to the Proctor family, and quickly got caught up in the hysteria generated by the other girls. She was said to have fits, and claimed to see the ghost of Giles Corey, an old man accused of witchcraft by the other girls, and executed after he refused to confess to witchcraft by being pressed to death in September of 1692. Warren was a late-comer to the accusations, but she might have been one of the most prolific of the accusers.
So just how did Edward Farrington come to the attention of the accusers? He lived 14 miles away in the town of Andover, and was not a member of the church in Salem, nor a ratepayer in the village; a tax record shows that he was a ratepayer to the church in Andover, not Salem. There are no obvious connections in Farrington's history to Salem Village. The answer comes from a man named Thomas Brattle, a wealthy sea captain, merchant, and member of the Royal Society. In October of 1692, he wrote a letter to an unnamed English clergyman, detailing the spread of the hysteria to Andover: "This consulting of these afflicted children, about their sick, was the unhappy begining of the unhappy troubles at poor Andover: Horse and man were sent up to Salem Village, from the said Andover, for some of the said afflicted; and more than one or two of them were carried down to see Ballard's wife, and to tell who it was that did afflict her [...] persons have been apprehended purely upon the complaints of these afflicted, to whom the afflicted were perfect strangers, and had not the least knowledge of imaginable, before they were apprehended." The accusers, including Mary Warren, were brought to Andover to sniff out "witches" there, much to Brattle's horror. The strong likelihood is that Farrington was one of these "perfect strangers," accused by a stranger to him and his family.
On the 13 of January 1693, the two indictments of Edward Farrington for consorting with the devil were recorded.
Transcript:
Province of the Massachusetts
Bay in New England Essex ss//
Anno'qe RRs & Reginae Gulielmi
& Mariae Angliae &c Quarto
Anno'qe Dom
. 1692
The Jurors for o'r Sov'r Lord & lady the King & Queen Present
That Edward Farington of Andivor in the County of Essex afors'd
Above fouer or
five years Since, In the Towne of Anduor aforesaid
Wickedly Mallitiously & felloniously A Covenant with the Devill did
Make & was Baptised by the Devill & unto him Renounced his first
Baptizme & promised to be the Devills both Soul & body for ever,
And to Serve the devill & Signed the Devills Booke; By which Diabol-
licall Covenant by him with the Devill Made In Maner & forme
aforesaid -- The Said Edward Farington is become a detestable Witch
Against the peace of o'r Soveraigne lord & lady the King & Queen
their Crowne & dignity & the Laws in that Case made & provided
Wittness his
owne Confesion --
Transcript:
[++ January 13, 1693 ]
Province of the Massathutetts Bay in New England EssexAnno RRs & Reginae Gulielmi & Mariae Angliae &c Quarto Anno'qe \ Dom 1692
The Jurors for our Sovereigne Lord the King & Queen Present That Edward Farrington of Andivor in the County of Essex aforesaid --
And Divers other Dayes & times as well before as after Certaine Detestable arts called witchcrafts & Sorceries Wickedly and Mallishiously & felloniously hath Used Practised & Exercised at & in the Towne of Salem, in the County of Essex aforsed Upon and against one Mary Warren of Salem Single Woman By which wicked Arts the said Mary Warren the Day and year afores'd and Divers other Dayes & times as well before as after was and is Tortured Afflicted Pined & Tormented Consumed Pined & wasted against the Peace of our Sovereigne Lord and Lady the King and Queen their Crowne and Dignity and the Lawes in,that case made and Provided
Wittness
Martha Sprague
Ann Puttnam
The first indictment indicates that Farrington confessed, although I have not found a copy of this confession. His confession was likely extracted from him either by torture or the threat of torture, or by threat of accusing his wife and/or daughter Elizabeth. Even though Elizabeth was barely two years-old at her father's indictment, it might not have saved her; earlier four year-old Dorothy Good had been accused and arrested in Salem, and although she was released on bond, it was a struggle to obtain her freedom.
For Edward Farrington and his family, this must have been truly terrifying. An innocent man, accused of doing terrible things, and jailed and indicted on the flimsiest of evidence, probably tortured for a confession; poor Farrington must have suffered immensely, physically and mentally, imagining that his wife and toddler daughter might be next on the list of accused witches. Is it even possible to understand how much agony he was in? Especially since his accuser was one of the most vicious of all the girls, Mary Warren; indeed several people had already been hanged on her testimony, including her former employer John Procter. The terror must have been incomprehensible. In all, 42 people were arrested in Andover, more than in Salem Village, Salem Town, or any other locale swept up in the terror.
