What does the American Red Cross have to do with the Salem Witch Trials? The answer runs through one of the most defiant women of 1692.

Sarah Cloyce was the youngest of the three Towne sisters, the sibling who survived when Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty did not. Born in Salem in 1642, Sarah lived a relatively ordinary Puritan life until March 1692, when her sister Rebecca was arrested for witchcraft and Reverend Samuel Parris delivered a sermon that changed everything. Sarah's response, walking out of the meetinghouse and reportedly slamming the door behind her, put a target on her back. Eight days later, she was formally accused.

Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack tell the full story of Sarah Cloyce's accusation, her examination at the Salem Town meetinghouse on April 11, 1692, and her nine months of imprisonment in chains before the charges against her were finally dismissed in January 1693. They also cover the joint petition Sarah authored with her sister Mary Easty while both were imprisoned, Peter Cloyce's remarkable devotion to his wife throughout her ordeal, and the family's journey west to what would become Framingham, Massachusetts, where Salem End Road still marks the path the witch trial refugees traveled.

And that famous descendant? Sarah Cloyce's daughter Hannah married Samuel Barton, and five generations later, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born in Oxford, Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1821.

What You Will Learn:

• What one act in a church doorway made Sarah Cloyce a target of the accusations

• What role the afflicted claimed she played at the devil's sacrament

• Why one of the most active accusers of 1692 held back when it came to Sarah

• What her husband did during her nine months of imprisonment that set him apart

• Why Sarah survived when her sisters did not

• Where Sarah and the other Salem refugees went, and what they left behind

• How Sarah Cloyce's bloodline connects directly to one of the most celebrated women in American history

The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, descendants of Salem Witch Trial victims. New episodes every week.

Also mentioned: the PBS miniseries Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1985) starring Vanessa Redgrave, authors Antonio Stuckey and Janice C. Thompson, and Salem Witch Trials Daily, the companion daily podcast. 

Visit aboutsalem.com for more 

Visit youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts for The Salem Witch Trials Daily Podcast