Bridget Bishop
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Description: A scene from the play "Cry Innocent,"
performed by the acting company History Alive in the Old Town Hall,
Salem, Mass., June, 1999. In this scene, Bridget Bishop, standing in
the dock and wearing shackles, listens defiantly to testimony about
betwitching a pig delivered by Rebecca Bly, while Judge Hathorne gestures
to Rebecca's husband (off stage) to keep quiet. Bridget Bishop's arrest
and trial is re-enacted during the summer tourist season in Salem, three
times daily in the Old town Hall by Gordon College students |
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Description: The cover of a tourist
brochure that depicts several features of local tradition concerning Bridget
Bishop. Behind her stands the first church of Salem, across from the town
water pump. According to a story, recorded by Cotton Mather, . "As
this woman [Bridget Bishop] was, under a guard, passing by the great and
spacious meeting-house [church] of Salem, she gave a look towards the
house. And immediately a demon invisibly entering the meeting-house, Tore
down a part of it; so that though there were no person to be seen there,
yet the people at the noise running in, found a Board, which was strongly
fastened with several nails, transported unto another quarter of the House."
Bishop had been accused of witchcraft 13 years earlier in a dispute with
a neighbor over her orchard and damages caused by her pig, shown at the
lower right. Source: Cover: "Salem Happenings," August, 2001. Artist, Stephen K. Swift |
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Caption: "Lusty Bridget Bishop is arrested.
She was the first to hang." Description: Wax figure of Bridget Bishop as tavern keeper in Salem Village. Diorama display, Salem Wax Museum of Witches and Seafarers, Salem, MA Source: Photograph by Benjamin C. Ray, 2001 |
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