[Speaker 10] (0:00 - 0:00)
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[Speaker 2] (1:05 - 3:08)
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Molly Connor. I am the president of the Swapscott Historical Society, and this is our October speaking event.

We have Andy Rapoza, who's going to enlighten us in many ways, and we have a few things to cover before we start. We have a sales table here. Please stop by at the end.

We also have a refreshment table. Thank you, Karen, for helping us with that. And next month we'll have another speaker on the 18th, and we're going to start soon.

My husband, Ryan, is going to help with the lights, which is fantastic. We are also being broadcast on YouTube TV, and so some of you may at home. We're happy to have you as well because we can only hold so many at the library.

I got a phone call during COVID in my kitchen. There I was bored like many of us, and it was Andy Rapoza. And Andy was telling me all about his excitement for the Humphrey House and how it relates to Lynn and Lynn Health.

And he was so excited about the home, and I'm also excited about the home. Together we've been on this fabulous scavenger hunt to find rich markings, and Andy's going to tell us about them, along with the history of Swampscott and Lynn and a lot of information about the Humphrey House as well. But it's been a great experience to look and find, and we just found some new markings yesterday at the Humphrey House, so it's been really great.

I've loved getting to know Andy, and we're really excited about what he's going to have to say with us tonight. So Andy has been working on a book for 35 years, and he's going to tell you all about that as well. But the research is thorough, and we're going to, I think, find out some really interesting things tonight.

So Ryan, can you get the lights, please?

[Speaker 1] (3:11 - 24:46)
Thank you. Okay, welcome everyone. I'm so glad that you could attend tonight, and I hope you find it to be time well spent.

I'm not sure what's going through each of your minds as far as what exactly you're going to hear tonight. You're going to be hearing about what the earliest colonists to this area of this land were dealing with in their own minds, their fears, and what they did to combat them. I have written a book that has recently been published called Promising Cures.

If you didn't get a chance to browse them yet, they're up here on the table. These are the paperback versions, and the one that's open is the hardcover version. And I encourage you, after the talk, when the lights will in fact come back on, to take a look at them.

Now, they are available on Amazon. I'm going to take a moment here to tell you something, though, because this is really important to me. It's just, this is how I roll.

This book has always been a labor of love. It has never been about profit or fame. Nobody writes a local history to become famous or rich.

But I was going to write this book even if there wasn't a person on the planet that ever opened it up and read it. So, when you go to Amazon, whatever the costs are, each volume is a little bit different thickness from the other, and they range from the low 20s to the mid 30s per volume. When they asked me, as the author, how much of a royalty I wanted to put on, they recommend to all the authors 35% as the author's own profit.

And what I put was zero. I didn't do this book to make money. I did it to share what I learned with all of you.

Further, those cards that were on your seats or that my wife gave you, hopefully everyone got a card. If you didn't, my wife is in the back of the room in the darkest part. That's perhaps how you can identify her.

And she has white hair, and she's beautiful. So, look for her. She can give you cards.

On the front of each card is one of the volume covers. On the back, it tells you you can get the books on Amazon if you wanted to purchase them. But, it's also available on a huge website called FamilySearch.org.

It is, along with Ancestry.com, those are the two largest family history and local history websites in the world. And FamilySearch.org has a books section, and it tells you how to get to it. It has almost a billion books now on it.

And all four of my volumes are on there, free, online. It's a noncommercial website. You'll never see an ad from them trying to sell you something.

And you can see every page of every volume of my book, and it's completely searchable as well. So, since this is a four-volume book written about the Lynn area, original Lynn is what I refer to it as in the book and in this talk. Original Lynn being what Lynn was back in 1629, including Swampskid and Nahant and Linfield, Saugus, and a good part of North Reading.

The information in there, you may have an ancestor that lived in the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s. You wonder, gee, is he or she in the book? Or maybe the street you live on, you wonder if anything happened on your street.

Any kind of search you want to do, you can do it on FamilySearch.org. Again, free online. That's my gift to you.

If you ever get to have John Grisham or Stephen King speak to you, ask them if their books are free online. Okay, so let's get going here. In this presentation, I will be, oh, and I am going to be calling Molly Bob, because that's a one-syllable word, and I want to go through this quickly.

I can't say next, because I have next written in my script several times, and that would throw everything off. So, Bob. Wow, good, Bob.

Good job. Okay, in this, one more time, Bob. Thank you.

Okay, I told you about those books. Bob again. Okay, in this presentation, I will be introducing you to a subject that has only begun to be explored in the last few decades, the early colonists' use of magic for health and protection from evil.

Then I will show you examples I have found in the 17th- and 18th-century homes in Original Lynn, including the amazing Humphrey House in Swamscott. And I will try to explain the meanings behind the marks and objects found, all within 45 minutes. There's so little time to go over so much.

Just remember that many more details can be found in Volume 1 of Promising Cures. Everything you hear tonight is about the colonial Original Lynn, and that's Volume 1. Volume 2, think of Civil War years.

Volume 3, think of Lydia Pinkham and Mary Baker Eddy. Volume 4, think of the great fire in Lynn and General Electric, and then you'll get the idea. It's all chronological.

Please, as Molly said, please hold your questions for the end of the presentation. I promise I'll stay to answer even if they lock up and leave us outside. By the way, okay, I've already told you what Original Lynn is.

This presentation is designed to educate, but not to amuse. Innocent people by the hundreds in this country and by the tens of thousands in Europe were wrongly accused, and many of those were tortured and executed for the crime of witchcraft. Similarly, many of the people of Original Lynn genuinely feared witches.

With respect to all of them, I present their beliefs and mistakes seriously. I urge you to try to see all of this through their eyes. Okay, let's begin.

Bob, put yourself here. The year is 1643. You left your home in a bustling town in England and now find yourself living in a small house, not much more than a cabin in the woods of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, next to Salem.

All you can see beyond the land you've cleared is woods on all sides. Your nearest European neighbor is a quarter mile away, but you and your family catch glimpses of the people you call Indians in the shadows of the trees or even brazenly coming out in the open, walking up to one of your farm animals or looking in a window or even an open door. You sometimes refer to them as savages because their clothes, language, homes, and lifestyle are so different from yours.

Your minister has preached that they are servants of the devil. There's much more to fear in the wilds of Original Lynn, like bears, cougars, bobcats, moose, rattlesnakes, and wolves. Any day can become a nightmare, but nighttime makes it still worse, Bob.

Your house provides some safety from the wild animals and Indians at night, but evil can still find its way inside. In spirit form, not human form, but in spirit only, witches and their familiars, which were animals that did their bidding, like cats, rats, squirrels, and mice, can get into the house even through the smallest openings, under the door, a hole in the wall, or even the keyhole, and most easily down the chimney. Then nothing can stop them from cursing your child or spouse with sickness, pain, and even death, Bob.

