Bridget Bishop
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Bridget Bishop (ca. 1632, England – 10 June 1692 Salem, Massachusetts) was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.
Reputedly outspoken, flashy in her costume (by Puritan standards) perhaps unruly in her behavior and a prior victim of witchcraft accusations, Bishop may have been an obvious choice to be the first person hanged. Bishop was close to 60 years old at the time of her death.
Various sources give her maiden name as Playfer (or perhaps Playford).
She has often been confused with the tavern owner, Sarah Bishop.[1]
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[edit] Family
She was married three times:
Her first marriage was c 1660 to George Wasselbe, who died at an advanced age.
Her second marriage was on 26 July 1666 to Thomas Oliver, a widower and prominent businessman with whom she had one daughter, Christian (b 8 May 1667), who would later marry Thomas Mason. She was earlier accused of bewitching Thomas Oliver to death but was acquitted for lack of evidence. Upham implied that her being accused in 1692 was at least in part due to inlaws through her stepchildren from her second husband wanting to take possession of property she had inherited from Thomas Oliver (especially a house near the meeting house-perhaps run as a tavern), and that this was made possible because one of them was a member of the local constabulary.[2]
Her last marriage ca. 1687 was to Edward Bishop, a prosperous sawyer whose family ran a tavern in Beverly. Her step son (Edward Bishop) and daughter-in-law (Sarah Bishop) were also taken to jail on charges of witchcraft.
[edit] The Trials
She denied all charges of witchcraft during the trials, saying, "I know not what a witch is."
In 1956 the Massachusetts General Court passed an act exhonerating Bridget Bishop; they also passed a similar measure some years after that.
[edit] Further reading
- Wilson, Jennifer M. (2005). Witch. ISBN 1-4208-2109-1.
- Boyer, Paul S.; Stephen Nissenbaum (1976). Salem Possessed; The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Boston: Harvard University Press.
- Hill, Francis (2000). The Salem Witch Trials Reader. Da Capo Press.
- Karlsen, Carol F. (1998). The Devil in the Shape of a Woman.
- Rosenthal, Bernard (1993). Salem Story: reading the witch trials of 1692. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Upham, Charles (1980). Salem Witchcraft: Volume II. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co..
[edit] References
- ^ Salem Witch Trials Important Persons
- ^ # Upham, Charles (1980). Salem Witchcraft: Volume II. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.
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