Emerson Baker | |
---|---|
Born | May 18, 1958 |
Education | Phillips Academy Bates College (BA) University of Maine (MA) College of William & Mary (PhD) |
Occupation | Professor |
Employer | Salem State University |
Emerson "Tad" Baker II (born 18 May 1958) is a historical archaeologist and professor of history at Salem State University. [1] He is well known in academic circles for his extensive work on witchcraft in Colonial America, as well as for his work on numerous archaeological sites along the East Coast of the United States. He currently resides in York, Maine.
Baker was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1958 and attended Applewild School and Phillips Academy. Before attending Bates College in Lewiston, Maine (where he would later meet his wife and play/lead the rugby club), Baker spent a year in the United Kingdom studying at Cranleigh School, where he learned to play rugby. After graduating from Bates with a BA in history in 1980, he received his MA in history (with a concentration in historical archaeology) from the University of Maine at Orono in 1983. [2] In 1986, he received his Ph.D. in history (with a dissertation on failed Anglo-Indian relations in early Maine) from the College of William & Mary under the guidance of James Axtell. [2]
From 1988 to 1994, Baker served as executive director of the York Institute Museum and Dyer Library. He joined the faculty of Salem State University in September 1994.
A specialist in the history of seventeenth century Maine, Baker has been featured as an expert consultant on the PBS mini-series Colonial House; he has also provided historical consultation for Parks Canada, National Geographic, Plimoth Plantation, National Park Service, Historic Salem Inc., Beverly Historical Society and many historic district commissions." [2] He has also served as an expert witness for archaeological matters in several court cases in Nova Scotia and Maine.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in the disease-ridden jails.
King William's War was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg. It was the first of six colonial wars fought between New France and New England along with their respective Native allies before France ceded its remaining mainland territories in North America east of the Mississippi River in 1763.
Increase Mather was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials.
Thomas Danforth was a politician, magistrate, and landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A conservative Puritan, he served for many years as one of the colony's councilors and magistrates, generally leading opposition to attempts by the English kings to assert control over the colony.
Bridget Bishop was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
William Stoughton was a New England Puritan magistrate and administrator in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence. Unlike some of the other magistrates, he never admitted to the possibility that his acceptance of such evidence was in error.
George Burroughs was a non-ordained Puritan preacher who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is remembered especially for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, something it was believed a witch could never do.
Charles Wentworth Upham was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Upham was also a member, and President of the Massachusetts State Senate, the 7th Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, and twice a member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives. Upham was the cousin of George Baxter Upham and Jabez Upham. Upham was later a historian of Salem and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 when he lived there.
John Cotta (1575–1650) was a physician in England and author of books and other texts on medicine and witchcraft.
Jonathan Corwin was a New England merchant, politician, and magistrate. He is best known as one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, although his later work also included service as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
William Avery Baker was a distinguished naval architect of replica historic ships and a maritime historian, who was curator of the Francis Russell Hart Nautical Museum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963–1981.
Capt. John Alden Jr. was a Colonial soldier, politician, merchant, and sailor born in the Plymouth Colony. He was a well-known public figure in his time but is now chiefly remembered as a survivor of the Salem witch trials, of which he wrote a much quoted and studied account.
Thomas Brattle was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Street Church.
John G. Reid is a Canadian historian. The principal focus of his work is on the history of early modern northeastern North America, the history of Atlantic Canada, and the history of higher education. According to historian Geoffrey Plank, "No active historian studying the 17th and 18th century Maritime region has produced a richer or more varied body of scholarship than John G. Reid." He was also an expert witness in a number of court cases, including the Mi’kmaw and Wulstukwiuk treaty rights case R. v. Donald Marshall Junior.
Stephen Nissenbaum, is an American scholar, a Professor Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's History Department specializing in early American history through to the nineteenth century. Most notably, he co-authored a book with Paul Boyer in 1974 about the Salem witch trials, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, called "a landmark in early American studies" by John Putnam Demos.
The Clarke and Lake Company Archeological Site encompasses all that is left of a historic colonial settlement in Arrowsic, Maine. The site, located on the banks of the Sasanoa River on the northern part of Arrowsic Island, was the local headquarters of the business enterprises operated by Major Thomas Clarke and Captain Thomas Lake. Clarke and Lake were successful merchants and businessmen based in Boston, who at their height claimed more than 450 square miles (120,000 ha) of territory in the Kennebec River watershed, in addition to land holdings and business interests elsewhere. They acquired Arrowsic Island, and established their settlement c. 1654, eventually building a large manor house, warehouse, gristmill and sawmill, and numerous other outbuildings. They developed a small community on the island, with farms and shops, and managed the civic business of the area. Their business included trade with the local Native Americans, fishing, lumbering, and the raising of cattle for shipment to Boston.
The Northeast Coast campaign of 1676 took place during King Philip's War. It involved the Wabanaki Confederacy raiding colonial American settlements along the New England Colonies/Acadia border in present-day Maine. In the first month, they laid waste to 15 leagues of the coast east of Casco. They killed and captured colonists and burned many farms, blunting the tide of colonial American expansion. The campaign led colonists to abandon the region and retreat to Salem, Massachusetts. The campaign is most notable for Richard Waldron entering the war, the death of Chief Mog, and the attack on the Mi’kmaq that initiated their involvement in the war.
The First Abenaki War was fought along the New England/Acadia border primarily in present-day Maine. Richard Waldron and Charles Frost led the forces in the northern region, while Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin worked with the tribes that would make up the Wabanaki Confederacy. The natives engaged in annual campaigns against the English settlements in 1675, 1676, and 1677. Waldron sent forces so far north that he attacked the Mi'kmaq in Acadia.
During a 104-year period from 1626 to 1730, there are documented Virginia Witch Trials, hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Colonial Virginia. More than two dozen people are documented having been accused, including two men. Virginia was the first colony to have a formal accusation of witchcraft in 1626, and the first formal witch trial in 1641.
Malcolm John Gaskill FRHistS is an English academic historian and writer on crime, magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, and the supernatural. Gaskill was a professor in the history department of the University of East Anglia from 2011 until 2020, when he retired from teaching to give more time to writing.