Puritans had no doubt that witches and the devil were real because the Bible told them so, Bob. Exodus 22.18 reads, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. It was a clear statement that witches existed, and the Bible also stated many times that the devil was very real and dangerous, Bob.

Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walketh about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5.8, Bob. Here are just a few court testimonies of Massachusetts Bay colonists who feared that others among them were actually witches, Bob.

From Marblehead in 1646, He heard that good wife Jane James was a witch, and he saw her in a boat at sea in the likeness of a cat. Also, his garden fruits did not prosper so long as he lived near that woman, Bob. From Andover in 1658, Diverse people have for some times suffered losses in their estates and some affliction in their bodies also, which they suppose doth not arise from any natural cause or any neglect in themselves, but rather from some ill-disposed person, Bob.

Again, from Marblehead in 1666, Jane James is now a widow and still being accused of witchcraft twenty years later. Quote, she came in at a hole in the window in the house, took him by the throat, and almost choked him as he lay in his bed and called her Old Hag. Bob.

Bob. Okay. A Dutch visitor to Boston wrote in 1680, I must here mention another word about Boston.

I have never been in a place where more was said about witchcraft and witches. Bob. When things went wrong, it was a sign of God's anger.

God seemed to turn his back to sinful people and allow the devil and his witches to do evil things to them. For example, your buttery golden bread pudding, Bob, comes out of the oven a red-hot mess. Bob.

Your critically essential livestock suddenly die. Bob. A family member is attacked and perhaps even dies from the bite of a wild animal.

Bob. A family member becomes sick from some unknown illness. Bob.

What was the source of a witch's power to cause so much pain, suffering, and destruction? The source of all evil, Bob. It wasn't Bob.

The source of all evil is Satan. This drawing from a 1580 grimoire, which is a book of magic spells and cures, shows him in beastly shape, with a man's face and a demon's horns, a lion's mane and front paws, a rooster's feet and a monkey's tail. Interestingly, during the 1692 witch trials, John Lauder accused Bridget Bishop of sending a demon into his bedroom that he described as, quote, a species of man-monkey, black with a rooster's feet and claws, who frightened him terribly.

End quote. Bob. Okay, from John Glanville's book of 1681.

Bob. This version of Satan, part goat, bat, dragon, and pig, hovers over a house beating his drum, surrounded by an army of his devoted demon familiars. Beating the drum was Glanville's representation of the devil causing, Bob, a thunderstorm.

Bob. This image portrays not a floating person, but a witch in spirit form about to attack a home. Like the spirit of Jane James in 1666, whom we just read had come into the house at a hole in the window.

Bob. When a sickness seemed unusual or didn't yield to available medicines, it was called unnatural and suspected to have been caused by a witch's curse. The doctor who authored this book had no doubt about the source of several unusual and uncommon sicknesses and diseases.

They couldn't be explained or cured, and thus, he stated without any doubt, they were the work of witchcraft. Bob. The fear of witchcraft was not simply a phenomenon of 1692.

It was widespread throughout New England and the limited existing records document over 200 cases starting as early as 1647. Also note there are 33 known executions of which Salem accounts for only 19. The records of the fate of 69 others have not yet been found, so those put to death could be a higher number.

59 confessed to being witches, largely the result of fear, interrogation, techniques, and the miseries of incarceration. Bob. Their ministers preached that faith, obedience, and prayer were the proper defense against witchcraft, but terrible, unexplainable things were still happening to the faithful and some felt the need to do more than just pray.

You might pray that a fox wouldn't attack your chickens, but you were still going to get your gun and shoot if it tried. Bob. So how could they better defend their loved ones, Bob, and how could they protect their families at bedtime, Bob, when the candles were all blown out?

Bob. One option was to turn to the Bible for God's clues for protection. The Bible was considered to be full of symbolic messages, like the power of certain numbers.

For example, three for the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, five for the wounds of Christ, twelve for the apostles, and several more. Bob. Bushes of mountain ash were often planted around the outside of the house because the five-pointed pentagram pattern on each berry was believed to be a sign that God would protect the house against evil.

And I realize some of you may not be able to see it, but at the end of each berry there is a five-pointed pentagram shape. Bob. A braid of twelve garlic bulbs could be hung behind an outside door and was hoped to ward off witches and thieves.

Bob. Colonists also turned to the secret practices of family and friends. Some used methods of ritualized protection to keep their family and farm animals safe.

When they had lived in Great Britain, they and their relatives and friends had folklore traditions for generations of Bob, carving or drawing special Bob, protection symbols, and hiding ritual objects in their homes and barns, all to keep their families and animals safe from witches. The protective marks and objects were designed to either trap or repel all evil spirits. But ministers like Increase and Cotton Mather, Bob, called it countermagic and white magic.

They warned that using Bob, white magic to fight a witch's black magic was playing into the devil's hands because Bob, all magic was Bob, of the devil, but the fearful were I'm sorry, Bob. Yeah, but the fearful were desperate. Bob.

Here are three types of protection marks found in and near original Lynn. Bob. Hexafoil, also known as daisy wheel.

This solar symbol traces back to Roman antiquity. The pedals representing the sun's rays. Hexafoil, by the way, stems from the German word Hexen, which means witches.

Bob. The saltier cross, literally an X, was a warning sign to approaching evil. There are X's on this door handle, three here and one up here that's partially rubbed off.

Symbolic of Bob, two castle guards crossing halberds or swords to stop entry into the house or barn, protecting the treasures inside. It also invokes the protection of Bob, Saint Andrew, an apostle who was crucified on a cross in this position. The cross of Saint Andrew became, Bob, the flag of Scotland.

Bob. The Virgin of Virgins mark. The mark resembling a W or pair of overlapping V's was the abbreviation for Virgin of Virgins, symbolizing protection from the Virgin Mary.

Protective marks were placed near doors, windows, and around fireplaces. The openings where evil could easily enter the home. The protective objects, which we haven't seen yet, were hidden behind walls and under floors, the fireplace, hearth, or door threshold.

Again, around and under all of the entry points into the home by potential of evil spirits. Bob. Protecting, Bob, one's home or barn from witches required no expense or special skills.

The marks were easily made with the sharp point of a knife, scissors, compass, or nail, and ritual objects were items around the house and barn that were being repurposed instead of discarded. It was believed that these simple marks and ordinary objects magically transformed in the spirit world into weapons and traps to catch, repel, and even kill witches. Now, this concept I'm introducing you to is critical to your understanding of the rest of the talk.

