John Willard

John Willard (c. 1657 – August 19, 1692) was one of the people executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials. He was hanged on Gallows Hill, Salem on August 19, 1692.

At the time of the first allegations of witchcraft Willard was serving as a constable in the village of Salem and his duties included bringing the accused before the court. Soon, however, he began to doubt the truth of the accusations and in May 1692 he refused to make any more arrests. In retaliation Ann Putnam, Jr. and others accused him of witchcraft, and of murdering thirteen citizens.

Some of Willard's in-laws, the Wilkins, also made accusations against him. Benjamin Wilkins would tell the court that Willard had previously beat his wife, Samuel Wilkins testified that he had repeatedly been irritated and afflicted by an entity in a dark colored coat he identified as Willard. John Wilkins would blame the death of his wife, after having delivered a baby, on John Willard, and the family patriarch, Bray Wilkins, would say that he came down with an illness after John Willard had looked at him with an evil eye. Willard was found guilty of witchcraft on August 5, 1692. On August 19, 1692, he was hanged, along with John Proctor, George Burroughs, George Jacobs, Sr., and Martha Carrier. Willard maintained his innocence until the very end.

Most of the information on John Willard's early life is relatively obscure. However, most scholars conclude that he probably came from Lancaster, Massachusetts, and he was born in 1657. Indeed, it was Lancaster, then called Nashaway, where Willard fled to after being accused of witchcraft. During his youth John Willard lived in Lancaster and worked under a Major Simon Willard, one of the most prominent Massachusetts land speculators of the mid-seventeenth century. Given the shared surname, some scholars have concluded that Simon and John were kinsmen, usually positing that John was either the son, or grandson of Major Willard. "The Pioneers of Massachusetts, 1620-1650", as well as vital records and shows Major Simon Willard and his wife, Mary Dunster, having a son named John in 1656/7.

The Wilkins disapproved of John Willard immediately after Margaret Wilkins decided to marry him. This was partly due to Willard's chosen profession and the failure of a business venture by Bray Wilkins decades earlier, which had led to him selling 2/3 of his land holdings and very narrowly holding out on a court-ordered foreclosure of the remaining third. Thus, seeing one of his daughters marry a man who had interest in land speculation, made him uneasy.

Initially after arriving at Salem Village, John Willard worked as a hired hand on the Putnam farm. One of his many tasks on the farm was looking after the young children living there. Ann Putnam, Sr. had recently given birth to a baby girl and Willard was usually asked to watch the infant. However, the infant, who was named Sarah, would die after a few months. The distraught parents would blame Willard for her untimely death. Despite this, the Putnams did not let the conflict affect their relationship with rest of the Wilkins clan. The Putnams and the Wilkins shared many similarities and experiences. Both families would band together in an attempt to break away from Salem Town and establish their own church in the village, and both families suffered setbacks from failed mercantile enterprises.

Towards the end of April, after Willard had abandoned his post as a constable and publicly doubted the girls' accusations, Ann Putnam Jr. began to see visions of John Willard's specter. Willard's specter would reveal to her his culpability in several murders. Ann Jr. claimed that she told the apparition of John Willard: "I am very sorry to see you so. You were the one that helped to tend me, and now you have come to afflict me." During her testimony, she would claim that Willard "sett upon me most dreadfully" and had admitted to her that "he had whiped my little sister Sarah to death and he would whip me to death if I would not write in his book." Ann Jr. would later see the apparition of her dead sister Sarah who was "crieing out for vengance against John Willard" along with the specter of "John Wilkins' first wife" who also declared that Willard had caused her death (Lydia, the wife of John Wilkins, the cousin of Willard's wife Margaret, had died in January 1688)

After hearing about these disturbing reports, Willard would seek help from his wife's grandfather, Bray Wilkins. Wilkins would later testify that Willard, after Ann Jr. began to accuse him, "came my house greatly troubled" and wanted him and other villagers to pray for him. Wilkins would tell his grandson-in-law that, unfortunately, he was on his way out of town for business, but if Willard would come home before night then he would pray with him. Willard however was unable to make it before night and Wilkins would not honor the request for prayers. On Tuesday May 3, 1692, Willard asked his uncle-in-law Henry Wilkins (one of Bray's sons) to accompany him to Boston for election week. Henry's son, Daniel Wilkins, who was seeing Mercy Lewis at the time, warned his father not to go with Willard saying "It would be well if Willard were hanged". Henry was taken aback by the comment, and decided to go with Willard. At the same time Willard and Henry Wilkins were planning on going to Boston, Bray Wilkins had also made plans to travel there and was staying at his brother-in-law's house. Typically, many family members would meet there for dinner, and on one of those nights Willard and Henry Wilkins would arrive. Upon Willard's entry to the home, Bray would later testify that "Willard looked upon me in such a sort as I have never before discerned in anybody." Bray continued to suffer painful attacks throughout the day "I cannot express the misery I was in, for my water was suddenly stopped, and i had no benefit of nature, but was like a man on a rack". He told his wife "I am afraid that Willard has done me wrong". Meanwhile, in Salem Village, Daniel Wilkins had also fallen ill. Dr. William Griggs, who was attending young Daniel, apparently "affirmed that his sickness was by some preternatural cause, and would make no application of any physic". Mercy Lewis, a prolific accuser during the Witch Trials who was also there, affirmed that she saw "the apparition of John Willard" afflicting Daniel. Quickly afterwards, another infamous accuser, Ann Putnam Jr., claimed she had also seen the same apparition attacking Daniel. Soon after this episode, Bray's son, Benjamin Wilkins Sr. took legal action, and charged John Willard with afflicting Bray and Daniel Wilkins. An arrest warrant would soon be issued for John Willard.