52 Ancestors Week 7: Outcast

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 7 is "Outcast." Sadly, it isn't uncommon to find someone who was set apart from their family or who was rejected by society. This week, you could give them back at least part of their story. You could also take a different angle and write about an object that was cast out, or maybe getting a cast off. Feel free to be creative!

That fancy font couldn't save him.....

    When it comes to outcasts in the family tree, I honestly can't think of anyone in my first thirty ancestors who would be considered an "outcast".  Collateral relatives? Yeah. Definitely. I also don't want to say my family tree is boring because NO ONE'S FAMILY TREE IS BORING! Seriously. If your family tree is boring, let me know because I will find something exciting in there. It might not be as awesome as potentially being a rum runner in the 1920s or some other amazing story. But, it's there somewhere. You just need to look hard enough for those juicy stories. It's like the 11th Doctor said in the 2010 "Doctor Who" Christmas special, "Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. You know that in nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody who wasn't important.". Everyone has a story. Everyone has a past worth writing about.

    Unfortunately for me we're going to have to go back a way to find an outcast or two. How far back? Oh....How does three hundred and thirty-one years sound? That's right. If you do the math, we're going back to a time where rampant paranoia spread like wildfire in a small New England town called Salem, Massachusetts. People of all walks of life were accused of witchcraft and many were hung for their supposed crimes. Ironically, the gallows is now behind a 7-11 these days. Check Google Earth. It's true!

Spending most our lives livin' in a
Puritan paradise.

        I happen to descend from many who lived in Salem and who accused their neighbors of being witches. I have a prominent judge, a doctor , an aristocrat and others who stoked the fires of paranoia and did little to alleviate the growing fear that persisted in ye olde Salem. 

    Sadly, the paranoia wasn't confined to just that town as people other towns and cities in the Merrimack valley were accused of being witches. Salem is the one town everyone talks about because it got the most press at the time and when people think of the Salem Witch Trials, they immediately thought of that town

      My tenth great-grandfather, a Chelsea man named Captain John Floyd, was one of the accused and was probably at the wrong place at the wrong time. His story is rather typical for New Englanders at this time. He was born around 1637 and was part of Governor Andros's expedition against the Indigenous people to the east. By 1689, he was made captain and was in command of a military post on the Saco river in what is now the state of Maine. Floyd even saw action during King Philip's War.

    You would think that being a decorated soldier would automatically recuse from any accusation, right? Well, it turned out that under his command of the Saco outpost, many men lost their lives and several girls living in Salem were effectively orphaned by his actions as commanding officer. Later, they would see Floyd routinely talking to and trading with the nearby Indigenous peoples of Massachusetts Bay. To them, it was scandalous and an affront to the sacrifice their parents died for. Yeah. Let's be real. They were looking for revenge. Who are we kidding? There's no way to sugarcoat this!

    We may never know the real reason why they accused Floyd in the first place. It should be noted that he was one of the few men actually accused of witchcraft. Wouldn't that be "wizard"? In every mystical lore I know of a man who practices magic is called a wizard or a warlock. Whatever. They weren't playing Dungeons and Dragons.

      In any case, if you were accused of witchcraft (or wizardry), you were basically the subject of scorn and ridicule. At the time of his accusation, he was married to Sarah Doolittle and they had eleven children together. Chances are good that while he was accused, his family was also the subject of gossip. Was his wife a witch? What about their children? The accusers honestly could have pointed a finger at one of them and they'd have been sent to the gallows. Paranoia was that bad back then!

    Thankfully, most of his children lived well past the days of the witch trials. But, what about John? Why was he targeted? Well, like I said the townspeople didn't like him talking to people who didn't look like them. So, they assumed he was up to no good.

    On May 28th, 1692 a complaint was filed against him and ten other people while John was in his mid fifties. The evidence would not hold water today. Apparently, Floyd touched a cloth on a table and when another woman grabbed the same cloth, she fell into fits. Today, we would probably call that a seizure. The woman then assumed he caused her fits. I can actually hear the eyes rolling through the Internet. You're thinking the same thing, right? Where's that "Sure, Jan." gif when I need it?

Benjamin Abbott house, Andover Mass

    The judge ended up putting him and several of the accused away to await execution. A few days later, fate lent Floyd a hand when the governor of Massachusetts Bay, Sir William Phipps, returned to Boston after having been in England during the whole crisis. Oh, to have a record of his reaction to the hysteria....

    While Phipps believed in witchcraft and all that, he decided to put an end to the executions since his own wife was accused at one point. I guess when the news hits home, your views tend to change. It's a good thing, too, because he ended up freeing Floyd and 167 other people who were in Salem's "Witch Dungeon" waiting for death at the gallows. How much you want to bet he returned to Boston and sent a letter back to England saying "You won't believe what happened while I was gone...."

    The Salem witch trials were a disturbing time in our planet's history as it wasn't the first time we humans let rampant paranoia control our lives. If someone is told the same thing again and again about someone somebody doesn't like, then would tend to believe it and not listen to the facts. Sadly, this happens far too often in the present. 

    As for Floyd? Well, he passed away in 1702 at the age of 65 and was buried in his home town of Lynn. Chances are good he never set foot in Salem again after that fiasco. Nice place and all but I'm sure he didn't want to die there. Even though the trial ended, you can imagine the stigma of being put on trial for witchcraft stayed with the Floyds for the rest of his days. 

    His story was one of many since accused people were often treated with ridicule. Today, those charges would not hold any water. Seriously, how lame was the handkerchief  accusation? Lady, get thyself some help. Unfortunately, that's how it was back then since paranoia was so widespread. If you were accused, you were condemned and put to death no matter how innocent you may have acted. Floyd was lucky. He got out. Others weren't so lucky and their lives are etched in the memory of Salem today.

See ya next time!

Images of Google Earth are property of Google Earth.