The early colonists believed broken items in this world were whole in the spirit world. Weak things in this world became strong in the spirit world. What was dark here was light there.

Dead, or non-functioning here, became alive in the world of spirits, just like the crucified Jesus Christ was resurrected from death and became alive again. The following are the results of my survey of ritual protection findings in the six oldest houses in original Lynn. There are nine buildings in Lynn, in original Lynn, that still stand from that first period of European colonization, roughly 1629 when Lynn was founded to 1729.

Of those nine, three have been completely modernized and restored, so we haven't been able to find any marks or objects. However, the remaining six all had either objects, marks, or both. And the Humphrey House was one of those.

Bob, protective marks included the hexafoil. I'm sorry, Bob. The hexafoil, which we've already talked about.

Bob, the circle. Like the hexafoil, it was a solar symbol, an unending line when drawn as a series of concentric circles, a design of cosmological importance, symbolic of God's protection. I'll tell you more about circles later.

Bob, mesh marks, also known as demon traps. They looked something like a portion of a net or a cobweb or other things. They were sometimes encased in a geodesic shape.

They were designed to be a trap.

[Speaker 7] (24:47 - 24:59)
These images were of the eagle-jeweler's ark, which we've already discussed. Bob, salt terroir.

[Speaker 1] (24:59 - 1:14:13)
These lines, a series of parallel lines, symbolic of God, are rarely dated, but the protective objects often can be. Some of the marks have been made in these six Lynn homes during the first 100 years of colonization, but objects were found in them dating at least as late as the 1890s. Other New England homes built after the 1720s have also been found to have ritual protective marks and objects.

After 1692, the witchcraft trials, the church and the law backed away from accusing and convicting suspected witches. They realized what a huge mistake they had made, and it was bad press, if you will. Without the church and the courts protecting them, however, some people continued to protect themselves and felt a greater need to since the church and the state weren't going to be backing them up.

And so they fought back from evil and bad luck through the 1700s and 1800s and even into the early 20th century. Here are a few examples. Of several ritual protection objects found in this house in Linfield, a young boy's shoe dated 1740 to 1760 by the chief calciologist, that's a person who specializes in ancient shoes, at Colonial Williamsburg.

He looked at this and told me that that was the age of it, 1740 to 1760, found behind a fireplace wall in Linfield. In 1749, the homeowner of that home, Daniel Townsend, lost his wife and his oldest son within a few weeks of each other, and his young son was also terribly sick. Was a desperate father trying to distract the deadly attacking demons from taking his little boy by placing his sick young son's single shoe as a decoy behind the fireplace wall?

Another item of special interest. In the ceiling of this home, there were shredded Bible pages. When Mr. Thompson was tearing a hole in the ceiling to make renovations, the Bible pages came down, the shredded Bible pages came down like confetti. They may have been a ritual protective placement, purposely destroyed so that the Bible would be full of holy power in the spirit realm. Remember, the weak becomes strong and the wrecked becomes whole. Or perhaps they were shredded by rats doing the bidding of the witch they served.

Bob, in the Tapley house in northern Linfield, there is an enormous array of marks over the fireplace in the Great Hall. I honestly can't tell you whose home has more marks at this point because your incredible Molly Connor keeps finding more and more and sending them to me in text messages. At this point, I think the Humphrey house may have the Tapley house beat, if it's a contest, but just saying.

Five sets of parallel lines, Bob. I've highlighted them there in red so that you can see them more easily, and they may symbolize, Bob, jail bars. Next, six solitaire crosses.

There's a cross that you're going to see coming up here, just in case the red is not obvious. There's the X, and it's in a circle, Bob. We have a VV mark here in a circle, Bob.

Over here, I'm going to be showing you there's a series of circles, and they overlap. Those are solar symbols representing the sun. It could even represent an eclipse, which was a powerful celestial event.

Okay, Bob. Great. Up here, there's two versions of the same mark.

This is a candle burn mark. This is what it looks like because I polarized the image to help you to see the white a little bit. The white, if it's not terribly clear, go to the red here.

After they made the burn mark, they actually engraved in the burn mark a VV, the Virgin of Virgins mark. Just for your reference, this yellow graph paper here was in the notebook, the little notebook I had when I was visiting the Tapley home. I was just quickly writing down all the marks that I could just so I could have reference because I was taking photographs, and I wanted to remember.

There's actually many, many marks in two rows because it's just above the fireplace, and there's some moldings. They did them within the moldings. This W mark here in the candle burn is up here looking like a miniature coat of arms, big saltier cross, some mesh marks, and there was actually a date, April 1719, that was engraved on the lintel as well.

Also in the Tapley house, but in a different room going out to their porch now, there is a series of concentric circles, several circles over each other, and concentric circles that were drawn in the Tapley home mimic the geocentric understanding of the universe, which most importantly placed God, the first mover, in the outer ring, in control of everything underneath him. Back then they believed the earth was at the center of the universe, and everything rotated around the earth. Then they say here the moon, Mercury, Venus.

Here's the sun. That's actually our position, and the sun is here, but they had it backwards then. And then Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the star firmament, and up here the first ring, the first mover representing God.

So everything under God's view was under his control, and so therefore the concentric circles drawn on the house invoking God's power. One more, Bob. A blow-up of some more of the art, and you can see here, these are mesh marks.

Again, it looks like the flight of the soul to heaven. Bob, back in 1885, when I didn't know any better, and I'll stick to that story, I did a rubbing of the stone. And here you can see at the bottom of the stone, now under the underground at this point, there's a small mesh mark here in a diamond shape.

Note the last two lines of the epitaph of this doctor. It reads, Reader, physicians die as others do. Prepare, for thou to this art hastening too.

With an understanding of the symbolism on the gravestone, it becomes clear that since there was no way to stop the death of the body, the spirit's safe arrival in heaven was eternally critical. The stone was consequently covered in protective symbolism designed to protect the spirit in its journey to heaven. Apparently, some colonists felt that even the Puritan concept of predestination might benefit from a little counter-magic to help the spirit get where God intended it to be.

Now I'm going to focus your attention on the ritual protection marks found in the Humphrey house in Swampscote, Massachusetts, which was part of Original Lynn, to help you understand some of the possible motivations for calling upon ritual protection. In the top right corner of each page, you're going to see the names of the owners of the house during the time period that I propose certain fears could have existed. Okay, with that, let us look at the Humphrey house.

Bob? Notice the isolation of the Humphrey house in the old sketch on the left. With so much land granted to the original owner, the very wealthy Sir John Humphrey, the building's occupants probably had more reason to feel, Bob, alone than some of their fellow colonists.

