  
In the late 17th Century, nineteen residents of Salem, Massachusetts -- charged by their neighbors with practicing witchcraft -- were hanged. Their accusers, for the most part good & respectable people living in an immensely superstitious age, were convinced their fellow townspeople were in complicity with the devil. This book, first published in 1867 in two volumes, is still praised by historians as the most important book on the Salem witch trials. The author, a former mayor of Salem as well as the minister of the First Church of Salem & a U.S. Congressman, painstakingly researched the history of the village & the notorious trials that took place there in 1692. His well-documented, minutely detailed work was the first to organize the many records of this event into one articulate account. Upham not only supplies a wealth of information on the history of Salem & the legislative & economic problems of the settlement that helped set the stage for the trials, but also provides numerous details of local hostilities that sowed the seeds for suspicion, fear, & resentment among villagers & helped fuel the witch hunt. This edition reprints in one volume this fascinating account of one of the darkest episodes in early American history. Enhanced with a new Forward, it will be of immense value to students of New England & American history. Paperback; 727 pages.
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