Ever since I can remember, I've been following Mummy and Daddy around Salem from house to house, as Mummy asks the people inside for money or bread. I wonder why everybody else seems to have a nice house but we have nowhere. I've heard people say horrible things about Mummy but I've no idea why. She is very good to me, and always tells me to be aware of bad people: Indians, Papists and Quakers. I don't really know what these are but I know not to go near them.
Mummy knocks on a big door. The door opens and a man is standing there.
"What do you want, Goody Good?", he asks. He doesn't say it very nicely at all.
"Could you give us some money, or maybe something to eat?", Mummy asks.
"Certainly not", the horrible man says.
"But we'll go hungry", says Mummy, who is starting to get angry. "Didn't Jesus say . . . ?"
The man turns his back on us.
"A curse on you!", Mummy shouts. "May God give you blisters all over your skin! May he kill all your livestock! May he strike down your children!"
The man just slams the door.
"Well, really", says Mummy.
"You should stop cursing people like that", says Daddy.
"If they won't help us, they deserve to be cursed", replies Mummy. "Jesus said that men who do not help those in need will be destroyed. And anyway, William", she adds, "it's your fault that we have to beg. If you could actually get a job . . ."
"No, Sarah", says Daddy, "it's all your fault, you're the one who has loaded all these debts on us."
I cover my ears. Please not another argument.
"It's not my fault my stepfather cheated me out of what was mine", says Mummy. "Or that my first husband spent more than he had, and then died, leaving me with his debts and the funeral costs."
"Your problems started because your father committed the mortal sin of suicide", says Daddy. "No wonder God has cursed you."
"What did you say?", roars Mummy, and she grabs him by the throat.
"No! No!", I wail. "Please stop it!"
They both look at me for a minute or two, before Mummy lets go of Daddy. Why do they argue all the time? I can only hope that they will stop when I get my new brother or sister. Yes! Mummy has told me she's going to have another child! I'm so looking forward to that.
As we travel through the town yet again, for what seems like the millionth time, a group of men come up to us.
"What do you want?", asks Mummy: maybe not the nicest way she could have said it, but then these don't seem to be very nice men.
"I am Reverend Nicholas Noyes", says one of the men, who looks like he is the leader. "Goodwife Sarah Good, 38 years of age, wife of William Good, you are under arrest on a charge of witchcraft."
The other men grab hold of Mummy and put her in chains. I scream.
"Witchcraft!" says Mummy, "What in God's name are you talking about!"
I've heard people talk about this thing called witchcraft before, but I don't think I fully know what it is.
"Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, two young relatives of Mr. Parris, have told him that you have afflicted them, Goody Good", says Mr. Noyes. "They have also named Goody Osborne and Tituba the Indian."
I know that Mr. Parris is a very important man in Salem: isn't he supposed to be God's man or something?
"Goody Osborne and Tituba must be the witches, not I", says Mummy. "Especially Tituba: she is an Indian, she is our enemy."
"You are a witch as well", says Mr. Noyes. "Why, just look at your grey hair and your wrinkles, you even look like one."
Mummy glares at him.
I look at Daddy.
"Please Daddy", I say, "you know this is all wrong, tell them."
Daddy steps forward.
"I am afraid", he says, "she either is a witch or will be one very quickly. She is an enemy to all good. Last night I saw a wart below her right shoulder, which I had not seen before."
Mummy spits in his face.
"Liar!", she shouts. "Agent of Satan!"
"Thank you, Mr. Good", says Mr. Noyes. "You are helping Salem get rid of this scourge. Take her away", he says to the other men
Mummy is dragged away, calling the men "Quakers".
"Come back, Mummy!", I call out.
I try to run after her but Daddy holds me back.
I start to cry.
"Why, Daddy?", I wail. "Why did you lie about Mummy?"
"Your Mummy is no good for you", he answers. "You'll be better off without her."