There were many reasons to be, Bob, worried. In the colonial outpost of the kingdom, they were, Bob, vulnerable. Bob, this is a portion of the extremely important John Winthrop map, the earliest thus far found recording the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he drew it in 1636.

Now this isn't the whole map, I'm focusing on the area in question. Up here is Salem, and you see some buildings there. Here it says Marble Harbor, because that was the original name for Marble Head.

Over here we clearly see Nahant, and you could have guessed it with the causeway or isthmus. Down here it says Saugus, S-A-G-U-S, and some colonists' homes. Here, represented by these two triangles, the word underneath reads Indians.

This is the Saugus River, this says a weir, a fishing weir that goes across the river, those two lines. Most important to our study tonight, this large building. Notice how much larger it is than all the other buildings.

That is an intentional representation. And then underneath it, there is the letter B. This, I've superimposed onto this part of the map, it's actually much lower because this map is much larger.

The B is explained in this key, and it reads, Bob, compass direction, just for those of us, we're not used to looking at our coastline with Nahant up at the north there. So, north is this way. But here's what the key actually reads, Mr. Humphrey's frame house at Saugus. It specifies, Mr. Humphrey, that's his house, frame house, which right now, Molly and the Society, as I understand it, are trying to confirm the timber frames actually were imported from England. But be that as it may, he was the deputy governor of Massachusetts. He was an extremely important man, and he and his wife were very, very wealthy.

So, yes, he had a very big house, but they were alone because they owned so much land around it. Okay, I've told you all that. Okay, Bob, one more.

What's going on? Can you go back one slide? One more.

Okay, it's disappeared. Let's use that picture of the house on the left. The second floor on the left side still has 17th and 18th century architectural elements covered with ritual marks that are trying to tell us something about the fears of its occupants from hundreds of years ago.

I've come up with at least four possible reasons for the inhabitants of the Humphrey house to have been fearful over its first two centuries. I'm sure there were many more, but just for your consideration, let's look at these four. Bob.

John Humphrey, during his time of owning it, just from 1634 to 1641, 17th century court records made it clear that acts of evil weren't just committed by the devil. The records are filled with all sorts of sordid crimes and violations of Puritan standards committed by evildoers. Evil echoed through the Humphrey house, too.

Bob. Sir John Humphrey arrived in Lynn in the summer of 1634. He was a wealthy, successful, and influential member of the colony, at one time its deputy governor.

Bob. Lady Susan Humphrey, his third wife, the daughter of a British earl, found herself, quote, far removed from the elegant circles in which she had delighted, end quote, and she had become, quote, lonely, disconsolate, and homesick. The cold and barren wilderness of eastern Lynn, populated by its few lonely cottages, round which the Indians were roaming by day, and the wolves making their nightly excursions, end quote, was a stark and unhappy contrast to all she had left behind.

Bob. The Humphreys went back to England in the fall of 1641, apparently to lift the spirits and strengthen the prospects of both. But they made the grievous error of leaving their children back in the colony in the hands of, quote, honorable men.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Bob. For two years, from the time she was seven to nine years old, Dorcas Humphrey and her younger sister Sarah were sexually abused, repeatedly, by three men.

Bob. One assailant was fined, whipped forty lashes, and had both nostrils slit open as high as could be done, then seared with a hot iron, so that the scar wouldn't seal. He was then forced to live for the remainder of his life in Boston, with a two-foot-long rope tied around his neck, sort of suggestive of a noose, and also to make it clear that he was guilty of a terrible crime, much as you think of Nathaniel Hawthorne writing about the Scarlet Letter.

Bob. A second assailant was fined, whipped, and forced to live with a noose around his neck as well. The third assailant was just fined and whipped.

Each was fined forty pounds, which in 2023 U.S. dollars equals about $10,940. Bob. One more time, sorry.

During the period of 1630 to 1700, I propose fear of enemies. There had been no conflicts with the indigenous people in original Lynn, but the colonists were uncomfortable with their very different culture, their clothing, language, religion, behaviors, etc. Bob.

In 1642, a great alarm was occasioned through the colony by a report that the Indians intended to exterminate the English. The people were ordered to keep a watch from sunset to sunrise, and blacksmiths were directed to suspend all other business until the arms of the colony were repaired. Bob.

A watch house was built for the soldiers. From Alonzo Newhall's map, there is a watch house dated 1642, and a longer line, and here it says a spring, which was later, I believe, called Twin Springs. And this is Walnut Street, and this is Chestnut Street.

It was built for a safe retreat for the women and children of the town in case of an attack from the Indians, as Alonzo Lewis explained. More than 30 years later, and I should mention, by the way, there is a street in that far eastern section of Saugus today that is called Stockade Street. There don't seem to be any remains of this garrison house, but the street, I believe, is clearly named for that historical building that was there, or buildings.

Bob. And there's an illustration of what was believed to look like. More than 30 years later, King Philip's War from 1675 to 1678 had Lynn men go off and fight.

Other inland settlements were destroyed and their populations virtually eliminated. Fear of enemies intensified again from 1689 to 1695 when the French and Indians attacked English settlements in northern Massachusetts and southern Maine. Haverhill was one of the towns attacked, and it's only 28 miles from Lynn.

Bob. Shown here are support posts in the Humphrey House with possible late 17th century art done by Native Americans. This is still being actively investigated to determine the dating of it.

We have an expert among us here tonight, Professor Mary Ellen Lepianka, who, with other associates of hers, have looked at this art and indicated that it is place art, not petroglyph art like you see in southwestern rocks showing a deer and a hunter, etc., but wavy lines indicating rivers, a shoreline, etc. I'm not even going to pretend to know all the details, but it's been fascinating what we've been learning. Shown here are support posts in the Humphrey House with possible late 18th century art done by Native Americans.

Curious in some Europeans' eyes was likely unnerving to others. Maybe it was some of the inhabitants of the Humphrey House during these years that made the marks on the walls to protect themselves from enemies. One more thing I want to mention, I don't think I've got it written elsewhere, is there are ritual protection marks that I was describing earlier underneath this indigenous artwork.

So there are engravings, we'll see some solar symbols in a little while on one of these posts, and the artwork, the paint or ink that was used, actually fills in the engraved lines. So the engraved lines were there first, so clearly quite old. Next, fear of witches.

You may have thought it was the only fear, and I'm just trying to demonstrate tonight there are a lot of reasons to be fearful and to be putting the ritual protection marks on your house. So 1647 to 1697, we saw earlier, there was all kinds of fear of witches across the colonies here in the New England area. Bob?

Bob? Okay, so here's another map, and let's put a compass on here to give you some orientation, because again, it's not standard. Bob?

