1959 Gusty’s Child, Autobiography of Alice Tisdale Hobart
“Rebecca Towne Nourse was my grandmother many times removed, but a vivid factor in my life. My friend and I drove over to Salem to see the historic landmarks. We had some difficulty finding the Nourse homestead. It was not in the town, but on a side road off the main highway in the county of Salem. I felt a growing excitement when we drove up the rutted gravel lane which led to the brown clapboarded house standing on a knoll.
Reaching the hilltop we paused to look down on the fields surrounding the house- rich beautiful farm land. No wonder many felt that the charge against Rebecca was a ruse by some of her neighbors to gain possession of such productive acres. But now the land and distant church spires make a scene of unbroken peace. Turning to the square clapboard house I thought how substantial it looked. Its heavy door studded with rounded nails in a diagonal pattern seemed shut against all intrusion. Yet it was thru this door they took her in chains to assuage the anger and fear of the townspeople. My own grandmother led away from this house in chains.
A woman caretaker came toward us thru the tangled grass and asked if we would like to go inside. As we signed the visitors’ book and paid the fee I felt a sudden desire to withdraw from all that had happened here. But when the caretaker left us to go about her work in a lean-to at the back of the house, and I stood before the big fireplace in the common room, I became one of Rebecca’s children, sitting with the family before a blazing fire on a winter evening with the wind whipping around the house here on the hilltop. It seemed incredible that anything violent could have happened here to a woman old and ill- Rebecca was seventy- that neighbors to whom she had ministered in times of sickness- she was versed in herbs and their uses and grew them- should accuse her of witchcraft.
Later I sat in the dungeon in Salem town where Rebecca was supposed to have been held. I asked for the trap door to be closed. I was under some compulsion to relive all that she had experienced. There I repeated her words which I have used in times of need. “I will not belie myself.” I wanted to go to the hill where the gaunt and ancient tree still stood from which she was hanged. What inner strength had she that her neighbors did not have? She too believed in witches- it was a common belief of the times. Some inner knowledge gave her the strength to accept death rather than deny herself- some knowledge of her own value.