clergyman magistrate statesman
William was born on September 30, 1631 in England. He was the second son of Israel Stoughton, who came to New England about 1630, was one of the founders of Dorchester, and became one of the largest landowners in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Israel was a brother of John Stoughton, rector of Aller, Somerset, and step-father of Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge neo-platonist.
After graduating from Harvard College in 1650, he went to England to continue his studies at Oxford, where he became a fellow of New College and received the degree of M. A. on June 30, 1653.
Stoughton was curate at Rumboldswyke, Sussex, in 1659. Ejected from his fellowship at the Restoration (1660), he returned to Massachusetts in the summer of 1662. He preached for several years in the Dorchester church and was paid for his services, but repeatedly declined to become pastor there or at Cambridge.
In 1668 he preached an election sermon in which he asserted that "God sifted a whole Nation that he might send Choice Grain over into this Wilderness". Stoughton served as an assistant of Massachusetts Bay, 1671-86; as a commissioner of the United Colonies, 1674-76, 1680-86; and as judge of various courts.
With Peter Bulkeley he represented Massachusetts before the King in the controversy over the Mason claims, 1676-79, and by adopting the conciliatory attitude he deemed necessary in these negotiations greatly displeased the radical element in Massachusetts.
In 1681 Stoughton and Joseph Dudley were appointed, at their own suggestion, to examine land titles in the Nipmuck country - a profitable service, since each agent received a liberal portion of the land ceded by the Indians as the result of the investigation. When Dudley became president of the temporary government established in 1686 after the revocation of the charter, he appointed his adherent deputy president.
Apparently a loyal servant of the King - except when the interests of the Crown conflicted with his own interests as a landholder or the interests of Harvard College, of which he was one of the most generous native benefactors.
Stoughton was on the council of Governor Edmund Andros; but when rebellion came he signed an address of the magistrates advising the Governor to deliver the fort to the revolutionists, and in 1690 he signed a paper drawn up by members of the former council denouncing Andros' acts while governor.
Named lieutenant-governor May 1692 under Sir William Phips, he became acting governor on the latter's departure for England in 1694, and was the active head of the government thereafter until his death, except from May 1699 to July 1700, when Governor Bellomont was in Boston.
Stoughton was chief justice of the court of oyer and terminer which tried the Salem witchcraft cases in 1692, and by his insistence on the admission of "spectral evidence, " as well as by his overbearing attitude toward the accused, the witnesses, and the jury, was largely responsible for the tragic aspect they assumed.
William Stoughton was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence (based on supposed demonic visions). It is notable, however, that his part in the witchcraft delusion did not damage him in the eyes of his contemporaries, and that he died respected as one of the most eminent citizens of the colony. The town of Stoughton, Massachusetts is named in his honor, as is one of the Harvard College dormitories in Harvard Yard. Construction of the first Stoughton Hall, in 1698, was made possible by his £1, 000 gift.
He seems never to have repented, and his refusal to yield to feelings of compassion after most others had become enlightened indicates his essentially cold, proud, and obstinate nature.
