Justice for Salem’s Last Witch

For more than 300 years, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was considered guilty of a crime she didn’t commit. In 1693, a jury in Salem, Massachusetts, found the 22-year-old guilty of witchcraft. She was sentenced to death.

In the end, Johnson didn’t die by hanging like most of the other “witches.” But her reputation seemed likely to remain forever scarred. While everyone else found guilty during Salem’s infamous witch trials had been cleared over the years, Johnson never was.

But a couple of years ago, a group of students at North Andover Middle School stepped in to help. After learning about Johnson in their civics class, the unlikely allies took action. Over the next two years, the teens wrote a bill to clear Johnson’s name. They then worked with a Massachusetts state senator to lobby for its passage.

The students’ efforts paid off. This summer, Massachusetts cleared Johnson of witchcraft, 329 years after her sentencing.

“She went through something so unfair,” says Olivia Fritzinger, now
a ninth-grader at North Andover High School. “We knew we had to fight
for her.”

Johnson lived in what is now North Andover. She was one of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft in Salem and surrounding towns in the early 1690s. Historians say the trials were rooted in the fears of the colony’s Puritan leaders.

The panic began when two young girls began having “fits.” They screamed and twisted themselves. The Puritans were a very strict religious group. They believed in the power of witches to stir up evil. So the people thought witches who lived among them must be to blame for the girls’ strange behavior.

Under pressure from the community, the girls blamed three local women. As fear spread, so did claims of witchcraft. Within a few months, dozens of “witches” filled the local jails. In turn, the governor of the colony created a special court to hold trials.

By the end, 30 people were found guilty and 20 were put to death.

Very little of Johnson’s life is known: She may have had a mental disability and never married or had children. These were factors that could make a woman a target in the trials, according to Carrie LaPierre, the teacher who launched the project with her civics class.

Under intense questioning, Johnson confessed. There are many reasons innocent people might confess to witchcraft, according to Emerson W. Baker, a history professor at Salem State University who has written a book on the trials. Many wanted to avoid being tortured, he says. Some even believed that they might in fact be witches and just didn’t know it. A pressure campaign by ministers and even relatives also led to these confessions.

As for what led to the girls’ “fits,” scholars think that they may have had a medical condition that caused seizures, eaten mushrooms that cause delusions, or been suffering from the effects of trauma.

By the time Johnson was sentenced, the witchcraft executions in Salem had mostly stopped. That’s because more people expressed outrage over the hangings. The governor of the colony halted Johnson’s execution, but her guilty verdict still stood. She died in 1747 at age 77. Even in death, she was still seen as a witch in the eyes of the law.

When LaPierre shared Johnson’s story with her eighth-grade civics class in the fall of 2020, the teens vowed to help the accused woman.

After researching the legislative process, the students drafted a bill to clear Johnson’s name, and Diana DiZoglio, a Massachusetts state senator, agreed to sponsor it. She worked with the teens on revising it and introduced it in the state senate in early 2021.

But the students soon learned that laws don’t get made overnight. That fall, a new class of eighth-graders picked up where the first class had left off, writing letters to lawmakers on Johnson’s behalf. Despite those efforts, the bill stalled earlier this year.

“It was placed in study, which we learned basically meant it was dead,” says Lucas Ioakim, 15.

But DiZoglio had an idea. In the spring, the senator included the bill as an amendment to a budget bill then making its way through the state legislature. When the governor signed the budget into law in July, Johnson’s name was officially cleared.

“These students [had] the courage to be a voice for someone who hasn’t had a voice for so long,” says DiZoglio. “This amendment would not be possible without their tireless efforts.”

As for the students who spent two years fighting for Johnson, it was a lesson in hard work, but also a reminder that it’s important to speak up for what’s right.

“Even though we’re only students, we can make an impact,” Olivia says. “We changed history.”

LaPierre shared Johnson’s story with her eighth-grade civics class in the fall of 2020. After hearing what happened, the teens vowed to help the accused woman.

The students first researched the legislative process. Then they drafted a bill to clear Johnson’s name. Diana DiZoglio, a Massachusetts state senator, agreed to sponsor it. She worked with the teens on revising it. She introduced it in the state senate in early 2021.

But the students soon learned that laws don’t get made overnight. That fall, a new class of eighth-graders picked up where the first class had left off. They wrote letters to lawmakers on Johnson’s behalf. Despite those efforts, the bill stalled earlier this year.

“It was placed in study, which we learned basically meant it was dead,” says Lucas Ioakim, 15.

But DiZoglio had an idea. In the spring, the senator added the bill to a budget bill that was being reviewed by the state legislature. When the governor signed the budget into law in July, Johnson’s name was officially cleared.

“These students [had] the courage to be a voice for someone who hasn’t had a voice for so long,” says DiZoglio. “This amendment would not be possible without their tireless efforts.”

As for the students who spent two years fighting for Johnson, it was a lesson in hard work. It also reminded them that it’s important to speak up for what’s right.

“Even though we’re only students, we can make an impact,” Olivia says. “We changed history.”

With reporting by Vimal Patel of The Times.

With reporting by Vimal Patel of The Times.