Salisbury

37.Old Burying Ground

Located on Route 1A, two-tenths of a mile east of its intersection with Route 110.

Here is buried Major Robert Pike (Plate 36) who lived in Salisbury and was an assistant of the colony. Pike recorded much of the testimony given against Susannah Martin after her arrest in May 1692. In August, however, he wrote a forceful letter to Jonathan Corwin in which he attacked spectral evidence. As long as spectral evidence was admissible in court, he wrote, "the Devil is accuser and witness." Pike signed an affidavit in defense of Mary Bradbury of Salisbury who was convicted of witchcraft on September 9 but escaped hanging. He died in 1706 at the age of ninety.

Our tour of the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Hysteria sites is quoted from the book, A Guide to the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692, by David C. Brown (the text and images may not be reproduced without the author's permission). The book is currently out of print.

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Essex County