"No! No!", I cry. "I want my Mummy!".
"You're better off without her", says Daddy again. "And don't talk about her ever again."
Three weeks have passed, and a nice man is letting us live at his house.
Then a knock comes at the door. It's those men again! The same ones who took Mummy away!
The nice man asks them what they want, but they just brush past by him. They grab me and force chains onto my arms and legs. While I scream and ask them what's happening, Mr. Noyes speaks to me:
"Dorcas Good, four years of age, daughter of William and Sarah Good, you are under arrest on a charge of witchcraft."
("Dorcas"? They've even got my name wrong.)
"Please, please", I beg of Mr. Noyes, "this is wrong, I'm not a witch, please let me go."
"Your mother is a witch, so you are as well", he says. "It usually gets passed down from mother to daughter."
"No! No! No!", I scream. I turn towards Daddy. "Please, Daddy", I say, "You know this is wrong, tell them!"
But Daddy just shakes his head.
The men drag me through the streets until in the end we come to a frightening building. They push me into a small dark room. They take the chains off but then force me into another chain that is attached to the wall. Mr. Noyes sits down facing me.
"Dorcas Good", says Mr. Noyes, "you have bewitched poor Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott, causing your spirit to bite and choke them."
"I did not, sir", I beg.
Why can't he see the truth?
Mr. Noyes looks back over his shoulder.
"Bring in the afflicted girls", he says.
Two girls come into the room. At once they start screaming and throwing themselves about and doing all sorts of silly things.
"Leave us alone, Dorothy!", says one.
"Stop looking at us!", says the other.
How am I supposed to stop looking at them when they're being so silly?
Mr. Noyes turns back to face me.
"You see", he says, "these girls are afflicted with witchcraft when you so much as look at them."
What is happening? What in God's name is happening? And then, it hits me: something horrible is happening to me and Mummy. I don't quite know what it is, but it must be very bad. I start to cry.
"Please, I did nothing to these girls, I don't know what has happened to them", I say.
"The girls' behaviour proves beyond all doubt that you are a witch", says Mr. Noyes. "If you were not bewitching them, why would they be acting like that, do you think?
I have no answer: I just cry out, "I want my Mummy!"
"You will be allowed to see your mother if you admit that you are a witch", says Mr. Noyes.
I continue to cry. After a few minutes, Mr. Noyes speaks again, a little more gently.
"Do you have a bite mark upon you?", he asks.
"Yes", I sob: I show him a bite on my finger, from a flea.
Mr. Noyes sends the other girls away, then turns back to face me.
"Now, as you know, Dorcas", says Mr. Noyes, "witches will often keep snakes. Was it a snake that bit you, Dorcas?"
"Yes", I whisper, "Mummy gave it to me." I feel ashamed of myself.
"Did the snake ever talk to you, Dorcas?", asks Mr. Noyes. "As I am sure your mother will have told you, the Devil often speaks to people through animals."
"Yes, it did", I say.
"Have you ever seen your mother with the Devil, Dorcas?"
I don't answer: I am shaking with fright and shame.
"Have you ever seen your mother with the Devil, Dorcas?", says Mr. Noyes again, his voice sounding harder.
"Yes", I say, trembling.
Mr. Noyes leans back, smiling.
"Good", he says, "you have done very well, Dorcas, you have told the truth before God."
He then looks back over his shoulder again.
"Take her to the prison!", he says.
I scream again as the other men come back in, and drag me away. After I don't know how long, I find myself in a different building, being pushed into a big room. There are lots of people in here, and it's very crowded. Most of the people are women, but there are also a few men. I can see Mummy in there - she seems to be chained to the wall.
"Mummy!", I call out.
She looks out and calls to me: "Dorothy!"
The men drag me over to Mummy, push me down beside her and chain me to the wall next to her.
Mummy hugs me as tightly as I hug her.
"Poor child", she says.
