The truth was as fragile as the lives of those who spoke it. Each step she took was heavy with the knowledge that, in Salem, a whisper could turn into a storm—and a storm could bury the truth forever.
January 1692 brought with it the relentless chill of winter and a growing sense of dread in Salem. The girls’ condition worsened daily, their once-vibrant voices reduced to unintelligible murmurs. As the days dragged on, Reverend Samuel Parris could hardly bear to witness their suffering. He feared that the darkness encroaching upon his family might soon claim more than just their health. The Puritan minister, distressed by his daughter’s condition, began to suspect the work of the maleficae, their malevolent powers possibly stirred by the Antichrist himself.
The devil worked in mysterious ways. Of course, he sent his henchmen—or in this case, henchwomen—to do his bidding. Parris was certain there had always been something off about Sarah Good. She was impudent, far too outspoken for a destitute woman. The townspeople disliked her as well, whispering about her habit of renting rooms in others’ homes and her sharp tongue.
But the true shock came when Betty, Parris’s daughter, named Sarah Good as one of her tormentors. Good had always been a nuisance, but now she was accused of having bewitched the girls of his own household. For Reverend Parris, there could be no pardon. She was to be executed by hanging. To live alongside the devil’s aides was unthinkable.
By February 1692, Sarah Good faced an unexpected and devastating turn of events. The arrest warrant arrived like a bolt from the blue, and the notion that she was in league with the devil felt absurd. How could such wild accusations, fueled by the ramblings of young girls, hold any weight? Sarah scoffed at the very idea. To her, it was clear: Salem sought to silence a woman who dared to speak her mind.
Despair soon took hold. No logic could convince her neighbors of her innocence. The cruelest wound came when they turned her own family against her. Her husband, who had once vowed to love her until death, now betrayed her, declaring before others: “It was her bad carriage to me, and indeed, say I with tears, that she is enemy to all good.” His words shattered her completely. Even worse, her four-year-old daughter, Dorothy, was frightened into testifying against her.
Sarah’s anguish was immeasurable—not because she feared death, but because she had lost trust in those she loved most. Wrongly accused, pregnant, and abandoned, she searched in vain for sympathy. There was none.
Despite the cruelty, Sarah remained adamant that she was innocent. When Judge John Hathorne accused her of harming the children, she replied incredulously that she dared not harm them, let alone through witchcraft. Again and again, she stated firmly: “I am falsely accused.”
For a moment, hope flickered. When Abigail Williams accused Sarah of stabbing her with a knife and produced a broken blade as evidence, a man came forward and testified that the knife had broken in his presence—not through witchcraft. But even this truth failed to sway Judge William Stoughton, who chose instead to side with Abigail.
Sarah was not even granted a fair trial. All evidence was hearsay, rooted in hysteria and fear. Exhausted, despairing, she asked herself: Was this all because she did not attend church?
By March 1692, the ordeal grew even worse. Sarah, along with Tituba and Sarah Osborne, was transported to Boston and imprisoned in deplorable conditions. Shackled with rusted chains in a filthy, airless cell, Sarah’s strength waned. To her horror, her trial was postponed until after she had given birth. The cruelty was deliberate. She was denied sleep for up to 40 hours at a time, then forced to sit on burning-hot stools under the claim that the devil had made her impure.
Meanwhile, her daughter Dorothy, only five years old, was also accused and imprisoned. The thought of her innocent child enduring the same torment was almost too much to bear.
Sarah gave birth in prison, but her infant did not survive the brutal conditions. Even in her grief, she remained steadfast. She had lost her child, her family, her freedom, but not her conviction. She would not confess to a lie.
By July 19, 1692, Sarah Good’s fate was sealed. Reverend Nicholas Noyes begged her to confess and save her soul, but Sarah refused. “You’re a liar! I’m no more a witch than you are a wizard! If you take my life, God will give you blood to drink!” she retorted defiantly.
That day, Sarah Good was hanged, along with others, victims of mass hysteria.
In the end, her name lingered in Salem, a grim reminder of how fear had twisted justice and destroyed the innocent. Though the frenzy faded, Salem would never be the same. Sarah Good’s legacy endures—a silent testament to the devastating cost of giving in to fear.