Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr) | |
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Artist | Thomas Satterwhite Noble |
Year | 1869 |
Type | oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 185.4 cm× 124.5 cm(73.0 in× 49.0 in) |
Location | New-York Historical Society |
Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr) is a painting, of a convicted witch, soon to be executed, by hanging, during the Salem witch trials. In her eyes, the look of pain is obvious, of an innocent who is powerless to change her fate. [1]
Thomas Noble posed a young woman as the condemned witch, who worked as a librarian in the Cincinnati library. She was a lineal descendant of a woman who was hanged as a witch in 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts; see Salem witch trials. [2]
The painting's frame is made of heavy walnut. It was made for the canvas by an English woodcarver, one William H. Fry. [2]
At the 1869 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, the painting won a silver medal. Thomas Satterwhite Noble used the Salem witch trials for powerful moral theme. [3]
As of 2022, the painting is on display at the New York Historical Society. [2]
The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists. Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
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, 19 of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail.
John Proctor, Jr. was a landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the son of John Proctor Sr. (1594–1672) and Martha Harper (1607–1667). John and his 3rd wife were tried on August 5, 1692. He was hanged on August 19, 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Salem Witch Trials after being falsely accused and convicted of witchcraft.
Giles Corey was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. He was subjected to pressing in an effort to force him to plead—the only example of such a sanction in American history—and died after three days of this torture. Because Corey refused to enter a plea, his estate passed on to his sons instead of being seized by the local government.
Tituba Indian was an enslaved woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693. She was brought to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village. She was pivotal in the trials because she confessed to witchcraft when examined by the authorities, giving credence to the accusations. She accused the two other women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, of the same crime. She was imprisoned for over a year but never went to trial. It is unknown what happened to her after the case against her was dismissed by a grand jury in May 1693.
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.
Martha Corey was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, on September 9, 1692, and was hanged on September 22, 1692. Her second husband, Giles Corey, was also accused.
Thomas Satterwhite Noble was an American painter as well as the first head of the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mary Beth Norton is an American historian, specializing in American colonial history and well known for her work on women's history and the Salem witch trials. She is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emeritus of American History at the Department of History at Cornell University. Norton served as president of the American Historical Association in 2018. She is a recipient of the Ambassador Book Award in American Studies for In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Norton received her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Michigan (1964). The next year she completed a Master of Arts, going on to receive her Ph. D. in 1969 at Harvard University. She identifies as a Democrat and she considers herself a Methodist. Mary Beth Norton is a pioneer of women historians not only in the United States but also in the whole world, as she was the first woman to get a job in the department of history at Cornell University.
Mercy Lewis was an accuser during the Salem Witch Trials. She was born in Falmouth, Maine. Mercy Lewis, formally known as Mercy Allen, was the child of Philip Lewis and Mary (Cass) Lewis.
Rebecca Nurse was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
Ann Pudeator was a wealthy septuagenarian widow who was accused of and convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
George Jacobs Sr. (1609–1692) was an English colonist in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who was accused of witchcraft in 1692 during the Salem witch trials in Salem Village, Massachusetts. He was convicted and hanged on August 19, 1692. His son, George Jr., was also accused but evaded arrest. Jacobs' accusers included his daughter-in-law and granddaughter, Margaret.
Sarah Wildes was wrongly convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials and was executed by hanging. She maintained her innocence throughout the process, and was later exonerated. Her husband's first wife was a member of the Gould family, cousins of the Putnam family, the primary accusers, and court records document the family feuds which led to her persecution.
Elizabeth Howe was one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. She was found guilty and executed on July 19, 1692.
Abigail Faulkner, sometimes called Abigail Faulkner Sr., was an American woman accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. In the frenzy that followed, Faulkner's sister Elizabeth (Dane) Johnson (1641-1722), her sister-in-law Deliverance Dane, two of her daughters, two of her nieces, and a nephew, would all be accused of witchcraft and arrested. Faulkner was convicted and sentenced to death, but her execution was delayed due to pregnancy. Before she gave birth, Faulkner was pardoned by the governor and released from prison.
Martha Carrier was a Puritan accused and convicted of being a witch during the 1692 Salem witch trials.
The Connecticut Witch Trials, also sometimes referred to as the Hartford witch trials, occurred from 1647 to 1663. They were the first large-scale witch trials in the American colonies, predating the Salem Witch Trials by nearly thirty years. John M. Taylor lists a total of 37 cases, 11 of which resulted in executions. The execution of Alse Young of Windsor in the spring of 1647 was the beginning of the witch panic in the area, which would not come to an end until 1670 with the release of Katherine Harrison.
The Examination of a Witch is a painting by T. H. Matteson. There are two versions of the painting, one in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the other in the Portrait Gallery of the Darwin R. Barker Museum.