Gen Tales
Susannah Martin
Salem Witch and a Martyr of Superstition
Susannah (North) Martin (born 1621) was married to a founder of Amesbury, Massachusetts. She was accused of being a witch first in 1661, and again in 1669. Both times the charges were dropped, presumably because of her husband George Martin’s influence. When William Sargent accused her of fornication and killing her youngest child in 1669, George took him to court for slander. There was no clear winner in the case — she was cleared of the non-witchcraft charges but required an appeal to be cleared of witchcraft.
Susannah was considered forthright and argumentative, even unsuccessfully suing her stepmother six times to inherit her father’s estate, which was eventually left to Susannah’s sister Mary. There are anecdotes about her oldest sons also having legal trouble with her, and accusing her of anything from domestic violence to love triangles with their wives. But her husband always stood up for her virtue. He died in 1686.
In 1692, during the fervor of the Salem witch hysteria, her outspoken nature towards her neighbors, tendency to mutter to herself, and history of accusations made the widow an easy target for allegations by the teen girls who sparked the event now known as the Salem Witch Trials.
