When little Isaac was three, his mother, Hannah, remarried and left him in the care of his maternal grandparents. (His mother’s new husband, Reverend Barnabas Smith, insisted on this arrangement; he was a wealthy man twice her age and wanted a young wife but not a young son.) Understandably, Isaac resented his stepfather and felt abandoned by his mother. Later in life, on a list of sins he’d committed before the age of nineteen, he included this entry: “13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them.” The next entry was darker: “14. Wishing death and hoping it
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