In a message dated 08/10/99 2:51:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: << Noyes and Sewall were two of the most rabid witch hunters. Sewall was a hangin' judge if I'm not mistaken. >> Leslie, I don't know about Noyes, but I understand that Sewall did eventually repent bitterly his part in the Salem witchcraft trials. He was reported to observe a day of fast and mourning every year for the rest of his life. Whittier wrote a poem about it, titled, "The Prophesy of Samuel Sewall." An excerpt: Touching and sad, a tale is told, Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept, With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time Of an error that left the sting of crime, When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts, With the laws of Moses and Hale's reports, And spake in the name of both the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast! All the day long from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith confirmed and his trust renewed That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood! My family was not Quaker, but I was born in Whittier, CA. Small world! Regards, Kathy