The Gould Family, Salem, MA, 1692
Salem, MA was the site of the most infamous witchunt in Colonial America. It was a terrible time, and many innocent people were involved. People were accused for monetary gain, political gain, through social pressures, and some just out of spite. Many at the accusations came from the their family members, the very people who were supposed to be closest and most caring. Such is the case of the Gould family.
Zaccheus Gould & his wife, Phoebe Deacon, brought their 5 children - Phoebe, Mary, Martha, John, & Priscilla to Massachusetts. Priscilla married Capt. John Wildes, and they had 8 children together. She died the 16th of Apr 1663, at the age of 33, leaving John with at least 4 children under the age of 10, the youngest 4month old Nathan.
John remarried, to Sarah Averill, 23 November 1663. They had one child, Ephraim.
It appears that the Gould family feathers were ruffled when John Wildes remarried so soon after Priscilla's death. (Keep in mind that this is a man with 8 children). But the serious nature of the problems between John Wildes & the siblings of his first wife, Priscilla, - Lt. John Gould & Mary (Gould) Redington - began in the mid-1680s.
There was a property dispute between the people of Salem Village & Topsfield. John Gould was from Salem, while John Wildes was from Topsfield. Then in 1686 John Wilded testified agains John Gold when treason was charged. Oddly enough, John Wildes had previously agreed with everything that John Gould was being charged with.
After that Mary (Gould) Redington began to spread rumours about Sarah (Averill) Wildes, John's 2nd wife. John Wildes threatened to file slander charges against John Redington (men were responsible for their wives' actions at the time). Mary (Gould) Redington readily admitted that she had made up the stories.
But the rumour mill had begun to grind, and Sarah (Averill) Wildes was to be a victim.
When the trials began in 1692, John Gould testified that his poor deceased sister, Mary (Gould) Redington had at one time been pulled off a horse by Sarah Wildes "in spirit form". He also stated that hens that Sarah had gifted to Mary had "moped around until they died". He also stated that one time while he and his nephew Zaccheus Perkins, son of Phoebe (Gould) Perkins, were filling a hayrick in a hurry, or else his Aunt Wildes would be mad. The hay then slid off the hayrick, and John Gould felt that it was because of witchcraft. Mary (Gould) Redington's words had been "taken back" but Mary had died by 1692, and the people to whom she spoke carried them forward beyond her life. Her minister, John Hale, to whom she had shared her "griefs" stated that Mary had told him that she was bewitched & afflicted by Sarah Wildes. Even John Wildes, Jr, the son of Priscilla - who was about 15 when she died - stated that he believed that his stepmother was a witch.
Sarah's son, Ephraim Wildes, testified for Sarah. One of the people to accuse Sarah was Deliverance Hobbs. As Ephraim was the Salem constable, he was charged with bringing Deliverance to jail when she had been accused of witchcraft herself. He claimed that Elizabeth Symonds, another woman who had signed a disposition against Sarah did so because Ephraim had broken a marriage contract with her daughter a few years before. When Ephraim asked Elizabeth Symonds why she though Sarah was a witch, Elizabeth said it was because Mary Redington told her it was true. Ephraim reminded the court that when Mary (Gould) Redington had been accussed of slander, that Mary had readily confessed that Sunday in church, saying that Sarah was a "fine Christian woman whom had never been involved with the devil". Ephraim stated that his mother had always raised him in the Christian way.
Unfortunately, Sarah was found guilty, and executed 19 July 1692. On that day, 5 women - Rebecca Nurse, Goody Good, Elizabeth Howe, Suzanna Martin, & Sarah - were hanged while standing in a cart on Gallows Hill. All of the people who had testified against Sarah eventually confessed in church that they had lied.
John Wildes married a 3rd time, to the widow Mary Jacobs. Her husband, George Jacobs, aged 72 and an invalid, had been hanged August 1692 in the witch trials.
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