{"id":111035,"date":"2026-10-09T07:19:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/?p=111035"},"modified":"2026-10-09T07:19:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:19:28","slug":"goody-cole-cleared-of-witchcraft-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/goody-cole-cleared-of-witchcraft-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Goody Cole Cleared of Witchcraft (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> With October comes Halloween, and thoughts of witches and ghosts. In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry concludes her story about one of the earliest convictions for witchcraft in the New World: Goody Cole. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com<\/a>, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today I continue Goody Cole\u2019s story: a woman who had been accused of witchcraft in Hampton, New Hampshire, in the mid to late 1600s \u2013 years before the infamous Salem witch trials \u2013 was cleared in time for the town\u2019s 1938 tercentenary celebration by the Goody Cole Society.<\/p>\n

Drawing on the Los Angeles Examiner<\/em> article \u201cPoor Old \u2018Goody\u2019 Cole Cleansed of Witchcraft After 300 Years,\u201d I present an account of her ordeal and the effort to clear her name [see Goody Cole Cleared of Witchcraft (part 1)<\/a>].<\/p>\n

\"An
Los Angeles Examiner (Los Angeles, California), 10 April 1938, page 83<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

The first symptom of the infection [witch hysteria] in the Colonies seems to have been the behavior of children in church. Considering that small boys and girls were forced to sit in uncomfortable pews through a three-hour morning service, their actions were not so strange.<\/p>\n

One or two finally started it by breaking out with catcalls and irreverent remarks. It was merely hysteria, but such startling behavior seemed to those devout Puritans the work of the Devil and at once they wondered if he was doing it through those witches they had heard about [in England]. They questioned the children, who, finding themselves important personages, played up to the role and obligingly pointed out the old woman who had bewitched them, and other youngsters were quick to follow their example.<\/p>\n

It was full-grown persons who testified against Goody Cole, 36 years before the superstitious craze came to its peak in the Salem witch trials in which they actually convicted and executed a minister and Harvard graduate, the Reverend George Burroughs. Eunice [Goody] Cole was no longer young, had a sharp tongue for which she might well have deserved the ducking stool, and in her clashes with men, women and teasing children, often took advantage of their superstitious credulity by making terrifying prophecies.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, she seems to have been such a good prophet of evil as to be accounted for only on the theory of diabolic assistance, so she was brought to trial as \u201ca witch and familiar of the Devil\u201d before the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Norfolk County.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the below photo we see Phyllis Tucker in a pillory as \u201cGoody\u201d Cole. Looking on (from left to right): Jackie and Peter Brooks, sons of John W. R. Brooks; Mrs. G. Roland Janvrin; Eleanor Palmer; Alta Gillmore; and Shirlie Adele Arnold.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: reenactment of Goody Cole in a pillory. Credit: Lane Memorial Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thomas Philbrick, whose present-day descendant didn\u2019t want his sturdy ancestor criticized, testified that Goody Cole had warned him that if his calves should eat any more of her grass, \u201cshe wished it might poyson them or choak them.\u201d After this unkind wish, he never saw one of his calves again.<\/p>\n

Abraham Drake deposed that \u201caboute this time twelvemonth, my neighbor Giles lost a cowe and wen we had found it, I and others brought the cowe to his house and shee desired mee to flee this cowe and presently she charged me with killing her cowe, and said they should know that hee (Drake) had killed her cowe and forthwith I lost two cattell and the latter end of the somer I lost one cowe.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Note:<\/em> Sobriety, the wife of Henry Moulton, and goodwife Sleeper, the wife of Thomas<\/a>, also deposed against Goody Cole.]<\/p>\n

In the face of this and similar testimony from other respected citizens it was useless for poor Goody Cole to deny even a speaking acquaintance with Beelzebub, and if more tolerant persons expressed doubts, they were at once looked upon with suspicion.<\/p>\n

The mass of the people were certain that she was a witch and clamored for protection. A jury found her guilty and the judge sentenced her to a flogging and life imprisonment.<\/p>\n

The flogging on her bare back was administered forthwith but the life imprisonment was a more complicated matter. There being no accommodations in Hampton for imprisoning anyone for life, Eunice was sent to Boston.<\/p>\n

But even this important community was not rolling in wealth and could not afford to feed and lodge convicts for the rest of the Colony free. Therefore, it was understood that Hampton was to pay Boston the sum of eight pounds a year ($40) for her board.<\/p>\n

Hampton, all except Eunice\u2019s aged husband, who vainly begged to have her released so she could take care of him, seems to have forgotten about her. Alas, the town also forgot to pay anything on that jail board bill until, after eight years, the arrears had amounted to the staggering sum of $320. In the good old days public officials could be imprisoned for non-payment of a civic debt.<\/p>\n

Therefore, William Salter, Keeper of the Prison at Boston, wishing to balance his budget for the fiscal year of 1664, arrested Thomas Marston, one of the selectmen of Hampton, and threatened to board him under the same roof as Goody Cole. This brought results \u2013 his brother officials promptly voted to pay.<\/p>\n

In 1671 Hampton wearied of that annual $40 overhead and Goody was released, after nearly 15 years behind the bars. She was assigned to a little shack and placed on the relief, but not out of the public treasury. Instead, 52 families were appointed to supply her needs, one week at a time.<\/p>\n

But in 1672 she was again charged with witchcraft, appearing to little Ann Smith as an eagle, a dog and a cat. She was tried and barely escaped with the following verdict:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn ye case of Unis Cole now prisoner at ye Bar not guilty according to inditement butt just ground for vehement susspissyon of her having had familyarryty with the devil. (Signed) Jonas Clarke in the name of the rest.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Below is an image of the court record for the witchcraft prosecution of Eunice Cole in 1673.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: court record for the witchcraft prosecution of Eunice Cole in 1673. Credit: Massachusetts Archives Collection, Vol. 135, No. 9.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1680 there was another witch-drive in Hampton and Goody Cole, though too feeble to leave her bed, was indicted with several other \u201cGoodies,\u201d but all were discharged the following year. People in those days must have had characters and constitutions of iron, because this hated, tormented, friendless old pariah managed to hold body and soul together until well into her eighties and then die peacefully.<\/p>\n

When word sped through the town that \u201cthe Devil had taken Goody Cole at last,\u201d a \u201cwelfare committee,\u201d trembling for fear of what Satan might do to them, gave the aged body a witch\u2019s burial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here are two examples of memorabilia from Hampton\u2019s 1938 vindication of Goody Cole: an arrowhead coin, and the Goody Cole Society membership card of Philip N. Blake Jr., 1938.<\/p>\n

\"Photos:
Photos: memorabilia from Goody Cole Day, Hampton, New Hampshire, 1938. Credit: Harold Fernald Collection, Hampton Historical Society.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1938 Mrs. Harry Houdini, widow of the famed magician, attended a ceremony to burn the court records of Goody Cole\u2019s witchcraft conviction. There were 3,000 people at the ceremony including Arnold D. Philbrick, a descendant of one of Cole\u2019s accusers. Below is a news clip.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: newsclip from the archives about the vindication of Goody Cole. Credit: Lane Memorial Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Note:<\/em> some of the graphics in this article have been AI enhanced.<\/p>\n

Explore your family history by creating your free account<\/a> at GenealogyBank for 7 days, because every life deserves to be remembered, recorded, and rediscovered.<\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> an article about Goody Cole\u2019s vindication, from the St. Louis Sunday Magazine, 3 April 1938. Credit: Lane Memorial Library.<\/p>\n

Related Article:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n