Sarah Good ( an appropriated image as as the earliest daguerreotype was not introduced until 1839.)
Salem Village was known for its divided population with many internal disputes about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges. After a series of short-term ministers, Samuel Parris became the first ordained minister of Salem Village in 1689. He was not successful in solving conflicts in the village; rather he contributed to the dissonance by making well-known church members suffer public penance due to their small mistakes. This only created more division among the people. According to Historian Marion Starkey, serious conflict was inevitable in this tense environment (1949).
In February 1692, Reverend Parris’ daughter Elizabeth, age 9, and niece, Abigail Williams, age 11, started having “fits”. They would shriek, make weird sounds, crawl under furniture, and convulse into strange positions. These “fits” were considered to be supernatural in origin, and members of the community were accused of consorting with the devil and afflicting the young children through witchcraft (Lawson 1692).
With the seeds of paranoia planted, more accusations arose, and more people were arrested. By the end of the month of May, a total of 62 individuals were in custody
On June 2, 1962, the Court of Oyer and Terminer (to hear and decide) was established to handle the large number of people in jail for witchcraft. These trials relied heavily on spectral evidence, or testimony based on dreams or apparitions seen by the afflicted. The “touch test” was also used to determine guilt or innocence. The accused witch was told to touch a victim having a fit, and if the victim stopped having a fit, the accused was believed to have afflicted the victim
Other evidence included confessions made by accused witches, and testimony by a guilty witch who pointed out others as witches.In the Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay, fear of witches was rampant.
After the girls were accused of being witches, fingers began to be pointed at everyone in the town, everyone was ready to accuse their neighbour or friend, in order to take the focus away from themselves.
In January 1693, the new Superior Court of Judicature convened, and those who had been accused of witchcraft, but not yet tried, went on trial. The series of trials and executions finally ended in May 1693. The Salem witch trials are an infamous case of mass hysteria; they are an example of the consequences of religious extremism, false allegations, and lapses in the due legal processes. These trials had a lasting effect on people’s attitude towards separation of state and church, as historian George Lincoln Burr said, “the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered” (1914:197). The Salem witch trials left a lesson for the future, a caution for the outcome of unbridled religious fanaticism and over enthusiasm about the supernatural.
Sarah Good was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft by young girls in Salem.Sarah She was born Sarah Solart in Wenham, Massachusetts Bay Colony to John and Elizabeth Solart. Her father was prosperous, but she and her sisters never received their inheritance when he died in 1672. Sarah first married Daniel Poole, a laborer and who died in 1682. She then married William Good. The debt that she had after Daniel Poole died became the responsibility of William Good. Because they could not handle the debt, the Goods were "reduced to begging work, food, and shelter from their neighbors" and by 1692 were homeless. She was of lower economic status and an easy target for the young women who were accusing others of witchcraft. Due to her husband’s inability to provide she was reliant on neighbors and others to make ends meet. This also caused her much stress which she most likely took out on her husband, who for whatever reason, could not provide enough for his family.
Rumors of Sarah Good practicing witchcraft began to circulate when her husband began to complain to neighbors about her behavior towards him. He said that she “her bad carriage to him” which led to her neighbors accusing her of challenging Puritan values.
Reverend Samuel Parris had also become angry with his lack of payment and began preaching that Satan was among those in the congregation. These sermons along with his slave Tituba and the fits of rage that would come from his own household would begin to create the initial hysteria.
Witchcraft Accusation At this time it was common to use spectral evidence to make claims.Spectral Evidence, if allowed into a court proceeding, is near impossible for the accuser to refute because it can change on a whim.
Good was accused of witchcraft on March 6, 1692, when Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Parris, related to the Reverend Samuel Parris, claimed to be bewitched under her hand. The young girls asserted they had been bitten, pinched, and otherwise abused.
They would have fits in which their bodies would appear to involuntarily convulse, their eyes rolling into the back of their heads and their mouths hanging open. When the Rev. Samuel Parris asked “Who torments you?” the girls eventually shouted out the names of three townspeople: Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and Sarah Good.
Her accusation came around the same time as Rebecca Nurse who was viewed by most townspeople in Salem as an upstanding citizen. If Mrs. Nurse was able to become a target due to the spectral evidence allowed in the courtroom, then Sarah Good would be a much easier target.
On March 1, 1692, Sarah Good faced examination with two other accused witches, Sarah Osburne and Tituba. Sarah Good pleaded, "I am falsely accused," but then Tituba named her a witch. Other villagers, including her husband, testified against her, and she was put in jail.
