Jacob Goodale was a farmhand who worked for Giles Corey on his farm in Peabody, Mass. In 1676, Corey was accused of beating Jacob Goodale to death when he reportedly caught him stealing apples.
The accusation was made in December of 1675 after Corey sent Goodale, who was suffering from some injuries, with his brother Zachery to a local healer, Mrs. Mole. Along the way, the brothers stopped by John Proctor’s farm, where Proctor witnessed Goodale’s injuries up close.
Goodale later died and a local doctor, Zerubabel Endicott, performed an autopsy on the body. On June 1, 1676, a coroner’s jury, which included Dr. Endicott, Francis Nurse, Anthony Buxton, Michel Shaflin, Jeremy Meacham, John Traske, Thomas Small, Samuel Very, Thomas Preston, John Cooke, Joshua Rea, and Eleazor Giles, examined the body and described Goodale’s injuries in their report:
“Several wrongs he hath had on his body, as upon his left arm and upon the right thigh, a great bruise which is very much swold, and upon the reigns of his back, in colour, differing from the other parts of his body we caused an incision to be made much brusied and run with a jelly and the skin broken upon the outside of each buttock.”
The coroner’s jury declared that Goodale had been murdered.
Corey stood trial for the crime, during which a number of witnesses testified against him. On June 28, 1676, Elisha Keebe testified that he saw Giles Corey strike Jacob Goodale with a stick about an inch thick about a hundred times, which prompted him to intervene and tell Corey that if he didn’t stop, he would knock him down himself.
John Proctor also testified and said that Corey confessed to him that he had beaten Jacob Goodale and confirmed that Jacob’s brother Zachery and Corey’s wife brought Jacob by his house during which Jacob looked injured and unwell.
Jacob’s brother Zachery also testified and said that Corey himself had come to his house and asked him to take Jacob to the local healer, Mrs. Mole because he said that Jacob had fallen and broken his arm.
Zachery said that during the horse ride, Jacob was in so much pain that he suspected Jacob had more than a broken arm and went back to Corey to ask if someone could go with him to assist with Jacob. Corey’s wife Mary agreed to go with them.
At the end of the trial, Corey was found guilty of unnecessary force but was only fined for his actions since corporal punishment against an indentured servant was legal.
Many locals, especially Thomas Putnam, suspected Corey had paid money to win his freedom. This death forever tainted Corey’s reputation in Salem and later came back to haunt him.
In April of 1692, Giles Corey was accused of witchcraft. During Corey’s trial in September, Thomas Putnam, father of afflicted girl Ann Putnam, sent a letter to Judge Samuel Sewall about Giles Corey and reminded the judge about Corey’s violent past.
In the letter, Putnam said the ghost of a man appeared to Ann and told her that Corey had murdered him by pressing him to death with his feet but he said that Corey had struck a deal with the devil so that he would not be hanged for the crime.
The apparition said Corey went to trial for the crime and was found guilty but was not punished and that now “it must be done to him as he has done to me.” (Mather 166.)
Later that month, on September 19, Corey was pressed to death by Sheriff Corwin while being tortured for refusing to continue with his trial. Judge Samuel Sewall described Corey’s death in his diary entry that day:
“Monday; Sept-19th 1692. Abt noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was pressed to death for standing mute. Much pains was used with him two days one after another by ye court & Capt. Gardner of Nantucket who had been his acquaintance: but all in vain. 20 Now I hear from Salem that abt 18 years agoe, he was suspected to have stamped and pressed a man to Death. But was cleared. twas not remembered till Ann Putnam was told of it by G Corey’s Specter ye Sabbath-Day night before ye Execution.”
About a month later, in October, Reverend Cotton Mather published Putnam’s letter in his book, Wonders of the Invisible World, and wrote about Corey’s trial for Goodale’s murder, describing Goodale as “almost a natural fool” (mentally disabled) who had died suddenly. He said the coroner’s jury found Goodale “bruised to death, and having clodders of blood about his heart.”
Mather explained that Corey had been brought to trial for the murder but “some enchantment had hindered the prosecution of the matter, the court proceeded not against Giles Corey, tho’ it cost him a great deal of money to get off.” (Mather 166.)
Many members of the community didn’t agree with the outcome of the trial and felt that the fine was more of a bribe than a punishment. It is believed that the resentment left over from this incident may have led to Corey’s witchcraft accusation in 1692.
Sources:
Mather, Cotton. Wonders of the Invisible World. London: John Russel Smith, 1862.
Roach, Marilynne. The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege. Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004.
Records of the Essex Quarterly Courts. Vol. 6. Essex Institute. 1917. pp. 190–191.
Rockwood, Heather. “Giles Corey Pressed to Death.” Massachusetts Historical Society, masshist.org/beehiveblog/2021/09/giles-corey-pressed-to-death/