aug 1, 1611 - Giles Corey

Description:

Born:
August 1611
Northampton, England

Died:
September 19, 1692
Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay

Cause of death: Pressed to death

Occupation: Farmer

Spouse(s):
Margaret, died 1664
Mary Bright, m. 1664; died 1684
Martha Corey, m. 1690

Children 5

Giles was baptized in the church of the Holy Sepulchre on August 16, 1611. It is not clear when he arrived in North America, but there is evidence he was living in Salem Town as early as 1640. He first lived in Salem Town but later moved to Salem Village as a prosperous land-owning farmer. There are quite a few entries in the court documents with offenses against the state.

He married three times. his first wife, Margaret, was the mother of his eldest four children:

Martha
Margaret
Deliverance
Elizabeth

He was 53 when he married his second wife Mary Bright, who's the mother of John.

At the age of 65, Giles was accused of beating to death Jacob Goodale, one of his indentured farm workers. Jacob was the son of Robert and Catherine Goodale and brother to Isaac Goodale.

According to witnesses, Jacob was caught stealing apples from Giles brother-in-law, and severely beat Jacob with a stick. Giles waited ten days to send Jacob for medical treatment and he died shortly thereafter.

Giles was exempt from the charge of murder as corporal punishment was permitted against indentured servants and he was charged with using "unreasonable" force. Numerous witnesses and eyewitnesses testified against him, including the local coroner. He was found guilty and fined.

Mary Bright died in 1684 and Giles married his third wife, Martha Rich. Martha was admitted to the church at Salem Village, and they lived in the southwest corner of Salem Village, in what is now Peabody.

Martha Corey was arrested for witchcraft on March 19, 1692. Giles initially believed the accusations against his wife. Abigail Hobbs accused Giles of being a wizard, he denied the accusations and refused to enter a plea. he was sentenced to prison, and subsequently arraigned at the September sitting of the court.

The records of the Court of Oyer and Terminer contain a deposition by one of the people who accused Giles of witchcraft in Mercy Lewis v. Giles Corey:

"September 9, 1692,

"I saw the apparition of Giles Corey come and afflict me urging me to write in his book and so he continued most dreadfully to hurt me by times beating me and almost breaking my back till the day of his examination being the 19th April [1692] and then also during the time of his examination he did afflict and torture me most grievously and also several times since urging me vehemently to write in his book and I verily believe in my heart that Giles Corey is a dreadful wizard for since he had been in prison he or his appearance has come and most grievously tormented me."

According to the law at the time, a person who refused to plead could not be tried. To avoid people cheating justice, the legal remedy for refusing to plead was "peine forte et dure". In this process, prisoners were stripped naked, and heavy boards were laid on their bodies. Then rocks or boulders were laid on the plank of wood. This was the process of being pressed:

"... remanded to the prison from whence he came and put into a low dark chamber, and there be laid on his back on the bare floor, naked, unless when decency forbids; that there be placed upon his body as great a weight as he could bear, and more, that he hath no sustenance, save only on the first day, three morsels of the worst bread, and the second day three draughts of standing water, that should be alternately his daily diet till he died, or, till he answered."

As a result of his refusal to plead, on September 17, Corey was subjected to the procedure by Sheriff George Corwin. Giles remained steadfast in his refusal to plea, nor did he cry out in pain as the rocks were placed on the boards.

After two days, Giles was asked three times to enter a plea, but each time he replied, "More weight", and the sheriff complied to the point of standing on the stones himself. Robert Calef, who was a witness along with other townsfolk, later said,

"In the pressing, Giles Corey's tongue was pressed out of his mouth; the Sheriff, with his cane, forced it in again."

Giles is believed to have died in the field adjacent to the prison that had held him, in what later became the Howard Street Cemetery in Salem, which opened in 1801. His exact grave location in the cemetery is unmarked and unknown. There is a memorial plaque to him in the nearby Charter Street Cemetery.

Samuel Sewall's diary states, under date of Monday, September 19, 1692:

"About noon at Salem, Giles Cory was pressed to death for standing mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the court and Captain Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, but all in vain."

It was and remains unusual for people to refuse to plead, and extremely rare to find reports of people who have been able to endure this painful form of death in silence. In fact, the pressing of Giles Corey in an effort to force him to plead, is the only known example of such a sanction in American history. Giles was absolved of the crime in 1712.

With Giles refusal to enter a plea, he died in full possession of his estate, which meant that his estate was able to be passed on to his sons instead of being seized by the local government. However, George Corwin still attempted to extort money from Giles heirs and in 1710, Giles daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Moulton filed a lawsuit seeking damages from Corwin. Her statement to the court read,

"After our father's death the sheriff threatened to seize our father's estate and for fear that if we complied with him and paid him eleven pound six shillings in money."

On September 22, 1692, Giles wife Martha was hung. Thomas, a son from a previous marriage,
was a petitioner for loss and damages resulting from his mother being executed illegally and was awarded £50 on June 29, 1723.

According to a local legend, Giles Corey appears before a disaster, and is said to have appeared the night before the Great Salem Fire of 1914.

The position "Sheriff of Essex County' has also suffered from the "curse of Giles Corey.' In 1696 Sheriff George Corwin died of a heart attack, and every person who's held that office, since George Corwin, has either died or resigned as a result of heart or blood ailments.

The curse is believed to have been broken in 1991 when the sheriff's office was moved from Salem to Middleton.

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