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 generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon