52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Halloween Edition: The Tyler Women
Welcome back to the 52 in 52! Continuing the theme for the month, I am borrowing an ancestor from a client's tree (with his express permission!), the same client I borrowed Mercy Lena Brown from. This week, we're going back to the witch hysteria of the 1690's with the tale of another family swept up in the horror, the Tylers. Eleven women and girls of the Tyler family were accused of witchcraft, encompassing three generations of women, and ending in the hanging of one of them. What is equally horrifying is that the accusations against nine of the Tyler women were made by another member of their family.
The Tyler family was, to put it mildly, huge. Job Tyler and his wife Mary, had had seven children:
- Moses, b. 16 Feb 1641, m. 1.Prudence Bates, 2. Sarah (Hasey) Sprague, widow of Phineas Sprague
- Mary, b. abt. 1644, m. 1. Richard Post, 2. John Bridges
- Hopestill Tyler, b. abt 1646, m. Mary Lovett (Hopestill may have had a twin who died at birth)
- Hannah, b. abt. 1648, m. James Lovett (my client's 8x great-grandparents)
- John, abt. 1650, died at the age of two
- John, abt. 16 Apr 1653, m. Hannah Parker
- Samuel, 24 May 1655, m. Hannah LNU (last name unknown)
Hopestill and Hannah married siblings Mary and James Lovett, or Lovet, in 1668
All of the Tyler children were born in either Andover or Roxbury, Massachusetts. Job Tyler was also an immigrant, this time from Cranbrook in Kent, England, arriving in the colonies in about 1638 at Newtown, Rhode Island. He moved on immediately to Andover which was not incorporated, although he is also described as living in Roxbury in 1646. Job seems to have been a seriously contentious man, based on the number of court cases that he was involved in. One of his descendants described him thus: "He was a rude, self- asserting striking personality. Not to be left out on account in the forces which were to possess the land. He did not learn prudence very fast, but he was himself.... had a good deal of individuality and he gave utterance to it at times with more vigor than grace. He did not shape his words to suit sensitive ears. He resented dictation and found it hard to restrain himself from what he wanted to do through any prudential policy."
The first issue involving witchcraft and the Tyler family came in 1659, when the family tangled with a man named John Godfrey. Godfrey was an itinerant farmhand with a malicious streak a mile wide, and a penchant for suing. Godfrey intimidated farmers into hiring him, and was strongly suspected of killing animals and committing arson when he was denied work. Indeed, he was suspected by the Tyler family of burning their house down in 1661 in retaliation for a shocking accusation: witchcraft. In 1658, Godfrey had sued a man in Haverhill for debt; the case quickly spun out of control, roping in several other men, including Job Tyler. When the court found in favor of Godfrey, Tyler and the other men immediately accused Godfrey of witchcraft.
In colonial New England, prior to the Salem witch hysteria, the term "witch" was widely tossed at people during conflicts, rather like some people use the word "bitch" today, and it meant about the same thing. People took the existence of witches and witchcraft as an established fact in colonial society; there was no questioning the fact that witches were widespread and committing mischief and mayhem throughout New England. The difference in pre-Salem Trials New England is that witchcraft was very hard to prove. The courts denied the use of spectral evidence, i.e. the torture of victims by supernatural means. Proof had to have a factual basis, and since this was unavailable with spectral evidence most pre-1692 witchcraft accusations were dismissed and the accused found innocent.
Job Tyler gave the following deposition in 1659: "The deposition of Job Tyler aged about 40 years, Mary his wife, Moses Tyler his son aged about 17 and 18 years and Mary Tyler about 15 years old. These deponents witness, that they saw a thing like a bird to come in at the door of their house, with John Godfrey, in the night, about the bigness of a blackbird, or rather bigger, to wit, as big as a pigeon and did fly about, John Godfrey laboring to catch it and the bird vanished as they conceived through the chink of a jointed board, and being asked by the man of the house wherefore it came, he answered it came to suck your wife."
The implication here is that the bird was Godfrey's familiar, and that he was controlling it to suck the life out of Mrs. Tyler. In reality, the bird probably came in when Godfrey entered the house, escaped out a crack, and when asked about it, John Godfrey made a rather malicious "joke." Did Job Tyler really believe that John Godfrey was a witch, and the bird his familiar? Or were he and the other men trying to avenge their humiliation at the hands of the court, by making an accusation that they must have known would have been thrown out of court for lack of physical evidence? The case was indeed thrown out, and was followed by Godfrey promptly suing Tyler and the others for slander. He followed this suit up with one solely against Job Tyler in 1661, alleging that Job Tyler had refused to pay him for work he had done at the Tyler farm. Tyler promptly countersued, claiming that Godfrey actually owed him for room, board, and laundry services performed by Job's wife Mary. The outcome was unfortunate: Tyler lost, and as a consequence lost all his land and property in Andover. The Tyler house burned down shortly before the judgement.
