Young Andover minister spreads witchcraft hysteria
	
A minister from Andover and a graduate of Harvard College was 
instrumental in spreading the witchcraft hysteria of 1692. The Rev. Thomas 
Barnard (Harvard 1679) was minister of North Parish and a protégé of the Rev. 
Cotton Mather. Together, they believed an “invisible empire” threatened the 
good people of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
	
The witchcraft panic began in Salem Village, now Danvers, and spread to 
Andover after the Rev. Barnard invited two of the Salem accusers to attend 
prayer meetings in the church that included “touch tests” to find 
practitioners of witchcraft. Spectral evidence was not only allowed but 
superseded empirical evidence. Of the 154 people accused of witchcraft a 
staggering 75 percent were from Andover. Three from Andover were hanged.
	
Strange as it may seem, those who confessed to practicing witchcraft 
were saved, those who denied being witches were hanged. Of those who died, 18 
were hanged and one was pressed to death by stones. The only person believed to 
have died after being told he was possessed by the Devil was a young Andover 
man, Timothy Swan, who apparently “died of fright” and ironically is buried 
along with the Rev. Barnard in the First Cemetery on Academy Road in North 
Andover.
	
Many descendents of those accused have since petitioned the English 
court to pardon their ancestors, the last of which was granted by the Queen in 
1957.

-- Leo Chabot