ALONE IN A SEA OF ANONYMITY: GEORGE JACOB'S RESTLESS BONES

By: Michael C. Metzger

            During Salem’s 1692 witchcraft hysteria, many locals would be hanged for crimes, which they professed their innocents to even until their deaths. One of the more festinating and colorful stories which has been unfolding even until today is that of man by the name of George Jacobs Senior.

            Jacobs was born approximately in 1612.[1] It was said that he was toothless and walked about using two canes. What he lacked though in physical stature he made up with his wit and sharp tongue, in 1692 he was accused of being a witch, Jacobs was around eighty years old at the time. His pre-trial examination would transpire on May 10, 1692.[2] Here Jacobs would learn the full ramifications of his warrant which in part stated that he was to“[stand] accused, of high suspition of sundry acts of witchcraft”[3] Here now is an excerpt from that fiery pre-trail examination, the accuser was Sarah Churchil who was a servant for Jacobs and had confessed to being a witch.

Jacobs: I am as innocent as the child born tonight. I have lived thirty-three years here in Salem … If you can prove that I am guilty I will lie under it.

Sarah: Last night I was afflicted … It was my master [George Jacobs]. . .

Court: Look there, she accuseth you to your face, she chargeth you that

you hurt her twice. Is it not true?

Jacobs (to the court): What would you have me say? I never wronged no man in word 

or deed…You tax me for a wizard. You may as well tax me for a buzzard. I have done no harm…

Sarah: I know that you lead a wicked life.

Court: Doth he ever pray in his family?

Jacobs: Not unless by himself.

Court: Why do you not pray in your family?

Jacobs: I cannot read.

Court: ... Can you say the Lord's prayer? [it was believed that a true witch could not 

properly recite the Lord’s prayer]

Record: He might [missed] in several parts of it and could not repeat it right after many

trials.

            Jacobs: Well, burn me or hang me I will stand in the truth of Christ. I know nothing of it.[4] 

Perhaps the strangest of accusers was Jacobs’ own granddaughter Margaret Jacobs. During this pre-trial examination Margaret Jacobs was confronted by several of the afflicted girls, who broke out into their “fits.” A witness for one of the afflicted girls first fits described the event as follows “their armes, necks and backs turned this way and that way … their limbs wracked and tormented so as might move an hear of stone.”[5] Margaret fearing that she could be tried as a witch accused her grandfather of witchcraft, by doing so she believed that her life would be spared.

            The trial for George Jacobs would take place in early August of 1692; his conviction was a forgone conclusion. Jacobs was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed on August 19, 1692 as well as four others most notably George Burroughs and John Proctor. Here though the story does not end, the following day Margaret would write her father from her Salem prison cell:

… being close Confined here in a loathsome Dungeon, … not knowing how soon I shall be 

put to Death, by means of the Afflicted Persons; my Grandfather having Suffered already, 

and all his Estate Seized for the King. The reason of my Confinement is this, I having, through 

the Magistrates Threatnings, and my own Vile and Wretched Heart, confessed several things 

contrary to my Conscience and Knowledg, … I was forced to confess the truth of all before

the Magistrates, who would not believe me, but tis their pleasure to put me in here, and God 

knows how soon I shall be put to death. Dear Father, let me beg your Prayers to the Lord on 

my behalf, and send us a Joyful and Happy meeting in Heaven.[6]

With this change of heart, Margaret would state the following at the courts next session:

… May it please the honoured court, I was cried out upon by some of the possessed persons, 

as afflicting them; whereupon I was brought to my examination, which persons at the sight of 

me fell down, which did very much startle and affright me. The Lord above knows I knew

nothing, …[I was pressured to believe that] if I would not confess, I should be put down into

the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should have my life; … to save 

my life; made me make the like confession I did, which confession, … is altogether false and 

untrue. The very first night after I had made confession, I was in such horror of conscience that

I could not sleep for fear the devil should carry me away for telling such horridies ... What I 

said, was altogether false against my grandfather, … I did [this] to save my life and to have my 

liberty; but the Lord, charging it to my conscience, made me in so much horror, that I could not

contain myself before I had denied my confession, which I did though I saw nothing but death 

before me, [now I choose] rather death with a quiet conscience, than to live in such horror, 

which I could not suffer.[7]

No further records are available in regards to Margaret, what is known is that she was not one of the locals who were hanged, so it can be presumed that the hysteria ended before she was brought to a formal trial.

            Here now is where the story moves from the realm of trial documentation and records to legend and folklore. It is commonly held by most Salem historians that after condemned witches were executed on Gallows Hill (the exact location is still unknown even until today) executed were buried in an unmarked mass grave. Family legend has it that after Rebecca Nurse was hanged, a member of her family removed her body from the pit, and had it reburied in an unmarked grave upon her homestead. Another reburial of a hanged witch was brought forth by Charles Upham. In 1867, he published a book by the name of “Salem Witchcraft.” Upham believed that John Procter’s descendants removed his body from Gallows Hill, and buried him upon his property. Removal of a body from the pit was against the law and was punishable by death.

