Ann Putnam


Ann Putnam , along with Elizabeth Parris, Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis and Abigail Williams, was an important witness at the Salem Witch Trials of Massachusetts during the later portion of 17th-century Colonial America. Born 1679 in Salem Village, Essex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony, she was the eldest child of Thomas and Ann Putnam.
She was friends with some of the girls who claimed to be afflicted by witchcraft and, in March 1692, proclaimed to be afflicted herself. She is responsible for the accusations of 62 people, which, along with the accusations of others, resulted in the executions of twenty people, as well as the deaths of several others in prison.
She was a first cousin once removed of Generals Israel and Rufus Putnam.

Early life

Ann was born October 18, 1679 to Thomas Putnam and Ann Putnam, who had twelve children in total. Ann was the eldest. Fellow accuser Mercy Lewis was a servant in the Putnam household, and Mary Walcott was, perhaps, Ann's best friend. These three girls would become the first afflicted girls outside of the Parris household.

Salem witch trials

Ann was one of the "afflicted girls", the primary accusers during the trials.

Aftermath

According to Upham, and implied by her own will, Ann was chronically ill in the years after the trials, and that lead to her death at a young age.
When both her parents died in 1699, Putnam was left to raise her nine surviving siblings. She never married.
In 1706, Ann Putnam publicly apologized for the part she had played in the witch trials, the only one of the accusers to do so:
The surviving victims of the witch trials, and the families of those who had been executed as a result of her accusations, accepted her apology and were reconciled with her.

Death

She died in 1716 and is buried with her parents in an unmarked grave in Danvers, Massachusetts. Her will entered probate on June 29, 1716, so she presumably died shortly before then. In it, she refers to eight surviving siblings. Her four brothers inherited the land she had inherited from her parents, and her personal estate was divided between her four sisters.

In popular culture

In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, her character's name is Ruth, to avoid confusion with her mother, Ann Putnam
Conversion by Katherine Howe describes the mass hysteria of the fictional St. Joan's Academy in Danvers, Massachusetts, interlaced with intercalary chapters from Ann's perspective as she tells the town's new reverend how the witch hunt began and escalated based on her testimony and the testimonies of the other girls. The novel explores the occurrence of modern-day hysteria through juxtaposition against the Salem Witch Trials.