Transcriber's Note:
Sections of this text have been quoted from historical documentswritten with great variability in spelling and punctuation. Theseinconsistencies have been retained. A list of corrections made tothe 1904 portions of this text can be found following this text.
HOUSE
OF
JOHN PROCTER,
Witchcraft Martyr, 1692.
By Wm. P. Upham.
PEABODY:
PRESS OF C. H. SHEPARD,
1904.
HOUSE OF JOHN PROCTER
WITCHCRAFT MARTYR, 1692.
[A paper read by William P. Upham at a meeting of thePeabody Historical Society at the Needham house, WestPeabody, September 2nd., 1903.]
It is now nearly forty years since I assisted my father, thelate Charles W. Upham, in the preparation of his work on SalemVillage and the Witchcraft tragedy of 1692, by collecting whatinformation could be obtained from the records as to the peopleand their homes in that locality. In doing this I was enabled toconstruct a map showing the bounds of the grants and farms atthat time. On that map is represented quite accurately theDowning Farm, so called, owned, in 1638, by Emanuel Downing,father of Sir George Downing, and occupied as tenant, in 1692, byJohn Procter, the victim of the witchcraft delusion. When I madethe map I knew that John Procter at his death owned, as appearsby the inventory of his estate, fifteen acres of land in Salem,but I was not able then to locate it with exactness. Lately, inmaking a more complete study of the records relating to theDowning farm and the surrounding lands I have learned the exactsituation of the fifteen acre lot owned by him, and also that hehad a house upon it as early as 1682 and until his death in 1692.It appears that this lot is the place where he was buried,according to the family tradition, although the knowledge as toits being once owned by him seems to have passed out of theneighborhood for more than a century.
[Pg 4]This lot is indicated, on the accompanying map of the localitywhich I have drawn for the purpose, by heavy dark lines. It wason the north side of Lowell Street in West Peabody, just west ofthe westernmost line of the Downing Farm and about one hundredand fifty rods east from the place of this meeting, which is theNeedham homestead on the Newburyport Turnpike, or Newbury Streetas it is now called, marked on the map as then, in 1692, the homeof Anthony Needham, Junior.
The discovery that this was John Procter's land called to mind aconversation I had with Mrs. Jacobs, an aged lady who lived inthe old Jacobs house, now the Wyman place, and of which I madethe following memorandum about thirty years ago:—
"Mrs. Jacobs (Munroe) says that it was always said that Procterswere buried near the bars as you go into the Philip H. Saundersplace. Mr. James Marsh says he always heard that John Procter, ofwitch time, was buried there."
Upon inquiring lately of Mrs. Osborn, the librarian of thePeabody Historical Society, as to what was the family tradition,I learned