These evil spirits would be about the business of converting Christians to the service of Satan. He believed that spirits of the invisible world could be well-meaning, but could also very well be demons, servants of Satan. Mather firmly believed in the existence of the “invisible world,” a world of spirits existing in tandem with the physical world. The fact that Barnard was a graduate of Harvard’s Divinity School rather than a school in England made him especially attractive as an assistant for aging Reverend Francis Dane.īarnard was also a protege of Cotton Mather, a well educated and devout Puritan who was greatly revered by people in Salem as well as surrounding communities.

Founded in 1636 (only eight years after Edmund and Annis Ingalls emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony), Harvard was established primarily as a seminary dedicated to educating the Colony’s future religious leaders. There are many theories about this and most focus on the North Andover parish’s assistant minister, Reverend Thomas Barnard.īarnard was educated at Harvard. The witch trials began in Salem and soon spread to other settlements, but the greatest number of accusations by far occurred in Andover. You can read more about the history of the Cobb County Public Library by following this link.A Turn in the Road, in Early Andover, Massachusetts Why were the greatest number of witchcraft accusations made in Andover? Libraries were opened in Acworth and Austell in subsequent years, and in 1959, the city of Marietta and several other Cobb County libraries combined to form a countywide system that began the Cobb County Public Library as we know it today. The first standalone library building, opened on Church Street in 1893 and was named for Clarke. The first public library in Cobb County was opened in the home of Sarah Freeman Clarke in Marietta. Cobb is one of Georgia’s fastest-growing counties, and Cobb County Public Library is dedicated to being a resource center in the community by providing equal access to information, materials, and services. To receive the livestream link, email | Tuesday, October 4 | 6 pm About the Cobb County Public LibraryĪccording to the Cobb County Public Library website:Ĭobb County Public Library is a 15-branch system headquartered in Marietta, Georgia, where its staff members serve a diverse population of over 750,000 people. This is a hybrid author talk and will be livestreamed in the Georgia Room or in the convenience of your own home. Genealogical sources were a huge factor in the research that went into the writing of the book and will also be discussed. Family connections were significant to the witch hunt throughout the region, but nowhere were they more evident than in Andover.

In the Shadow of Salem by Richard Hite