Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig
“Bathshua Pope, sometimes referred to by her maiden name of Folger, lived with her husband and mother-in-law at a sawmill in Salem. When the mill suffered some kind of mechanical breakdown in 1692, it was attributed to supposed dealings with the devil. Bathshua was among the accusers, ultimately providing ‘evidence’ that helped send at least three people to the hangman’s noose. … Bathshua died in 1726, three years after her restless teenage nephew left Boston to seek work as a typesetter in Philadelphia, betting his future on the burgeoning industry of the printing press. As far as we can tell, he never mentioned his aunt. … The woman who had participated in actions scarcely distinguishable from human sacrifice, and her nephew, the boy whose name would echo through the ages as a harbinger of modernity: Benjamin Franklin.” (08/20/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/from-spectral-evidence-to-self-evident