| Cotton's Ghosts continued... |
| The lawsuit was filed against Clark and his business partner by Cotton. He could not sue them for the money they had skipped out on for the rent because they had never formalized the oral agreement for rent. He instead had to charge the tenants with slander against the house. Their rumors, combined with the large crowds that remained outside the house looking for ghosts, made the house an undesirable investment and people refused to rent it. The reputation of the house and the ghost seekers also lowered the property value of the surrounding area and tainted Cotton’s stature among the community.
Around this time Cotton’s obsession with the lawlessness of the superstitious community inspired him to write “Some Observations Concerning Witches, Spirits and Apparitions.” While no copies exist of the original, unfinished, manuscript, he often refers to it in his diaries and papers and there is proof that his words were heard by influential anti-paranormal writers and thinkers. It condemned the clogging up of courts with witch trials and attacked local preachers for preaching the unexplained in their sermons and reinforcing the superstitions of the people. These people had turned against God and refused to put their futures in his hands and this was the reason bad things happened. The cycle would not be broken until the fringe beliefs were broken, and he believed this trial would act as a trial against those ideas and for the glory of God. While this seems a noble if not loft ideal, it is important to remember Cotton still had substantial financial gain invested in the outcome of the trial. The courts were also weary of the paranormal. By the middle of the eighteenth century educated people had already had enough time to see their flaw in Salem and the Enlightenment had changed people’s opinions on old “rural” rituals. Logic ruled and science had started to replace established religious beliefs. The media still controlled public opinion, however, and served to solidify people’s ideas about the property and justified people’s practice of supernatural rituals. Ghost stories make good stories and newspaper accounts of the trial before and during the proceedings served to reinforce rural superstitions as a type of subset of established religions. The trial finally began in early March, 1734. Cotton and his lawyer changed their tactics several times over the course of the trial. Originally they intended to prove there was no such thing as ghosts and therefore there could be no reason behind what was said about the house. They offered explanations to most of the reported hauntings and several witnesses took back their testimony. He brought up other hoaxes, sighting the Salem Witch Trials and other famous cases to prove his point. Cotton and his family even stayed in the house to prove it was safe. It may be difficult to prove the existence of ghosts, but Cotton’s found it equally hard to convince people there was no such thing as ghosts. The quickly changed tactics to prove belief in the supernatural was evil and wrong. Superstitions were the work of the “fringe” and undesirable people in society, especially Native Americans and slaves. As young and unestablished people in the community his former tenants were susceptible to this and then infected their neighbors who were more than eager to believe. This tactic failed as well because people’s ideas ran too deep. They turned to their last tactic, trying to prove Clark’s intent. They presented to the court that he had known people held these strong ideas and intentionally aid what he said to hurt Cotton’s reputation. The decision finally came down, and the judgment acted as a validation for the people. It was not proven that ghosts did not exist and that superstitions were an important element in society and had to be validated. It did not matter if there was a Devil or not, only that people believed there was. Cotton and his lawyer did not prove intent and Clark and the other defendants were acquitted. Cotton was forced to pay all the court costs, but more importantly a message was sent that people were not ready to leave their ideas behind for his God. He later tried again to convince people by spending a small fortune on copies of the Hale’s “Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft” and by continuing to preach against the paranormal, but he never broke through. He also took the case to the higher courts, but was finally defeated when he was ruled against by John Hancock. Cotton’s essay railing against ghosts was never published and eventually lost to time. Clark and the other residents blended into the Plymouth community and have since become footnotes. The house itself still stands, but visitors never hear of its true history. What remains is the trial. It proved nothing and made no decision on the existence of ghosts. It did establish the power of the people to determine what was true, even if there was no way to measure it or classify it. Ideas proved to be stronger than the black and white text of the law and trial, from the filing to the testimonies to the decision reach ahead to today to tell us the paranormal history we inherit. |
| by Christopher Balzano copyright 2004 |