Bathsheba FOLGER

Abt 1652 - Abt 1726  (74 years)

• Name	Bathsheba FOLGER
  Nickname	Bethsheba, Bathsua
  Birth	Abt 1652	Martha's Vineyard, West Tisbury, Dukes, Massachusetts Bay
  Gender	Female
  Reference Number	3026594
  Reference Number	3069209
  Reference Number	60
  WWW	https://www.WikiTree.com/wiki/Folger-62
  Death	Abt 1726	Salem, Essex, Massachusetts
  Person ID	I433	Gummer
  Last Modified	1 Aug 2024

  
  

  Father	Peter FOLGER,   b. Abt Apr 1617, Norwich, Norfolk, England d. 1690, Nantucket, Nantucket, Massachusetts Bay Colony (Age 72 years)
  Mother	Mary MORRILL,   b. Abt 1619, England d. 1704, Nantucket, Nantucket, Massachusetts Bay Colony (Age 85 years)
  Marriage	1644	Nantucket, Nantucket, Massachusetts
  Family ID	F97	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Joseph POPE, Jr.,   b. Bef 27 Oct 1650   d. 3 Mar 1712 (Age > 61 years)
  Family ID	F363	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	1 Aug 2024

  
  

• Photos

  Folger-169 and Folger-62 appear to represent the same person because: Same person, please merge. thank you

  
  

