Ann Glover

Goodwife "Goody" Ann Glover (died November 16, 1688) was the last person to be hanged in Boston as a witch.

Ann Glover was born in Ireland as a Roman Catholic. Oliver Cromwell sold her into slavery and sent her off to Barbados in the 1650s. Her husband was killed in Barbados because he would not renounce his Catholic faith.

By 1680 Ann and her daughter were living in Boston, Massachusetts where she and her daughter worked as housekeepers for John Goodwin. In the summer of 1688 four or five of the Goodwin children became ill after an argument with Ann Glover and the doctor that was called suggested it was caused by witchcraft. Martha Goodwin, who was thirteen, claimed she became ill after discovering Ann stealing some laundry.

Ann was arrested and tried for witchcraft. She refused to speak English on the stand; instead, Glover spoke her native Irish (Gaelic). The court tried to persuade her to renounced Roman Catholicism but she refused and she was found guilty and hanged. Reverend Cotton Mather said this about her during the trial, "a scandalous old Irishwoman, very poor, a Roman Catholic and obstinate in idolatry."

On November 16, 1688, Annie Glover was hanged in Boston. She was the last woman to be hanged in Boston. Three hundred years later in 1988, the Boston City Council recognized the injustice that was done to Annie Glover and proclaimed November 16th "Goody Glover Day".

External links

* [http://www.irishheritagetrail.com/aglover.htm Irish Heritage Trail]