The Putnam Family's Role in the Salem Witch Trials

No family is more associated with the Salem Witch Trials than the Putnams. And for good reason. One man in this family filed complaints against 35 people. His wife, his daughter, and their maid were all among the afflicted. The depositions, the courtroom drama, the relentless momentum of accusation after accusation. The Putnams were not bystanders to any of it.

So it would be easy to close the book on them there. Villains. Next chapter.

Except the same family also signed the petition defending Rebecca Nurse. Some members testified against the accused in the morning and put their names on her defense in the afternoon. One branch quietly took in Dorothy Good in the years after the trials, when almost no one else would. And one Putnam kept his horse saddled for months, ready to ride at a moment's notice, because he was openly opposing the trials and he knew what that could cost him.

In This Episode

Three branches of the Putnam family, three generations, and a cast of individual’s history has flattened into footnotes. Josh and Sarah trace who accused, who defended, who did both, and who walked a quieter path that history almost forgot. The story of Ann Putnam Jr. and the only public apology to come out of the entire crisis. The Putnam descendants who shaped American history long after 1692. And the harder question underneath all of it: when a community turns on itself, what does it take to be one of the people who helped it happen, and what does it take to be one of the people who doesn't?

About The Thing About Salem

The Thing About Salem takes the Salem Witch Trials seriously as history. That means going beyond the names everyone knows, sitting with the complexity, and treating the people involved as real human beings rather than symbols. Hosted by Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson, the podcast draws on decades of research, firsthand expertise, and a genuine commitment to getting it from the records. New episodes every week.

Links

Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

The Thing About Salem Website

⁠The Thing on YouTube⁠!

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

⁠Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience

⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege

⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

We look back to May 1690, two years before the Salem witch trials, to examine the fall of Falmouth and Fort Loyal and how it helped fuel an atmosphere of fear in New England. We trace Boston’s wartime strategy in King William’s War, including plans for offensives against Port Royal and Montreal, and the council’s tendency to blame frontier settlers for raids. We follow John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin’s inspection of Maine’s defenses and the decision that led to Captain Simon Willard’s 60 soldiers being withdrawn from Fort Loyal—just before a large Wabanaki and French force attacked, besieged the settlement, and devastated the captives after surrender. We also cover the shockwaves that followed, the refugee crisis and abandoned settlements, and the stark contrast between frontier catastrophe and Boston’s celebration of Phips’ successful raid, setting a grim prelude to 1692.

00:00 Welcome & Why 1690 Matters Before Salem

00:54 Boston’s Big Offensive Plans in King William’s War

01:24 Victim-Blaming the Frontier: ‘Negligence’ as Policy

01:59 New York Talks: Promising Troops for Montreal

02:32 Hathorne & Corwin Inspect Maine—and Make a Fateful Call

03:39 Fort Loyal Emptied: The Catastrophic Withdrawal

03:54 The Fall of Falmouth: Siege, Surrender, and Massacre

04:39 Shockwaves Across New England—and Boston’s Mixed Reaction

05:16 From Falmouth to 1692: How Trauma Followed Salem

⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel

⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub

Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Week 7: Families, Geography, and the Machinery of Accusation, February 9-15, 2026

⁠The Thing About Salem

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience

⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege

Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

We discuss how Maine, then part of Massachusetts, was a war-torn frontier during the years surrounding the Salem Witch Trials and show that refugee movements, fear, and trauma from frontier conflict contributed to the Salem panic. The hosts focus on Salem figures connected to Falmouth (now Portland), including minister George Burroughs, afflicted witness Mercy Lewis, and confessor Abigail Hobbs, emphasizing how their experiences in Maine intersected with events and testimony in 1692. It ends by noting that magistrates Hathorne and Corwin also had a connection to the fall of Falmouth.

Links

⁠Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel

⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub

Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Week 7: Families, Geography, and the Machinery of Accusation, February 9-15, 2026

⁠The Thing About Salem

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

⁠Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience

⁠Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege

⁠Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

Ben Wickey, More Weight: A Salem Story

Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection

The Sermon Notebook of Samuel Parris, 1689–1694 - Colonial Society of Massachusetts

Richard Hite, In the Shadow of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692