In the Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton Page A

that Sunday, but the witches’ specters were not. Ann Carr Putnam later attested that she “had agrat deal of Respitt between my fitts” on March 20. And although the apparition of Rebecca Nurse made initial appearances to Betty Hubbard and Mary Walcott, both declared that Nurse’s specter did not hurt them. The witches, then, seemingly observed that Sabbath, awaiting Martha Corey’s examination the following day. 26
    Interpreting the Afflicted Girls’ Depositions
    The chronology in the preceding section (and that which will follow in the rest of this book) was developed in part by assuming the accuracy of dates specified in depositions offered by the afflicted girls weeks or months after the events in question. For example, Betty Hubbard swore on August 4 that the specter of Martha Corey had afflicted her on March 15. An obvious question arises: how could Betty have recalled the date with such specificity? The inquiry becomes even more pressing if one contemplates four separate depositions submitted by Abigail Williams on May 31. On the “14.20.21.&23 dayes” of March and the “12.13.& 14 dayes” of April, she attested, Martha Corey’s specter afflicted her. On the “15.16.19.20.21.23.31 dayes” of March, April 13, and the “4th & 29” of May, she was attacked by Rebecca Nurse’s specter. And on the “14.21.& 29” days of March and the “2.&.13” days of April, she was tortured by the apparition of Elizabeth Proctor, whereas “divers times” in April but especially on the “4.6.11.13 dayes” John Proctor was her tormentor. 27
    Since it is extraordinarily unlikely that a child like Abigail could remember such details and differentiate them so precisely, one possibility is that she was making it all up on the spot. Yet sometimes other evidence confirms the dates she and others gave; for instance, Deodat Lawson’s narrative indicates that Abigail complained of Goody Corey on March 20, just as her May deposition asserted. Moreover, the afflicted girls’ adult relatives often submitted depositions supporting their statements and the details of timing therein. 28
    Therefore another explanation is needed. I have concluded that exact dates in retrospective depositions (not all of which contain such information) reflect the existence of now-lost notes taken by adult observers of the afflicted, and that accordingly such dates can be trusted for the purposes of creating a chronology of the crisis. In earlier instances of affliction, adults, especially clergymen, took careful notes on the behavior of tormented young people. Such records formed the basis of Samuel Willard’s detailed account of Elizabeth Knapp and Cotton Mather’s narrative of the Goodwin children. Samuel Parris (and the senior Putnams, along with perhaps a few others) must have similarly recorded the details of the behavior of the young people in their households. Indeed, one page of Parris’s notes survives; covering April 4 through April 12, it is included in the evidence against John Proctor. For April 12 in particular, the notes give a minute-by-minute account of events as Abigail Williams, Mary Walcott, and John Indian had fits in which they accused the Proctors’ specters of afflicting them. 29
    Not all of the afflicted girls’ statements can be trusted in the matter of timing, however. For example, at the examination of Dorcas Hoar on May 2, Abigail Williams exclaimed that “this is the woman that she saw first before Tituba Indian or any else,” a declaration unsupported by other evidence (and, tellingly, never included in a sworn deposition). Likewise, on June 30 Ann Jr. swore that she had been afflicted since early March by the specter of Sarah Wilds. Again, that allegation is not reflected in documents created in March. Still other statements, especially those made by afflicted teenagers from households without supportive adults (for example, servants who accused their masters), lack specificity altogether: “severall times