Biography
Rev. Nicholas Noyes, Jr. was born 22 December 1647 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts to Nicholas Noyes (1614-1701) and Mary Cutting (1622-1721) and died 13 December 1717 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts of unspecified causes.
He graduated at Harvard in 1667, and, after preaching thirteen years in Haddam, Connecticut, he moved in 1683 to Salem, where he was minister until his death in Salem.[1]
King Philip's War
He spent time as the chaplain with troops in Connecticut during King Philip's War in 1675-76.[2]
Salem witch trials
1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as being Mary Walcott
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the United States.
In Salem, Massachusetts, Nicholas Noyes was appointed second minister to the Salem Town church to assist John Higginson (1616-1708). Rev Noyes played an active role in the persecution of accused witches.
Before the execution of Sarah Good on July 19, 1692, Noyes asked her to confess. Her famous last words were, "You are a liar! 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." Twenty-five years later, Noyes died of a hemorrhage and literally did choke on his own blood. He was 9 days shy of his 70th birthday.[3] On September 22, 1692, Noyes had officiated as clergyman at the final hangings of those accused of witchcraft. It is reported that he turned toward the suspended bodies of the victims and said, "What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there."[4]
On November 14, 1692, 17-year-old Mary Herrick accused Noyes's cousin, Sarah Noyes Hale (wife of John Hale, daughter of Deacon James Noyes, and granddaughter of Rev. William Noyes), and the ghost of executed Mary Eastey of afflicting her, but unsurprisingly Sarah Noyes Hale was never formally charged or arrested.[5] A later commentator on the trials, Charles Upham suggests that this accusation was one that helped turn public opinion to end the prosecutions, and spurred John Hale's willingness to reconsider his support of the trials.[6]
Some sources claim Noyes later retracted his opinions on the witch trials, and publicly confessed his error,[1] but an entirely unflattering portrait of Noyes as an active persecutor of the accused witches in the examinations prior to their trials is presented by Frances Hill in her book, A Delusion of Satan. A 1703 petition to clear the names of the accused witches, signed by Essex County ministers, did not include Noyes' name. In 1712, the excommunications of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey were reversed by the Salem Church "... as a result of pressure from Samuel Nurse rather from any remorse on the part of Nicholas Noyes."[7]
Later Years
Noyes published Election Sermon (1698), and, later (1715), a poem on the death of Joseph Green, as well as some verses prefixed to Cotton Mather's Magnalia.[1]
Upon Noyes' death in 1717, an elegy was prepared by Reverend Samuel Phillips of Andover.
Marriage and Family
Source: Nicholas Noyes, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (NEHGS, 1999-2011).
Children... iv. NICHOLAS NOYES, b. Newbury 22 December 1647; Harvard College 1667 [Sibley 2:239-46]; "never married" [Sibley 2:242-43].
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Mary Noyes (1641-1721) | |||
| Hannah Noyes (1643-1705) | 30 October 1643 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States | 5 January 1705 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States | Peter Cheney (1638-1694) John Atkinson (1636-1715) |
| John Noyes (1645-1691) | 20 January 1645 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts | 1691 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts | Mary Poore (1651-1716) |
| Nicholas Noyes (1647-1717) | 22 December 1647 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts | 13 December 1717 Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts | |
| Cutting Noyes (1649-1734) | |||
| Sarah Noyes (1651-1652) | |||
| Sarah Noyes (1653-1674) | |||
| Timothy Noyes (1655-1718) | |||
| James Noyes (1657-1726) | |||
| Abigail Noyes (1659-1746) | |||
| Rachel Noyes (1661-1720) | 20 March 1661 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts | 24 May 1720 Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts | James Jackman (1655-1723) |
| Rebecca Noyes (1665-1719) | |||
| Thomas Noyes (1663-1730) | |||
Vital Records
Source: Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862), 3:298.
NICHOLAS, Salem, s. of the preced. preach. many yrs. at Haddam, but having in 1682 a call to S. to assist the venera. John Higginson, he became his collea. ord. 14 Nov. 1683, as one of the promoters of the horrible delusion of 1692, and yet a d. of his noble collea. was one of the accused. He did not altogether lose his faculties, as his let. to Mather of the character of his uncle, wh. is certain. one of the best parts of the strange. compound of materials in the Magnalia; as also a good epistle to John Higginson in London, preserv. in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. VII. 212, will prove. He d. 13 Dec. 1717, unm.
Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records to the End of the year 1849. (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1916-1925), 9:96.
Noyes, Nicho[las], Rev., [died] Dec. 13, 1717, a. 70 y. wanting 8 days. [Birth calculates to about 21 Dec 1647.]
See Also
- wikipedia:en:Nicholas Noyes - Wikipedia
- Rev Nicholas Noyes Jr - GENI.com
- Nicholas Noyes - disambiguation
- Noyes in Essex County, Massachusetts
References
- ^ a b c
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Noyes, James". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.
- ^ David Lindsay, PhD., Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger Amongst the Pilgrims (St. Martins Press, New York, 2002), p. 163
- ^ "Sarah Good". Salem Witch Trials. University of Missouri-Kansas City. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_Bgoo.HTM. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
- ^ Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706
- ^ No. 709: Statement of John Hale & Joseph Gerrish v. Mary Herrick, Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, p. 703, Bernard Rosenthal, Ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009).
- ^ Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, 1969 (1867), Vol. II, pp. 345–46.
- ^ A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials (1995) by Frances Hill, pp. 205-06. Doubleday, New York.