tement by which it came to be so regarded.

This house is the oldest standing in Salem or its vicinity, having been
built before 1635. And it really has a claim to fame as the Roger
Williams house, for it was here that the great "Teacher" lived during
his troubled settlement in Salem. The people of Salem, it will be
remembered, persistently sought Williams as their spiritual pastor and
master until the General Court at Boston unseated the Salem deputies for
the acts of their constituents in retaining a man of whom they
disapproved, and the magistrates sent a vessel to Salem to remove Mr.
Williams to England. The minister eluded his persecutors by fleeing
through the wintry snows into the wilderness, to become the founder of
the State of Rhode Island.

Mr. Williams was a close friend and confidential adviser of Governor
Endicott, and those who were alarmed at the governor's impetuosity in
cutting the cross from the king's colours, attributed the act to his
[Williams's] influence. In taking his departure from the old house of
the picture to make his way to freedom, Williams had no guide save a
pocket compass, which his descendants still exhibit, and no reliance but
the friendly disposition of the Indians toward him.

But it is of the witchcraft delusion with which the house of our picture
is connected rather than with Williams and his story, that I wish now to
speak. Jonathan Corwin, or Curwin, who was the house's link to
witchcraft, was made a councillor under the new charter granted
Massachusetts by King William in 1692, and was, as has been said, one of
the justices before whom the preliminary witch examinations were held.
He it was who officiated at the trial of Rebecca Nourse, of Danvers,
hanged as a witch July 19, 1692, as well as at many other less
remarkable and less revolting cases.

[Illustration: REBECCA NOURSE HOUSE, DANVERS, MASS.]

Rebecca Nourse, aged and infirm and universally beloved by her
neighbours, was accused of being a witch--why, one is unable to find
out. The jury was convinced of her innocence, and brought in a verdict
of "not guilty," but the court sent them out again with instructions to
find her guilty. This they did, and she was executed. The tradition is
that her sons disinterred her body by stealth from the foot of the
gallows where it had been thrown, and brought it to the old homestead,
now still standing in Danvers, laying it reverently, and with many
tears, in the little family bur