Family:Edward Bishop and Sarah Wilde (1)

Edward and Sarah Bishop and the Witchcraft Delusion

"In 1651 they were living in Topsfield when Bishop was assessed for the minister's rate, but before May 25, 1690, when Sarah was received into the Salem Village church from Topsfield, they had moved to that ill-fated community. In 1692 Edward Bishop witnessed a witchcraft examination at Salem, after which at the inn, and again as they were riding home to the village, an "afflicted" Indian was very unruly and fell into a fit. Bishop "so managed him that he was very orderly," and in the second instance, when Bishop struck him with his stick, "the Indian soon recovered and promised that he would do so no more; to which Bishop replied that he doubted not but that he could cure them all." Immediately thereafter he and his wife were accused, examined, and thrown into the Salem jail. One of their fellow prisoners was Mary Warren, originally one of the "afflicted" girls, but now herself a suspected witch. On May 13 the Bishops were taken to Boston and from the jail where they and Mary Easty sent a deposition to Salem saying that Mary Warren had told them that "her Head was distempered and shee could not tell what shee said and the said Mary Tould us that when shee was well againe she coud not say that shee saw any of the Apparissions." Before Oct. 7 the Bishops escaped from the Boston jail and on that day the Essex sheriff, George Corwin, came to their Salem Village home and seized their property, but their son Samuel was able to borrow £10 with which he redeemed it [More Wonders of the Invisible World, Robert Calef, edited by Samuel Fowler, 1861]. The Bishops made their way to Rehoboth where all of their children eventually joined them except the eldest son, Edward, who also shook Salem Village dust from his feet and moved first to Ipswich and then to Newbury."^[1]

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Wildes, of Topsfield, in Davis, Walter Goodwin, Compiler, and Introduction by Gary Boyd Roberts. Massachusetts and Maine Families in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis (1885-1966): A Reprinting, in Alphabetical Order by Surname, of the Sixteen Multi-Ancestor Compendia (plus Thomas Haley of Winter Harbor and His Descendants). (Baltimore, Maryland, United States: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1996)
   III:626-7.
2. ↑ Torrey, Clarence Almon. New England Marriages Prior to 1700. (1963)
   1:148.

   BISHOP, Edward2 (1648, 1646?-1711) & Sarah [WILDES] (called Mary in Church. Rec.); ca 1670?; Salem/Beverly/Rehoboth {Salem 2:181; Attleboro Fam. (ms) 85; Beverly Ch. Rec.; Jones (,4) 6; Topsfield Hist. Soc. 11:34; Tingley-Meyers 87; Averill 103, 114; Esse