Ann Glover

Goodwife "Goody" Ann Glover (died November 16, 1688) was the last person to be hanged in Boston as a witch, although the Salem witch trials in nearby Salem, Massachusetts, occurred mainly in 1692.

Ann Glover was born in Ireland as a Roman Catholic. Her birth date and much of her background information is unknown. During Cromwell's invasion of Ireland where Oliver Cromwell was rounding up thousands of Irish and Scots, Ann and her husband were transported as indentured servants to Barbados to work on the sugar plantations. Her husband was executed in Barbados for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. Historians do not know what the context was but at his death, he said that his wife was a witch.

By 1680, Ann and her daughter were living in Boston—at the time, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—where they worked as housekeepers for John Goodwin. In the summer of 1688, Martha Goodwin (age 13) accused Ann Glover's daughter of stealing laundry. This caused Ann to have a fierce argument with Martha and the Goodwin children which then supposedly caused them to become ill and start acting strange. The doctor that was called suggested it was caused by witchcraft because he couldn't diagnose or heal the children. Martha and the other children seemed to be "bewitched"

Glover was arrested and tried for witchcraft. It is unclear whether she could not speak English or would just refuse to speak it. It is more likely that she simply did not know English. Instead she spoke her native language, Irish, and Latin. Reverend Cotton Mather wrote that Glover was "a scandalous old Irishwoman, very poor, a Roman Catholic and obstinate in idolatry." At her trial it was demanded of her to say the Lord's Prayer, she recited it in Irish and broken Latin, but since she had never learned it in English, she could not say it in English. There was a belief that if someone could not recite the Lord's prayer then they were a witch. Her house was searched and "small images" or doll-like figures were found. When Mather was interrogating her she supposedly said that she prayed to a host of spirits and Mather took this to mean that these spirits were demons. Two Puritan men who supposedly spoke Irish said that she confessed to using them for witchcraft. The identity of these men and whether they spoke Irish is unknown. Many of the accusations against Ann used spectral evidence, which can't be proven. Cotton Mather visited Glover in prison where he said that she supposedly engaged in night-time trysts with the devil and other evil spirits. It was considered that Ann might not be of sound mind and could possibly be mentally ill. Five of six physicians checked her and found her to be competent and so she was then pronounced guilty and put to death by hanging.

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