Today in Salem: Reverend Samuel Parris can smell her before he sees her, the acrid scent of pipe smoke followed by the pungency of a sweating and long-unwashed body. It’s dusk on the Sabbath, with an entire day of sermons behind him, and all Rev Parris wants is his supper. Instead the homeless beggar Sarah Good is knocking on his door, smoking her pipe and shivering in the February cold, a baby squirming in her arms and a little girl hiding behind her petticoat. She is begging, again, having knocked on nearly every door in Salem Village.
Parris hesitates. He doesn’t have much to give, having not been paid in seven months. And Sarah hardly inspires sympathy. She has a legendary temper and nothing but scorn for those who help her. Even her husband complains about her ill-mannered nature, and she’s worn out any charitable feelings people may have once felt.
Still. The children are innocent, and what kind of minister would he be to turn them away? He gives a coin to the little girl, but Sarah doesn’t even look at the money. She just whirls around and stalks off, muttering under her breath, words he hears but can’t quite understand.
LEARN MORE: What was it like to be homeless then?
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft trials, homeless people were known as “vagrants” or “vagabonds.” They didn’t live outdoors; instead, they stayed with relatives or friends and moved from place to place. If the local government had budgeted for it, sometimes the poor were given money or jobs. (In Boston, as much as 25% of the city’s budget went to relief for the poor.)
In the case of Sarah Good, it doesn’t appear that her family was given any government support. Neither did they have support from friends or even relatives: Sarah was so mean-spirited and ill-tempered that she was quickly turned out everywhere she went. Eventually she and her husband, a laborer, were able to find a home away from the village. Still, they never recovered from poverty, and thus Sarah was reduced to begging.
WHO was Sarah Good?
Sarah was 39, a near vagrant who smoked a pipe & had a temper. One of the first to be accused. Mother of 4yo Dorcas Good, who was also accused and put in prison.
Sarah was born to a well-to-do innkeeper who drowned himself when Sarah was 17. He’d left a sizeable estate of 500 pounds to be shared among his 3 daughters, but when her mother remarried, Sarah’s stepfather kept the money to himself and left her with virtually nothing.
Sarah first married an indentured servant who died and left her with massive debts. When she married again, she and her new husband, William Good, inherited that debt. The government seized some of their land to pay it, leaving only a small portion, with William doing odd jobs around the Village. A recent smallpox epidemic had made that nearly impossible, though, and he and Sarah – with their children – fell into poverty.
Over time Sarah became impoverished and bitter, friendless, a near vagrant who was almost universally disliked. She was quarrelsome and loud, smoked a pipe, refused to go to church “for want of clothes.” It was true that she had only two dresses, ten years old, and her children had even less. Still, she showed no interest in leading a virtuous life, which made her suspect. Case files: Sarah Good
WHO was Samuel Parris?
Samuel Parris was the 39-year-old Puritan minister of Salem Village, the father and uncle of two afflicted girls, and the slave-master of one confessor. The witchcraft hysteria began in his family.
Parris was born in London and attended Harvard College in Boston, then left to run a sugar plantation he’d inherited in Barbados. Several years later he returned to Boston with his slaves Tituba and her husband “John Indian.” He dabbled in business, but soon decided to enter the ministry.
Parris was considering leaving business for the ministry and had begun filling in for area ministers when Salem Village invited him to lead their church. But he negotiated their offer like a business contract instead of an invitation, and held out for a full year, insisting on a binding contract and adding clauses for things like price freezes, future pay raises, and ownership of land. Finally, when the committee met to sign the final agreement, Parris didn’t show up.
With that mutual misunderstanding, Parris took up his appointment and began preaching at the Village church. What followed was two years of acrimonious disagreement punctuated by weekly sermons of thinly veiled barbs against the congregation. Finally, they stopped paying him. It was a brutally cold winter, and the lack of firewood and low supplies of food were a hardship, but Parris doubled down in his sermons. Three months later, the witchcraft hysteria began in his home. Case files: Samuel Parris