• Notes

  [[Category: Salem, Massachusetts]] [[Category: Salem_Witch_Trials]] [[Category:Witchcraft Accusers of New England]] == Biography == {{Witch Trials Sticker|type=accuser|the Salem Witch Trials}} Bathshua was born about 1653. She is the daughter of [[Folger-52|Peter Folger]] and [[Morrell-53|Mary Morrell]]. She passed away about 1726. In her husband's 1712 will, he notes that his eldest daughter "was infirm of mind. as probably had been her mother-- at least she was much afflicted in the witchcraft days..." Bathshua (aka Bathsheba) was mentioned in many of the witchcraft trials. "History of Witchcraft Haunts Old Saw Mill"Peabody-Lynnfield Weekly News, October 26, 1995, p. 1 by S.M. SmollerPEABODY - Was it witchcraft that stopped the steady rhythm of the waterwheel at Pope's saw mill on Norris Brook in West Peabody? That's what the miller told the court during the witch hunt of 1692, when the area around Crystal Lake was owned by two families intimately involved in the witch hysteria - one, an accuser, and the other, the accused. "The miller here in 1692 was afflicted by the prevailing witchcraft," wrote John Wells in The Peabody Story. The miller testified that his mill wheel was "unaccountably stopped and would not go, and no reason could be assigned except the demonical malice and power of some witch." The haunted mill may have been owned by the family of one of the persons who claimed to have been afflicted by witchcraft, 42-year old Bathshua Pope. She married Joseph Pope, Jr. in 1649 and was living with her widowed mother-in-law, Gertrude Pope, within the immediate vicinity of the farm of victims and martyrs, Martha and Giles Corey. Bathshua Pope, a member of the Folger family from Nantucket, was the aunt of American patriot Benjamin Franklin. She and Joseph had eight children. According to the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, when Joseph died in 1712, he named all his children in his will, except for the first two, "and notes that the eldest daughter was infirm of mind, as probably had been her mother; at least, she was much afflicted in the witchcraft days." The localized witchcraft outbreak took on hysterical proportions by the fall of 1692, with more than 150 people examined and sent to prison. Nearly 50 people falsely confessed to being witches who had made a covenant with the devil to assist in assaulting people in the area. Nineteen persons who maintained their innocence, including the three accused by Bathshua Pope, were tried, found guilty and hanged. "Mrs. Pope" accused Martha Corey, as well as Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor, of inflicting pain upon her body through witchcraft. At the trial of Martha Corey in March 1693, she joined with other afflicted women in calling Martha "a gospel witch". Marion Starkey, author of The Devil in Massachusetts, wrote, "Even while Martha proclaimed her innocence her devils had not been able to resist devising new tortures for the girls. What Martha did, now they all did. If she bit her lips, they yelled that she had bitten theirs, and came running up to the magistrates to show how they bled." The following month Rebecca Nurse was arrested and tried. During the examination, several afflicted persons reported seeing "a black man" whispering in Nurse's ear. The judge stated, "What a sad thing it is that a church member here and now…should be thus accused and charged." At which point, "Mrs. Pope fell into a grievous fit and cryed out a sad thing sure enough; And then many more fell into lamentable fits." Also in April, Elizabeth Proctor, the pregnant wife of John was accused. At her trial, John Proctor's specter attacking Mrs. Pope. Chadwick Hansen in Witchcraft in Salem reported that "immediately Goodwife Pope fell into a fit." Earlier in this century, two postcards depicting the "haunted mill" were published. A color postcard prepared by D.F. Bresnahan of Peabody shows two wood-frame structures, 2 1/2 stories each, located on either side of a 10- to 12-foot-wide stream with a catwalk bridge connecting the two buildings. One card also includes the following statement, "Site of Giles Coveys [sic] Mill who was pressed to death for refusing to plead in his trial for Witchcraft in1692." Today at Crystal Lake, a conservation area, there are two stones which were placed in remembrance of Martha and Giles Corey during the witchcraft hysteria tercentenary in 1992. City planner Judy Otto researched the history of Crystal Lake. She does not think the Pope sawmill was the haunted mill. She wrote, "At the head of Crystal Lake, at Goodale Street, on the west side, lived Captain Thomas Flint. The house was contained on the farm of Giles Corey, according to boundaries shown on the map. Giles himself lived further away on the other side of the property, on what is now Johnson Street, near Oak Grove cemetery. These two (Flint and Pope) were the only dwellings shown in the vicinity of Crystal Lake. Flint's mill was built after the Pope mill by Thomas Flint on the opposite side of Lowell Street and closer to the pond. This mill, which existed until the 20th century, is the mill Otto believes is the haunted mill pictured in the black-and-white post card that was printed by the Peabody Historical Society in 1905. It is titled "Haunted Mill near Phelps Station, Lowell Street, West Peabody, Mass." Interestingly, Joseph Pope Jr.'s sister Gertrude married Eben Flint, a son of Thomas Flint." Sara Stevens Patton note: Jerusha, another daughter of Joseph Pope, married George Flint, a nephew of the above mentioned Thomas Flint. Another story added to Ancestry by jppbmp."Living in the western precincts of Salem Village, Joseph and Bathsheba Pope were situated in the epicenter of the witchcraft outbreak of 1692. While theories abound concerning the motivations of the accusers, scholars have noted that the hysteria surrounding the trials was in part due to underlying tensions between Salem Town, the center of commerce, and the outlying