Within a few years Robert Pike moved to the east side of the Merrimack River and became one of the founders and first land owners of Salisbury (originally called Colchester), where he remained the rest of his life.

At the time of King Philip's War (1675–78) Pike served as Sergeant-Major, and was responsible for much of the area North of Boston (Maine was then a part of Massachusetts).

The Deputies of the General Court, including Robert Pike, who represented the outlying areas, were much more likely to be sensitive to the issue of religious freedom and probably voted against the new laws.

Nonetheless, numerous Quaker missionaries were punished by public whippings, banishment, and the threat of death if they returned to Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Richard Waldron, the magistrate at Dover, even went to the extreme of issuing a warrant declaring that the constables of 11 surrounding towns, including Salisbury, were to carry out public whippings of the three women.

After they were transported in a cart to Salisbury, the third town of the 11, they were set free by the local authorities, who included Thomas Bradbury, Walter Barefoote, and Pike.

While historians are uncertain as to some of the details, it is believed that Pike was the local constable and he deputised an eager Barefoote, who then "misused" his authority to free the women.

Massachusetts property records substantiate that Major Pike was one of the owners of Nantucket who gave that island to the Quakers as a place of seclusion in which they would be less likely to be persecuted.

Prior to Mary Bradbury's conviction, Pike wrote a remarkable letter to Jonathan Corwin, one of the trial judges, in which he composed a tightly reasoned attack upon the use of spectral evidence and the testimony of the "afflicted girls" in general.

While Pike, like all Puritans, believed witches and witchcraft existed and were the work of Satan, he was questioning the current methods of the court in determining credibility and guilt.