| Title: | Provides Access to Salem Witchcraft Data |
|---|---|
| Description: | Data related to the Salem Witch Trials Datasets and tutorials documenting the witch accusations and trials centered around Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Originally assembled by Richard B. Latner of Tulane University for his website <https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/index.html>. The data sets include information on 152 accused witches, members of the Salem Village Committee, signatories of petitions related to the events, and tax data for Salem Village. |
| Authors: | Elin Waring [aut, cre], Richard Latner [aut] |
| Maintainer: | Elin Waring <[email protected]> |
| License: | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
| Version: | 1.0.1 |
| Built: | 2026-05-15 07:20:43 UTC |
| Source: | https://github.com/elinw/salem |
A dataset containing list of accused witches, the month of accusation, whether they were executed and, if so, what month.
accused_witchesaccused_witches
A data frame with 152 rows and 8 variables:
Name of accused
Town of residence
Month of accusation as number
Month of execution as number. Missing for those not executed.
ID from original data set
Month of accusation as ordered factor
Month of execution as ordered factor. Missing for those not executed.
Indicator of whether the accused was executed
https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/Accused%20Witches.html
A dataset based on data about the accused found http://17thc.us/primarysources/accused.php?id=1&pg=1
cent17thcent17th
An object of class data.frame with 156 rows and 17 columns.
containing a comprehensive list of names from the records if the Salem Witchcraft Trials and the correspondent stub indicating the page name associated with them.
Source table
Name of those who were condemned during the trial
The marital status of those condemned if they were female with the source
The evidence they had for forefeiture, the source in which they had and if they had aritcle seized or not for those who were condemned
their legal status in which this case is condmemned and their souce
if the declaration of the attainders were reversed or not for the condemned
Any comments made for those who were condemned
http://17thc.us/primarysources/accused.php?id=1&pg=1
A dataset containing list of Salem Village Committee members 1685-1698. Given in long format, with one row per member per year. In 1688 there were only 4 members; in all other years there were five.
committee_listcommittee_list
A data frame with 69 rows and 5 variables:
Name of committee member
Their social position (3 groups)
Did this person sign either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695
ID from original data set
Year of membership
https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/Committee%20List%20Data%20Set.html
Compensation A data set containing the amount of compensation awarded in 1711. Order for payment of damages by Governor Joseph Dudley, December 17, 1711
compensationcompensation
A data frame with 19 rows and 6 variables:
Name of those compensated
Pounds part
Shillings part
Pence part
Total amount converted to pence
Male, female or couple
http://swtdocuments.pem.org/documents/15/
A dataset containing the ergotism data presented in Spanos and Gottlieb (1976) Table 1. The dataframe records the symptoms possible symptoms of ergotism reported about 22 individuals.
ergotism_symptomsergotism_symptoms
A data frame with 22 rows and 20 variables:
Name of the sufferer
Volume number of RSW
Page number
Vomitting
Diarrhea
Livid skin
Permanent contractures
Pain in extremities
Death
Temporary muscle stiffness
Convulsions Cases Spanos and Gottlieb considered uncertain are coded missing.
Ravenous appetite
Perceptual disturbances Cases Spanos and Gottlieb considered uncertain are coded missing.
Apparitions
Sensations of hot & cold
Skin sensations
Stomach pain
Choking sensations
Temporary inability to speak
Total number of symptoms
Spanos and Gottlieb, with one exeption (E. Keysar), drew the data from depositions in the Records of the Salem Witchcraft collection. Details of data collection are provided in the article. The data set indicates the volume and page of the individual report. J. Doritch is also mentioned in volume 2 page 179 of RSW.
The article is an attempt to compare the actual symptoms reported to a list of symptoms of ergotism. For each variable a 1 inidicates that the symptom was reported, while a 0 indicated it was not reported. They conclude that "We examined these 112 depositions looking for behavior that, even in a broad sense, might possibly represent symptoms of convulsive ergotism."