On March 24, Ann Putnam accused Sarah's five year old daughter, Dorcas, of witchcraft. When put on trial, the young child confessed that she and her mother were witches. She showed a red spot on her finger, most likely a flea bite, claiming it was a snake her mother had given her. Dorcas was then put in jail and chained to a wall.
On March 25, 1692, Sarah Good appeared before the court to be tried for witchcraft. She was accused of rejecting the puritanical expectations of self-control and discipline when she chose to torment and scorn children instead of leading them towards salvation. When she was brought in the accusers would begin rocking back and forth and eventually throw themselves in a fit of rage. This spectral evidence was believed to be a demonic influence that Sarah Good was using to control them which was proof of her witchcraft.
During her trial, one of the accusers threw herself into a fit of rage, and upon being “released” from Good’s spell she claimed that Sarah Good had attacked her with a knife and that it broke while Good was trying to stab her. She even produced a piece of the broken knife. The crowd gasped, but then a young man stood up and told the court the piece had broken off his own knife the day prior and the accuser had witnessed it. He even was able to produce the knife that broke which matched the piece the accuser produced.
One would think this would be proof of the lies and the accuser’s testimony would be dismissed. However, Judge William Stoughton only saw what he wanted to see and simply scolded the girl for exaggerating what he believed to be the truth. Both Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne denied the accusations that were put against them. However, Reverend Samuel Parris’ slave Tituba delivered a devastating blow to both Good and Osborne’s testimony when she admitted to being the “Devil’s servant”.
Tituba stated that a tall man dressed all in black came to them, demanding they sign their names in a great book. Although initially refusing, Tituba said, she eventually wrote her name, after Good and Osborne forced her to. There were six other names in the book as well but were not visible to her.
She also said that Good had ordered her cat to attack Elizabeth Hubbard, causing the scratches and bite marks on the girl’s body. She spoke of seeing Good with black and yellow birds surrounding her, and that Good had also sent these animals to harm the girls. When the girls began to have another fit, Tituba claimed she could see a yellow bird in Good’s right hand. The young accusers agreed.
When Good was allowed the chance to defend herself in front of the twelve jurors in the Salem Village meeting house, she argued her innocence, proclaiming Tituba and Osborne as the real witches. In the end, however, Good was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death.
There was no evidence other than the claims of the afflicted girls but she was still found guilty.and sentenced to death by hanging but pregnant at the time her execution was pushed back until the birth of her child. Good’s infant died in prison shortly after its birth and local officials brought Good to the execution site at Proctor’s Ledge on July 19, along with Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes.
Before the hanging, the other women prayed and asked God to forgive the accused but Sarah Goode showed no sign of forgiveness.
According to an article in The New England Magazine, as Sarah Good stood on the platform with the other women, Reverend Nicolas Noyes called Good a witch and urged her to confess. Good replied: “You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink!”
The five women were hanged and most likely buried near the execution site because convicted witches were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground.
Twenty-five years later, in 1717, Reverend Noyes suffered an internal hemorrhage and died choking on his own blood.
In 1710 William Good successfully sued the Great and General Court for health and mental damages done to Sarah and Dorcas, ultimately receiving thirty pounds sterling, one of the largest sums granted to the families of the witchcraft victims.
The demise of Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, and Sarah Wildes July 19, 1692
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In 1992, the Salem Witch Trials Memorial was built in Salem,at the site of the execution, commemorating the lives that were lost.and a marker was established for Sarah Good.
The Salem Witch Trials Memorial was dedicated on August 5, 1992 by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel for the tercentenary of the Salem Witch Trials. James Cutler and Maggie Smith designed the memorial with as three-sided granite wall with benches displaying the names and execution dates of each of the victims.The stonework on the ground by the entrance to the memorial is inscribed with the victims’ pleas of innocence that are interrupted mid-sentence by the wall to symbolize the indifference to oppression that existed in 1692. These restorative actions could never be enough to rectify the appalling injustice met by Sarah Good and the other victims but were a step in the right direction,
The Salem Witch Trial victims deserve our respect for their suffering at the hands of a church-driven community drunk with power. They were tortured, coerced, and their families destroyed by a court system that decided guilt or innocence on spectral evidence and hearsay.They were innocent people that refused to conform to the Puritan way and paid for it with their lives.
Voices Against Injustice maintains the Witch Trials Memorial, and more information about its history and design as well as guidelines for visiting are available on their website, voicesagainstinjustice.org.
Sarah Good later appeared in Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible as a poor beggar woman who is looked down upon by Salem society.
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