Background
Review Nicholas Noyes II was son of Review Nicholas Noyes and Mary Cutting Noyes, grandson of the Review William Noyes, and nephew of Review
James Noyes.
Review Nicholas Noyes II was son of Review Nicholas Noyes and Mary Cutting Noyes, grandson of the Review William Noyes, and nephew of Review
James Noyes.
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.
During the Salem witch trials, Noyes served as the official minister of the trials. He spent time as the chaplain with troops in Connecticut during King Philip"s War in 1675-1676. 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. lieutenant 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.” 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.
Some sources claim Noyes later retracted his opinions on the witch trials, and publicly confessed his error, 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." 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.
