The following week, the same girls then accused John Proctor of the crime as well.Īccording to court records, although Warren was not one of the Proctor’s original accusers, she willingly testified against both of them during their trials, stating that they made her sign the book of the Devil and their spirits tormented and tortured her:
On April 4, several afflicted girls, Abigail Williams, Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, Ann Putnam, Jr., as well as John Indian (Samuel Parris’ servant and Tituba‘s husband), accused Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft. Yet as soon as Proctor left home on business shortly after, Warren’s fits returned and she joined the ongoing witch trials as a witness, much to Proctor’s dismay. “There is a flock of yellow birds above her head” Salem Witch Trials illustration by Howard Pyle published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine circa 1893 This action may have turned the other afflicted girls against Warren or even caused them to suspect she had fallen in league with the Devil. At one point during the questioning, Warren stated “ the afflicted persons did but dissemble.”Īlthough it’s not exactly clear what she meant by this statement, the congregation took it to mean that the afflicted girls were lying about their symptoms. The next day, Reverend Samuel Parris read the note to his congregation, who questioned Warren after the Sunday service. John Proctor, who believed the afflicted girls were lying and pretending to be bewitched, dismissed it as nonsense and threatened to beat Warren if she didn’t behave.Īccording to the book The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, on April 2nd, Warren’s fits stopped and she tacked a note on the local meetinghouse door asking for prayers of thanks for this development.
Warren, the twenty-year-old indentured servant of John and Elizabeth Proctor, began having fits in March of 1692, shortly after Betty Parris and the other afflicted girls’ symptoms began. Mary Warren was the oldest of the afflicted girls in the Salem Witch Trials and testified against numerous accused witches before she was eventually accused of witchcraft herself.Ī lot of confusion surrounds Mary Warren’s case, partly because of her own vague and evasive statements during the witchcraft hysteria.
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