However, help was coming for the poor prisoners of Andover. Massachusetts Governor Phips had issued an order preventing further arrests in October of 1692, so it is likely that Farrington was accused and arrested before this point. Furthermore, Thomas Brattle's letter to the English pastor had been copied widely, printed, and distributed throughout Boston and surrounding areas. Besides recording how the madness spread to Andover, Brattle was a firm believer in the inadmissibility of so-called "spectral evidence" in a legal setting. "Spectral evidence" referred to the assertion of the accusers that the "specters" of the accused men and women were tormenting them, although they might be physically miles remote from the accusers. This letter, combined with the denouncement of the use of spectral evidence by the president of Harvard, the Rev. Increase Mather, turned public tide against the trials, and by January of 1693, when Farrington was indicted, the court was rapidly going through the prisoners already in jail, and trying them, While a few people were still found guilty, almost everyone was cleared and released, including Edward Farrington, and there were no further executions. By February of 1693, Governor Phips wrote to the Privy Council of the King and Queen that 53 people had been cleared either by proclamation or at trial, and any death sentences had been vacated. The hysteria was settling and people were coming to their senses for the first time in more than a year. There would be just one more casualty of the witch hysteria, Lydia Dustin, who although she was cleared of charges, could not afford to pay the jail fees (in Colonial America, prisoners were charged by the jail for their keep, and had to stay in jail until the fees for room and board were paid) and eventually died while still in jail.
Edward Farrington returned to his family in Andover and stayed there til the end of his life, which seems to have passed fairly quietly. He and Martha had another five children: Edward, Martha, Stephen, Daniel, and Sarah. In 1710, all the convictions and attainders were declared to be null and void, and in 1711 compensation was offered to the victims of the trials. Curiously, Edward Farrington's name does not appear in the list of people compensated. Martha died in Andover 22 May 1738, and Edward followed her 9 years later in 1747, at the age of 84. So many questions about Edward and his narrow escape remain. How did he manage to escape trial? Were people simply sick of all the carnage that had already been inflicted? Certainly by January of 1693 and the disallowing of spectral evidence in legal proceedings, the enthusiasm had faded, but not without claiming 19 innocent lives by judicial murder, and five more who died in jail. Edward Farrington was a very lucky man in that respect.
As always, I welcome questions and comments. I would like to also extend my deepest thanks to my client who allowed me to "borrow" her 8th great-grandfather for my post!
Welcome to the fourth installment of my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series! This October, I decided to branch out a little from my usual posts and focus on the spooky and haunting. For this installment of the 52 in 52, I asked a client to "loan" me one of her spooky ancestors, a man whose family got caught up in one of the most terrifying and senseless tragedies ever to happen in the United States, the Salem Witch Trials. Accused two times, indicted two times, yet managed to escape trial, the story of Edward Farrington is a spooky tale fit for the most dramatic of novels.
Edward, sometimes called Edmund, Farrington was born 5 Jul 1662 in Andover, Massachusetts to John Farrington and his wife Elizabeth (Knight) Farrington. John had emigrated to the American Colonies with his parents Edmund and Elizabeth (Newhall) Farrington in June of 1636, with his siblings Sara, Matthew, and Elizabeth. John was probably only around 11 years old when he arrived in Boston from the town of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, England. The family settled in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. When John was in his early twenties, he became part of a small company of Essex County men sent by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts to scout land for a settlement in what is now Long Island, then in possession of the Dutch, landing in Schout's Bay, now Manhassett. This was an illegal settlement, and when arrested by the Dutch, the eight men claimed that they didn't know that Long Island was held by the Dutch, a ridiculous statement, but they agreed to leave. During their imprisonment in New Amsterdam, John Farrington was interrogated by the Dutch, during which he said that he was 24 years old, and was there with the knowledge and consent of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. The tiny group of settlers was ejected from New Amsterdam, and forbidden to return unless they had the express written permission of the governor of New Amsterdam.
John seems to have returned to Lynn, although record of his activities is sparse. He testified in a court case involving his brother and a horse in 1655, but there is no further trace of him until 1661. In that year, a family history of the Farrington family asserts John returned to Lynn from somewhere else, bringing with him "horses, saddle, stirup and gut, straightbodies, corsee coat, red coat, leather breeches, breastplate, sword, pistill boulster and snap hank musket." So where did John return from? There is one tantalizing clue, although it is only a clue: in 1660 or 1661, John married Elizabeth Knight, daughter of William Knight. Elizabeth's brother, John Knight, had served during this period in the English Civil Wars, on the side of Oliver Cromwell and his supporters. Was John Farrington with his brother-in-law in England? Certainly, he was equipped for a military engagement, so the thought that he also might have been in England with Cromwell is a very tempting idea. We cannot prove this, so it will probably have to remain a supposition, although it seems a likely one.
