The life and death of a prominent citizen, Giles Corey, should not be
altogether passed over in a survey of such a community and such a time.
He had land, and was called "Goodman Corey;" but he was unpopular from
being too rough for even so young a state of society. He was once tried
for the death of a man whom he had used roughly, but he was only fined.
He had strifes and lawsuits with his neighbors; but he won three wives,
and there was due affection between him and his children. He was eighty
years old when the Witch Delusion broke out, and was living alone with
his wife Martha--a devout woman who spent much of her time on her
knees, praying against the snares of Satan, that is, the delusion
about witchcraft. She spoke freely of the tricks of the children, the
blindness of the magistrates, and the falling away of many from common
sense and the word of God; and while her husband attended every public
meeting, she stayed at home to pray. In his fanaticism he quarreled
with her, and she was at once marked out for a victim, and one of the
earliest. When visited by examiners, she smiled, and conversed with
entire composure, declaring that she was no witch, and that "she did
not think that there were any witches." By such sayings, and by the
expressions of vexation that fell from her husband, and the fanaticism
of two of her four sons-in-law, she was soon brought to extremity. But
her husband was presently under accusation too; and much amazed he
evidently was at his position. His wife was one of the eight "firebrands
of hell" whom Mr. Noyes saw swung off on the 22d of September. "Martha
Corey," said the record, "protesting her innocency, concluded her life
with an eminent prayer on the scaffold." Her husband had been supposed
certain to die in the same way; but he had chosen a different one. His
anguish at his rash folly at the outset of the delusion excited the
strongest desire to bear testimony on behalf of his wife and other
innocent persons, and to give an emphatic blessing to the two
sons-in-law who had been brave and faithful in his wife's cause. He
executed a deed by which he presented his excellent children with his
property in honor of their mother's memory; and, aware that if tried he
would be condemned and executed, and his property forfeited, he resolved
not to plead, and to submit to the consequence of standing mute. Old
as he was, he endured it. He stood mute, and the court had, as the
authorities believed, no alternative. He was pressed to death, as
devoted husbands and fathers were, here and there, in the Middle
Ages, when they chose to save their families from the consequences of
attainders by dying untried. We will not sicken our readers with the
details of the slow, cruel, and disgusting death. He bore it, only
praying for heavier weights to shorten his agony. Such a death and such
a testimony, and the execution of his wife two days later, weighed on
every heart in the community; and no revival of old charges against the
rough colonist had any effect in the presence of such an act as his
last. He was long believed to haunt the places where he lived and died;
and the attempt made by the ministers and one of their "afflicted"
agents to impress the church and society with a vision which announced
his damnation, was a complete failure. Cotton Mather showed that Ann
Putnam had received a divine communication, proving Giles Corey a
murderer; and Ann Putnam's father laid the facts before the judge; but
it was too late now for visions, and for insinuations to the judges, and
for clerical agitation to have any success. Brother Noyes hurried on a
church meeting while Giles Corey was actually lying under the weights,
to excommunicate him for witchcraft on the one hand, or suicide on the
other; and the ordinance was passed. But it was of no avail against the
rising tide of reason and sympathy. This was the last vision, and the
last attempt to establish one in Salem, if not in the Province. It
remained for Mr. Noyes, and the Mathers, and Mr. Parris, and every
clergyman concerned, to endure the popular hatred and their own
self-questioning for the rest of their days. The lay authorities were
stricken with remorse and humbled with grief; but their share of the
retribution was more endurable than that of the pastors who had proved
so wolfish toward their flocks.