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
Salem witch trials physician and author Thomas Browne, to be used in the Bury St Edmunds witch trial and the accusations against two Lowestoft women, the colonial magistrates also accepted its validity and their trials proceeded. Sometime in February 1692, likely after the afflictions began but before specific names were mentioned, a neighbor of Rev. Parris, Mary Sibly (or Sibley; aunt of Mary Walcott), instructed John Indian, one of the minister's slaves, to make a "witch cake." She intended to use traditional English white magic to discover the identity of the witch who was afflicting the girls. The cake, made from rye meal