Bathsheba Pope

Bathseba Folger Pope (c1657 - 1697), daughter of Peter Folger and Mary Morrill, was an adamant accuser of witches in the hysteria that started in Salem. She ranted and raved at those accused in many of the court proceedings. During Martha Corey's trial she threw her shoe and struck Corey in the head. Born about 1657 at Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Bathseba married Joseph Pope (1650 - 1712) in 1679 at Salem Village [present Danvers], Essex County, Massachusetts. She died after 1726 at Salem.

Children of Joseph and Bathseba Pope

1. Nathaniel Pope (born 20 November 1679 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts)
2. Bathseba Pope (born 9 April 1683 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts)
3. Gertrude Pope (27 August 1685 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts - 1767)
4. Joseph Pope (16 June 1688 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts - before 13 October 1755 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts)
5. Enos Pope (6 June 1690 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts - 24 February 1765 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts)
6. Eleazer Pope (born 4 December 1693 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts)
7. Jerusha Pope (1 April 1695 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts - 29 June 1781

Notes

Her name has several variations including Bathsheba, Bathshua, Bethsua and Bethshua. "The Flint Genealogical Register of 1860" and "Early Settlers of Nantucket of 1901" list her as Bethsua.

Treasure Chest

A small chest bearing the initials of Joseph Pope (1650–1712) and Bathseba Folger (1652–1726) had been handed down in the Pope family for 300 years. In January 2000, the Pope chest was sold for a record-breaking $2.4 million.

Notable Relatives

Aunt of Benjamin Franklin

Sources

• Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records to the End of the year 1849. (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1916-1925), 207.
• Nutfield Genealogy
• Martha H. Willoughby, "Patronage in Early Salem: The Symonds Shops and Their Customers"

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Bathshua was an aunt of Benjamin Franklin. She was 'much afflicted' in the witchcraft days.

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"Joseph, in his will, calls wife and daughter 'Bethshua.'" [1] "[On March 21, 1692] the fourth person to be arrested [for witchcraft], Martha Cory of Salem Village, was examined by Hathorne and Corwin before a throng of several hundred in the Village meetinghouse. As she was led into the room, the afflicted girls, sitting together at the front, cried out in 'extreme agony'; when she wrong her hands, they screamed that they were being pinched; when she bit her lips, they declared that they could feel teeth biting into their own flesh. In the general hubbub, a Village woman named Bethshaa [sic] Pope flung first her muff and then her shoe at Martha, striking her in the head."... from http://www.quakers-n-othersr.us

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Bethsua's name is shown in several variations including Bathsheba and Bathshua, howver the Flint Genealogical Register of 1860 and Early Settlers of Nantucket of 1901 show her name as Bethsua. ______________________________________________________________________

History of Witchcraft Haunts Old Saw Mill

Peabody-Lynnfield Weekly News, October 26, 1995, p. 1

by S.M. Smoller

PEABODY - 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 millter 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 (1679) 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 in1712, he named all his children in his will, except for the first two, "and notes that the eldest daughter was infrimof 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 2693, 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 depciting 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 in1992.

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.

Peabody School History Project by A. Farrell and H. Mah http://www.peabody.k12.ma.us/pshp/burktext.htm

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• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Mar 1 2018, 1:47:35 UTC

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GEDCOM Note

Salem Category: Salem, Massachusetts Category: Salem_Witch_Trials

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Biography

From https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Folger-62

Bathshua was born about 1653. She is the daughter of PeterFolger and 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 muchafflicted in the witchcraft days..." Bathshua (aka Bathsheba) was mentioned in many of the witchcraft trials.

"History of Witchcraft Haunts Old Saw Mill"<ref>Peabody-Lynnfield Weekly News, October 26, 1995, p. 1 by S.M.Smoller</ref>PEABODY - Was it witchcraft that stopped the steady rhythm of the waterwheel at Pope's saw mill on Norris Brook in West Peabody? That's whatthe miller told the court during the witch hunt of 1692, when the area around Crystal Lake was owned by two families intimately involved inthe 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 herwidowed 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 alldid. If she bit her lips, they yelled that she had bitten theirs, andcame 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 Popefell 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 trialfor 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 hauntedmill 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 inArthur 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 Saythat 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" <ref>(Boyer and Nissenbaum, p. 683).</ref> "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 <ref>(Rosenthal, p. 41)</ref>. In a more theatricaldisplay, Bathsheba cried out during the trial of Martha Corey and, believing to be under Corey's spell, attacked Corey. First she threw hermuff, 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" <ref>(Trask, pp. 38, 57)." </ref>

Following added by Sara Stevens Patton:"Joseph Pope, baptized 1650, 27.(day) 8 (month-Oct ie Oct 27, 1650), afarmer, 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 anaccount of the Folger family in <ref>NE History and Genealogical Register, V 16:269.</ref>

: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, afarmer, 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. <ref>See Flint Genealogy p. 15.</ref> [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 notesthat the eldest daughter was infirm of mind. as probably had been hermother-- at least she was much afflicted in the witchcraft days; alsonames Mary, and Sarah, children of his son Nathaniel, deceased before1711.<ref>James Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlersof New England</ref>

Sources

<references />* Wheatland, Henry. "Notice of Some of theDescendants of Joseph Pope, of Salem, Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vol. 8 (Salem, Massachusetts, 1868) Page 104* Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionaryof the First Settlers of New England (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1862)