Bridget Bishop. 

Bridget Bishop was a midwife, and the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. 

200 people were actually tried. 19 were hanged and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death under heavy stones. 

But what has Bridget Bishop got to do with Norfolk? Bridget was actually born in Norwich in 1632. 

In 1660, she married Captain Samuel Welby - hopefully pronounced that correctly - at St. Mary in the Marsh in Norwich and travelled to Boston in 1664. But Bridget was the only one to arrive as her husband died, like so many others, during the voyage. 

During 1666, Bridget moved to Salem. I can't actually believe that has 666 in it. She should have seen the signs... where she would spend the rest of her life. What remained of it. 

Bishop's trial began on the 2nd of June 1692, and lasted eight days, officially starting the Salem Witchcraft trials. 


She was accused of witchcraft by more individuals than any other defendant, mainly for being known around town for her dubious moral character, and you can't see me, but I'm doing most little like quotes for that. Frequenting taverns, dressing flamboyantly by Puritan standards and being married three times. There were a variety of witchcraft accusations, gossip that she was responsible for the deaths of her first two husbands. 
She had previously been accused of witchcraft in 1680 when accusers said she had pinched a man, that she had stolen eggs and that she had frightened horses. Ten neighbours testified against her with accusations of her pressuring afflicted girls to sign the devil's book. Men who had worked on her house told of discovering poppets stuck with pins in her cellar wall, an example of countermagic. Her spectre was said to have visited several men at night. Samuel Shattuck, a dyer in Salem Town, thought she was making poppets because of the small pieces of lace she’d brought to him to dye. Shattuck and his wife also accused Bishop of bewitching their son and causing his declining health. Others claimed that small items went missing when Bishop was around. A spoon, money, a mill brass. After arguments with Bishop, trouble and disaster always seemed to follow. 
John Louder, who worked at the Sh tavern, told of an argument after Bishop's chickens got into the tavern's gard. He claimed to have seen a black pig and black imps in her yard, and even Bishop flying over her orchards afterwards. Further, when intimately examined on her trial a witch's mark was reportedly found on her body, and finally, Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister, reported that on her way to trial, Bishop simply glanced at the Salem meeting house, causing a board to tear from the wall inside and land some distance away. 

Wow, this is quite a sheet of accusations there. 

Unlike some accused individuals who confessed to witchcraft, Bridget Bishop consistently, unsurprisingly, denied the charges against her. 

Now, her name and reputation were officially cleared by the state of Massachusetts in 2001.