Shepherd University students transcribe 17th-century diary detailing the Salem witch trials

Shepherd University students were able to step back in time to the 1600s through the diary of prominent New England minister and writer Cotton Mather.

Benjamin Bankhurst, associate professor of history, tasked students in the spring 2023 Colonial America class with transcribing pages from a diary written by Mather, who influenced the Salem witch trials that took place from February 1692 to May 1693.

“Cotton Mather was a principle, if not the most important New Englander at the time, and the diary the students transcribed was for the year 1692,” Bankhurst said. “At points, he talks directly about what’s happening in Salem, and you can see his thinking change about it over time. He starts by really wrestling with what’s happening, kind of believing the early accusations, and then slowly, as the trials go on, he comes to the realization that it is perhaps not what he thought it was. The students went on that journey with him through transcription.”

Each student was required to read and transcribe a page from the diary and write a reflection essay describing the experience and what it made them think about the Salem witch trials.

“It is challenging because they wrestled with 17th-century English,” Bankhurst said. “The handwriting is from 350 years ago, and there was not standardization for English, and Mather wrote some in shorthand — something modern-day students aren’t used to.”

Each student transcribed a different page, giving them a different perception of Cotton Mather in both his public and private life.

“What I transcribed was the beginning of a sermon,” Asper said. “He wrote a hymn, and it was basically saying, ‘You need to be faithful and grateful and reject the devil because it’s all around us.’ He was very fire and brimstone.”

The transcriptions, along with archival-quality photographs of the pages and the students’ byline, will be posted on the Congregational Library & Archives webpage, congregationallibrary.org, sometime