Rebecca Nurse facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rebecca Nurse
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Nurse in a picture from a 1907 book
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Rebecca Towne
February 21, 1621 |
| Died | July 19, 1692 (aged 71) |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Housewife |
| Known for | Convicted of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials |
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Rebecca Towne Nurse (or Nourse) (February 21, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was a pious 71-year-old grandmother when she was hanged as a witch in Salem Village on July 19, 1692. Her death was the turning point in the Salem Witch Trials. People started to doubt the truthfulness of the girls said to be afflicted and tormented by those arrested and tried for witchcraft.
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Life
Nurse was born in Great Yarmouth, England in 1621. In 1644, her family settled in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts). About 1644, she married Francis Nurse, a traymaker. The couple were highly esteemed in the colony because few could work wood into trays, cups, mugs, dishes and other useful objects. They had eight children.
The Nurses and the Putnams of Salem had several disputes over land. On March 23, 1692, a warrant was issued for Rebecca's arrest on suspicion of witchcraft. The Putnams were behind the arrest. Many villagers were angry that she had been accused of witchcraft. She was 70 years old and known to be a very pious woman.
Her trial began on June 30, 1692. Many testified to her good character. The afflicted girls of the community however testified that she was tormenting them. She was found not guilty of witchcraft. Some wanted her found guilty and urged the judges to reconsider their verdict. They did, and she was found guilty.
As was the custom, after she was hanged, her body was buried in a shallow grave near the execution spot. They were considered unfit for a Christian burial in a churchyard. According to oral tradition, Nurse's family secretly returned after dark and dug up her body, which they interred properly on their family homestead. Although her exact resting place has never been confirmed her descendants erected a tall granite memorial in the family plot in 1885 at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead cemetery in Danvers (formerly Salem Village), Massachusetts. The inscription on the monument reads:
Rebecca Nurse, Yarmouth, England 1621. Salem, Mass., 1692.
O Christian Martyr who for Truth could die
When all about thee owned the hideous lie!
The world redeemed from Superstition's sway
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
(From the poem "Christian Martyr," by John Greenleaf Whittier)
In 1706, her accuser, Ann Putnam, Jr., composed a confession in consultation with the Reverend Joseph Green, Samuel Parris's successor as minister of Salem's church. Green read Putnam's confession to the Salem Village congregation on 25 August, 1706, after which Putnam received Communion. She expressed great remorse for her role against Rebecca and her two sisters, Mary Eastey and Sarah Cloyce, in particular.
The Nurse family remained in the home for many generations. Eventually the Nurse family homestead was sold to Phineas Putnam, a cousin of Rebecca's great-great-grandson Benjamin, in 1784. The Putnam family remained until about 1905. By 1909 the farm was saved by volunteers and turned into a historic house museum that includes the original house and cemetery, on 27 of the original 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land.
Nurse is a character in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
In 2021, the 400th anniversary of Nurse's birth, the first full biography of her life was published, Daniel A. Gagnon's A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse.
Notable descendants
Rebecca Nurse is the ancestor of several notable people, including Vincent Price, Mitt Romney, Zach Braff, Amy Grant, and Lucille Ball.
Images for kids
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The Rebecca Nurse Homestead in 2006
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A fanciful representation of Rebecca Nurse's trial from The Witch of Salem, or Credulity Run Mad by John R. Musick
See also
In Spanish: Rebecca Nurse para niños