Despite this, the Tylers tried again to have John Godfrey tried for witchcraft in 1665, using the deposition of 1659 again as evidence. The jury acquitted Godfrey with the following statement: "We find him not to have the fear of God in his heart. He has made himself suspiciously guilty of witchcraft, but not legally guilty according to law and evidence we received." Talk about a loaded judgement! The jurymen were sure that John Godfrey was guilty of something but legally had their hands tied. Since witchcraft was a capital crime, it was probably a relief for Godfrey!
For a long while, things were relatively quiet for the Tyler family. Job sued again, this time to have the apprenticeship of his son Hopestill ended; predictably, Job lost the suit after he went to the home of another man, Nathan Parker, and took the document apprenticing his son to blacksmith Thomas Chandler. Hopestill and Hannah married Mary and James Lovett, and lived quietly in Andover. Hopestill became a blacksmith, and was far less litigious than his father was. Job's son John married Hannah Parker, the daughter of Nathan Parker and his wife Mary (Ayres) Parker, the man from whom Job had stolen Hopestill's apprenticeship papers; this will become very important later. Moses, a widower, married Sarah (Hasey) Sprague, a widow, and into this marriage Sarah brought her 16 year old daughter Martha Sprague; with what happened later, one has to wonder if he ever regretted his marriage to Sarah. Hopestill and Moses's sister, another Mary, married twice to men who also brought stepchildren to the marriage: Richard Post brought his daughter Susanna. After his death, Mary Tyler Post remarried to John Bridges, who had a daughter by his first wife named Sarah. John Bridges and Mary Tyler Bridges had a daughter, Mary Bridges, Jr.
As detailed in a previous post about Edward Farrington, another Salem witch trials victim, the madness that began in the early spring of 1692 in Salem eventually spread to Andover. In May of 1692, an arrest warrant was issued in Salem for an Andover woman named Martha Carrier. Immediately following her arrest, her four children were arrested, and in June all four were charged with witchcraft. After the arrest of Martha Carrier, two of the girls from Salem were brought to Andover to further ferret out witches; this is when my earlier subject Edward Farrington was probably accused. Then, along came a man named Timothy Swan. Born in the nearby town of Haverhill, although his family seems to have had property and lands in both Haverhill and Andover, Timothy Swan was the son of Robert Swan, a man whose litigiousness equaled Job Tyler's and whose mean streak rivaled that of John Godfrey. Timothy Swan was also a very sick man, and he apparently knew exactly what was wrong with him: witchcraft. When the girls from Salem went back to their home, Timothy Swan began to accuse. In late July 1692, he accused Mary (Tyler) Post Bridges, her daughter by her first marriage, Mary Post, and a woman named Rebecca (Blake) Eames of witchcraft; Rebecca Eames was the former sister-in-law of Moses Tyler, the sister of his late first wife. We don't know why Timothy accused the Tyler family women of witchcraft, but he was only the first. Swan doesn't seem to have made the trip to Salem to testify, and after making two more accusations, he stopped. Timothy Swan died in February of 1693, at the young age of 28, but the damage to the Tyler family was only beginning.
The question is what changed between the accusation of witchcraft that Job Tyler leveled against John Godfrey and the accusations of the girls in Salem? Governor William Phips changed everything in 1692. When Phips arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in May, the witch hysteria in Salem had already begun. Out of his depth, Phips did two things: first, he wrote to the Privy Council of the King and Queen, asking for directions, and second, he established what is called a Court of Oyer and Terminer, specifically to hear the evidence in the trials that followed. This special court was not bound by the laws of traditional jurisprudence; they had the discretion to act outside these laws, and they did so with a fury. The accused were presumed guilty, and were required to establish their innocence, rather than the court having to establish guilt; this included the permission to withhold food and sleep from accused prisoners and torture, plus the ability to keep prisoners in leg irons and shackles. The other thing that the court did was to allow the admission of spectral evidence, that supernatural accusations were held as admissible evidence against the accused. After having established the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Phips promptly left to go fight against the Natives, and had no further control over the court in the spring and summer of 1692 when most of the accusations were made.
