For as long as I can remember, there’s been a rumor in my mother’s family.
One of our ancestors, we heard, was involved in the Salem witch trials. Further, we heard, she was an accused witch.
The notion was framed as a fun story, usually trotted out at Halloween, and otherwise conveniently left to rumor. This changed in this generation, when I decided I wanted to track her down, if possible, to general agreement from sisters, cousins, and nieces.
First, I turned to the family genealogy, which has been meticulously kept by some members of mother’s family back as far as colonial America. I input the data we’d collected into Ancestry.com to keep better track of the tree, and found other relatives who had done the same to cross-reference it with. When that work was completed, I looked for anyone on the tree who might have been in or around Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.
I found one family who matched the date and location: John and Elizabeth (Betts) Fosdick.
Still, correlation is not proof. When I started this search, years ago, I dug into what I could find on the World Wide Web regarding Salem and the injustices that occurred there. I learned that 170 men and women were accused of witchcraft by a team of young women in a timespan between January and September of 1692. I learned that 19 of those accused were executed by hanging, or in one case, pressing (the act of being squished under planks and stones). I learned that in the end, none of the accused were actually guilty of witchcraft, and the bodies of those hanged were tossed into a nearby ravine. Rumors also suggested that the families of the accused claimed those bodies under dead of night, to rebury them on family lands, since they weren’t allowed on consecrated ground.
I learned of the shame that fell over the area in the wake of the enormous injustice dealt to the women and few men accused, and I learned that the judicial records of the period were hidden, perhaps purposefully.
Digging around on the Web revealed a snippet of a transcript of an arrest warrant listing Elizabeth Fosdick. It seemed very likely that our rumored connection to Salem was true, then, but I wanted more.
Every year around Halloween I think about Elizabeth Fosdick. Yesterday, I decided to do a little more digging.
I struck gold.
The judicial records from the trials had been sitting in the Phillips Library connected with Peabody Essex Museum in Salem from 1980 to 2023, according to the Museum’s web site. Before they were turned over to the State of Massachusetts Judicial Archives, the Museum digitized them, and the documents are now available online.
A quick search turned up several original documents related to Elizabeth Fosdick: The criminal complaint, sworn out by Joseph Houlton and John Wolcott on May 20, 1692. A statement accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft committed upon the bodies of Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Warren sworn out by Geo. Henrick Marshall on May 26, 1692. Another statement accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft upon those young women and on local livestock, sworn out by Nathaniel Putnam and Joseph Whipple on May 28, 1692. An arrest warrant issued for both Elizabeth Fosdick and Elizabeth Paine.
Through these documents I learned that Elizabeth’s husband, John, was a carpenter, which I had not known before. I also learned that while the arrest warrant was issued on May 30, Elizabeth was not arrested until June 3, and the phrasing of her arrest was odd:
“I have also apprehended the body of Elizabeth Fosdick of Mauldin & Dolian(?)…”
Why mention her body? Was she somehow unconscious when he found her? It’s a strange sentence that does not appear earlier on the document when Elizabeth Paine is arrested.
But these are the documents I have. I know that Elizabeth was not one of the 19 convicted and hung or pressed. She was a part of the 150 other people incarcerated for witchcraft. I know that she lived until 1715, so it’s likely she was released at some point.
But I do not know how. Right now, any documents related to the disposition of her case are not available. I’m going to keep looking.
But here we have, again, a lost story. Those accused of witchcraft in Salem have numerous descendants, but the shame of those events have helped to sweep their true stories under the rug. We know very little about who survived and less about how their trauma may have rippled throughout their lives. The youngest of the accused, for example, was Dorcas Good, who, at 5, likely never recovered from the trauma of her incarceration.
The injustices today are recognized in Salem, where a group has organized to help fight such injustices. But the legacy of injustice remains, disguised in jokes and stories about the Salem witches.
Elizabeth Fosdick was my 9th great-grandmother, and I will say her name when I think about injustice toward women.
Amy Lauters On Everything 
she’s my tenth great grandmother! I just went to visit her grave at Phipps Street Burying Ground in Boston and found quite a lot of other Fosdicks there as well. She’s buried with her first husband, married John who was also widowed. I can only assume that it was her first husbands will to be buried with her and either John respected that or didn’t get to it. I assume they died of illness because their death dates are days apart. Stephen fosdick was also buried there but his grave marker is long gone. John picked up carpentry from him, who immigrated here right at the beginning of Charlestown. I’d also love to know more about her and how she escaped trial. They have a descendants package at the Salem witch museum I’m curious about but I’m going to reach out to someone who has access to records and see if they can do some digging.
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