The Jacobs family was signalized by the confession of one of its
members--Margaret, one of the "afflicted" girls. She brought her
grandfather to the gallows, and suffered as much as a weak, ignorant,
impressionable person under evil influences could suffer from doubt
and remorse. But she married well seven years afterward--still feeling
enough in regard to the past to refuse to be married by Mr. Noyes. She
deserved such peace of mind as she obtained, for she retracted the
confession of witchcraft which she had made, and went to prison. It was
too late then to save her victims, Mr. Burroughs and her grandfather,
but she obtained their full and free forgiveness. At that time this was
the condition of the family:
"No account has come to us of the deportment of George Jacobs, Sr., at
his execution. As he was remarkable in life for the firmness of his
mind, so he probably was in death. He had made his will before the
delusion arose. It is dated January 29, 1692, and shows that he, like
Proctor, had a considerable estate.... In his infirm old age he had been
condemned to die for a crime of which he knew himself innocent, and
which there is some reason to believe he did not think any one capable
of committing. He regarded the whole thing as a wicked conspiracy
and absurd fabrication. He had to end his long life upon a scaffold
in a week from that day. His house was desolated, and his property
sequestered. His only son, charged with the same crime, had eluded the
sheriff--leaving his family, in the hurry of his flight, unprovided
for--and was an exile in foreign lands. The crazy wife of that son was
in prison and in chains, waiting trial on the same charge; her little
children, including an unweaned infant, left in a deserted and
destitute condition in the woods. The older children were scattered he
knew not where, while one of them had completed the bitterness of his
lot by becoming a confessor, upon being arrested with her mother as a
witch. This granddaughter, Margaret, overwhelmed with fright and horror,
bewildered by the statements of the accusers, and controlled probably by
the arguments and arbitrary methods of address employed by her minister,
Mr. Noyes--whose peculiar function in those proceedings seems to have
been to drive persons accused to make confession--had been betrayed into
that position, and became a confessor and accuser of others." (Vol. ii.
p. 312.)