            A removal from the pit may also have been the fate of Jacobs who was executed the same day as Procter. Jacobs was believed to have been exhumed from the mass grave and reburied upon his farm in Salem’s Northfields. Upon the Jacobs' farm in the 1860s descendants of Jacobs uncovered and reburied bones, which they attributed to their long ago executed relative. In 1950s bones again attributed to be that of Jacobs were accidentally uncovered, because the property no longer was in the hands of Jacobs family, the Danvers Historical Society received custody of the bones. For the next forty plus years, the bones remained with the society until 1992. Upon the three hundredth anniversary of the hysteria, the bones believed to be Jacobs were reburied upon the Rebecca Nurse homestead. The gravestone, which marks the plot, is of the seventeenth century style, the inscription reads “HERE LIES THE BODY OF GEORGE JACOBS SR, DECEASED AUGUST THE 19, 1692.”[8]

            Historically this is a nice “feel good” type of story which provided a sense of closure to the matter, finally Salem is able to put one of the nineteen executed to rest in a properly marked grave. The above mentioned story although is just that, a story as stated earlier it can only be placed into the category of legend or folklore, it is no where near the realm of history due to several weak spots in the historical time line. Each time these bones have been excavated they have been presumed to be that of Jacobs. These are large assumptions, which call the entire account into question due to the story itself being based on a foundation of several assumptions.

For example, what if the body, which was removed from the gallows, was the wrong one? What if a Proctor thinking he would help the Jacobs family by taking what he believed was Jacobs’s body instead took the wrong one? This account also does not provide an exact time line for the removal of the body from the mass grave. Important to remember is the fact that the mass grave continually received new members. The Jacobs family may have waited until the hysteria died down to avoid locals noticing Jacobs’s body had gone missing. By doing so the body would have suffered greatly the effects of time, the longer the family may have waited the more likely Jacobs body may not have even been distinguishable from the rest of the pit’s corpses. There also is the possibly that Jacobs body was never removed from the mass grave.

Taking for granted that a body was removed and that who ever did the removing, removed the correct body and then reburied it upon the Jacobs farm, what then if the descendants in the 1860s dug up a more recently departed relative than Jacobs? In the 1860s, no one knew what George Jacobs Sr. from the 1690s looked like, let alone what he might look after nearly 150 years of being in the ground. If this detail of the story is allowed to pass for truth, there is still one more possibility for this story to go amiss, what if the 1950s exhumation was not Jacobs at all. Any of these alternative possibilities means that in turn, today buried under Jacobs’s marker upon the Nurse homestead is not Jacobs at all.

However this does not discount the possibility, there still is a chance that the series of occurrences that lie on the historical time line of events from Jacobs being removed from the mass grave to his final burial on the Nurse homestead may all be fact. The only way it can be said with out a doubt that this story is historical fact is with a positive identification of the bones now buried on the Nurse homestead, even with the advent of modern technology such as DNA analysis this is very unlikely, due to there being no records to compare the bones and their DNA to. For now we are left with the facts, the plot on the Nurse homestead according to legend is the final resting place of George Jacobs Sr. It is therefore the only grave today which we have that may belong to a victim of the 1692 witch craft hysteria. Supposedly Rebecca Nurse as well as John Proctor were also reburied upon their respective homesteads, nevertheless their bodies were never uncovered in the passing of over 300 years.

In the end it may be Jacobs, and it is equally as likely that it may not be, what is for certain is that this man demonstrated unimaginable composure and conviction, not willing to confess to a lie as his granddaughter did to save her life.

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Selected Bibliography:

King, Charlie. “George Jacobs (c1612-1692).” Salem Narratives. 1998.

<http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/2770/narrativ.htm#Jacobs> (30 December 2004).

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Witch Craft Papers.

Vol. 2, 1692, 471-475. < http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer -new2?id=BoySal2.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/oldsalem&tag=public&part=22&division=div1> (30 December 2004).

Perley, Sidney. The History of Salem Massachusetts. Vol. 3, 1926, 282-284.

<http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/Perley/vol3/images/p3-283.html> (30  December 2004).

Trask, Richard B., Salem Cornerstones of a Historic City. Beverly, MA: Commonwealth

Editions, 1999.

[8] Story, William C., The Stories of Courage and Defiance. Peabody, Massachusetts: Willart Publishing, 2001.  

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Metzger, Michael C. Alone in a Sea of Anonymity: George Jacobs’s Restless Bones. 1 January 2005. <http://www.hocuspocustours.com/> Date that you access this page.

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