So north is actually what we think of as east, because this is Boston, and this is Lynn and Salem, so we're used to seeing this map turned 90 degrees to the left. Here's Salem, Marblehead, Gloucester, and here's Boston Harbor, etc. Okay, so hopefully that orients you.

Now you're going to see a yellow star coming in from the top left. It's not a meteor. Everybody will be safe.

But I do it so that you can easily see where it rests, otherwise it might have been difficult. Go ahead, Bob. Okay, that represents Swampscott's location, okay, on the eastern side of Lynn.

Now you're going to be seeing red W's to represent witchcraft accusations. To my knowledge, for the research that I've done, I haven't read of anybody literally from the eastern part of Lynn who was accused of witchcraft. So why would they have fear of witches?

Let's take a look. Bob? I have found at least 11 witchcraft accusations of residents of other parts of original Lynn to the west of what is now Swampscott.

Bob? We all know there were many witchcraft accusations made of the people of Salem Town, Salem Village, and other areas, Marblehead. Okay, Bob again.

And even further north and east, you see Gloucester had nine witchcraft accusations, and up into New Hampshire, etc. Bob? To the west, up into Andover, which was strongly hit with witchcraft accusations, Woburn, Bell Rica, Boston itself had, I think it was nine or ten, oh, twelve actually, witchcraft, people accused of witchcraft, Dorchester, Scituate.

So now look at that yellow star. They may not have had anybody next door that was being accused, but it was the news of the day, and they were surrounded, and their backs were up against the water. If you were a resident of Swampscott, any time between 1647 to 1697, you had plenty of justification for having fear of witchcraft, because it was real to them.

Again, the Bible said so. It wasn't a superstition to these people. It was fact, because the Bible told them it was.

Daniel King and his estate, and Robert Bronson after him, were the homeowners of the Humphrey building during those years. Okay, Bob? The Humphrey house from 1630 to 1800 was plagued with the next big reason to have fear, and I show peak years for certain elements here.

Bob? Fear of sickness. Now there were all kinds of sicknesses.

The worst ones were contagious, because if a member of your family had something, their household was all at risk. So the one that I focused on here tonight is the pox, smallpox. Okay?

Death was inevitable, but excruciating pain and misery made it much worse. The most devastating sickness was smallpox. It caused extreme pain and misery, high fever, bloody, oozing pustules everywhere.

It was incurable and deadly. Bob? Sorry, one more.

Bob? Okay. Countless multitudes of Native Americans died of some plague in 1630 to 1631.

Linn Puritan minister Jeremiah Shepard wrote, A work never to be forgotten is the Lord's preparing this wilderness for his people when he swept away thousands of those cursed devil worshippers with a mortal plague, Bob, to make room for a better people that came into this wilderness to plant the gospel and to enlighten these dark regions. Okay, now you see the names of the owners of the Humphrey House during the most significant peak years. The Burroughs, all Burroughs, the Burrough family owned the Humphrey House throughout the 1700s.

John Burrough Sr. was a selectman in Linn and in charge of the militia. Ebenezer Burrough, his son, and John Burrough, another son, were extremely wealthy and powerful men in local politics, and John Burrough, Ebenezer's brother, was the, I'm losing it, the speaker of the, I've got it written here somewhere, I'm sorry, and then Samuel Burrough and his estate. The Burroughs were to Linn its most powerful family.

They were like royalty. Between the wealth they had and all the key positions that they held, they were admired, they were revered, and they also used something that was a very important status symbol back then, a coat of arms. The Burrough coat of arms.

It was so important, and it distinguished the Burrough family because I haven't seen another family in Linn that regularly was using their, or even claiming to have a coat of arms. I don't know if they had a legitimate claim, but they were using it. And so much so, Bob, as recently as 1920, descendants in the Burroughs family, from this Burroughs family, they were making toothpaste and other products, called it Burroughs toothpaste and tooth powder, and they had the coat of arms on the packaging labels.

So the Burrough family was big news, Bob. But was an angry god punishing people like the Burroughs too, Bob? In 1721 to 1722, at least 5,759 people in a population of 10,600 in Boston were infected with smallpox, and at least 844 were recorded to have died from it.

Among them was Linn's VIP, the Honorable John Burrough, brother of Ebenezer, owner of the Humphrey House. And he was the speaker of the house in the legislature. Bob, when John Burrough died in 1721, his gravestone expressed the confidence that the family had in the heavenly destination of such a noble, worthy man.

His gravestone has a spirit form with a cherub's face and wings. Bob, but the dreaded pox had left emotional scars on the family. It had taken the best of their royal family and could easily come for them too.

Perhaps it wasn't just coincidence that, Bob, for 40 years after John's death, the next three family burials in the same cemetery reverted to the older style, grim reminder of mortality on their gravestones, the skull. The epitaph on his gravestone suggests the loss shook the Burrough family to the core. It explained that the church, the government, and the whole country were in mourning over his loss and that none of his qualities or the honors given to him could, from the epitaph, dear Burrough save from a contagious sickness and the grave.

So fear of evildoers, enemies, witches, and sickness. With these reasons for concern and probably several more, let's look at those protective marks that have been found in the Humphrey House. Bob, here's the fireplace wall of the second floor hall chamber as it appears today.

Bob, here's the same wall in about 1900. The fireplace was boarded up, so I'll add one to give better perspective. Bob, that's why we're so warm right now.

I apologize. I'm going to show you where I found ritual protection marks, or I'm sorry, where Molly principally found ritual protection marks, and then photos of the actual marks. Here's what your amazing president Molly Connor and I found from left to right.

Bob, a set of concentric circles. Bob, a triangular demon trap. Bob, two circles, solar symbols there next to the fireplace.

Bob, an intentional burn mark over the fireplace. Bob, an intense cluster of what may have been mesh marks. Bob, marks that we found yesterday.

They're tiny, and I will save the description of them in the last slide. And then, Bob, two more clusters of mesh marks. Bob, the candle mark.

While Molly is responsible for most of the success of finding these marks, she is not responsible for the demonstration I'm about to do. I didn't want to tell her about it because if you're not supposed to light a candle in the library because of the flame, I'm guilty, not her. So here is a blow-up showing what that candle mark looks like.

What's the big deal? Well, first of all, there's no hole in the wall below it. Back then, they would have something called a pricket, a little iron hoop with a spike coming off it, and they'd hammer that into the wall to hold the candle in place.

There's no pricket hole, therefore there was no pricket. So the candle was not accidentally lighting the wall. The other way would be a candle holder on a mantle.

The mantle, if this is the same mantle, it's very narrow. It's also, the candle, it could have been, but it would have had to have been very tall to be making the burn. I know for sure because I've looked at so many of these marks, I've been to so many homes now with this, and I've read about it in my research.

