On what date did William Phips order the Salem special court established?

William Phips ordered the Salem special court established on May 27, 1692. The body was formally the Court of Oyer and Terminer, created to hear the growing number of witchcraft cases involving prisoners in several Massachusetts counties.

Before this order, local magistrates had conducted examinations and preliminary proceedings. Phips’s action supplied a centralized court for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties, with William Stoughton serving as chief magistrate. The court then handled the most notorious phase of the prosecutions, including the use of spectral evidence.

The date is sometimes confused with June 10, when Bridget Bishop became the first person executed in the Salem crisis, or with the later Superior Court of Judicature, established after the original court was dissolved. Phips eventually became concerned about the proceedings and ended the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October 1692, after months of arrests, convictions and executions.