A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Trials
by Martin Van Buren Perley
1911

Greater Salem, the province of Governors Conant andE ndicott, is visited by thousands of sojourners yearly. They come to study the Quakers and the witches, to picture the manses of the latter and the stately mansions of Salem scommercial kings, and breathe the salubrious air of old gray ocean. The witchcraft delusion is generally the first topic of inquiry, and the earnest desire of those people with notebook in hand to aid the memory in chronicling answers, suggested this monograph and urged its publication. There is another cogent reason: the popular knowledge is circumscribed and even that needs correcting. This short history meets that earnest desire; it gives the origin, growth, and death of the hideous monster; it gives dates, courts, and names of places, jurors, witnesses, and those hanged; it names and explains certain men and things that are concomitant to the trials, with which the reader may not be conversant and which are necessary to the proper setting of the trials in ones mind; it compasses the salient features of witchcraft history, so that the story of the 1692 delusion may be garnered and entertainingly rehearsed. The trials were all spread upon the records, word for word. Rev.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)