Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1883-08-02
REBEKAH NURSE.
Gathering Of the Descendants of the
'sWitch'' Of 1892 at Salem Village
Tribute 10 Her Memory.

Nurse, on Pine street, in Tapleyville,
Danvers. Nearly two hundred per-
sons were present TO pay tribute to
the memory of the pious Christian
woman, who yielded her life a martyr
to the Jealous hate of her INSCRIPTIONS
neighbors in the awful delusion of
1892. Most of the company were
lineal descendants of Mrs. Nurse.
They embraced representatives of the
Miles family of Worcester, the
Tapleys and Putnams of Danyers, the
HAYES family of Pennington. n. H. the
Putnams of Lynn, the Price family of
Danvers, the Newhalls of Peabody,
the Browns of Lynn, branch of the
Chase family Of Philadelphia, the
Wiggin family of Providence, the
Needhams of Peabody, the Maynards
OF Shrewsbury. the Evans family of
Springfield the Forbes family of
Westboro. and branches of the Nourse
family of Arlington, Berlin, Boston,
Lexington, Leminster Woonsocket,
h. l.. and Salem. The yougest rep
resenta.ive was Ernest Nourse of Lex
ington, aged l year, and the Oldest,
David Nourse of WestbOro. aged IS.
Among outside friends and connect
ions were DIR. Henry Wheatland,
of the Essex institute. William +.
Upham, Esq. son Of the Rev. Charles
Upham. the witch historian, and the
Rev. c. b. Rice. The committee of
arrangements were MessIS George
Taplev. : Walter Nomse, and Edward
Hutchinson, and they executed their
task well. As first reunion of the
family. the affair was very successful
The old homestead is a two and a half
story mansion, with old-fashioned
lean-to and gabled roof. 1t stands to-
day midway between Pine and Col
Inns streets. near the old Tapley carpet
factory The timbers are of oak and
the rafters of hewn saphngs. The
roof is boarded lenghtwise. and a
chimney occupies the
center of the house. With the eXcep-
ton of a modern addition in the rear.
the house is apparently unchanged
in appearance since the date of its
erection, about the year 1880, and
stands as ii stood in the dark days of
1892, when its mistress, denounced as
a witch by Ann Putnam. Abigail
Williams, Mercy Lewis, and other
coadiutors of the Rev. Samuel
Paris, was dragged forth from its hos
pitable protection on the oath of March
of that year, and lodged in the custody
of Lieut. Ingersoll. South of the
house, but short distance from it,
the body of Goody Nurse was laid in
the little family bmying ground be
meath am unmarked mound. The
precise spot is now unknown, but
within the inclosure are the graves of
her son-in-law, John Tarbell, who
died in 1715 at the age of 63, and of
his son Jonathan, who died in 171S,
at the age of 26. There are other
moss covered stones, whose
have become wholly
lllegible The Nurse farm originally
over three hundred acres
Of land in Salem village, which We're
conveyed to Francis Nurse, the hus-
band of Rebekah, by Townsend
Bishop, who received them as part of
a grant from the town of Salem.
Mrs. Nurse was the daughter of
Toune, and is described as a
woman of lovely Christian character,
a plouS and a devout member of the
First church at Salem She was the
mother of eight children, four sons
and four daughters, and at her ex-
ecution had reached the allotted three
score and ten, and was in the full
of a beautiful old age.
Her case was a peculiarly cruel one,
and her accusers and Judges appear
emily suffered many computations of
after their condemnation
of her The warrant against her,
her with witchcraft was
issued March 90, 1892, and she was
and passed parliamentary eX-
March "a, 1892. She firmly
asserted her innocence. saying Il can
say before my eternal Father | am
innocent, and God will clear my IN
nocency: which pious exclamation
moved the presiding justice to say
Here Is never a one in the assembly
but desires it, but if YOU be guilty.
pray God discover YOU As "a sam
pie of the ridiculous character of the
\ tN'NiAAN g. -flAlA0t tAAis NfO1AtAtitAtA IANll
uey is recorded as testifying that since
he had been in the court room with
the prisoner, he had been seized twice
with an amazed condition. Being
remauded to the JUL, She was again
brought before Judges Ha,horn and
Corwin. i'm the court of oyer and
termmer, and after a long trial the
evidence of which was taken down by
the Rev Samuel Paris, ''in charae-
tiers, she was acquitted. This unex-
pected verdict caused am immediate
clamor among the afflicted. The
judges charged the Jury with having
let slip a portion of the prisoners tes-
tlmony when two of her fellow prison
ers testified against her. when she
SAID, What do these persons give
in evidence against me now They
used to come among us. The jury
again met and came in. when Thomas
Fisk desired that the prisoner should
put her sense upon the words, and she
making no answer. tile jury went out
4 "a, T.. +