17th century New England saw its fair share of witch hysteria, with neighbors accusing neighbors of heresy. Some of the most infamous trials played out in Salem, Massachusetts, but as a new exhibition in Springfield highlights, the first true witch scare didn’t happen in Witch City, but the City of Homes.
Springfield is not lacking in terms of firsts; it’s home of the first game of basketball, the first American-English dictionary, and the first successful American gasoline-powered car.
The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History showcases some of them – plus a new exhibit that spells out another first.
Open through November is “Witch Panic! Massachusetts Before Salem” – an exhibition devoted to one of the first witch panics and trials of colonial Massachusetts, complete with a fake cauldron and hearth, brooms and a snapshot of Ye Olde Springfield – back when only several dozen families settled by the Connecticut River.
“Not only does the exhibition really trace the remarkable events that transformed the lives of Hugh and Mary Parsons, who were accused of witchcraft in the 1600s - it also shows how the image of the witch has been transformed over the centuries,” says Kay Simpson, president and CEO of Springfield Museums.
Those early days of Springfield featured plenty of uncertainty – a settlement far from Boston and Hartford that was still trying to figure itself out and survive after being founded in 1636.
Less than 20 years in, though, all it took was a run of bad luck, unfortunate events and other factors to get the town to snap and accuse a couple – the Parsons — of witchcraft.
“… children got sick and died, cows that usually gave perfect milk started giving products that just weren't working, food went missing, mysterious weather patterns happened…” Springfield Museums Curator of History Elizabeth Kapp tells WAMC. “And so, here's Springfield, still trying to establish itself, get its feet underneath itself, and the people of Springfield wanted to know why - they wanted to know who was responsible for all of these ‘mischievous events.’”
Hugh and Mary Parsons were put on trial in the 1650s, predating the Salem Witch Trials by four decades.
As the new exhibit explains, the couple had a number of habits that made them prime targets. Hugh was known for his temper and also showing up at people’s houses for no reason – a practice still frowned upon to this day.
Mary, meanwhile, was extremely religious and often a victim of Hugh's outbursts. Already suffering from the loss of one of their children, she would lose another amid the accusation. How her young son, Joshua, died remains unclear, though during the witch panic, she confessed to being responsible.
“We know, retroactively, that they were accused of witchcraft, but they were human. They were people just like you and me and they had goals and hopes and dreams and yet, for a lot of reasons, both within their control and outside of their control, they find themselves facing their neighbors and being accused of horrendous things,” Kapp says. “And so, it's a story that is very fantastical - witches are quite literally fantastic - but it's also a very human story.”
The two would stand trial in Boston, a process visitors can recreate themselves as they are asked to consider the “evidence” — tales of spoiling milk, visions of serpents, or simply a trowel going missing.
Hugh would ultimately be found not guilty of witchcraft, as would Mary. However, she was found guilty of murder, and appeared to die while imprisoned shortly thereafter.
Their story is also half of the exhibit. The other half asks what is a witch and which witch is witch via a gallery and pieces showing how attitudes have changed regarding witchcraft and its practitioners - softening over the years and becoming a tourism boon for Salem.
Various fictional witches also make an appearance - a wall displays everyone from the Wicked Witch of the West to the Scarlet Witch of Marvel Comics. The museum invites visitors to vote on their favorite.
As Kapp explains, one of the exhibit’s focuses is humanizing the dehumanized, while shedding light on the real people trying to live in a time of panic.
“At the heart of the story are human beings and they're scared and they're trying to figure out what's happening to their world,” the curator says. “And so, I hope people understand that there's truth behind the myths and there's details to explore in the past and even in some of our most iconic figures from pop culture.”
