Elizabeth Howe's Turtles X-ing Traditional Cache
Elizabeth Howe's Turtles X-ing
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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Located in Elizabeth Howe Conservation Area.
The Witchcraft hysteria that started in the Danvers section of Salem spread throughout the area. Some of the accused were imprisoned in the Ipswich jail. Topsfield resident Elizabeth Howe was tried and hung as a witch during the infamous Salem Witch Trials.
Elizabeth Jackson Howe was born in or about 1635 in Yorkshire. She was born to William and Deborah Jackson. Elizabeth married James Howe in April 1658; the couple had six children, and resided in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Topsfield was a Puritan community. They were a deeply pious society, with an extreme religious focus not only as a community but also on an individual basis. They believed firmly in the devil, and felt that he was not only an enemy to mankind, but to the Puritans specifically. “The devil, as envisioned by the people of Salem, was a short, black man with cloven feet who stood about as high as a walking stick”. The fight against the devil was viewed as an individual religious responsibility. The Perely family of Ipswich, Massachusetts, was among the chief accusers of Elizabeth Howe. They had a ten year old daughter they claimed was being afflicted by Howe. The child complained of being pricked by pins and sometimes fell into fits. In their testimony against Howe, on June 1, 1692, the Perely's quoted their daughter as saying, “I could never afflict a dog as Good Howe afflicts me.” At first the parents did not believe their daughter’s accusations. They took the child to several doctors who told them she was “under an evil hand”. Her condition continued for two or three years, until “she pined away to skin and bones and ended her sorrowful life”. On May 28, 1692 a warrant was released for the arrest of Elizabeth Howe by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. She was to be apprehended and taken to the home of Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersolls. She stood charged with “Sundry Acts of Witch-craft committed on the bodies of Mary Walcott, Abigail Williams, and others of Salem Village.” Conditions while awaiting trial were harsh for those accused of witchcraft. The supposed witches were, “bound with cords and irons for months, subjected to insulting, unending examinations and excommunication from the church”. In Marion L. Starkey’s The Devil in Massachusetts it says, “. . . they were periodically subjected by prison officials, especially by the juries assigned to search them for witch marks”. Yet while Elizabeth Howe was imprisoned in these difficult conditions she was able to rely on the support of her family. Her daughters, and occasionally her blind husband, would take turns in making regular trips to Boston. Marion Starkey said they would bring her “country butter, clean linen, and comfort”. Elizabeth Howe, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes and Susanna Martin were hanged on July 19, 1692, and buried in a crevice on Gallows Hill in Salem, MA.
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crre va