Thomas Oliver (Salem witch trials) the second charge in 1692 as the result of which she was hanged. When he left the colony for England he had a considerable amount of real property to which he returned after his first wife Mary's death. His estate included a house and sometime tavern in Salem, Massachusetts near the meeting house where after his death his widow Bridget Oliver Bishop was known for staying up late into the night entertaining her guests with playing shovelboard. During the scholarly reexaminations of the Salem witch trials during the 19th century, Bridget Bishop's claims on this estate were posited as the
Witch trials in the early modern period region, the witch hunts declined during the 1630s, at a time when the communities living there were facing increased disaster as a result of plague, famine, economic collapse and the Thirty Years' War. Furthermore, this scenario would clearly not offer a universal explanation, for trials also took place in areas which were free from war, famine, or pestilence. Additionally, these theories - particularly Behringer's - have been labeled as oversimplified. Although there is evidence that the Little Ice Age and subsequent famine and disease was likely a contributing factor to increase in witch persecution, Durrant argues that one cannot make