“That the shape of Samuel Fuller and Lydia Wilkins this day told me at my own house by the bedside, who appeared in winding-sheets, that, if I did not go and tell Mr. Hathorne that John Willard had murdered them, they would tear me to pieces.  I knew them when they were living, and it was exactly their resemblance and shape.  And, at the same time, the apparition of John Willard told me that he had killed Samuel Fuller, Lydia Wilkins, Goody Shaw, and Fuller’s second wife, and Aaron Way’s child, and Ben Fuller’s child; and this deponent’s child Sarah, six weeks old; and Philip Knight’s child, with the help of William Hobbs; and Jonathan Knight’s child and two of Ezekiel Cheever’s children with the help of William Hobbs; Anne Eliot and Isaac Nichols with the help of William Hobbs; and that if Mr. Hathorne would not believe them,—­that is, Samuel Fuller and Lydia Wilkins,—­perhaps they would appear to the magistrates.  Joseph Fuller’s apparition the same day also came to me, and told me that Goody Corey had killed him.  The spectre aforesaid told me, that vengeance, vengeance, was cried by said Fuller.  This relation is true.

     “ANN PUTNAM.”

It appears by such papers as are to be found relating to Willard’s case, that a coroner’s jury was held over the body of Daniel Wilkins, of which Nathaniel Putnam was foreman.  It is much to be regretted that the finding of that jury is lost.  It would be a real curiosity.  That it was very decisive to the point, affirmed by Mercy Lewis and Mary Walcot, that Daniel was choked and strangled by the spectres of John Willard and Goody Buckley, is apparent from the manner in which Bray Wilkins speaks of it.  In an argument between him and some persons who were expressing their confidence that John Willard was an innocent man, he sought to relieve himself from responsibility for Willard’s conviction by saying, “It was not I, nor my son Benjamin Wilkins, but the testimony of the afflicted persons, and the jury concerning the murder of my grandson, Daniel Wilkins, that would take away his life, if any thing did.”  Mr. Parris, of course, was in the midst of these proceedings at Will’s Hill; attended the visits of the afflicted girls when they went to ascertain who were the witches murdering young Daniel and torturing the old man; was present, no doubt, at the solemn examinations and investigations of the sages who sat as a jury of inquest over the former, and, in all likelihood, made, as usual, a written report of the same.  As soon as he got back to his house, he discharged his mind, and indorsed the verdict of the coroner’s jury by this characteristic insertion in his church-records:  “Dan:  Wilkins.  Bewitched to death.”  The very next entry relates to a case of which this obituary line, in Mr. Parris’s church-book, is the only intimation that has come down to us, “Daughter to Ann Douglas.  By witchcraft, I doubt not.”  Willard’s examination was at Beadle’s, on the 18th.  With this deluge of accusations and tempest of indignation beating upon him, he had but little chance, and was committed.