The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-10-12
WITCH BURNINGS.
A Sketch Of q Visit TO the Final
Resting Place of Rebecca Nurse.

Ii WAS III SepIeuluer, lc5o, tudo 4
paid a visit to Salem, Mass, the scene
of the ~witchcraft panic of 1892. which
for the fervor and relentlessness of its
prosecutions exceeded any like delu-
sion thai ever disgraced the civilized
world. / had read Upton's history
Of witchcraft. and filed with weird
fancies of that bygone age, l found it
hard to realize when | alighted from
the train and walked about the busy
street of this now thriving town, that
/ was on the scene OF those terrible
tragedies of that Summer time OF long
ago when Salem was a little village
with commonplace log houses, scat
tered far apart on wide grass grown
streets.
Through the town and out upon
the country road l took my way.
Every hill stood arrayed in garments
of russell and gold; across the valleys
the sunbeams chased the shadows;
bird music filed the air; there was q.
sigh of cOntentment in the rustic OF
the wind among the ripe leaves: all
nature seemed to unite in a song OF
thanksgiving that the spiritual night
mare OF 200 years ago had been swept
away, never to return.
Presently | came upon a tiny burial
place, a roadside spot, shaded by pine
and cedar, and set between two bill
Lowry fields. 1t is the final resting
place of Rebecca Nurse. the first vic
tim of the witchcraft delusion.
tIRebecca Nurse, accused OF practic-
ing the black art of witchcraft," wa
in the first instance acquitted by the
jury, but afterward the same jury, in
duced by the dis~approbation OF the
assembled multitude and the rebuke
of the judges. re~considered their YER
dict and condemned her. In the after
noon of the same day the poor old
woman was carried in chains to the
meeting house and there, in the pres
ence OF a vast crowd, the Rev. Mi.
Moves proclaimed her expulsion from
the church, pronounced the sentence
OF eternal death upon her, formally
delivered her over to Satan and CON
signed her to the flames OF he'll. Next
day, heavily loaded with chains, she
was dragged in a cart to Gallows Hill
and, upon her still refusing to confess
herself a witch and in league with
Satan, was executed and thrown in q
trench beneath the gibbet.
From the accused ditch she was
stolen in the night by her stalwart
sons and son-in-law, and though it
was never known exactly where the
sanity victim was laid, it has always
been vivid tradition in her family that
she rested somewhere in the little
burial ground among her kindred. In
the centre of this grave yard there is
a simple monument of white marble.
1t was erected by an association of
women called the ''Rebecca Nurse
Association" to commemorate the
heroic conduct and sublime courage of
the Christian martyr who refused to
save her life, as many did, by confess
ing herself a witch, and it is visited
yearly by thousands of people who
have been touched by her heroic for
titude.
On the monument is carved the in
scription:-
aRebecca Nurse, Yarmouth, England, 1921.
Salem, Mass, 1902.
40 Christian martyr who for the truth could
die,
When all around thee owned the hideous lie,
The world, removed from superstitious sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today"
Standing upon this hallowed spot.
surrounded by the peaceful hills on
which the September sunshine lay,
with The rush ana oar Oh traffic noI
far OIL, ana the OF living
in an age In wnlcn sucn irenzieu
superstition. as once TINS
tryslde, can never gam 1
realized more than ever that, despite
all cant to the contrary, our times are
the best times II worid mas aver
known.-OVeoeT JufgenSe3t Sn Ffestd0ee-
phsG Press. -
Are Americans Polite?
papl Lindau. the German writer.
-;L.4a. ~ pan,;n .a,ns,a,ar
contributes W q i Ae"op"po 90"
article on Impressions OF n people OF
the United States. CLEANED during the
oo,rse of his racent tom in this conn
trv His chief criticisms of the Amer
icsns seams to he that thew are de-
fn;anti in nol;raness-a criticism. nv the
,Say wnich will strike most A,neri-
cans no rarher cool coming from a
Remuneration the Germans. notwith-
STANDING their many excellent charac-
+aristios orc yaneraI,v To he
80 nation so,newhst lacking in sn'
Tarf;ciaI nolish of nanne The oh
nnvat;on IN which No basas his con-
oIns;on seem to have been made in the
hns;nass offices His ~snecific harge
arc rhat when a Stranger bearing a
lntfnr nf lnTATS an