Jacob Goodale

Robert Goodell was born 16 August 1601 in Dennington, Suffolk, England and died 27 June 1682 in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts. Children with Catherine Kilham:

7. Jacob b: 9 JAN 1642/43. "Jacob Goodale d. in 1676, after being severely beaten by Giles Corey". Died without issue.

Legend has it that the ghost of Jacob Goodale appeared from time to time, crying out about his foul murder.

• Look! Look! It is the ghost of Jacob Goodale
• Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder,
• By stomping on his body! In his shroud
• He comes here to bear witness to this crime.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "New England Tragedies.")

The Goodales and the Events Of the Salem Witchcraft Trials

Jacob Goodale's mother, Katherine, had died in 1645, when he was only three. Two years later, in 1647, Jacob's father, Robert Goodale, married Margaret Lazenby who, as Jacob's stepmother, raised the little boy with loving care.

About the last of November 1675, Mrs. Mary Corey testified that Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah Goodell, told her that the latter's brother, Jacob, had been to Zachariah house and got into the cellar and took some apples. Zechariah was then coming in with a log of wood and laying it down, he took a stick and "pade him to som purpos." About ten days later, Giles Corey unreasonably beat Jacob with a stick about an inch in diameter, nearly an hundred blows in the presence of Elisha Kebee, who told Corey that he would knock him down if "he did not forbear." About ten day earlier Corey went to the house of Zechariah and told him that his brother Jacob had had a fall. He was afraid that he had broken his arm and desired him to take Jacob to Mrs. Mole's in the town. 

Jacob was then about thirty four years of age and up to then he had been lusty. Now Jacob went 'very Ravel' and stooping and he was very pale and his eyes were sunken. Thereupon Zechariah went to Corey's house and saw Jacob who was there. The road were very slippery and Corey said that his horse was not caulked, and so he could not go with him. Jacob went so badly, Zechariah asked him if he had any other hurt than his arm, but he would not tell. Zechariah then requested that some one might go with them. for he would not go alone with him. Whereupon Goody Corey went with them. 

Jacob died a few days later and an inquest was held. The jury reported:

"We find several wrongs that he hath had on his body as upon his left arm and upon his right thigh a great bruise which was very much swollen, and upon reins of his back in color differing from the other parts of his body we caused an incision to be made, much bruised and run with a jelly and the skin broke upon the outside of each buttock."

For this offence Corey was fined."

Some of the evidence given at the time of his death in 1675 points to the conclusion that he was not of entirely normal mentality. At the court session of April, 1669, Jacob Goodale was ordered to pay five shillings to the constable of Andover for bringing home his son. There is no other evidence that he was married or that he had a son, and the name may possibly be a clerk's error for Robert Goodale, Jacob being the runaway. (Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County VI: 190.)

Giles Corey and his last wife Martha were both executed as witches in 1692, Giles partially for the abuse (murder?) of Jacob.

Links

• http://www.bereanonline.com/Book_Goodales/Martin%20Ancestry%20Gooda...
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=clcaldwel...
• https://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Essex/Salem/aBirthsG.shtml "(GOODELL (Goodale, Goodall)) Jacob, s. Robert, bp. 9: 11m: 1641. CR1"