Susannah Martin

I came from witches.

Finally found a notable ancestor on my grandmother Alice’s side, and boy is it a doozy, and just in time for Halloween.
Today while doing some detective work on a tip from a Bruner-Sargent family rumor of relation to a Mayflower passenger named Christopher Martin (turns out, there is no relation but a confluence of names with time and space, enhanced by wishful thinking, a common error in genealogy), and my blood froze as the road turned dark.

I learned that one of my ancestors, Susannah North Martin, an outspoken woman, was hanged during the Salem witch trials in 1692.

So my family said, on shaky evidence, that they came from Mayflowers, but they really came from witches. The reason why they would prefer one over the other is exactly why I am a contrarian in life who despises hypocrisy and groupthink.
Also in my family was John Proctor Sr. John Junior was also hanged. Another Proctor was pardoned. You may remember these names from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible; Daniel Day-Lewis plays Proctor in the recent remake of The Crucible, video below.

On top of all this, an earlier accuser in 1669 was actually a Sargent. But in an interesting twist of fate his descendants ended up marrying the witches’ descendants and having children. So their descendants, my family, today embody both the accuser and the accused.
How’s that for family drama?

I won’t recount all the details because they have the been exhaustively recounted in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and in popular culture (see the Wikipedia and Wikitree links at the bottom of this page) But one thing that stands out to me is that all the accusations were so outlandish and bizarre, such as puppies attacking people and then disappearing into the floor, or a black man whispering in their ears, or seeing the witches perched upon top of a church, that it reminds me of the same accusations that children, coached by biased psychologists, would level against adults during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s

Although I had hoped for some blue-blooded Mayflowerness, I’m still OK with being on the right side of the history with the “witches” rather than the vile Puritans. I am a living reminder that religious fundamentalism, coupled with ignorance and superstition, make for a dark path indeed. Many Americans today would have us go back to those times, and I can almost hear Susannah speak to me through the centuries, Never Again.
Read the text at the bottom of the Wikipedia, what a story.
So now I have a great origin story in case I wanna ever join a Satanic cult.

“Let Goody Martin rest in peace,
I never knew her harm a fly,
And witch or not – God knows – not I?
I know who swore her life away;
And as God lives, I’d not condemn
An Indian dog on word of them.”
John Greenleaf Whittier

Wikipedia
Salem Witch Museum
Wikitree

My direct connection

And to dispel any notion that the Sargents from my family are from the Mayflower:
George Martin’s parents and origins are unknown according to the Great Migration Directory by Robert Charles Anderson, published in 2015.“Martin, George: Unknown; 1639; Salisbury, Amesbury [SJC Case #3231; TAG 56:155-59, 58:193-204, 59:11-22].”
According to a series of articles in The American Genealogist, there is no reason to believe he is related to any other family of the same name in New England. The same series of articles in TAG (56:155-59; 58:193-204; 59:11-22) also conclude that the maiden name of his first wife Hannah was not Green. It is currently unknown.

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