I have always been intrigued by the events in Salem Village in 1692. What happened there over the course of the year set the bar for unnecessary persecutions, and religious fanaticism. The circumstances under which these events occurred are not nearly as cut and dry as one would think. In order to flesh out the social nuances, I needed to find THE expert, and I found that in Richard Trask.
*From his website*
Historian Richard Trask is a leading authority on the Salem witch-hunt of 1692. He serves as Town Archivist for Danvers (formerly Salem Village), Massachusetts, where he is custodian of all early town records, the Brehaut Witchcraft Collection, and tens of thousands of manuscripts. He is also curator of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead and he chaired the Salem Village Witchcraft Tercentennial Committee from 1990 to 1992. Trask has written numerous books and articles on Salem and two of his ancestors were hanged as witches.
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