In the summer of 1688, a thirteen-year-old Boston child by the name of Martha Goodwin began to have "strange fits" after accusing the woman who did the family's laundry of stealing linens. These "fits," according to Cotton Mather, minister of the same church the children attended, were worse than "those that attend an epilepsy or a catalepsy." Such an accusation caused the laundress' mother to "bestow very bad language upon" her (or, curse her out). Not long after this, one of Martha Goodwin's sisters, and then two of her brothers, starting having "fits" too. The doctors who were called in concluded that "nothing but hellish Witchcraft could be the Origin of these maladies."
The children were fine at night, and slept well, but during the day they would be deaf, dumb, or blind, or all at once. Their tongues would be "drawn down their throats" or pulled down to their chins to "a prodigious length." At times, their mouths would open so wide that they had to have their mouth clamped down with the force of a spring lock, as "their jaws went out of joint." The same would happen to their elbows, wrists, and shoulder blades. All four children would lie as though numb, then draw themselves into a hoop shape as if "tied neck and heels." They would be "stretched out" and "drawn backwards" until it seemed as though the "skin of their bellies" would surely crack.
Cotton Mather wrote that, "The variety of their tortures increased continually," continuing that, "Their necks would be broken, so that the neck-bone would seem dissolved unto them that felt after it, and yet on the sudden, it would become again so stiff that there was no stirring of their heads; yea, their heads would be twisted almost round; and if main force at any time obstructed a dangerous motion which they seem'd to be upon, they would road exceedingly."
These "fits" went on for weeks. Eventually, four Boston ministers spent a day of prayer at the Goodwin house, which caused the youngest child to be "cured." The ministers themselves (or so the boastful Mather implies) later told the magistrates of the case. After questioning the Goodwin's father, the magistrates jailed and prosecuted the laundress' mother for witchcraft.
This woman was Goody Glover (or, as Cotton Mather referred to her, "the hag"), an Irish Catholic who had been enslaved and sent to Barbados by Englishman Oliver Cromwell in the 1650's. Her husband died in Barbados, and by the 1680's, she and her daughter were living in Boston, Massachusetts, employed as housekeepers by John Goodwin.
During the trials, Goody Glover (there is debate as to whether her name was Ann or Mary; a list of unpaid jail bills from 1689 states a Mary Glover, but it is uncertain if this is Goody Glover, especially since her case was in 1688) condemned herself by uttering what the magistrates deemed as a confession, though the meaning might not have been correct, as she refused to speak English even though she knew how, instead speaking only Gaelic through interpreters. She also spoke in such a wandering, incoherent fashion that the court appointed six physicians to examine whether she was "craz'd in her intellectuals." It was decided that she was not, though she rambled about hearing spirits and saints talking, which could cause a modern reader to wonder whether she was schizophrenic or senile.
The investigation of Goody Glover was far more thorough than any conducted for previous trials. Her house was searched for puppets and images, and her body was examined for witch's marks. She was also required by the magistrates to recite the Lord's Prayer, a task she could not complete without blaspheming.
She eventually confessed, though, by this time, the magistrates were fully convinced of her guilt anyway. She was sentenced to hang. As she was going to her execution on November 16, 1688, she named others that were also responsible for bewitching the children, and said that killing her wouldn't do anything. Author James B. Cullen wrote, "she was drawn in a cart, a hated and dreaded figure, chief in importance, stared at and mocked at, through the principal streets from her prison to the gallows . . . The people crowded to see the end, as always; and when it was over they quietly dispersed, leaving the worn-out body hanging as a terror to evil-doers."
Goody Glover's prediction proved to be correct. After her death, the children's sufferings became only more extreme and bizarre. Cotton Mather reported that the children began to bark and purr, to see specters, to sweat as in an oven and shiver as though doused in icy water. They began to yell that they had been hit and showed red streaks on their flesh, to be roasted on invisible spits, pierced with invisible knives, and have their heads pinned to the floor with invisible nails. He said they flew "like geese," with their toes just touching the ground, arms flapping. On one occasion, one supposedly flew the length of the room (about twenty feet), coming to land on a high chair.
Historians today commonly believe that the Goodwin children were sufferers of a classic case of hysteria, caused by a very strict Puritan lifestyle. Their victim, Goody Glover, is today considered a martyr to many Catholics. A decade after Glover was hanged, Cotton Mather was still preaching against "idolatrous Roman Catholicks," trying to preserve the Puritan society that was quickly changing. In Boston's South End, Our Lady of Victories Eucharistic Shrine has a plaque remembering Goody Glover as the first Catholic martyr of Massachusetts. The church is located at 27 Isabella Street. On November 16, 1988, the Boston City Council took note of the injustice done to Goody Glover 300 years earlier by proclaiming that day "Goody Glover Day" and condemning what had been done to her.