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Bridget Bishop Like many of the accused, the Bishops had some controversy attached to the name. Bridget was the second wife of Edward Bishop, sawyer. Bishop, however was her third husband. She married first a Wasslebee, and second, Thomas Oliver. Long before her fine demise, In 1680, Bridget was arrested, but not convicted, on a charge of witchcraft. At the time of her arrest in April of 1692, Bridget and her husband were living near the town line of Salem Village and Beverly. It was there that she kept a tavern or public house of sorts where the patrons drank, kept late hours and made such noise that the neighbors complained of it. Her husband Edward and his first wife Hannah had been before the court earlier in 1653 for "pilfering . . . and lying . . .," and was also fined for contempt of court in 1692. [Nevins] Curiously, Bridget Bishop appears never to have entered Salem "proper," claiming at her trial that "I was never in this place before." [Boyer & Nissenbaum] Though Bridget, like so many others, denied every charge, she was convicted on Wednesday, the eighth of June and hanged the tenth of June, 1692. Her husband remarried within a year of her death. The Witches of Salem, Winfield S. Nevins,
Longmeadow Press, 1994
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