In this guide

The Salem witch trials of 1692 remain the most infamous outbreak of witch-hunting in American history. Between February 1692 and May 1693, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, 30 were found guilty, and 19 were hanged. One man was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea. The entire crisis unfolded in roughly sixteen months, from a group of girls telling fortunes in a kitchen to the governor dissolving the special court he had created to try witches.

What follows is the sequence of events as they happened, drawn from court records, contemporary letters, and the testimonies of the survivors who spent the rest of their lives trying to make sense of what they had done.

What Started the Salem Witch Trials in 1692?

What Started the Salem Witch Trials in 1692

The first strange behavior appeared in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts). In January 1692, Parris’s nine-year-old daughter Betty and his eleven-year-old niece Abigail Williams began having fits. They contorted their bodies, threw objects, and complained of being pinched and bitten by invisible forces.

By mid-February, other girls in the village showed the same symptoms. Ann Putnam Jr., age twelve, Mercy Lewis, age seventeen, and Mary Walcott, age seventeen, joined Betty and Abigail in their convulsions. Local physician William Griggs examined the girls and delivered the diagnosis that would shape everything that followed: the girls were bewitched.

The first three accused witches were women on the margins of village life. Tituba, an enslaved woman from the Caribbean who lived in the Parris household, was the first named. Sarah Good, a homeless beggar who had been known to mutter curses when turned away from doors, was the second. Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman who had scandalized the village by living with an indentured servant before marrying him, was the third. All three were arrested on March 1, 1692.

The First Examinations and the Spread of Accusations (March 1692)

The First Examinations and the Spread of Accusations (March 1692)

The examinations of the accused were held in the Salem Village meetinghouse, with magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin presiding. The girls provided the evidence: when the accused looked at them, they fell into fits. When the accused touched them, the fits stopped. The logic was circular and unbreakable.

Tituba confessed under questioning, likely after being beaten by her master. She told the magistrates that she had signed the Devil’s book, that there were other witches in the village, and that she had seen a tall man in black who wanted her to hurt the children. Her confession introduced the idea of a conspiracy, which transformed scattered accusations into a hunt.

Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne maintained their innocence. Good’s husband testified that she was a witch. Osborne died in jail in May, the first death of the trials but not the last.

By the end of March, the accusations had spread beyond the original three. Martha Corey, a respected church member in her seventies, was accused after she expressed skepticism about the girls’ fits. Rebecca Nurse, a seventy-one-year-old woman known for her piety, was accused next. The arrests of Corey and Nurse signaled that no one was safe, not even the devout.

The Court of Oyer and Terminer Is Established (May–June 1692)

Governor William Phips returned from England in May 1692 to find the colony’s jails overflowing and the legal system paralyzed. Massachusetts had no charter at the time, having been absorbed into the Dominion of New England after the revocation of its original charter in 1684. There was no legally constituted court to try capital cases.

Phips established a special Court of Oyer and Terminer, a legal term meaning “to hear and determine.” He appointed five judges, including Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, who would preside over the trials with what historians have called “unrelenting severity.” Stoughton believed that spectral evidence, the testimony of victims who claimed to see the spirit of the accused tormenting them, was admissible in court.

The first person tried and executed under this court was Bridget Bishop, a woman in her sixties who had been accused of witchcraft once before, in 1680. She was known for wearing a red bodice, which the court treated as evidence of her immoral character. She was hanged on June 10, 1692, on what is now called Gallows Hill in Salem Town.

The Executions of July and August 1692

Five more people were hanged on July 19: Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes. All five had been convicted based largely on spectral evidence. Rebecca Nurse’s case had been particularly wrenching. The jury initially acquitted her, but the judges asked them to reconsider after the girls screamed in the courtroom. The jury returned a guilty verdict.

The executions continued in August. George Burroughs, a former minister of Salem Village, was brought back from Maine to stand trial. He was accused of being the ringleader of the witches, a charge that Tituba had introduced. Burroughs recited the Lord’s Prayer perfectly on the gallows, something a witch was supposedly unable to do. The crowd was moved, but Cotton Mather, a prominent Boston minister who had written in support of the trials, reminded them that the Devil could appear as an angel of light. Burroughs was hanged.

John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, John Willard, and Martha Carrier were executed alongside Burroughs on August 19. John Proctor had been arrested in April after he tried to defend his wife Elizabeth, who had been accused. His petition to the court, written from prison, is one of the few surviving documents that gives voice to the accused.

