1642-1718

Jonathan Corwin bought the house in 1675 when it was only an incomplete timber frame. The house had first been built for either Richard Davenport or his son Nathaniel. Richard Davenport had moved from Salem to Boston in 1643, so it is possible that the house was built by 1642. However, it is more likely that construction began in the early 1670s by Nathaniel Davenport, who changed his mind mid-way through and sold the property. The house was uninhabitable until 1675 when Jonathan Corwin hired a carpenter to complete it. Corwin moved into the house in 1679 with his wife, Elizabeth Sheafe Gibbs, whom he had married in 1676. Elizabeth was the widow of Robert Gibbs, a wealthy Boston merchant with whom she had four children. Two of the children, Robert and Henry, were still living when she moved to Salem, and they likely moved with her.


Seventeenth century door in the master bedroom.

Between 1678 and 1690, the Corwins had ten children: five sons and five daughters. Six of those children died in infancy and two more died as children. Only one daughter, Elizabeth, and one son, George, lived long enough to marry and have children. Elizabeth married a merchant named James Lindall in 1702 and they had two daughters. George went to Harvard and became a minister. He married the daughter of neighbor Deliverance Parkman and had three sons.

Jonathan Corwin was a busy man who held many powerful positions. His main occupation was running a store in Salem. He was also a local magistrate for Salem, which is how he became involved in the 1692 witch trials. Furthermore, beginning in the late 1680s, he served as a representative for Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature. He also served for a few years as a probate judge for Essex County. He joined the Governor's Council in the 1690s and in 1708 he joined the Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court in the colony. He retired from the court several years later and died in 1718. His wife died a few months later. All of his children had died before he did, so his infant grandchildren inherited his house.


The kitchen hearth.

1718-1856

James Lindall, Jonathan Corwin's son-in-law, took care of the house until Corwin's grandchildren were old enough to maintain it themselves. Lindall rented out the house to individuals from Salem for about twenty years. In 1740, Corwin's grandchildren reached maturity and the estate was divided up. The house was given to eldest grandson George, who was a merchant. George died only a few years later and his widow and two daughters continued to live in the house. In 1746, the front gables were removed and the roof was altered, creating more rooms at the back of the house. In 1764, one of George's daughters married a merchant named Richard Ward, who moved in with her. He built two stores onto the front of the house. No images or descriptions of the stores survive, so it is not known what they looked like. Ward rented out the western half of the house, likely to a businessman and his family. The stores were removed some time in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. After Richard Ward died, his children inherited the house. In 1856, they sold it to a pharmacist, George Farrington.


Wallpaper dating to c.1810.

1856-1944

Shortly after he bought the home, Farrington had a store built onto its southeastern side. He ran his apothecary shop there, while the lower floor of the western side was also used for local businesses, including a parasol repair shop in the 1870s. More businesses were run in another building that was attached to the northeastern side of the house in the late nineteenth century.

Farrington was the first known person to call the building "The Witch House". Although the lower floor of the Witch House was technically being used for business, Farrington tried to make the house a must-see attraction for visitors to Salem. He popularized the myth that the witch trials had been held in the parlor and he profited on it by offering tours of the "Witch Trial Room" and selling images of the house as souvenirs.


The Witch House in 1856.

1944-Present

By the 1940s, the lower southwestern room was used as an antiques store, the rest of the bottom floor was used for businesses,and the upper floors were apartments. The house, however, was slated for demolition because North Street was going to be widened. Concerned citizens met and organized Historic Salem Inc. They decided to restore the house to what they believed to be its seventeenth-century appearance and open it as a museum. Under the supervision of architect Gordon Robb, the pharmacy was removed, the lean-to was made smaller, and a completely new roof was built. The house was also moved 35 feet west so that North Street could be widened. In 1946, the house was given to the City of Salem and a year later it opened to the public as a museum.

Arrest warrant for Bridget Bishop.

For many, the name "Salem" evokes images of the gallows and townspeople on trial for witchcraft. Although the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 are now well known events in United States history, residents of Salem at that time were neither expecting, nor prepared to deal with the impending accusations of witchcraft.

The Massachusetts Bay colony was inadequately equipped largely due to a tradition of unstable relations with England. Difficulties started in 1685, when James II, King of England revoked the charter of the colony and appointed Governor Andros, whom the colonists deemed a tyrant, to oversee his interests in the New World.

