Bridget Bishop
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Description: A scene from the play "Cry Innocent,"
performed by the acting company History Alive in the Old Town Hall,
Salem, Mass., June, 1999. In this scene, Bridget Bishop, standing
in the dock and wearing shackles, listens defiantly to testimony
about betwitching a pig delivered by Rebecca Bly, while Judge
Hathorne gestures to Rebecca's husband (off stage) to keep quiet.
Bridget Bishop's arrest and trial is re-enacted during the summer
tourist season in Salem, three times daily in the Old town Hall by
Gordon College students |
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Description: The cover of a
tourist brochure that depicts several features of local tradition
concerning Bridget Bishop. Behind her stands the first church of
Salem, across from the town water pump. According to a story,
recorded by Cotton Mather, . "As this woman [Bridget Bishop] was,
under a guard, passing by the great and spacious meeting-house
[church] of Salem, she gave a look towards the house. And
immediately a demon invisibly entering the meeting-house, Tore down
a part of it; so that though there were no person to be seen there,
yet the people at the noise running in, found a Board, which was
strongly fastened with several nails, transported unto another
quarter of the House." Bishop had been accused of witchcraft 13
years earlier in a dispute with a neighbor over her orchard and
damages caused by her pig, shown at the lower right. Source: Cover: "Salem Happenings," August, 2001. Artist, Stephen K. Swift |
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Caption: "Lusty Bridget Bishop is arrested.
She was the first to hang." Description: Wax figure of Bridget Bishop as tavern keeper in Salem Village. Diorama display, Salem Wax Museum of Witches and Seafarers, Salem, MA Source: Photograph by Benjamin C. Ray, 2001 |
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