This house is the oldest standing in Salem or its vicinity, having been built before 1635. And it really has a claim to fame as the Roger Williams house, for it was here that the great "Teacher" lived during his troubled settlement in Salem. The people of Salem, it will be remembered, persistently sought Williams as their spiritual pastor and master until the General Court at Boston unseated the Salem deputies for the acts of their constituents in retaining a man of whom they disapproved, and the magistrates sent a vessel to Salem to remove Mr. Williams to England. The minister eluded his persecutors by fleeing through the wintry snows into the wilderness, to become the founder of the State of Rhode Island.
Mr. Williams was a close friend and confidential adviser of Governor Endicott, and those who were alarmed at the governor's impetuosity in cutting the cross from the king's colours, attributed the act to his [Williams's] influence. In taking his departure from the old house of the picture to make his way to freedom, Williams had no guide save a pocket compass, which his descendants still exhibit, and no reliance but the friendly disposition of the Indians toward him.
But it is of the witchcraft delusion with which the house of our picture is connected rather than with Williams and his story, that I wish now to speak. Jonathan Corwin, or Curwin, who was the house's link to witchcraft, was made a councillor under the new charter granted Massachusetts by King William in 1692, and was, as has been said, one of the justices before whom the preliminary witch examinations were held. He it was who officiated at the trial of Rebecca Nourse, of Danvers, hanged as a witch July 19, 1692, as well as at many other less remarkable and less revolting cases.
[Illustration: REBECCA NOURSE HOUSE, DANVERS, MASS.]
Rebecca Nourse, aged and infirm and universally beloved by her neighbours, was accused of being a witch--why, one is unable to find out. The jury was convinced of her innocence, and brought in a verdict of "not guilty," but the court sent them out again with instructions to find her guilty. This they did, and she was executed. The tradition is that her sons disinterred her body by stealth from the foot of the gallows where it had been thrown, and brought it to the old homestead, now still standing in Danvers, laying it reverently, and with many tears, in the little family burying ground near by.