Spanos, N. P., & Gottlieb, J. (1976). Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials. Science, 194(4272), 1390–1394.
forfeitures A data set containing list of forfeitures for those who were condemned, escaped, and stood mute during trial.
forfeituresforfeitures
A data frame with 30 rows and 6 variables with the name Person_condemned:
Legal status at time of forfeiture
Name of those who were condemned during the trial
The marital status for females
The evidence that a forfeiture was ordered
Was the declaration of the attainders was reversed
The source has some Key Tables which are: for the 1703 and 1711 acts reversing some of the witchcraft attainder see Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Act and Resolver, Public and Private, of the providence of the Massachusetts Bay, 21 vols. (Boston, 1869-1922), VI, 49-50 (1703 act), VI, 71-72 (1711 act). SWP-Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbain, eds., The Salem Witchcraft Papers; Verbian Transcript of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, 3 vols. (New York, 1977). Calef-Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1700), excerpted in George L. Burr, ed., Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1684-1706 (New York, 1914), 293-393. Brattle-Thomas Brattle, "Letter," Oct. 8, 1692, in Burr, ed., Narratives, 169-190. Hale-John Hale, A modest Inquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft (Boston, 1702), in Burr, Narratives, 399-432. Gage-Thomas Gage, the History of Rowley (Boston, 1840).
Brown, David C. “The Forfeitures at Salem, 1692.” The William and Mary Quarterly,#' vol. 50, no. 1, 1993, pp. 85–111. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2947237?seq=1, 10.2307/2947237
A dataset containing a comprehensive list of names mentioned in therecords of the Salem Witchcraft Papers and the correspondent stub indicating the page name associated with them.
long_doc_namelong_doc_name
An object of class data.frame with 3884 rows and 2 columns.
There are 139 separate pages which mention a total of 1392 unique names. 857 individuals were mentioned once. The maximum number of mentions is 85 (John Hathorn, who served as Salem's Magistrate).
Source table
Name of person mentioned
https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/category/swp.html
A dataset containing a list of individuals who signed pro-Parris and anti-Parris petitions and their social positions
parris_socialparris_social
A data frame with 189 rows and 5 variables:
Name of the individual
Stance on Parris
Sex of the individual
The social position of the individual (five groups)
ID from original data set
https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/Pro-Parris%20Data%20Set.html
A dataset containing map information for the three counties represented in the accused_witches data set (not including present-day Maine locations) in simple features format. It also includes associated data on accusations. This data should never be used to analyze accusations. The data is based on modern town boundaries from the Massachuessetts Document Repository. Some simple cleaning has been done to facilitate basic mapping. Specifically, the names Salem Town and Salem Village are used rather than the modern Salem and Danvers. Additionally, a field, TOWN_LABEL is attached to the largest area for each town or community.
salem_regionsalem_region
A simple features data frame with 437 rows and 28 variables:
Simple Features geometry
Name of town in upper case letters
ID of town
Type of municipality C = City or T = Town
Indicator for islands. Note that many towns have multiple polygons
YES for ocean polygon within town limits, NO otherwise
Codes allowing shading of all towns with 4 symbols
FIPS for state and county
US Census town code
FIPS town code
FIPS State & County & Census Town Code concatenated
FIPS County
Area in acres
Area in square miles
The perimeter in meters
The polygon area in square meters
Total accused
Number accused in February
Number accused in March
Number accused in April
Number accused in May
Number accused in June
Number accused in July
Number accused in August
Number accused in September
Number accused in October
Number accused in November
Town name to be used for labelling
Complex analyses require the sf package, but simple mapping can be done using ggplot2.
FIPS refers to the Federal Information Processing Standard
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-municipalities
A dataset containing tax list of everyone who appeared on the tax assessment rolls for 1690, 1695, and 1697. This is a "a good, though imperfect, indicator of the village's adult male population" plus some widows (and excluding young men who were not independent).
salem_villagesalem_village
A data frame with 137 rows and 5 variables:
Name of taxpayer (may be a family)
Did this person sign either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695
Was the person a member of any church through 1696
ID from original data set
May be merged with the tax_comparison data set based on name matching, but care should be taken to review and make judgements about matching.
https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/Salem%20Village%20Data%20Set.html
A dataset containing tax list data for Salem, MA, 1681-1700. Payments are in shillings (converted from original records). Petition refers to Pro-Parris, Anti-Parris and No Signature. Data are in long format with one record per person per year, while the original data was in wide format with a variable for each year. May be merged with the tax_comparison data set based on name matching, but care should be taken to review and make judgements about matching. This data set includes more years of tax records than salem_village.
tax_comparisontax_comparison
A data frame with 200 rows and 5 variables:
Name of the tax payer
Stance on Petition
Year of payment
Tax paid
ID from original data set
https://www2.tulane.edu/~salem/Tax%20Comparison%20Data%20Set.html