Cloys/Cloyes; née Towne; c. 1641 – 1703)[1] was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed.
[citation needed] On Sacrament Day in the spring of 1692, covenanted church member Sarah Cloys/Cloyce (Sister #11) walked out of the Salem Village meetinghouse soon after the pastor Samuel Parris (Brother #1) announced that the Biblical text would be John Chapter 6 verse 70, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one is a devil."
Her departure was interpreted by some as an overt act of protest and solidarity with her sister, Rebecca Nurse (a covenanted member of another church near the harbor in Salem Town), who had recently been accused of witchcraft and committed to jail.
[2] Sarah's husband and fellow covenanted church member Peter Cloys/Cloyce (Brother #7) had signed an early statement of support for Rebecca Nurse.
An official complaint on behalf of the accusers was filed by Parris's close neighbors Jonathan Walcott and Nathaniel Ingersoll (Brother #6).
The first accuser questioned that day was an enslaved person owned by Parris and referred to as John Indian: "When did I hurt thee?"
[9] Other "aggrieved brethren" continued their fight and in 1697 were successful in bringing a civil case on behalf of the Village and Parris was removed from their church.
[11] In the short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne (himself a descendant of one of the Salem witch trial magistrates), a social criticism of Puritan culture, a character named Goody Cloyse addresses the devil, confessing to practicing witchcraft.