community in Salem Village and the Pope's rural address may partly explain their limited but decidedly persecutorial roles in the witchcraft trials. [Sara Patton note: Many of the Pope's rural neighbors defended those who were accused as "witches." "During the trials of John Procter (popularized as the leading role in Arthur Miller's The Crucible), Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, the Popes are recorded as "accusers." Supporting suspicions of Procter's affinity with the Devil, Joseph testified that he "heard John Proctor Say that if mr Parish would let him have his Indian hee the s'd Procter would soone Drive the Divell out of him and farther Saith not" (Boyer and Nissenbaum, p. 683). "Although she never formally testified, Bathsheba Pope claimed to be afflicted by the defendants and was a key witness to their alleged demonic powers. During the proceedings of Procter, her feet inexplicably lifted--an act that was immediately interpreted as evidence of Procter's unnatural powers (Rosenthal, p. 41). In a more theatrical display, Bathsheba cried out during the trial of Martha Corey and, believing to be under Corey's spell, attacked Corey. First she threw her muff, but after it missed its target, she removed her shoe and successfully struck Corey in the head. The transcript of Rebecca Nurse's trial also mentions Bathsheba's suffering of "afflictions" and upon the examiner's noting that it was a "sad thing" for Nurse to be charged, Bathsheba "fell into a grievious fit, & cryed out a sad thing sure enough" (Trask, pp. 38, 57)." Following added by Sara Stevens Patton:"Joseph Pope, baptized 1650, 27.(day) 8 (month-Oct ie Oct 27, 1650), a farmer, lived at "The Village;" (Salem Village aka Danvers) m. Bethseda Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, of Nantucket, one of the first settlers on that island, and in consequence of his valuable services at that period, his name was always held in high esteem. Abiah, the sister of Bethseda, mar. Josiah Franklin, and was the mother of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, a name that stands high in the annals of science." See an account of the Folger family in NE History and Genealogical Register, V 16:269. :Joseph Pope died in 1712, having had the following children: :Nathaniel b. Nov 20, 1679. :Joseph, b. ; d. young. :Bethseda, b. Ap. 9, 1683; d. unm(arried). :Gertrude, b. Aug. 27, 1685; m. Ebenezer, third son of Thomas Flint, a farmer, lived in North Reading, born April 6, 1683, and died 1767; had six children, Nathaniel, Ebenezer, Lois, Nathan, Amos, Eunice. See "Flint Genealogy" p. 13); :Joseph, b. June 16, 1687 :Enos, b. June 6, 1690 :Eleazer b Dec 4, 1693 :Jerusha, b. April 1, 1695; m. July 9, 1713, George Flint, son of George and Elizabeth (Putnam) Flint, b. April 1, 1686; she died June 29, 1781; had seven children, namely, Susanna, Jerusha, Elizabeth, Abigail, George, Eliezer, Hannah. See Flint Genealogy p. 15. [Following from James Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England] (I filled in abbreviations)Joseph, Salem, son of the preceding, lived at the village which was made Danvers, (became) a freeman 1690, m. Bathshua Folger, had :Nathaniel, b. 20 Nov. 1679; :Joseph, who died young; :Bathshua, 9 Apr. 1683; :Gertrude, 27 Aug. 1685; :Joseph, again, 16 June 1687; :Enos, 6 June 1690; :Eleazer, 4 Dec. 1693; and :Jerusha, 1 Apr. 1695; Joseph, (their father) died 1712. His will of 25 Jan. proved 3 Mar. of that year (1712) names all the children but the first two, and notes that the eldest daughter was infirm of mind. as probably had been her mother-- at least she was much afflicted in the witchcraft days; also names Mary, and Sarah, children of his son Nathaniel, deceased before 1711.James Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England '''Massachusetts Remediation''' # 17 October 1710, ''Convictions Reversed'', The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, An act, ''the several convictions, judgments, and attainders be, and hereby are, reversed, and declared to be null and void.'' “Salem Witchcraft : with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects : Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875, Author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/salemwitchcraftw02upha_0/page/480/mode/1up?q=Foster. # 17 Dec 1711, ''Compensation to Survivors'', Governor Dudley, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, approved compensation ''to such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead''# 28 Aug 1957, ''No Disgrace to Descendants'', General Court of Massachusetts, ''...such proceedings, were and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community, and further declares that, as all the laws under which said proceedings...have been long since abandoned and superseded by our more civilized laws, no disgrace or cause for distress attaches to the said descendants or any of them by reason of said proceedings.''https://www.mass.gov/doc/resolves-of-1957-chapter-145/download# 31 Oct 2001, ''Additional Victims Included'', Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives in General Court, AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE WITCHCRAFT TRIAL OF 1692, ''chapter 145 is hereby further amended by adding Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd.''https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2001/Chapter122 == Sources == * https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/141746214/bethsua-pope* Wheatland, Henry. "Notice of Some of the Descendants of Joseph Pope, of Salem, ''[[Space:Essex Institute Historical Collections|Essex Institute Historical Collections]]'', Vol. 8 (Salem, Massachusetts, 1868) [https://archive.org/stream/essexinstitutehiv8esse#page/104 Page 104]* Savage, James. ''[[Space:A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England|A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England]]'' (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1862)