House of John Procter, Witchcraft Martyr, 1692

Excerpt

It is now nearly forty years since I assisted my father, the late Charles W. Upham, in the preparation of his work on Salem Village and the Witchcraft tragedy of 1692, by collecting what information could be obtained from the records as to the people and their homes in that locality. In doing this I was enabled to construct a map showing the bounds of the grants and farms at that time. On that map is represented quite accurately the Downing Farm, so called, owned, in 1638, by Emanuel Downing, father of Sir George Downing, and occupied as tenant, in 1692, by John Procter, the victim of the witchcraft delusion. When I made the map I knew that John Procter at his death owned, as appears by the inventory of his estate, fifteen acres of land in Salem, but I was not able then to locate it with exactness. Lately, in making a more complete study of the records relating to the Downing farm and the surrounding lands I have learned the exact situation of the fifteen acre lot owned by him, and also that he had a house upon it as early as 1682 and until his death in 1692. It appears that this lot is the place where he was buried, according to the family tradition, although the knowledge as to its being once owned by him seems to have passed out of the neighborhood for more than a century.

This lot is indicated, on the accompanying map of the locality which I have drawn for the purpose, by heavy dark lines. It was on the north side of Lowell Street in West Peabody, just west of the westernmost line of the Downing Farm and about one hundred and fifty rods east from the place of this meeting, which is the Needham homestead on the Newburyport Turnpike, or Newbury Street as it is now called, marked on the map as then, in 1692, the home of Anthony Needham, Junior.

The discovery that this was John Procter's land called to mind a conversation I had with Mrs. Jacobs, an aged lady who lived in the old Jacobs house, now the Wyman place, and of which I made the following memorandum about thirty years ago:—

"Mrs. Jacobs (Munroe) says that it was always said that Procters were buried near the bars as you go into the Philip H. Saunders place. Mr. James Marsh says he always heard that John Procter, of witch time, was buried there."

Upon inquiring lately of Mrs. Osborn, the librarian of the Peabody Historical Society, as to what was the family tradition, I learned that it was said by Mrs. Hannah B. Mansfield, of Danvers, that John Procter was buried "opposite to the Colcord" (now the Wyman) "pasture, amongst the rocks." In answer to an inquiry by Mrs. Osborn, Mrs. Mansfield wrote to her as follows:—"A great aunt took me, when a little girl, with her to a spot in a rocky hill where she picked blackberries, and said there was the place 'among birch trees and rocks where our ancestor of witchcraft notoriety was buried.' It was on the north side of Lowell Street in what was then called the Marsh pasture nearly opposite the Jacobs farm which is on the south side of Lowell Street."

The Marsh pasture from which Mrs. Mansfield's aunt pointed out the "birch trees and rocks" near by where John Procter was buried was, no doubt, the pasture conveyed by James Marsh to Philip H. Saunders, 11 June, 1863, and then described as "thirteen acres known by the name of Bates Pasture." I do not know of any other place near there that would be called the Marsh pasture at the time Mrs. Mansfield mentions. This thirteen acre pasture was conveyed by Ezekiel Marsh to John Marsh, 15 Oct., 1819, having been devised to him by his father Ezekiel Marsh. It had a way leading to it from Lowell Street over the eastern end of the John Procter lot as shown on my map. This way is still used as well as the bars opening into it on Lowell Street a few rods east of the westerly way leading southerly to the Jacobs, or Wyman, place. These are the "bars as you go into the Philip H. Saunders place" mentioned by Mrs. Jacobs as stated above, unless we suppose the expression to mean bars leading from the John Procter lot where the way enters the Philip H. Saunders place, or Marsh pasture, as Mrs. Mansfield calls it. Perhaps the latter locality is the most probable since it is high rocky ground; but which bars were meant is uncertain.

Mr. Daniel H. Felton, who has an intimate knowledge of the history of all the lands about Felton's Hill, and is himself a descendant of John Procter, informs me that Mrs....