The Pressing Death of Giles Corey and the September Executions

Giles Corey, the eighty-year-old husband of Martha Corey, refused to enter a plea when he was brought to trial in September. He knew that if he pleaded not guilty, he would be tried and convicted on spectral evidence. If he pleaded guilty, his property would be confiscated by the state. By refusing to plead, he preserved his estate for his children.

The court applied the ancient English penalty for standing mute: peine forte et dure, pressing. Corey was laid on the ground with a board placed on his chest. Stones were added slowly over two days. According to tradition, his last words were “more weight.” He died on September 19, 1692.

Eight more people were hanged on September 22: Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker. Mary Easty had been released from jail earlier in the summer but was rearrested after the girls accused her again. She wrote a petition to the court asking them to reconsider the use of spectral evidence, a document that reads as remarkably clear-eyed given that she was writing from a cell she knew she would leave only to be executed.

Why the Trials Ended (October 1692–May 1693)

The executions stopped in October 1692. Several factors contributed to the collapse of the trials. Prominent figures began to speak out. Increase Mather, the president of Harvard College and father of Cotton Mather, published “Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits,” which argued that it was better for ten witches to go free than for one innocent person to be condemned.

Governor Phips received a letter from the ministers of Boston urging caution. His wife, Lady Mary Phips, was herself named as a witch, which may have concentrated his attention on the dangers of the proceedings. On October 29, Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer and ordered that no more executions take place.

The Superior Court of Judicature, which replaced the special court, tried the remaining cases in January and May 1693. This court did not allow spectral evidence. Of the fifty-two people brought before it, only three were convicted, and Governor Phips pardoned them all. The last accused witches were released from jail in May 1693.

The Aftermath: Apologies, Reparations, and the Survivors’ Accounts

The people of Massachusetts spent the next two decades trying to undo the damage. In 1697, the colony declared a day of fasting and repentance. Samuel Sewall, one of the trial judges, stood in the Boston meetinghouse while his confession of guilt was read aloud. He observed a day of fasting each year for the rest of his life.

The families of the executed began petitioning for restitution in the early 1700s. In 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring the civil rights of the accused and awarding financial compensation to some of the families. The sum was modest, roughly 578 pounds total, distributed among twenty-three families.

The last surviving accused witch, Ann Putnam Jr., one of the original afflicted girls, issued a public apology in 1706. She was admitted to the Salem Village church after making a statement in which she confessed that she had been deluded by the Devil and asked forgiveness for the part she had played.

Common Misconceptions About the Salem Witch Trials

The most persistent misconception is that the accused were burned at the stake. They were hanged. Burning was the method of execution for witchcraft in much of continental Europe, but English law prescribed hanging.

Another common error is that the trials took place in the city of Salem. The accusations began in Salem Village, which is now Danvers, several miles inland from Salem Town. The trials were held in Salem Town, and the executions took place there, but the social tensions that drove the crisis were between the agricultural Village and the mercantile Town.

A third misconception is that the trials were an outbreak of religious fanaticism unique to Puritan New England. In fact, witch trials were common throughout Europe and the American colonies in the seventeenth century. What made Salem unusual was the scale of the crisis relative to the population, the use of spectral evidence, and the speed with which the community turned on itself.

FAQ

How many people died in the Salem witch trials? Twenty people were executed: nineteen hanged and one pressed to death. At least five more died in jail.

Who was the youngest person executed in Salem? There is no confirmed age for the youngest executed, but most were adults. The youngest accused was four-year-old Dorothy Good, who was imprisoned for months and reportedly suffered lasting psychological damage.

Did anyone confess to being a witch in Salem? Yes. Tituba confessed and named others. Several accused people confessed to save their lives, though some later recanted. No one who confessed was executed.

Were there witch trials elsewhere in colonial America? Yes. The Hartford witch trials of 1662–1665 resulted in four executions. Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania all had witch trials, though none reached the scale of Salem.

The Salem witch trials did not emerge from nothing. They were shaped by the legal frameworks, religious beliefs, and folk traditions that the colonists brought from England. To understand the context, read our guide to occult history, which traces the evolution of witchcraft accusations from medieval Europe to colonial America. For the symbols that appeared in the trial records, including the witch’s mark and the Devil’s book, see our glossary of witch trial symbols. And for the legal procedures that made the trials possible, including the use of spectral evidence, visit our guide to early American witchcraft law.