A lot of people in England, all of this is happening in England, and they have much more of it. Many more homes with the marks and all that. There is a wick here.

Come on, guys. Come on, you can do it. Ah, good.

Be a flame so you can let people see. Come on, you can do it. All right, it's lit anyway.

Nope, now it's out, so I'll just pretend. It's cursed, and so it won't work. So when they purposely made these burn marks in the wall, they didn't hold it up against the wall like this.

They held the candle horizontally and applied it to the wall, and they would stand there for at least five minutes, and we know this because of experiments that have been done to see how it worked. They would hold it still for five minutes at least, depending on how deep they wanted it, and a lot of the British ones are very deep. They would then scrape out the carbon and do it again.

Then they could scrape out the carbon and do it again to get a depth because they really wanted that impression, okay? You remember the one I showed you from Linfield? It had no carbon showing anymore, but there's significant depth.

It's the deepest one that I have found so far in my own studies. Think about what this represents again. Is this just a carbon smudge?

No. To them, those people that were making it, what is dark in this world is light in the spirit world, and evil hates the light. They love the darkness.

I apologize for putting you all in the darkness, but they loved the darkness and hated the light. So having a candle mark here over their fireplace, the main freeway through which witches and other evil spirits could come in spirit form, they would be repelled by that candle that in the spirit world was lighting it up. Hopefully you understand that.

Okay. Bob, located to the left of the fireplace, a distinctively three-sided mesh mark, and let's see, hidden behind the, okay. And then next, Bob, behind the fireplace, she had to get on her back and crawl in places that this body of mine couldn't go if you paid me.

It was too narrow, but she went back there, because she's a great investigator, and she found another mesh mark to the right, and this one's very different. This one here, you see the lines have sort of a geometric pattern, sort of parallax, they come together, and there's a line here and here. It's sort of a triangle shape like we saw in Linfield.

This one, the lines are crisscrossing over each other. What does it mean? Well, I'm just throwing out some suggestions of what the symbolic meanings could be.

Bob? Possibly, one more, possibly it symbolizes a cobweb, which is certainly a natural net to trap things, and that was the idea. Okay, Bob?

To the right of the fireplace, I showed you that there were two groupings of marks. Bob? On the left, the red highlights, they don't really clearly tell us much.

There's some verticals and horizontals, but look at the one on the right. This was actually lower on the wall. Bob?

There's actually a very consistent pattern of verticals and horizontals and some verticals that go lower, and that made me think of, Bob, a portcullis gate from the old castles, and these traditions of symbolic marks in Great Britain went back into the medieval era, so that could easily be one of the symbols that was being thought of. Bob? A very simple thing that to us today may look like a tic-tac-toe board, perhaps, Bob, it represented another form of jail bars.

Bob? Over the fireplace, there were verticals and the verticals, I'm sorry, over the fireplace, there was a whole bunch of lines going all directions, especially at angles. Very confusing.

What might it represent, Bob? Okay, there's what they look like. As best as I could make it out.

Some of the lines may be so light at this point with wall treatments that have been done. Maybe there's been some painting, some varnishing, who knows. So all the lines aren't showing, but from what does show, Bob, perhaps a net, the type of net that catches fish.

Bob? In 1663, another gentleman wrote, for an image was a trap to catch demons and a device to tie them to a place and to keep them from flitting, which means getting away. Whether or not a set of mesh marks or demon traps was symbolic of cobwebs, jail bars, portcullis gates or fish nets, they were all traps to catch and stop evil.

Much like the dream catchers created by the Ojibwe people, an item to catch bad dreams and let good dreams pass through. Bob? Here's the post I mentioned a little while ago.

The darker lines are the artwork that we believe is done by indigenous people and they fill in, I think it was about 12 circles, 12 solar symbols, you know, representing the sun on this post. Okay, Bob. Concentric circles in the house.

The one that I showed you earlier and read to the left of the fireplace, the one on the right is actually downstairs and on a door, but very, very clear. And I can only imagine how much clearer it would be if there wasn't several layers of paint on that door. But they were drawing concentric circles and there's only two bands, but perhaps they didn't need any more to communicate the circle in the middle, that's earth, that's where I live.

The outside circle, that's God. I want him to protect me. Okay, Bob.

The hexafoil symbol. Don't feel badly if you can't make it out. It's very light, but, Bob, highlighting it in red, this is what is on the wall.

And this is next to a door to a room that has been built in the attic on the third floor, bringing light into the darkness to keep the witches away. Bob. There are actually two that were found in the attic.

The one you've just seen, go ahead, Bob. This one is, I've already told you where it was. Bob, next one.

Another one found just yesterday by Molly after I left. It took 20 minutes after I left for her to write to me, I found another mark. Gosh darn you, Molly, why couldn't you have found it when I was there?

It's on the second floor, but on the inside of the door leading to the attic to scare away evil trying to get into the family living quarters. These marks are very intentionally placed. Okay, all of these marks are in places where evil might otherwise pass through.

Bob. This is the last set of marks that Molly was mentioning that she and I found yesterday. She saw this, she was scrunched down, and she saw this and said, holy mackerel, there's something there.

It looks like a star or a starburst. And I said, yes, absolutely true. And then I saw X's all over the place.

So, Bob, here are all the X marks. I think, again, I found 12 of them, and there easily could be more. There could be three times as many.

It's hard to tell because they've been there so long and there's been so much wear. Bob. And there's the starburst.

One very distinct starburst. Just like the solar marks and candle burn marks, it was believed to transform into a bright light in the darkness of the spirit world. Bob.

A few other things. This was a coin found in the Humphrey house, located in the first floor wall near an exit door, which is a typical placement of a building sacrifice for the safety and longevity of the house. Bob.

From elsewhere in Massachusetts, just to kind of round out the items that I described earlier, a horse skull found in South Deerfield from a home that was built in 1848. Bob. In a thick wall near the chimney, a horse skull had a piece of paper in the eye socket.

Bob. Reading, Colonel David M. Bryant and family took possession of this farm on April 29, 1848.

The note also listed the names of his wife and six children. The horse skull was expected to protect those named in the letter. Bob.

In Shutesbury, Mass., a concealed cat, also in a home built about 1848. This cat was found under floorboards of the wood closet attached to one end of the summer kitchen behind the outside door for bringing in wood. It was deposited in a space impossible for it to have accessed.

This placement was either a building sacrifice or a ritual protection to ward off evil and likely to fight off the witch's familiars who may be attacking. Bob. Finally, the bottle, the bottles that the first 70, 80 years would have been used were the ones they brought over with them.