Once the accusations against the Tyler family women by Timothy Swan were made, the madness swept through the family. There is a very interesting article by Dr. Bruce M. Tyler, written in 1997 entitled "The Tyler Family and the Salem Witchcraft Trials," that details the timeline of the accusations against the Tyler women:
DATE ACCUSED
July 28 Mary (Tyler) Post Bridges, Job's daughter, Moses's sister
August 2 Mary Post, the daughter of Mary (Tyler) Post Bridges by her first husband
August 25 Susanna Post and Sarah Bridges, step-daughters of Mary (Tyler) Post Bridges, and Mary Bridges, Jr. and Hannah Post, her daughters
August 31 Mary Parker, the mother-in-law of Job Tyler's son John
September 7 Mary (Lovett) Tyler, wife of Hopestill, and their three daughters, Hannah, Joanna, and Martha
In a move that must have had Moses Tyler wondering what was happening in his household, his step-daughter, Martha Sprague, was one of the accusers of most of the Tyler women; nine out of the eleven accused women connected to the Tyler family were directly accused by Martha.
I created a pedigree chart to try and show family relationships in this. Job Tyler and his wife are at the top. Job and Mary's children are noted by black boxes in the left hand corner. Blue in the upper right corner denotes the accused, and red in the upper right marks the accusers. I also included the ages of the accused. Martha Tyler, aged 11, is both an accused and an accuser. One has to feel immense sympathy for the little girl, as she was probably pressured heavily into making the accusations she did, against several people, including her sister Joanna, who was also 11 at the time.
Martha Sprague, the step-daughter of Moses Tyler, was included as one of the ones who brought in the most damning accusation, that against Mary (Ayres) Parker:
"2 Sep'r 1692. The Examination of mary parker of Andover widow taken before Bartho' Gidny John Hathorne Jonat' Corwin & John Higginson Esq'rs ther majesties Justices of the peace for the County of Essex in the forth yeare of their majesties Reigne
upon mentioneing of her name, severall afflicted persones wer struck down as mary warrin Sarah churchhill. hannah post , Sarah Bridges Mercy wardwell, And when she came before the Justices, she recovered all the afflicted out of their fitts by the touch of their hand She is accused for acting of witchcraft upon martha Sprague And Sarah Phelps . Q. how long have ye been in the snare of the devil. Ansr. I know nothing of it There is another woman of the same name in Andover But martha Sprague affirmed that that this is the very woman that afflicted her The said mary parker Lookeing upon Sprague struck her down, and recovered her again out of her fitt, Mary Lacey being in a fitt, cryd out upon mary parker, & s'd parker recovered her out of her fitt, Mercy wardwell was twice afflicted by parker & recovered again by her William Barker lookeing upon mary parker said to her face That she was one of his company, And that the last night she afflicted martha Sprague in company with him Mercy wardwell said that this mary parker was also one of her company and that the said parker afflicted Timothy Swan in her company -- Mary Warrin in a violent fitt was brought neare haveing a pin run through her hand and blood runeing out of her mouth she was recovered from her fitt by s'd mary parker The said mary warrin said that this mary parker afflicted & tormented her, And further that she saw the said parker at ane examination up at Salem Village sitting upon one of the Beams. of the house./ I underwritten being appointed by the Justices of the peace in Salem to wryt down the Examination of Mary Parker abovementioned Doe testify this to be a true coppy of the originall examination As to the substance of it,
*W'm Murray"
Mary Parker never stood a chance against Martha Sprague, Timothy Swan, and the others. Mary Ayers Parker was hanged six days after her trial, the verdict brought in by the use of spectral evidence. She was 58 years old.
