Salem Witch Trials
Susannah Martin: The Widow Who Laughed at Her Accusers
By Lori, History writer & tour co-founder • Updated September 2026 • 7 min read
When the afflicted girls collapsed into fits at the sight of her, most of the accused went pale with fear. Susannah Martin laughed. At 71 years old, after nearly three decades of being called a witch, she had no patience left for the performance, and she very nearly argued her way out of the noose.
Hers is one of the most quietly remarkable stories of 1692, and one we love to tell on our Salem Witch Trials walking tour: a poor, outspoken widow who met the most powerful court in the colony with scripture, logic, and a sharp tongue, and was hanged anyway.
SUSANNAH MARTIN AT A GLANCE
WHO – A sharp-tongued widow from Amesbury, Massachusetts
ACCUSED – First in the 1660s — then again, fatally, in 1692
NOTABLE –Laughed at the court and argued that spectral evidence proved nothing
EXECUTED – Hanged at Proctor’s Ledge, July 19, 1692, at about 71
From England to Massachusetts
Susannah was born in England in 1621 to Joan and Richard North. After her mother died, her father remarried and brought the family to Salisbury, Massachusetts, in 1639, when she was 18. At 25, she married George Martin, a blacksmith, and settled in what would become Amesbury, where George was granted forty acres of land in 1658. It was a modest, ordinary colonial life, until the rumors began.
The strength of a widow
Susannah was remembered as sharp-tongued and strong-willed, qualities that made her respected by some and resented by others. When George died in 1686, she lost her fiercest defender and became something especially vulnerable in that society: an outspoken older woman, alone. But she was no easy target. After thirty years of accusations, Susannah knew exactly how to stand her ground in a courtroom. She would need every bit of that resolve on May 2, 1692, when, at 71, she faced the charge for the last time.
Arrested again — this time in Salem
On April 30, 1692, Jonathan Walcott and Thomas Putnam filed a complaint accusing Susannah of tormenting Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam Jr., Elizabeth Hubbard, and Susannah Sheldon, the same circle of afflicted accusers behind so many of the trials. She was arrested and brought before the magistrates on May 2.
The woman who laughed in court
What happened at her examination set Susannah apart. As the afflicted girls writhed and screamed at the sight of her, she did not tremble; she laughed. When the magistrate demanded to know what she found so funny, her answer was pure defiance:
“Well I may, at such folly.”
— Susannah Martin, when asked why she laughed at the afflicted
Asked whether she had no compassion for the suffering girls, she flatly denied hurting anyone: “I never hurt man, woman, or child.” She refused to play the part the court expected of the accused. She would not weep, would not confess, would not pretend the spectacle in front of her was real.
A defense ahead of its time
Then Susannah did something genuinely brilliant. The court’s deadliest weapon was spectral evidence, the claim that her ghostly shape had tormented the girls. Susannah attacked the logic of it directly, reaching for scripture the judges themselves revered. If the Devil had once appeared in the shape of the holy prophet Samuel, as the Bible plainly said, then the Devil could surely take the shape of an innocent woman, too. Seeing her “specter,” therefore, proved nothing at all.
THE ARGUMENT THEY COULDN’T ANSWER
If the Devil can wear a saint's face...
Susannah’s point was devastatingly simple: the entire case against her rested on the assumption that the Devil could only impersonate the guilty. But scripture said otherwise. If Satan could appear as a glorified saint, then a vision of someone’s shape was worthless as proof of their guilt.
It was a sound legal and theological argument, the very reasoning that, a few months later, would help bring the trials crashing down. For Susannah, it came too soon. The court simply ignored it.
Condemned
Against her denials and her logic, the court weighed the girls’ dramatic fits and a parade of old neighborhood tales, including testimony that she had once walked miles of muddy road and arrived with her shoes somehow dry. It was enough. Susannah was found guilty and sentenced to hang. The minister Cotton Mather would later dismiss her in print as “one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world”, which tells you more about how a confident woman was seen than about Susannah herself.
On July 19, 1692, Susannah Martin was hanged at Proctor’s Ledge, alongside Rebecca Nurse and three other women.
Remembering Susannah Martin
Today Susannah is honored with the other victims at Proctor’s Ledge and the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, and remembered in Amesbury, the town she called home. Her story endures because of how she faced the end: not with the fear her accusers wanted, but with the same sharp, unbowed spirit that had carried her through thirty years of suspicion.
WALK HER STORY
Hear Susannah Martin's story where it happened
Our historian-led 1692 Salem Historical Tour tells the true stories of Susannah Martin and the other victims, on the very streets where the trials unfolded. Two hours, all ages, $35 adults / $10 kids.
Frequently asked questions
Susannah Martin was a sharp-tongued widow from Amesbury, Massachusetts, and one of the twenty people executed during the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Born in England in 1621, she had been accused of witchcraft on and off for nearly thirty years before her final trial and hanging at the age of about 71.
Susannah had faced witchcraft rumors since the 1660s, driven largely by local disputes and her reputation as an outspoken, strong-willed woman. In 1692 she was formally accused of tormenting the afflicted girls of Salem Village through spectral evidence, and old grievances resurfaced to seal her fate.
Susannah denied ever harming anyone and refused to be intimidated, even laughing at the accusers’ dramatic fits. Most notably, she argued that spectral evidence was worthless: since the Bible said the Devil could appear in the shape of the holy prophet Samuel, he could just as easily take the shape of an innocent person. The court ignored the argument.
Susannah Martin was hanged on July 19, 1692, at Proctor’s Ledge in Salem, Massachusetts, alongside Rebecca Nurse and three other women convicted of witchcraft.
Susannah Martin was about 71 years old. Born in 1621, she was an elderly widow by the time of her 1692 trial, having defended herself against witchcraft accusations for roughly thirty years.
Sources & further reading
This article draws on the original 1692 court records and firsthand accounts. To read the primary sources yourself:
- Susannah Martin’s court records — Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia.
- The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project — the full collection of original court records and transcriptions from 1692.