Strong, thick-walled earthenware bottles like this. They were called Bartmann bottles, which is German for bearded man. And it was particularly appealing for several reasons.

First of all, they had them. Secondly, they wanted to repurpose them to fight witchcraft. Bob.

The bottle is anthropomorphic with its face on the neck and its bulbous belly. A household troubled by witchcraft would add the urine of the sick person into the bottle and sometimes hair, nail clippings, and a piece of fabric cut in the shape of a heart. Bob.

The body parts and fluids carried with them the essence of the witch who had bewitched that person. It was a magical recipe to get the witch to end her curse. The concept was they would fill this bottle with the sick person's urine, some hair, some nail clippings, that type of thing, and nails because remember iron is the witch's kryptonite.

They put nails in there, some pins, that type of thing. And the spirit of the witch upon entering the chimney or wherever, it was hoped that they would be distracted by this shape that seems to be something like a human shape and the smells that they were detecting inside of the urine and they would penetrate the bottle and when they did, they'd get stuck on the nails and pins. And they would have to either release their curse or die.

And there are several accounts right here in Massachusetts Bay Colony where people insisted that the witch that they suspected died shortly after they buried their bottle in the ground. Cotton Mather was fighting against people doing this because again he thought, he told them you're playing into the hands of the devil because this is magic. You're using magic to fight magic.

But they did it anyway. If you're desperate enough and fearful enough you're going to lose a family member just like using the rifle on the fox who's attacking your chickens. You can pray all you want but you're probably going to use the gun too.

So they were using the bottle. Okay. Bob.

One more. Okay. One more.

This bottle is one of many from Great Britain that has been x-rayed, found in a British home and x-rayed and it shows the contents that included nails, hairpins and hair and pins floating in liquid that was subsequently analyzed to be urine. Bob. The first U.S. souvenir spoon ever made was the Salem spoon in 1891. It features a witch with just her broom. No cat, crescent moon or bats. She seems agitated aggressively pointing either to the name Salem or Bob, further down the stem to three round-headed pins.

Just like the pins and the nails in the bottle that often were placed in multiples of three. That magical number. Perhaps it was a little reminder just in case Salem had another witch scare.

Bob. This presentation has been necessarily brief and incomplete. It has probably stimulated more questions than answers.

Hopefully it has created some possible explanations for the mysterious marks and objects in some of the oldest remaining homes of original Lynn. These marks may have been created by multiple artists over many years. We don't know whether the artists were male or female.

Separatists, Anglicans, Presbyterians or Crypto-Catholics. The homeowners themselves or their servants or slaves. We also don't truly know when the marks were made.

They usually aren't dated. While questions of who and when are not easily answered, the question of why the marks were made and objects were hidden is better understood. The mark makers and object hiders were believers in the reality of God and the devil and in the wrath of both.

Overwhelmed by their fears of the supernatural world in which they were convinced they were immersed, they made those ritual protection marks and objects to protect their homes, families and farm animals and to cure those who had been bewitched. The wood and walls of their homes kept the wind and rain away, but the protective marks and objects kept away witches and other evils. At least they hoped.

This tip tray, by the way, is for a man named Nathan Bouvier, who was a pharmacist in Swanscot. His company, New England Laboratories, was on 222 Humphrey Street, Swanscot, on the corner of Blaney Street and I noticed it is now a CBD store. Notice though, he used the Burrell family crest, the coat of arms.

Once again, this is from the 1920s. He did so because New England Laboratories was previous to him owned by the Burrell descendants. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been my honor to give you your first few doses of promising cures.

Perhaps it has made you feel a little bit better about living in the 21st century and hopefully it has piqued your interest to read a little more of my book, which, if I didn't mention, is free. Thank you very much. Do we have the lights?

As I indicate, I'd be more than happy to answer questions. I don't know if they're still recording. They gave me this little microphone to attach.

I don't know if this makes me look fat. Yes, sir?

[Speaker 5] (1:14:14 - 1:14:30)
In the beginning, you described how they would plant those berries outside the first period homes. But you said that they had a pentagram on them, which, in modern culture and stuff, is representative of evil, sort of the opposite of what they were.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:30 - 1:15:06)
Right. But back then, the pentagram was not considered evil. The concept that the pentagram is associated with devil worshipers and all, that is a very recent phenomenon.

Originally, it was a sacred symbol. In fact, in the legend of Sir Gawain, the Green Knight, the description, I think it's Chaucer, the description of his shield is of the pentagram and the significance and the holiness of having that on there. Good question.

Yes, ma'am?

[Speaker 6] (1:15:06 - 1:15:16)
When you showed the map at the beginning that showed the Humphrey House, the Mass Bay Colony map, where is the source of that map? I'd love to look at it or look it up.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:16 - 1:15:33)
As I recall, I found it on the Norman Leventhal Map Collection at the Boston Library, but it's online. So go to the Norman, and I'm not sure if I'm giving you the whole title, but the Norman P. Leventhal Map Collection, Boston Public Library, and you'll be able to find that map.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:33 - 1:15:33)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:34 - 1:15:34)
Yes, ma'am?

[Speaker 4] (1:15:34 - 1:15:35)
Are any of those maps in your book?

[Speaker 1] (1:15:37 - 1:16:21)
No, that map is not. My book is full of illustrations and stuff, but I keep learning, and I've shared a lot with you tonight that I did not have in my book. Although, there are pictures that book is open to some of the images I did show you in here, and keep in mind, this talk, for about 45 minutes, is long enough, but the book is 1400 pages.

There's only so much that I can do in one evening. The detail that you may want for any of the subjects or sub-subjects that I offered you tonight, you'll find in there free when you go to FamilySearch.org or buy yourself a copy of the book. Yes, sir?

[Speaker 3] (1:16:21 - 1:17:13)
You've done a great job of explaining the rationale for these various markings and objects, which were used over, as I understand it, a couple hundred years. I don't know if it's possible for the researchers to indicate it. At some point, were people, because of their concern about evil and bad luck, were they using these symbols but no longer understanding the original rationale?

In other words, today people cross their fingers for good luck, they keep a rabbit foot, they don't... We don't know the origins of those unless we research them. Were people, a couple hundred years later, still using these marks, not really knowing anything more than these things are good because they will protect us but not understanding the detailed rationale that you've explained?

[Speaker 1] (1:17:14 - 1:20:51)
Right. The rationale for anything that any of us do is very difficult to prove if we ourselves haven't documented it. Okay?

We can assume why somebody else did something. I may assume that Mary Ellen is cold right now because she has a shawl scarf on. But that may have nothing to do with it.

She may have an entirely different reason. So when we're looking at these marks, it is difficult to say they did it for this reason. All I did tonight was try to propose to you, for example, showing you the four types of fear over different areas of the owners living in the house, different rationale that could have existed for them to do this.

There is a movie that I will admit to have watched 80 for Brady. And if you remember that, you'll remember in the opening scene about five elderly ladies, all wearing their Tom Brady jerseys, each one in a particular position, one knocking over a bowl of potato chips, one I think replacing a light bulb, and they were frozen in their positions, and the reason that they explained to each other or reminded each other was they had to do this in order for the Patriots to win.

We are creatures of habit. Lots of people have their favorite sports jerseys. As you go down the street, you may see a ladder and there's no signs, and you're likely to walk around the ladder instead of underneath the ladder.

That may just be a good safety sense or it may be a superstition that you grew up with, or that your grandmother insisted, don't ever go under a ladder. Why do we do things? Very difficult to know.

What we do know, not just from the study I've done of these six homes in Lynn, but also all the research you can do of homes in Great Britain and other places, Australia, France, Germany, all have ritual protection marks, etc. And there are commonalities. The biggest commonality is the placement around entry points into the home.

The few quotes, I offered one underneath the fishing net there where the man said, back in whatever it was, 1680-something or 1660- something, that images were put in place to catch the demons and to stop them from floating away. So we have from vestiges of written records about the use of these marks and the ritual placement, we have consistencies, patterns, that tell us what they were using, and identifying it because of where they were using it, the time period of the home, etc. I mentioned to you also in the talk that there were marks and objects even in the homes that I looked at, and all over Europe, going into the 1890s and early 1900s.

Our own grandparents and great-grandparents had things that they were doing. Another question that I've had from other audiences this week, did everybody do this? No.

I'm sure everybody did not do this. Did just a few do it? Can't tell you that either.

But I can tell you that it's kind of compelling to me that of six homes, the only six homes that still stand where you can actually investigate to see if there were marks, they all had them. Other questions?

[Speaker 4] (1:20:53 - 1:21:14)
The witchcraft hysteria, it came on pretty suddenly, and you said it ended pretty suddenly, people finally realized, was it like the politicians or the upper class that realized it, said this is ridiculous, why are these people doing it, or was it just the people themselves that realized it was embarrassing and stupid?

[Speaker 1] (1:21:15 - 1:23:00)
First of all, I'll answer, but I'm going to preface it with, I'm not an expert on the Salem Witch Trials. I've read a lot about it like many of you have. What I have learned is that there were several things that conjoined together to end it.

There were a lot of people that were quite disturbed about it. Some of the divines, the ministers, were upset about it. Nobody likes to see people executed.

Well, I take that back. Some people really did. They brought their kids, they brought lunches, and all that kind of stuff to executions.

But there were others who were appalled by it. Then also, I believe it was Governor Phipps, whose wife was accused at the tail end, and he said, wait a minute, okay, no. When they took away the key piece of evidence, spectral evidence, that you claimed that I was a witch because you saw me in the form of a cat on a boat, or you saw me floating into your house.

Nobody else could see, especially these young girls, but adults were making claims too, about invisible phenomenon that only they could see. Well, when they put an end to that, they said, no more spectral evidence. If you're going to prove your case that this person is a witch, you've got to prove it by other means.

Spectral evidence. My brother back there was a judge throughout his career, and I know it was a tough enough job, but if spectral evidence was allowed, I think he would have retired a lot earlier. Any other questions?

Yes, sir.

[Speaker 8] (1:23:00 - 1:23:07)
Were there any poppets in the Humphrey house? Because I feel like there was one in the children's room.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:08 - 1:27:04)
Ah, okay. His question was, were there any poppets? I use the term poppet dolls because that's what they called them back in the 1600s.

Today, just to get everybody caught up here, today we think of them as voodoo dolls, because we think of the Caribbean influence, right? Same concept. A little doll with pins in it, etc.

Bridget Bishop, the first lady who was executed in the Salem witch trials, one of the claims against her was two men were working in the basement of the house that she used to live in as the man's third wife, I think it was, and they pulled some of the walls out of the basement as instructed, and they claimed to have found four or five poppet dolls with the pins in it, and it wasn't the pin points in the doll, it was the round head of the pins in the doll and all the points pointing out like it was a porcupine. So they said, this is clearly poppet doll, and it's Bridget Bishop's fault that they were behind the stones of a house that other people had lived in previously. Okay?

Was there any found in the Humphrey house, was your question. The answer is no, or the Swampskate Historical Society president, Molly Connor, is keeping a big secret. No horse skulls have been found, no witch bottles have been found, objects are harder to find.

The marks were put on the walls, sometimes hidden behind the other side of walls from what you have as the living space, and that happened with that one that Molly found that I couldn't get into, but most of them that we find are on the interior walls that we live in, but objects are hidden. They're hidden under the hearth of the fireplace. They're hidden under the threshold of a door, or behind a wall.

So they're much harder to find because you have to start tearing things apart. And I really, really wanted to do that to the Humphrey house, but Molly said, absolutely not. But someday when there's renovations, something may be found.

Who knows what it will be. And the Humphrey house was moved. So, and it's had reconstruction and all.

The whole house is not from the 17th century, that's for sure. There was a house in Linfield where in addition to some marks on the cellar door, there was, they did some renovation to the ceiling in the living room, and right over where is the front door, there was a child's shoe from 1890, and there was a little doll with a piece of wire, which is was made of metal, wrapped around and twisted around its neck. And I sent it to, I sent images of both of the items to the leading expert in England of all this, the ritual protection marks and all, Brian Hoggard.

And he wrote back, he said, this is absolutely an example of ritual protection objects. And I won't go into all the explanation of what it was. But keep in mind where it was found.

Over the door, the front door, a child isn't putting it there. Perhaps a builder was putting it there. Maybe at the instruction of the homeowner.

But there were things behind the walls. Another house in Linfield had a child's crutch. It came up this high on me.

A crutch was put behind the wall. Perhaps in the spirit world to allow the child to, who perhaps died, to be stronger, to not need that, because that represented weakness in this world and you wanted him strong in the next. So, hope that answers a little bit.

But I didn't tear anything apart, honest. If she says I did, I didn't. Molly.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:04 - 1:27:14)
I think we have to wrap it up. My library closes at 8.30. If you want some delicious Karen Galan's refreshments, please jump over. Thank you everyone.

[Speaker 9] (1:27:15 - 1:27:25)
Thank you. No, I don't sell the books.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:25 - 1:27:28)
I give them away online for free.

[Speaker 6] (1:27:30 - 1:27:33)
Sure. He mentioned about John Humphrey's children.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:34 - 1:27:34)
Yes.