John and Elizabeth settled in Lynn, where they had three sons: Edward, John, and Jacob. John was a farmer and a cooper (barrel maker). He died in 1666, at the young age of 44. Elizabeth was promptly thrown into a legal battle with John's family over a share in a grist mill that had been promised to John by his father on the occasion of his marriage. Elizabeth was counting on the income from the mill to help her support her children in her widowhood, but John's brother contested this, Matthew was running the mill for his father, and he objected to the arrangement, and tried to buy Elizabeth's share out. Elizabeth, who had remarried, was never able to entirely get her children's rights for them.
Edward was four when his father died, and although he had been born in Lynn, he moved to Andover with his mother and step-father, Mark Graves, who was from Andover. Elizabeth Farrington Graves and Mark had four more children, half-siblings to Edward. Mark is listed in court papers as a weaver, so it is possible that Edward was trained in that profession, but we don't know for sure what he was doing as a profession. We actually know surprisingly little about what Edward was doing prior to his marriage, and only a very little about what happened immediately after his marriage. He married Martha Browne, daughter of William Browne in Andover, on 5 Apr 1690. His daughter Elizabeth, and the 7th great-grandmother of my client, was born the same year of his marriage, on the 5th of December. The family lived near the edge of Miller's Meadow, on the eastern edge of the town of Andover, so it might be that Edward was farming there.
The Farrington family probably would have continued along a peaceful and quiet trajectory, living their lives as most people do, simply and without fanfare, if it hadn't been for two little girls living 14 miles away in Salem Village. In 1691- 1692, Salem Village, so called to distinguish it from the neighboring town of Salem, was a fractious, messy place to be. There were disputes between the minister of the church in Salem Village, Samuel Parris, with the villagers threatening to stop paying his salary and trying to drive him out of the village. There were also disputes between Salem Village and Salem Town over land and the boundaries between the two. The first accusations of witchcraft came from Parris's daughter, 8 year-old Betty, and his niece 11 year-old Abigail Williams, against a slave woman, Tituba, a poverty-stricken elderly woman, Sarah Osborne, and a married mother, Sarah Good . One has to wonder if some of the ideas for the accusations might have come from Parris himself; it was a wonderful way to draw attention away from his dispute with the rest of the community. Certainly, Samuel Parris was an enthusiastic and robust participant in the trials afterward, making many, many depositions during trials.
Abigail and Betty were quickly joined by a number of other young girls in Salem Village including Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, and most importantly for this story, an 18 year-old girl named Mary Ann Warren. Warren was a servant to the Proctor family, and quickly got caught up in the hysteria generated by the other girls. She was said to have fits, and claimed to see the ghost of Giles Corey, an old man accused of witchcraft by the other girls, and executed after he refused to confess to witchcraft by being pressed to death in September of 1692. Warren was a late-comer to the accusations, but she might have been one of the most prolific of the accusers.
So just how did Edward Farrington come to the attention of the accusers? He lived 14 miles away in the town of Andover, and was not a member of the church in Salem, nor a ratepayer in the village; a tax record shows that he was a ratepayer to the church in Andover, not Salem. There are no obvious connections in Farrington's history to Salem Village. The answer comes from a man named Thomas Brattle, a wealthy sea captain, merchant, and member of the Royal Society. In October of 1692, he wrote a letter to an unnamed English clergyman, detailing the spread of the hysteria to Andover: "This consulting of these afflicted children, about their sick, was the unhappy begining of the unhappy troubles at poor Andover: Horse and man were sent up to Salem Village, from the said Andover, for some of the said afflicted; and more than one or two of them were carried down to see Ballard's wife, and to tell who it was that did afflict her [...] persons have been apprehended purely upon the complaints of these afflicted, to whom the afflicted were perfect strangers, and had not the least knowledge of imaginable, before they were apprehended." The accusers, including Mary Warren, were brought to Andover to sniff out "witches" there, much to Brattle's horror. The strong likelihood is that Farrington was one of these "perfect strangers," accused by a stranger to him and his family.
On the 13 of January 1693, the two indictments of Edward Farrington for consorting with the devil were recorded.
