Can anyone give me any place to get information on Sarah Osbourne of the Salem Witch trails?

Question

I have to do a paper on why i think she innocent.

Answer 1

Salem Witch Trials And The Aftermath
Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams wanted to know who there future husbands would be and what kind of work they would do. As Puritans living in the wear 1692 dabbiling in the occult practice of fortune telling was forbidden. Back then it was believed that tampering with God could lead you to Satan. One of the girls instead of seeing a future husband saw something in the shape of a coffin. Soon after that the girls started to display strange behavior “fits” as they were called by the people of Salem Village. They would start to yell gibberish as arms and legs flew about there heads and bodies became distorted. These fits spread to at least eight other girls from the ages of 12-19, and even some adults became inflicted. The witch trials left innocent people dead and a town in ruins left to pick up the pieces.

The puritans defined witch craft as “entering into a compact with the devil in exchange for certain powers to do evil” (Shiparo 65-67). So in any case when witch craft was suspected it was important that it was investigated thoroughly and the tormentors identified and judged. Unknown to Samuel Parris who the tormentor was he ordered Tituba and her husband, John Indian to bake a

. . .
At the hanging George recited the Lords prayer perfectly and it was believed back then that a witch could not recite this prayer with out making a mistake but that was still not enough to save his life. This discovery and testimony helped confirm the suspicions that she was indeed practicing witchcraft because it was believed that a witch could harm someone by sticking pins into a voodoo doll that would represent the victim. The other girls soon spoke and named Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good. He felt it was unreliable because the devil could not take the form of an innocent person to do his evil deeds. The cases of Sarah Good, Sarah Wilds, Elizabeth How, Susannah Martin, and Rebecca Nurse were heard next by the court on June 29, 1692. The girls also refereed to him a the “black minister” and leader of the Salem Coven. It was testified that the dolls were stuck with pins, and some had missing heads. Even though Martha Corey attended church regularly, she was not very popular in the community. The Anti-Parris committee was the elected party.


By the end of May 1692, 200 people were jailed under the charges of witchcraft. During the questioning of the three accused, Betty, Abigail, and six other girls would often scream and tumble of the floor of the meetinghouse. It is not exactly clear why she confessed to witchcraft. Betty Parris married a man named Benjamin Barron in 1710. As the jails began to get full with accused witches, the court reconvened to try the Rev. This was not the first time she faced the charge of witchcraft.

Answer 2

Sarah Osbourne

Accused of witchcraft in 1692, died in jail awaiting trial.

Last modified 08/08/2005

Sarah Osbourne is the name by which she is remembered, because that was her name at the time of her historical and notable death. She holds a place in American history, partly because of the circumstances of her late life and death, and partly because Arthur Miller chose to mention her in The Crucible and immortalize her.

She was likely born Sarah Warren, daughter of John Warrent of Watertown, MA. This is the parentage attributed to her by many sources associated with the literature on the witch trials of Salem in 1692. However, John Warren of Watertown, and his wife, Margaret, are not listed as having a daughter Sarah in the Genealogy and History of Watertown, MA because only 4 children were mentioned in his will of 1667 (this would have been 5 years after her marriage to Robert Prince.) Given that Sarah was married in 1662 and had her children shortly thereafter, it seems likely that she was born sometime around 1630-40. Since the 3rd of John and Margaret's 4 children was b. in 1628, it seems possible that Sarah was a younger sibling of the listed children. If these were her parents, there was an ominous family tradition at work. On Mar. 14, 1658-9, John was "warned for not attending public worship, 14 Sabbaths, each 5s.= £ 3. 10s. May 27, 1661, the houses of "old Warren and goodman Hammond" were ordered to be searched for Quakers." Perhaps piety did not run in the family.

Upon her marriage in 1662, she became Sarah Prince. Her first child, James, died very young. Her second child, born a few years later, was a boy as well, but he survived. They named him James too, perhaps in honor of the first child. She would have a daughter, Elizabeth, and a son, Joseph as well.

When Robert died in the winter of 1674, Sarah found herself with at three small children and a farm to maintain. To help, she bought out the remainder of the time on a redemptioner named Alexander Osbourne for fifteen pounds. He had come from Ireland, and had paid for his passage by indenturing himself for a period of years. She then employed him on the farm. Taking into account both his ethnicity and his status, it must have been shocking to the village when she married him.

