General Notes

REFN: 1264AN
REFN: P1264
Never married.  Raised her siblings her parents died.  She was the
primary accuser during the Salem witch trials.  In August 1706 she asked
t he congregation of her church for forgiveness for her part in the
accusations of witchcraft and the deaths of 20 people as a result.
Ann Putnam Jr.
Ann Pu tnam Jr. was the eldest child of Thomas and Ann Putnam. She was
born in 1680. Ann was intelligent, well educated, and had a quick wit. At
the time of the outbreak of witchcraft accusations, Ann was 12 years old.
She was a close fri end of several of the other afflicted girls. Mercy
Lewis, 17, was a servant i n the Putnam house, and Mary Walcott, 17, who
was also afflicted, was perhaps Ann's best friend. Ann, Mary, and Mercy
were among the first villagers outsi De of the Parris household to be
afflicted.
Ann and six other young girls ha d listened as Tituba, Parris's Indian
servant woman, told tales of voodoo and other supernatural events in her
native Barbados. The girls also engaged in fortune telling--concerning,
for example, matters such as what traDe their sw eethearts might have.
During one fortune telling episode, Ann reported seeing a specter in the
likeness of a coffin. After this incident, Ann, Betty Parri s, and Abigail
Williams (the niece and home resident of Parris) began to disp lay strange
symptoms. They complained of pain, would speak in gibberish, beca me
contorted into strange positions, and would crawl under chairs and tables.
After Betty Parris was sent away, Ann and Abigail became the most
active--a s well as the youngest--of the accusers. Ann claimed to have
been afflicted b y sixty-two people. She testified against several in
court and offered many a ffidavits. Her father, Thomas Putnam, was the
chief filer of complaints in th e village, and maintained complete control
over the actions of the two afflic ted girls living in his house. Most of
the afflicted and the accusers were in some way related to the Putnam
family. Ann Putnam Sr., Ann's mother, would a lso become afflicted at
times, and was in court almost as much as her daughte r and servant. The
mother and daughter Ann were a particularly formidable pai r of actors.
People from miles around trooped into the courtroom to watch the ir
performances.
In 1706, Ann offered a public apology for her participation in the witch
trials at Salem. She stood in church while her apology was read : "I
desire to be humbled before God. It was a great delusion of Satan that
deceived me in that sad time. I did not do it out of anger, malice, or
ill-w ill." Ann was the only one of the afflicted girls to make such an
apology. Th ere is some speculation that Ann was as much a victim as those
she accused. S he may have been manipulated by her parents and elders to
achieve their ends.
In 1699, both of Ann's parents died within two weeks of each other. Ann,
19 , was left to raise her nine orphaned brothers and sisters, ranging in
age fr om 7 months to 18 years. Ann never married. She devoted her life to
raising h er siblings. She died in 1716 at the age of 37.
Twelve-year-old Ann Putnam was in many ways the leader of the “circle
girls,” the young girls whose accusat ions sparked the Salem witch trials.
During the winter of 1692, the circle gir ls gathered secretly at Reverend
Parris’s house for evenings of storytelling and magic with the Parris
slave, Tituba. One of the fortune-telling games was to drop an egg white
into a glass of water and see what shape it took. One e vening, Ann saw
the shape of a coffin. Soon afterwards Ann, Betty Parris, and Abigail
Williams started behaving strangely—babbling, convulsing, or staring
blankly.
Once diagnosed as victims of witchcraft, the girls were asked to i dentify
their tormentors. Ann pointed fingers at Sarah Good and Sarah Osburne .
She was also quick to testify against Tituba, claiming an apparition of
t he West Indian woman had “tortured me most grievo