Ann Putnam:

At twelve years old, Ann Putnam was among the youngest of the afflict girls. She was somewhat of a prodigy and had been her mother's confidante since early childhood. She was very much aware of her mother's tearful visits to the graveyard to visit Ann's siblings' and other relatives' graves.

Her mother, Ann sr., was a literate and well read woman. She had lost two other children before Ann was born. She and Ann often poured over the Book of Revelations looking for local applications of its mysterious symbols. Mrs. Putnam suffered from vivid dreams of her dead sister and children, and she may have deliberately dispatched young Ann to the Parris kitchen to meet Tituba and to discover if there were a non-Christian way of contacting the dead. Mrs. Putnam eventually joined in the hysteria herself and suffered from "afflictions" and made accusations against her neighbors.

In both her "afflictions" and accusations young Ann was the most active of the girls. As the youngest, she was considered the most innocent; therefore, her accusations carried the most weight. In August of 1707, Ann Putnam recanted and asked to be humbled before her congreation. She was forgiven by the congregation and suffered no further punishment for her actions.

Sarah Good

Sarah Good was the daughter of a wealthy Wenham innkeeper, but her life had been a long downhill slide since her father's suicide from drowning. Her mother had quickly remarried in order to block the children's inheritance rights. Sarah married a landless man who hired himself out as a laborer. But even with a chronic labor shortage in the colony, individuals hesitated hiring her husband because that would mean taking Sarah into the household, and she was considered shrewish, idle, and slovenly.

With matted grey hair and a leathered, lined face, Sarah Good looked seventy years old even though she was still of child bearing age. (In fact she was pregnant at the time of her arrest.) With her clay pipe, Sarah Good even looked the part of a witch. She didn't attend church, and recently she had been begging door-to-door and making a general nuisance of herself.

Along with Tituba and Sarah Osburne, Sarah Good was among the first three women named as witches. All three were arrested on February 29th, 1692. A strong woman, Sarah nearly overpowered the sheriff who came to arrest her. During the initial questioning of the three women, Good accused Sarah Osburne of being a witch, and Tituba confessed to witchcraft. Tituba was released while Good and Osburne were sent to jail. Osburne, who was already ill, died in prison. Good's newborn child also died in prison. Good was joined in prison by her four year old daughter, Dorcas - even though Dorcas had testified against her mother. Dorcas was to remain mentally impaired for the rest of her life as a result of her inprisonment. Even Sarah Good's husband testified against her.

On June 29th, along with five other women, Sarah Good was tried and convicted of witchcraft. She was hanged on Gallows hill on July l9th. Sarah Good remained defiant to the end. When Reverend Noyes urged her to confess and repent on the scaffold, she replied "I am no more witch than you are a wizard. If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink." Years later when Reverend Noyes died of a hemorrhage in the mouth - in fact drinking his own blood - many in Salem remembered Sarah Good's curse. In fact Nathaniel Hawthorne, descendent of the hanging Judge Hathorne of the witch trials, borrowed this incident for the death of Judge Pyncheon in his famous novel, The House of the Seven Gables.