"Poor child, indeed", says Mr. Noyes. "I am happy to inform you, Goody Good, that your daughter has confessed to witchcraft. She also said that she has seen you with Lucifer."
"You're a liar!", shouts Mummy.
"No he isn't, Mummy", I say.
"What?", says Mummy. She breaks away from the hug.
"I told you him that you're a witch", I say, beginning to cry again.
Mr. Noyes begins to laugh, and walks away.
"You traitor!", Mummy shouts. "You unnatural girl! You are no daughter of mine! You have broken God's Holy Commandments! What evil possessed you?"
"Please forgive me, Mummy", I sob, burying my head on her lap. "I was made to do it, Mr. Noyes brought in two girls who behaved strangely, he said I must have made them do it, he told me what to say, he said I could see you again if I did."
"You didn't have to lie", says Mummy. "I have always told these men the truth, that I am not a witch. Why couldn't you?"
"Please, please, Mummy", I say, but suddenly Mummy starts breathing very heavily and moving very strangely.
Someone shouts out that they need a "midwife", whatever that is, and after some time a woman rushes into the room and comes over to Mummy, and in the end she manages to pull out a little baby. Mummy hold the baby close to her.
"You have a little sister", she tells me, smiling. "Her name is Mercy."
Mercy starts to kick and pull Mummy's hair: Mummy smiles and cries at the same time. She then gives Mercy to me: Mercy pulls a few faces and laughs. I look at Mummy, and we both smile at each other.
"I'm sorry, Mummy", I say.
Mummy holds out her arm and pulls me in to her, hugging me tightly as I hold Mercy.
I soon notice what a horrible place this room is: it's very dark, it smells of smoke and poo, and I can see rats and insects.
Three months have passed since I was put in that horrible room next to Mummy. I'm watching Mercy take her first steps. Mummy isn't with us: yesterday the men took her away to something called a "court". Before she was taken, Mummy told me not to worry, that God is looking after us, and we will all soon be free. Mercy isn't as lively as she once was: she has been coughing a lot. She is also very thin: I remember Mummy once asked one of the men in charge of us to give us more food, saying she needed it so she can give milk to Mercy, but was told that she would have to pay for it - she doesn't have the money for it.
Just then I hear Mummy's voice:
"I am innocent! I am innocent!"
Her voice seems to be coming from outside the room and is getting louder. I feel something horrible in my stomach: the way she is saying it makes me think it must be bad news.
"Now, now, Goody Good", says the voice of Mr. Noyes, "God is displeased that you deny his justice."
"That court was the work of the Devil, not God", says Mummy.
"So you are a blasphemer and a liar as well as a witch", says Mr. Noyes. "My advice to you, Goody Good, is to confess your heinous crimes - if you do that, you will be spared."
At this point, I can see Mummy, the men who are taking her, and Mr. Noyes appear in the doorway.
"Never!", Mummy shouts, "I will not damn my soul, God knows I am innocent!"
"Then you shall hang", says Mr. Noyes.
I scream about 10 times louder than I ever have. Mercy begins to cry - she looks frightened.
After Mummy is chained next to me again, Mercy crawls over to her. Mummy takes Mercy on her lap.
"Mummy", I ask, "are they really going to hang you?" (I'm not quite sure what happens when someone hangs, but I've heard that it's a way of killing people.)
"Yes", says Mummy.
I cry as loud and as long as I have ever done, and I cling to Mummy.
"Please, Mummy", I beg, "don't die, don't go away, stay with me!"
Mummy gently strokes my hair.
"They won't hang me today", she says. "It'll be another three weeks."
That doesn't stop me crying.
It's a week later: every day I'm getting closer to when Mummy will be taken from me forever. Today, however, it's Mercy that we're worried about. She's lying in Mummy's lap, finding it very hard to breathe.
"Will Mercy be all right, Mummy?", I ask.
