RESTRICTIONS: No portion of these documents may be reproduced without permission of the Director of the Philips Library, Peabody Essex Museum.

INTRODUCTION

The SALEM WITCHCRAFT PAPERS at the Essex Institute contain two separate collections: The Essex County Court Archives and the Essex Institute Collection. The Essex County Archives Collection, under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Judicial Court, was deposited at the Essex Institute by the Supreme Court in December, 1980. The Essex Institute Collection is comprised of witchcraft documents found in several of the Institute's collections of family papers.

Both collections contain legal documents of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. They have been indexed by name for both plaintiffs and defendants. Transcriptions of these documents, as well as additional witchcraft documents held in other archives, were published in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's The Salem Witchcraft Papers (New York, DaCapo Press, 1971).