Bridget Bishop, image created long after her death
Em encounters Bridget on Gallows Hill in Danvers behind the Walgreens on the anniversary of Bridget's hanging.
Personality in Suffer a Witch[]
Bridget tends to be flighty and emotions. She had tremendous sorrow over her own hanging. This spills over into what seems like empathy for the young women who testified that her specter tortured them. She is known to say "What's the point of being immortal if you can't do what you want to do."
She is of average strength as a witch.
Historic Bridget[]
Bridget Bishop was born in England in the 1640s. She moved to Salem Town in the 1660s. She tended to flaunt Puritan sensibilities by wearing a red paragon bodice when traditional Puritan dress was all black. She was generally unliked by her neighbors.
Important "evidence" in Bridget's case:
Hanging of Bridget Bishop.
- She had been tried and acquitted of witchcraft twelve years earlier. She was believed to have bewitched her second husband, Thomas Oliver, to death.
- She was generally unliked by her neighbors, many of whom had believed for decades that she was a witch.
- When she was remodeling her home seven years earlier, workmen found poppets (puppets) in the walls of her home. While it's unlikely the poppets belonged to Bridget, the workmen insisted the poppets had pins in them as if they'd been used in witchcraft.
- When giving her testimony, she was said to have been caught seven times in what were considered by the examiners as "gross lies".
- She was so obvious a witch that they didn't bother keeping a record of her testimony
She was the first person hung in Salem Village for the charge of being a witch. She was 52 years old when she was hanged on June 10, 1692 (between 10 and 12 noon.)
Bridget Bishop's memorial marker in Salem, MA