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Cats
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 Drawing by Joseph E. Baker The Salem Witch Trials are an interesting part of New England History. It began in 1692 when four young girls (one of whom was the daughter of Rev. Samuel Parris, the town minister) began to play fortune telling games with the minister's West Indian slave, Tituba. The girls started showing peculiar physical symptoms and the town doctor concluded that the girls were bewitched. A special court was set up by the colony's governor, Sir William Phips. Hysteria swept through Salem and other surrounding towns. In Salem nineteen people were hung and one, Giles Corey, was crushed to death. At least four died while imprisoned. Even two dogs were put to death. Much of what happened seems to have roots in wealth, land, and other disputes using the accusations of witchcraft to manipulate people.
Those hung: Random info: Sarah Good, was at the scaffolding. Just before being hanged, Minister Nicholas Noyes tried to get a confession out of her. She answered, "You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink" Years later, Noyes is said to have died from internal hemorrhage, bleeding from the mouth.
One bit of geographic trivia
that might surprise you is that Salem Village where most of these events
happened were not in present day Salem, but rather where the present day
town of Danvers is. In 1752 The Salem Village area was renamed
Danvers.
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