Israel Putnam was born in 1718 in Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts to Joseph and Elizabeth (Porter) Putnam, a prosperous farming Puritan family. His parents had opposed the Salem witch trials in the 1690s. With his father-in-law Israel Porter, Joseph Putnam signed a petition on the behalf of the elderly Rebecca Nurse, who was accused of witchcraft, but the jury overturned its first verdict of innocent, convicting her and sentencing her to death. One of her sisters was also executed in the hysteria of the time.