Deodat Lawson was a British American minister in Salem Village from 1684 to 1688 and is famous for a 10-page pamphlet describing the witchcraft accusations during the Salem Witch Trials in the early spring of 1692. The pamphlet was billed as "collected by Deodat Lawson" and printed within the year in Boston, Massachusetts.
Early life and education Deodat Lawson was born in Norfolk, England. His mother died within a few weeks of his birth.See letter from his father quoted in the "To the Reader" section of his 1693 sermon "Christ Fidelity vs Satan's Malignity" online. He likely received an education near his birthplace. One historian compliments Lawson's fine handwriting.“His chirography is easy, free, graceful, clear, and clean,” CW Upham writes regarding Lawson's keeping four pages of receipts in Salem Village during his initial stay there 1684-87. Upham also includes a facsimile of Lawson's signature. CW Upham Salem Witchcraft Vol. I. The work attributed to Lawson displays great erudition but there is no record of his having attended Cambridge, Oxford, or Trinity College.Stacy Schiff, The Witches see notes to Chapter 3.GL Burr Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases (1911) p.147. It is possible Lawson attended one of the semi-clandestine dissenting academies.
By 1671, Lawson had travelled to Martha's Vineyard in the New England Colonies.CW Upham Salem Witchcraft Volumes I and II. The diarist Samuel Sewall first records him coming to Boston in 1681.Sewall DI p. 49 He was a minister in Salem Village beginning in 1684 when several church members (including Peter Cloyce, husband of Sarah Cloyce a woman who would be among the first accused of witchcraft in 1692) were sent by the church to get a boat and help him move his belongings up to Salem. Lawson seems to have never reached mutually agreeable terms in order to be ordained and hold a covenant with the church of Salem Village.CW Upham Salem Witchcraft Volumes I and II passim. While at the Village, Lawson's wife and daughter died. (This subject would be revisited in 1692, see below.)CW Upham Salem Witchcraft Volumes I and II.
By the spring of 1688, Lawson returned to Boston and he seems to have been an itinerant preacher over the next four years.Sewall DI, p.213. May 13, 1688. In 1690, Lawson remarried to a woman named Deborah Allen.CW Upham Salem Witchcraft Volumes I and II.
Preaching for Andros On 19 July 1688, Lawson preached a proclamation day sermon for the Dominion of New England governor Andros, as was reported in a letter to Increase Mather by Samuel Sewall.Sewall DI, p.231-2, n.1. It is not clear if this may have been perceived as something of a betrayal to the Mathers, as Increase Mather had only recently fled to England to avoid prosecution under Andros government. In most cases, religious services for Andros were in keeping with the Church of England not that of the Puritans.See Sewall DI in 1688, passim especially p. 217-9, for much argument with Andros over his use of the South Meetinghouse for Anglican services as well as other details of the fight with the Mathers. A strange reference to Lawson's preaching sermons for Andros arose later during the witchcraft trials in the deposition of a twelve-year-old accuser in August 1692."...he [Lawson] went eastward with Sir Edmond [Andros] and preached so to the soldiers..." --deposition of Ann Putnam. Records of Salem Witchcraft Vol. II (1864) p. 114. This deposition was presented in the trial of Lawson's predecessor George Burroughs, with Increase Mather in attendance."I was not myself present at any of the trials, excepting one, viz. that of George Burroughs; had I been one of his Judges, I could not have acquitted him."-- postscript to Cases, WIW, Farther Account (reprinted in 1862) p.286. :
Sinful failings There seems to be no surviving record of anything untoward in Lawson's behavior while at Salem Village, but in a sermon ("Satan's Malignities") attributed to him, and printed under his name in 1693, he begins a dedication to the inhabitants of the Village by acknowledging that his previous ministry "attended with manifold sinful failings and infirmities, for which I do implore, the pardoning mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and entreat from you the covering of love.""Christ's Fidelity the only Shield Against Satan's Malignity" Boston, printed by B. Harris 1693. The next section of the sermon ("To the Reader") seems to gather and grasp for sources to support Lawson's qualifications, including quoting of a letter from Lawson's own father, which was solicited by "Ministers of Boston." But soon this section also dips toward a debasing confessional: "And wherein I have at any time, given just offense, to the meanest of those that fear the Lord, I do heartily beg their pity and prayers..." This section was removed when the sermon was reprinted a decade later in London.
Salem Witch-phobia The pamphlet: A Brief Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages at Salem Village Promoted by the Mathers Unlike the zealous Cotton Mather and his powerful father Increase Mather, Deodat Lawson does not appear to have published works on witchcraft (if anything else) prior to this pamphlet published under his name ("collected by") in 1692. One historian of the "Bibliography of Witchcraft" considered the introduction to have most likely been written by Cotton Mather, and it is noticeable that the printer, Benjamin Harris, also produced the two lengthy books on witchcraft by the Mathers that summer and fall—a very large commission for a colonial printer.George Henry Moore Bibliographical Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts, p. 6. "I can not resist the impression upon reading it, that it was promoted by Cotton Mather and that he wrote the "Book seller's" notice "to the Reader.""
