Peone on “Invisible Agents,” 25 Oct.

On Wednesday, 25 October, the Congregational Library and Archives in Boston will host an online presentation by Dr. Tricia Peone on “Invisible Agents: Witchcraft in Congregational Church Records.”

The event description:

Today, people typically think of the Salem witch trials and little else when the history of witchcraft is mentioned. In fact, the belief in magic, witchcraft, ghosts, and other invisible agents of Satan continued to affect congregations beyond Salem well into the eighteenth century.

Join Dr. Tricia Peone, Project Director for New England’s Hidden Histories at the C.L.A., as she explores two lesser-known cases of witchcraft that took place in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the decades after Salem. Drawing from examples in Congregational church records, she will discuss how people determined whether or not witchcraft was the cause of their problems and how they dealt with this continuing threat to their communities.

This is interesting in that the Salem Witch Trials quickly became an embarrassment for New England culture. The government authorities started to release and pardon the accused (those who were left). By the Revolutionary period, people on both sides of the political divide used that episode as an example of public hysteria. Indeed, I suspect that the Salem trials would be as obscure as every other early modern witch hunt if it weren’t for the quick backlash.

This presentation might cover a case in Littleton that the Rev. Ebenezer Turell wrote about skeptically in 1728. Turell left a mark on Boston 1775 earlier this season as I analyzed his grad-school notebooks.

This online event is scheduled to start at 1:00 P.M. Register for the link here.