Before Mummy can answer, Mercy stops breathing. I cry, clinging to Mummy, and she cries, clinging to me.
Another two weeks. This morning, Mr. Noyes comes in. How I hate him. The same men who took me and Mummy to this place are with him.
He comes over to Mummy.
"Goody Good", he says, "we have come to take you away to face God's justice. Though you have spurned the opportunity to save yourself from the gallows, I will ask of you one last time, in God's name, to save your soul by confessing what we all know to be true: that you are a witch."
"You're a liar!", Mummy shouts at him. "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink."
"Foolish to the end", mutters Mr. Noyes
Mummy ignores him and hugs me, as the other men take off the wall chain and put other chains on her arms and legs.
"Dearest Dorothy", she says, as I cry, "do not cry, for all my sufferings will soon be ended, and I will be with God the just and merciful. Promise me you will be a good girl and will be faithful to God at all times."
"I will, Mummy", I say.
"Hurry up", says Mr. Noyes. "God wants to see you swing."
Mummy stands up, and does not even look at him.
As she is taken away, I cry: "Come back, Mummy!"
I try to run after her, but I soon fall down: it's because of that horrible chain tying me to the wall. I can only watch as Mummy is taken out of my sight, forever.
Sarah Good was executed by hanging on 19th July 1692, along with four other women - Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Wildes. While the other four awaited execution quietly, Sarah vehemently protested her innocence to the last.
A total of 12 women and seven men were hanged during the mass hysteria known as the Salem witch trials - in addition, another man was pressed to death.
Dorothy Good, the youngest person to be accused in the Salem witch trials, languished in prison, without being charged with any crime, until 10th December 1692, when her father raised £50 to pay her bail and board. She had spent eight and a half months in custody.
William Good remarried, to Elizabeth Drinker, on 7th June 1693 - the couple had a son who died young.
In 1711, Sarah Good was named in a law passed by the Great and General Court (the Massachusetts legislature) restoring all rights to those convicted in the Salem witch trials.
In 1712, William Good petitioned the Great and General Court for restitution over the loss of his first wife and baby daughter, and the fact that Dorothy, "as a child of four or five years old, was imprisoned seven or eight months, and being chained in a dungeon was so hardly used and terrified, that she hath ever since been very chargeable having little or no reason to govern herself". He was awarded £20 - one of the highest sums granted to a victim of the witch trials.
William Good died, of an unknown cause, in 1714.
Reverend Nicholas Noyes died in 1717, allegedly after choking on his blood, just as Sarah had supposedly predicted.
From at least 1708, Dorothy lived in the houses of various prominent citizens of Salem, who were paid by the local authorities - the selectmen - to provide her with food, clothing and lodging. This was the usual practice for an adult who was unable to look after themselves. She also had two spells in the House of Correction. She was said to be in the habit of "straying". She gave birth to two children, Dorothy, in 1720, and William, in 1726 - the identities of the children's fathers are unknown. Both of her children were indentured soon after their births, and nothing more is known about them.
After 1738, Dorothy disappears from the records.
On 14th August 1761, the New-London Summary published a notice, announcing that the body of Dorothy Good, "a transient, vagrant person" had been found in a bog in New London, Connecticut, having "wondered [sic] into said desolate place, and there perished". It is not clear if this is the same Dorothy Good who was accused in the Salem witch trials, but the name Good was not especially common in New England or Connecticut in the eighteenth century, Dorothy was known to be a wanderer, transient people were frequently "warned out" of towns, and the fact that the notice was reprinted in the Boston newspapers (Salem did not have a local paper at the time) may suggest a link to the witch trials.
For more information on Dorothy Good, see the links below:
American
Ancestors Spring 2023 Volume 24 Number 1
Rachel
Christ-Doane — The Untold Story of Dorothy Good: A Tragic Life After the Salem
Witch Trials - History Camp®
This story is dedicated to the memory of Sarah, Dorothy and Mercy Good.
