[1] In 1683, when Mary Webster was approximately 53 years old, she was accused and brought to trial before a jury in Boston "for suspicion of witchcraft" but cleared of charges and found not guilty.
Having dragged her out of her house, they hung her up until she was near dead, let her down, rolled her some time in the snow, and at last buried her in it and there left her, but it happened that she survived and the melancholy man died.
[3] Philip Smith's accusations, afflictions, and death were described within a few years in a publication by Cotton Mather entitled Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts.
[6] It is not known to what extent Increase Mather's solicitations (and the implied doctrinal views in support of the real power of witchcraft) may have directly influenced the circumstances in Hadley in 1683-4.
According to Thomas Hutchinson, prior to Increase Mather's book, it had been decades since anyone had been executed for witchcraft in New England, despite the occasional slur or spurious accusation.
On October 20, 1690, Parris met with Cotton Mather and other ministers at the Harvard College library, in a newly formed group calling itself the Cambridge Association, to discuss problems with his congregation in Salem.
[9][10] In the fall of 1693, the Mathers were continuing to push for more witchcraft trials and this inspired a letter writing campaign from a Boston wool merchant named Robert Calef.
"[11] In spite of mounting criticism, Cotton Mather stuck to the lonely position and reprinted his account of Philip Smith and Mary Webster in 1702, albeit somewhat buried near the end of a very large folio of miscellaneous extracts titled Magnalia Christi Americana.