As her boys grew older, they quite naturally expected to inherit the land and home explicitly left to them by their biological father. However, Alexander, and Sarah perhaps at his bequest, began to take legal action to have the property transferred to Alexander - even after the Prince boys had reached the age of majority. It appears that during the process, Sarah might have actually held - or at least sought - ownership of the property (a woman owning property was a notion for suspicion.) Again, ill feelings must have run through the community.

It might be worth noting that it is possible that Robert's sister, Rebecca, married a Putnam. This surname will be familiar to fans of The Crucible. If this is so, the Putnam family would have been Sarah's in-laws by her first husband.

Add to all this that the Osbourne marriage was, by few accounts, a happy one. The two sons alleged many years later, in 1720, that Alexander was abusive to both wife and children. They testified that he was cruel and barbaric, and had forced them by threat of violence, to relinquish their rights to the property. This is a point of some controversy, given that there were strong supporters of Osbourne, and that after the witch hysteria he remarried and took a respectable position in the community.

Whatever the case may be, in the early 1690s Sarah was unhappy, ill enough to be bedridden, and had stopped attending public worship. She was the target of much gossip and rumor. And a small town with volatile politics was struggling as it was growing but hemmed in by other towns, competing with the prosperity of nearby Salem Town. The neighbors were restless. She was among the first to be accused.

Sarah was listed on the very first warrant for arrest, along with Tituba and Sarah Good. The document was on display at the Essex Museum for the commemoration in 1992. In a preliminary examination by John Hathorne, she was questioned, and Hathorne himself wrote out the record:

"Sarah Osburne, upon examination, denied the matter of fact, viz., that she ever understood or used any witchcraft, or hurt any of the abovesaid children. The children named above, being all personally present, accused her face to face; which, being done, they were all hurt, afflicted, and tortured very much; which, being over, and they out of their fits, they said that Sarah Osburne did then come to them, and hurt them, Sarah Osburne being then kept at a distance personally from them. Sarah Osburne was asked why she then hurt them. She denied it. It being asked of her how she could so pinch and hurt them, and yet she be at that distance personally from them, she answered she did not then hurt them, nor ever did. She was asked who, then, did it, or who she employed to do it. She answered she did not know that the Devil goes about in her likeness to do any hurt. Sarah Osburne, being told that Sarah Good, one of her companions, had, upon examination, accused her, she, notwithstanding, denied the same, according to her examination, which is more at large given in, as therein will appear."

Another witness, Ezekiel Cheever, wrote in a different form:

"Sarah Osburn her Examination"

"What evil spirit have you familiarity with? - None.
Have you made no contract with the Devil? - No: I never saw the Devil in my life.
Why do you hurt these children? - I do not hurt them.
Who do you employ, then, to hurt them? - I employ nobody.
What familiarity have you with Sarah Good? - None: I have not seen her these two years.
Where did you see here then? - One day, agoing to town.
What communications had you with her? - I had none, only 'How do you do' or so. I do not know her by name.
What did you call her then? (Osburn made a stand at that; at last, said she called her Sarah.)...
(It was said by some at the meeting-house, that she had said that she would never believe that lying spirit any more.)
What lying spirit is this? Hath the Devil ever decieved you, and been false to you? - I do not know the Devil. I never did see him...
Why did you yield thus far to the Devil as never to go to meeting since? - Alas! I have been sick, and not able to go.
Her husband and others said that she had not been at meeting three years and two months."

Apparently, Sarah Good had not really accused Sarah, and the repeated assertion that she had was a prosecutor's trick. But Tituba accused her directly, of flying on a broomstick, and:

"Did you ever see the Devil? - The Devil came to me, and bid me serve him.
Who have you seen? - Four women sometimes hurt the children.
Who were they? - Goody Osburn and Sarah Good, and I do not know who the others were. Sarah Good and Osburn wouldhave me hurt the children, but I would not."

There was little chance that her case would be dismissed, and she was imprisoned awaiting a full trial. As with others early accused, she was kept in the Boston jail. Far from family and already in failing health, she died awaiting trial on May 10, 1692, before the summer of hysteria had reached its peak.

If you visit the memorials and museums of Salem today (or the actual site of Danvers, formerly Salem Village) you will find very few references to Sarah Osbourne. She wasn't hung, or pressed, or otherwise executed in a formal way. Had she been a bit healthier, she might have been. But even as it was, dying alone in a cell, with no one to believe you, having not been to church in a very long time and probably wondering about the state of her soul yourself, must have been a very painful way to die.

But she is far from forgotten. Go ahead.... google "Sarah Osbourne" and "witch"...