Transcript:
Province of the Massachusetts
Bay in New England Essex ss//
Anno'qe RRs & Reginae Gulielmi
& Mariae Angliae &c Quarto
Anno'qe Dom
. 1692
The Jurors for o'r Sov'r Lord & lady the King & Queen Present
That Edward Farington of Andivor in the County of Essex afors'd
Above fouer or
five years Since, In the Towne of Anduor aforesaid
Wickedly Mallitiously & felloniously A Covenant with the Devill did
Make & was Baptised by the Devill & unto him Renounced his first
Baptizme & promised to be the Devills both Soul & body for ever,
And to Serve the devill & Signed the Devills Booke; By which Diabol-
licall Covenant by him with the Devill Made In Maner & forme
aforesaid -- The Said Edward Farington is become a detestable Witch
Against the peace of o'r Soveraigne lord & lady the King & Queen
their Crowne & dignity & the Laws in that Case made & provided
Wittness his
owne Confesion --
Transcript:
[++ January 13, 1693 ]
Province of the Massathutetts Bay in New England EssexAnno RRs & Reginae Gulielmi & Mariae Angliae &c Quarto Anno'qe \ Dom 1692
The Jurors for our Sovereigne Lord the King & Queen Present That Edward Farrington of Andivor in the County of Essex aforesaid --
And Divers other Dayes & times as well before as after Certaine Detestable arts called witchcrafts & Sorceries Wickedly and Mallishiously & felloniously hath Used Practised & Exercised at & in the Towne of Salem, in the County of Essex aforsed Upon and against one Mary Warren of Salem Single Woman By which wicked Arts the said Mary Warren the Day and year afores'd and Divers other Dayes & times as well before as after was and is Tortured Afflicted Pined & Tormented Consumed Pined & wasted against the Peace of our Sovereigne Lord and Lady the King and Queen their Crowne and Dignity and the Lawes in,that case made and Provided
Wittness
Martha Sprague
Ann Puttnam
The first indictment indicates that Farrington confessed, although I have not found a copy of this confession. His confession was likely extracted from him either by torture or the threat of torture, or by threat of accusing his wife and/or daughter Elizabeth. Even though Elizabeth was barely two years-old at her father's indictment, it might not have saved her; earlier four year-old Dorothy Good had been accused and arrested in Salem, and although she was released on bond, it was a struggle to obtain her freedom.
For Edward Farrington and his family, this must have been truly terrifying. An innocent man, accused of doing terrible things, and jailed and indicted on the flimsiest of evidence, probably tortured for a confession; poor Farrington must have suffered immensely, physically and mentally, imagining that his wife and toddler daughter might be next on the list of accused witches. Is it even possible to understand how much agony he was in? Especially since his accuser was one of the most vicious of all the girls, Mary Warren; indeed several people had already been hanged on her testimony, including her former employer John Procter. The terror must have been incomprehensible. In all, 42 people were arrested in Andover, more than in Salem Village, Salem Town, or any other locale swept up in the terror.
However, help was coming for the poor prisoners of Andover. Massachusetts Governor Phips had issued an order preventing further arrests in October of 1692, so it is likely that Farrington was accused and arrested before this point. Furthermore, Thomas Brattle's letter to the English pastor had been copied widely, printed, and distributed throughout Boston and surrounding areas. Besides recording how the madness spread to Andover, Brattle was a firm believer in the inadmissibility of so-called "spectral evidence" in a legal setting. "Spectral evidence" referred to the assertion of the accusers that the "specters" of the accused men and women were tormenting them, although they might be physically miles remote from the accusers. This letter, combined with the denouncement of the use of spectral evidence by the president of Harvard, the Rev. Increase Mather, turned public tide against the trials, and by January of 1693, when Farrington was indicted, the court was rapidly going through the prisoners already in jail, and trying them, While a few people were still found guilty, almost everyone was cleared and released, including Edward Farrington, and there were no further executions. By February of 1693, Governor Phips wrote to the Privy Council of the King and Queen that 53 people had been cleared either by proclamation or at trial, and any death sentences had been vacated. The hysteria was settling and people were coming to their senses for the first time in more than a year. There would be just one more casualty of the witch hysteria, Lydia Dustin, who although she was cleared of charges, could not afford to pay the jail fees (in Colonial America, prisoners were charged by the jail for their keep, and had to stay in jail until the fees for room and board were paid) and eventually died while still in jail.
Edward Farrington returned to his family in Andover and stayed there til the end of his life, which seems to have passed fairly quietly. He and Martha had another five children: Edward, Martha, Stephen, Daniel, and Sarah. In 1710, all the convictions and attainders were declared to be null and void, and in 1711 compensation was offered to the victims of the trials. Curiously, Edward Farrington's name does not appear in the list of people compensated. Martha died in Andover 22 May 1738, and Edward followed her 9 years later in 1747, at the age of 84. So many questions about Edward and his narrow escape remain. How did he manage to escape trial? Were people simply sick of all the carnage that had already been inflicted? Certainly by January of 1693 and the disallowing of spectral evidence in legal proceedings, the enthusiasm had faded, but not without claiming 19 innocent lives by judicial murder, and five more who died in jail. Edward Farrington was a very lucky man in that respect.
As always, I welcome questions and comments. I would like to also extend my deepest thanks to my client who allowed me to "borrow" her 8th great-grandfather for my post!
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