Who served as clerk of the Court of Oyer and Terminer?

Stephen Sewall served as clerk of the Court of Oyer and Terminer during the Salem witch trials. The special court convened in Salem Town on June 2, 1692, with William Stoughton as chief magistrate, Thomas Newton as prosecutor, and Sewall responsible for the court’s clerical work.

A clerk’s role was essential in a period when legal proceedings depended on written indictments, examinations, depositions, warrants, and trial records. Sewall’s position placed him close to the documentary record of the prosecutions. Later, court records supplied by Sewall helped Cotton Mather prepare accounts of several Salem trials for Wonders of the Invisible World, published in 1692.

The name can cause confusion because Samuel Sewall, Stephen’s uncle, was one of the judges on the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Stephen Sewall was the clerk; Samuel Sewall was a magistrate. Another possible mix-up concerns Jonathan Elatson, who served as clerk of the Superior Court of Judicature when it heard remaining witchcraft cases in 1693.

Stephen Sewall should also not be confused with his later namesake nephew, who became a prominent Massachusetts judge in the eighteenth century.