The family of Hopestill and Mary (Lovett) Tyler had been part of the accusations as well. Mary, who is confusingly sometimes called "Martha Tyler" in the court cases, made a statement to Rev, Increase Mather about her arrest and ordeal:
"Goodwife Tyler did say, that when she was first apprehended, she had no fears upon her, and did think that nothing could have made her confesse against herself; but since, she had found to her great grief, that she had wronged the truth, and falsely accused herself: she said, that, when she was brought to Salem, her brother Bridges rode with her, and that all along the way from Andover to Salem, her brother kept telling her that she must needs be a witch, since the afflicted accused her, and at her touch were raised out of their fitts, and urging her to confess herself a witch; She as constantly told him, that she was no witch, that she knew nothing of witchcraft, and begg'd him not to urge her to confesse; however when she came to Salem, she was carried to a room, where her brother on one side and Mr. John Emerson on the other side did tell her that she was certainly a witch, and that she saw the devill before her eyes at that time (and accordingly the said Emerson would attempt with his hand to beat him away from her eyes) and they so urged her to confess, that she wished herself in any dungeon, rather than be so treated. Mr. Emerson told her once and again, `Well, I see you will not confesse! Well, I will now leave you, and then you are undone, body and soul, forever.' Her brother urged her to confesse, and told her that, in so doing, she could not lye: to which she answered, `Good brother, do not say so, for I shall lye if I confess, and then who shall answer unto God for my lye?' He still asserted it, and said that God would not suffer so many good men to be in such an errour about it, and that she would be hang'd if she did not confesse, and continued so long and so violently to urge and press her to confesse, that she thought verily her life would have gone from her, and became so terrifyed in her mind, that she own'd, at length, almost any thing that they propounded to her; but she had wronged her conscience in so doing, she was guilty of a great sin in belying of herself, and desired to mourn for it so long as she lived: This she said and a great deal more of the like nature. and all with such affection, sorrow, relenting, grief, and mourning, as that it exceeds any pen to describe and express the same."
In other words, John Bridges, her brother-in-law and the husband of Mary Post Bridges, accompanied her to Salem, and urged her to confess. Was he doing this because he knew that if she confessed she stood a better chance of not being executed? The people had by then figured out that those who confessed and did not recant their confessions were spared execution. Those who did not confess, like Mary Parker, or confessed and recanted were hung. Or did he genuinely believe she was really a witch? Either way, under terrible pressure, Mary Tyler confessed, and then immediately recanted her confession, as did Mary (Tyler) Post Bridges: "Goodwife Bridges said, that she had confessed against herself things which were all utterly false, and that she was brought to her confession by being told that she certainly was a witch, and so made to believe it, though she had no other grounds so to believe." Interestingly, Hopestill and John Bridges both stood bond for Hopestill's daughters Martha and Joanna, who is curiously called Abigail as well as Joanna. If John Bridges believed that Mary was a witch, why did he stand surety for the bond for her daughters, which was 100 pounds, a small fortune in 1693? Nothing John Bridges does during this year makes any sense, unless we believe that he was trying to prevent his wife, daughter, step-daughters, sister-in-law, and her daughters from being hung; with the specter of Mary Parker in the background, it is not impossible that Bridges was trying to protect his family members, but it's difficult to tell what his motives really were.
In the end, what saved Mary Tyler and the rest of the women in her family was the simple fact that Governor Phips returned to Massachusetts in the fall of 1692 from his expedition against Native American tribes in the area and terminated the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Furthermore, a prominent businessman and merchant in Boston was accused, and promptly responded to his accusers with a counter-suit of 1000 pounds. Families that were poor or otherwise disenfranchised as targets were acceptable to the authorities, but rich people were off limits. Phips instituted a Special Court to hear the witchcraft cases, and although most of the same judges that served on the Court of Oyer and Terminer were also on the Special Court, but one thing changed: spectral evidence was disallowed.
With nothing but spectral evidence available to the accusers, the cases against all the other Tyler women fell apart. Mary Lovett Tyler and her daughter Hannah were found innocent in January of 1693, and her daughters Joanna and Martha were released on bond and cleared of all charges in May of that year. Mary Tyler Post Bridges and her daughter Mary Bridges, Jr., and step-daughters Susanna and Hannah Post were all found not guilty in January as well, and released. Mary Post Bridges's step-daughter Mary Post was found guilty and imprisoned, but her conviction was voided and she was released from prison in April 1693. Hopestill removed his family fairly quickly to Connecticut, and by 1697 had sold all his land in the town of Andover. His family helped establish the Congregational Church in Preston, Connecticut.
What is interesting about this is, of eleven accusations leveled against the Tyler women and their affiliates (Mary Ayres Parker and Rebecca Blake Eames, who was accused by Timothy Swan, were related to the Tyler family through marriage), nine were accused by Moses Tyler's step-daughter, Martha Sprague. Timothy Swan accounts for the accusations of the other two. Why? Why did Martha Sprague accuse the families of her step-aunts, but ignored her own step-father's family and those of his two other brothers and other sister? She made nine accusations against members of her step-father's family, and also targeted the members of an Andover minister, but left others completely alone? Did she really believe that she was bewitched, or did she have some other hidden reason? Her motives remain a mystery.
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