There were a lot of rumors about Abigail.

Some were small as you might expect.

She was rude, she was unseemly, she was irreverent.

But there were other, more specific rumors, and those were the kinds that spread like fire

in a dry barn.

They whispered that she lay out alone in the woods at night, that she was disobedient

at home, that she openly mock the traditions of the Puritan faith, even going as far as

to use the Lord's name in vain, that she made a pact with the devil, and all of it was

true.

Abigail's family lived in the village of Topsefield, roughly five miles north of Salem

village.

They were part of that larger Salem community in which the same way Beverly and over

when and others were, but they hadn't always been in Topsefield.

As far as I can tell, Abigail was born there, but at the age of four, ten years before the

events of 1692, her father William packed the family up and headed north to Falmouth

Maine.

Over the next seven years though, tragedy crashed against her family like ocean waves.

The Native American attacks on those northern frontier communities were brutal and deadly.

Abigail lost siblings, she lost her mother, and finally her father lost their land, forcing

them to return to Topsefield in defeat.

But they didn't come alone, William had remarried, so his new wife deliverance came home

with them.

...