In 1988, Boston City Council Proclaimed November 16 as GOODY GLOVER DAY IN BOSTON, honoring an Irish Woman Falsely Hung as a Witch in 1688

Ann "Goody" Glover (1640s – 1688)

In 1688, Irish immigrant Ann “Goody” Glover was the last woman hanged as a witch in Boston, MA, part of a frenzied witch mania that overtook 17th century Puritans.

Based on no evidence but lots of innuendo, which was the tenor of the times, the court convicted Glover of witchcraft and sentenced her to be hanged on November 16, 1688.

Three hundred years later, on November 16, 1988 Boston City Council officially proclaimed Goody Glover Day in tribute to this Irish immigrant woman who was falsely accused of being a witch and hung from the gallows. That same year, a plaque to Ann Glover was placed at Our Lady of Victories Church in Boston's South End, and has since been moved to St. Stephen's Catholic Church on Hanover Street in Boston's North End.

Glover was an Irish indentured servant sent to Barbados in the 1650s. Her husband died on the island, and by 1680 Goody and her daughter were living in Boston, employed as housekeepers by John Goodwin. In summer 1688 four of the five Goodwin children fell ill. The doctor concluded "nothing but a hellish Witchcraft could be the Origin of these maladies." Martha, the 13 year old daughter, confirmed the doctor's diagnosis by claiming she became ill right after she caught Glover stealing laundry.

Glover was arrested and tried as a witch. In the courtroom there was confusion over Glover's testimony, since she refused to speak English, despite knowing the language.

At her trial, Glover spoke in Gaelic, prompting Rev. Cotton Mather to call her ‘obstinate in idolatry.’ According to Mather, "the court could have no answers from her, but in the Irish, which was her native language."

James B. Cullen, author of The Story of the Irish in Boston (1889) wrote, "she was drawn in a cart, a hated and dreaded figure, chief in importance, stared at and mocked at, through the principal streets from her prison to the gallows….The people crowded to see the end, as always; and when it was over they quietly dispersed, leaving the worn-out body hanging as a terror to evil-doers."

It is commonly assumed that Glover was hanged at the public gallows on the Boston Common on the great elm that was destroyed in a storm in 1876. But Cullen reported that Glover was hanged in the South End, on the site of the South End Burying Ground on Washington Street.

For more about Boston's Irish history, visit Boston's IrishHeritageTrail.com.

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