The Ghostly Lawson Lawson's brief narrative covers 19 March–5 April 1692. Oddly, none of the numerous court records and depositions covering the same period list the presence of Lawson in Salem Village.cf. March 21 examination of Martha Cory in Parris' hand which lists the minister Noyes and five other men but no Lawson. A deposition by Ann Putnam Sr lists a number of the same dates including the sabbath day, 20 March, without mentioning Lawson or whoever it was that preached the sermon that day. On 23 March, Lawson (or Lawson's narrator) says he paid a visit Ann Putnam Sr. to witness her afflictions, but Ann Putnam Sr. doesn't mention the presence of this out-of-town guest in describing her afflictions on that day, and the very next day, during an examination, the court asked not for Lawson but instead for the Rev. Samuel Parris to read his notes of a visit to Ann Putnam Sr. Thus, it seems that some portions of what was "collected by" Lawson would best be understood as the accounts of others, including Parris.
The Omission of Testimony from the Contra Side Rev. Samuel Parris was tasked by the court with recording by hand the examination of Rebecca Nurse on 24 March, and he omitted any testimony from those speaking in her defence. On the reverse side of this record Parris did sheepishly admit "great noises" by the afflicted and "many speakers" prevented him from capturing everything. Perhaps for the same reason Deodat Lawson's published account of this exam also contains no mention of any testimony in defense of Nurse, and Lawson's narrator likewise proffers an excuse: "I had not leisure to attend the whole time of examination." The only record of the existence of a "contra side" speaking in defense of Nurse comes from a brief note on the back of the official order to arrest Nurse.Typescripts are available and this link carries photos of the originals.
Deodat Lawson's account of the exam of Martha Cory quotes a line from Rev. Nicholas Noyes declaring her a witch while omitting his next clause as recorded in the court record, "...there is no need of images." Thus Lawson's account withholds information that suggests the sheriff had searched her home for physical evidence relative to the practice of witchcraft and found nothing.Cotton Mather's private essay for the judges dated May 31 also suggests an ongoing frustration in the quest for evidence to convict those who were presumed guilty, "What can no poppets be found?"
An Incorrect Date Deodat Lawson's "Brief Narrative" matches the official court records in a variety of ways while also containing curious differences and mistakes such as the incorrect listing of "Sacrament Day" on 3 April (it was 27 March).CW Upham follows Rev. Samuel Parris and lists it as March 27. See Salem Village Church Record-book and also Parris Sermons. This may have been a simple error but "Sacrament Day"—when the Lord's Supper was administered—was highly significant to Puritans, and never more so than during this time period with certain accusations regarding the capital crime of witchcraft tied directly to it. "None ought, nor is it possible that any should, maintain communion with Christ, & yet keep up fellowship with Devils," Parris wrote in the 27 March entry of his sermon book.Coll. Soc. MA. p. 198. Young Abigail Williams had even helpfully announced it advance on 21 March, "The next sabbath is Sacrament day, but she [Martha Cory] shall not come there."Bernard Rosenthal et al. Records of the Salem Witch-hunt (2009) p. 145. Deodat Lawson's account also includes a version of the examination of Martha Cory on this date which suggests the account was constructed hastily and at some distance from Salem Village where such discrepancies would have been easily checked and corrected.
The sermon: Christ's Fidelity Against Satan's Malignity... Delivered at Salem-village, the 24th of March 1692 In his pamphlet describing the happenings at Salem, Lawson briefly mentions that 24 March is "Lecture Day at the Village" but nothing more is said about the sermon delivered on that Thursday, or how it was received by the same audience that had been described as unruly and disruptive during the sermons on 20 March. What makes this surprising is that the sermon said to have been delivered on that day, and published within a year under Lawson's name, was a persuasive, lengthy, and elaborate tour de force. GL Burr describes the sermon as "no extempore production, but a studied disquisition on the power and malice of the Devil, who 'Contracts and Indents with Witches and Wizzards, that they shall be the Instruments by whom he may more secretly Affect and Afflict the Bodies and Minds of others.'" CW Upham calls it "a thoroughly elaborated and carefully constructed performance, requiring long and patient application to compose it, and exhausting all the resources of theological research and reference, and of artistic skill and finish."
Cotton Mather records that he took multiple "journeys" to Salem in his memoirs, and in a 2 September 1692 letter to Chief Justice Stoughton he writes that "one half of my endeavors to serve you have not been told or seen." In fact there is no record of Mather having delivered a sermon in Salem Village in 1692. Yet there is a noticeable affinity between the 24 March 1692 sermon and Cotton Mather's sermons on the subject published in Wonders of the Invisible World. If the "Satan's Malignity" sermon can be fully attributed to Deodat Lawson, and him alone, Lawson may need to be re-considered as a strong influence on the younger Cotton Mather. However, subterfuge from Cotton Mather should not be ruled out: in the 2 September 1692 letter from Mather to Stoughton he speaks of employing "designed contrivances."