Henry Sewall Jr. House

Henry Jr. married Jane Dummer, daughter of another early settler, Stephen Dummer, in 1646. When Jane’s parents decided to return to England the following year, Henry Jr. and Jane went with them. It was there that five of their children were born, including sons Samuel in 1652 and Stephen in 1657. Henry Jr. returned to Massachusetts to settle the estate of his irritable father in ‘57; in 1661, wife Jane and the children followed. Samuel was nine years old; Stephen was four. They re-settled in Newbury.

In his later diaries (1674-1729), Samuel Sewall’s memories of his Newbury childhood were idyllic. He spoke of Plum Island’s views of the Atlantic, fishing in the Merrimack, the grazing cattle and sheep. Sewall was taught by his “dear master,” Newbury’s first minister Rev. Thomas Parker, and was accepted to Harvard College in 1667 when he was 15 years old. Samuel remained there for seven years, receiving his first degree in 1671, and his Masters in 1674. He returned to Newbury after graduation, and then married Hannah Hull in 1676. The wedding took place in the Hull family home in the south end of Boston. (Macy’s is on the site today.) Hannah’s father, John Hull, was a successful merchant and the colony’s mint master, which made him a very wealthy man. Samuel moved into the Hull home and lived there the rest of his life.

Samuel Sewell was elected to the General Court in 1683 at the young age of 31. Shortly thereafter, he became the governor’s assistant and was an influential figure in Boston and beyond. Sewall is most remembered today for his fascinating diaries and for his role as a judge on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the emergency court established to hear the Salem witchcraft cases of 1692. As an esteemed, learned, and wealthy man of Boston, he joined others of his stature as judges – William Stoughton (Chief Justice), Peter Sargeant, Wait-Still Winthrop, and John Richards of Boston; John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and Bartholomew Gedney of Salem; and Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill. When the court was abolished in October of 1692, Sewall was subsequently appointed to serve on the Superior Court of Judicature in December.

Sewell, who suffered many deaths in his own family, outliving eight of his fourteen children and two of his three wives, suffered great guilt for his part in the witch trails. He was the only magistrate to ask forgiveness publicly after the trials were over. On January 14, 1697, he stood in his pew in Boston’s South Church while his apology was read aloud by Rev. Samuel Willard to the congregation. Sewall had written, “…Desires to take the Blame and Shame of it, Asking pardon of Man, And especially desiring prayers that God who has an unlimited Authority, would pardon that Sin …” Sewell observed a personal day of fasting on that date for the rest of his life.

Samuel Sewall was an unusual man, forward-thinking and progressive for his time. Not only was he alone among the judges in apologizing for his actions during the witch trials, he also wrote The Selling of Joseph in 1700, the first anti-slavery tract published in New England.

Samuel Sewall died on January 1, 1730 and is buried in the family tomb at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

Samuel’s brother Stephen Sewall, who resided in Salem, was the Oyer and Terminer court clerk in 1692. In that role, he was an eye witness to the court’s day-to-day proceedings.

Rev. Samuel Parris, in whose Salem Village parsonage the afflictions first began, became concerned about his daughter Betty’s welfare in March of 1692, about a month after the troubles began to escalate. Betty was taken into the Stephen Sewall home on Salem’s Essex Street (then called Main Street). It appears her strange behavior and afflictions subsided in about two weeks, once she was no longer influenced by the growing circle of accusers.

Two days before the last hanging date in September of 1692, Cotton Mather was commissioned by Governor William Phips to write a defense of the proceedings. Mather requested the court documents from Stephen that would most convince skeptics of the reality of witchcraft and specters. Mather’s work was published as The Wonders of the Invisible World.

Stephen Sewall died in Salem in 1725 at the age of 68.

Henry Sewall Jr. built the house at 30 High Road in Newbury before 1678. His sons Samuel and Stephen both lived here for a time.