George Jacobs
Replies: 11
Re: George Jacobs
I don't know if I can help you. First, no one was burned in Salem. Hundreds were accused and imprisoned, and several people died a terrible death waiting trial in prisons from several communities. In Salem, nineteen people were actually found guilty after trials, and these nineteen were hung. One man was pressed to death by authorities trying to force a confession, he never was even found guilty. You can find the names of the nineteen poor people hung in any good history of Salem, or on line at places like the National Geographic (surprisingly!) which has a good site about the witch trials. The town of Danvers (which was originally know as Salem Village) has a historical society which runs a website with lots of good archival information on-line. First you must find out your own family-tree, then try to match up to one of these poor people. You will find that for every person you suspect as an ancestor, you will find four or five other relatives who sat on the other side of the fence, accusing other neighbors and relatives to save their own hides. But who can blame them? It was a scary time to be living in Massachusetts. The Peabody Essex Musem (website pem.org ) holds many original documents, trial records and artifacts from this time period. The have letters from relatives of George Jacobs (my ancestor) by accusing and supporting his innocence. They also have his cane and other interesting items that accusers said he used for "witchcraft." If you visit Salem, the Peabody Museum and the Corwin house are the only sites with real artifacts from the time. The other "museums" are tourist traps run by new-age witches looking to make a buck off poor people who were hung and weren't even real witches! They were innocent farmers and wives.
