Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,843

This is the grave of Samuel Sewall.

Born in 1652 in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, Sewall grew up in Puritan England. In fact, his father had been a colonist in Massachusetts, going over in 1635, but he returned to England during the Civil War and stayed. His father was also pretty elite, the mayor of Coventry at one point. But after the restoration of King Charles II, the Sewalls returned to Massachusetts, in 1661. Sewell got about the best education one could in Puritan New England, which was pretty good and included a lot of Latin. In fact, Sewall would write a lot of poetry in Latin. He then went to Harvard, graduating in 1671 with a bachelor’s degree and 1674 with a master’s.

Sewall was always an interesting guy at least. He became librarian of Harvard after his second graduation. He also started a lifelong journal that remains a critically important document of late 17th and early 18th century New England. He married Hannah Hull, daughter of merchant John Hull and possibly the richest man in Massachusetts at that time. That supercharged him into the colony’s elite. He rose appropriately as well. He became the colony’s official printer in 1681 and chose to print John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as his first major act, which was still a new book at that time. He replaced Hull on the colony’s council of assistants, which was a legislative branch, after his father-in-law died.

All this put Sewall in position to be involved in the Salem witch trials in 1692. He was and initially was with the side of those concerned about witches. It’s impossible to overstate how superstitious even these relatively scientific folks were in this era. I’ve stated this before, but in a primary source reader I used to use on the topic when I taught that part of the American history survey, there’s a whole thing about how a cow miscarried and what came out to the Puritans was not a fetus but a deformed monster that could only have one explanation–supernatural forces through some person channeling the evil.

But Sewall was different than most of these people in that he later really, really regretted his role here, which was serving as one of the nine judges appointed to determine whether these people were witches. His diary demonstrates his increased questioning of the charges as time went on, especially after his brother took in one of the afflicted girls to his home during all the mess and she was instantly fine. But his role was very real. Moreover, the next five years were rough for the Sewall family, which he believed a punishment of God for persecuting the innocent. That included several deaths of his children. He didn’t really believe that he was wrong about witchcraft–that he would always believe. He just came to the conclusion that he had found people guilty due to faulty evidence.

So in 1697, Sewall came forward and publicly called for a public day of prayer and fasting from the colony to show God they understood their guilt. He rose in his church service to announce his own guilt. For however deeply felt this was for Sewall, it was most certainly a smart political move. Salem was a real dividing line in Puritan Massachusetts. For one, the King was not going to let these fanatics do whatever they wanted anymore, not when it came to killing each other. But also, the next generation of Massachusetts leaders saw much of this with regret. So what this confession did was ensure that Sewall remained a political force for the rest of his life. But I’m not really suggesting this was a cynical move either. It was a pretty brave one. Most of the people involved in the witch trials held onto their righteous sense of justice their whole lives, no matter how many people they had killed. Sewall genuinely realized his horror. It’s something to think of how that process might go in someone’s brain. Who knows, maybe one of Trump’s murderous officials will later have some realization of their own scumbaggery at some point in the future. Not holding my breath though.

Sewall was already on the highest court in the colony, beginning in 1693. He became chief justice of that court in 1717 and held that position for the rest of his life. He was pretty reformist on several issues as the eighteenth century began. That included questioning slavery, which few did at the time. He wrote a pamphlet titled “The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial,” in 1700 that some have called the first antislavery document in the Americas. Of course, much of his own family’s money came out of the slave trade, as did most of the bigger fortunes of early New England to at least some extent, so his position was most certainly not popular with much of his family. That included all the money he had married into. And to be clear, Sewall had taken advantage of the trade personally, with his own investments in the Caribbean trade that inherently meant one was, at minimum, making their peace with the slave trade. He also had some relatively pro-women stances for the time.

Sewall kept up his diary until 1729, when his health began to slip. He died in 1730, at the age of 77.

Samuel Sewall is buried in Granary Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts.

If you would like this series to visit other colonial Americans, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Landon Carter is in Warsaw, Virginia and Johann Martin Boltzius is in Rincon, Georgia. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.