Among other things, the new governor considered giving Anglicans and other Protestants the right to vote. Puritans saw this as a threat to their very existence. When James II was dethroned and William and Mary came to power in 1688, Andros was deposed in a bloodless coup. While this seemed a success for the colony, in reality, it left colonists without a legal form of government. There was no court in the colony that had the authority to try accused witches.

Therefore, when accusations of witchcraft began in 1692, inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay colony called upon local magistrates to officiate. According to seventeenth century law, prosecution for any crime began with a formal complaint filed with a local magistrate. Similar to today's district court judges, magistrates sat as judges in local court cases that did not require Superior Court attention.

In preliminary hearings of the witchcraft trials, judges would interrogate the accused witch and take depositions from the accusers and other witnesses. At this stage, Corwin worked closely with John Hathorne, another magistrate in Salem. These hearings were conducted to ascertain if there was enough evidence to warrant a trial.To establish a charge of witchcraft, there had to be some testimony of supernatural events and evil deeds demonstrating the existence of a covenant between the accused witch and the Devil. In addition to the testimony of the complainant, the magistrates ordered physical examinations of the bodies of the accused. In the seventeenth century, it was a common belief that witches kept spirit creatures, or "familiars." These spirits were thought to draw nourishment from the witch much the way an infant does from its mother. Often an accused witch underwent a humiliating body search for the "witch's mark" or teat. If sufficient evidence was gathered to support a presumption of guilt, a grand jury would be summoned to issue an indictment. The accused would be brought to trial on the basis of the indictment.

By May 14th of 1692, the jails in Salem and Boston were filled with accused witches who were awaiting trial. Therefore, English officials appointed an interim body, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, to "hear and determine" these witchcraft cases.

For each trial, there were as many as nine judges, with a quorum of five. Witnesses were commonly present in the courtroom, sometimes exhibiting the possession that the accused had allegedly inflicted upon them.

A jury would determine whether the accused was guilty or not guilty. The judges would decide whether or not to accept the jury's decision. If the accused was found guilty, the punishment would be execution by hanging. Nineteen people were executed for witchcraft in Salem in the summer and fall of 1692. Jonathan Corwin did not initially serve on the Court of Oyer and Terminer; he replaced Judge Saltonstall who had resigned in June. He then served on the court until Governor William Phips dissolved it in October 1692. It is difficult to be certain about Corwin's opinion regarding the witch trials because his surviving personal papers are mainly financial records. Moreover, Documents of the hearings often do not identify the questioner, so it is impossible to know whether Hathorne or Corwin played the main role.

After the witchcraft trials, Jonathan went on to a long and distinguished career as a legislator and judge and lived in this house until his death at age 77 in 1718.

Recommended Reading on the Witchcraft Trials

Books for Middle School Readers

Jackson, Shirley. The Witchcraft of Salem Village, New York: Random House, 1956.
Krensky, Stephen. Witch Hunt: It Happened in Salem Village, New York: Random House, 1989.
Petry, Ann. Tituba of Salem Village, New York: Harper Trophy, 1964.
Speare, Elizabeth George. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1958.
Yoder, Carolyn P., ed. "Witchcraft", Cobblestone, vol. 7, no. 10, October 1986.

Books for High School / Adult Readers

Brown, David C. "The Case of Giles Corey", Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 121, no. 4, October 1985, pp. 282 - 300.
Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.
The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, New York: De Capo Press, 1977.
Demos, John. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony, London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of New England, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Godbeer, Richard. The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in 17th-century Massachusetts, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Hall, David D. Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Beliefs in Early New England, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.
Witch Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638 - 1692, Boston: Northeastern University Press,1991.
Hambrick-Stowe, Charles. The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem, New York: G. Brazillen, 1969.
Karlsen, Carol. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England, New York: W.W. Norton, 1987.
La Moy, William T., ed. "Perspectives on Witchcraft: Rethinking the Seventeenth- Century New England Experience", Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 128, no. 4, October 1992.
"Perspectives on Witchcraft: Rethinking the Seventeenth Century New England Experience", Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 129. no. 1, January 1993.
Roach, Marilynne K. "That Child Betty Parris": Elizabeth (Parris) Barron and the People in Her Life", Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 124, no. 1, January 1988, pp. 1 - 27.
Weisman, Richard. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Thanks to the Peabody Essex Museum Education Department for supplying some of the above information.