Halloween is coming, so I guess I'll pick up a festive holiday theme. Salem, Massachusetts is only 15 miles from the New Hampshire state border, and indeed there's a Salem, New Hampshire just across the state border off Route 93, a major north-south artery in the region. The mass hysteria that gripped Salem -- the Massachusetts Salem -- in 1692 is infamous, and even managed to spill across state borders as Margo Burns reveals on her well-researched website dedicate to the Salem witch trials:
To Jno Partredg ffield Marshal
You are Required in their Majsts names to aprehend the body of mr George Buroughs at present preacher at Wells in the provence of Maine, & Convay him with all Speed to Salem before the Magestrates there, to be Examened, he being Suspected for a Confederacy with the Devil in opresing of Sundry about Salem as they related. I haveing Receved perticuler Order from the Governr & Council of their Majsts Colony of Masathusets, for the Same, you may not faile here in. Dated in portsmouth in the provenc of Hamshire, Aprel . 30th . 1692 .
*Elisha Hutchinson* Majr
By Virtue of this warrant I Apprehended sd George Burroughs and haue Brought him to Salem and Deliuered him to the Authority there this fourth day of May 1692
*John Partidge* field
marshall of the Prouins
of new hansher and maine.
Margo's research has uncovered several New Hampshirites who were accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, but while these accusations likely made life fairly miserable for these folks, at least there is no equivalent to the Salem trials in the Granite State; no New Hampshire witch has ever been executed.
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