Marilynne K. Roach

Fiction has portrayed witch-suspects jailed in buildings ranging from castle-like prisons of dressed stone to flimsy chicken coops, but what was the reality for over 160 people accused of witchcraft and crowded into four jails in three counties during 1692? While conditions were obviously primitive in that era (jails weren’t called “suburbs of Hell” for nothing), what were the actual buildings like? In addition to scant references in court documents and other contemporary records, two early jails still exist that give clues to the reality experienced by the alleged “witches.”

[Recorded on August 12, 2023]