“These are to certify whom it may or shall concern, that I have known Sarah, the wife of William Buckley, of Salem Village, more or less, ever since she was brought out of England, which is above fifty years ago; and, during all that time, I never knew nor heard of any evil in her carriage, or conversation unbecoming a Christian:  likewise, she was bred up by Christian parents all the time she lived here at Ipswich.  I further testify, that the said Sarah was admitted as a member into the church of Ipswich above forty years since; and that I never heard from others, or observed by myself, any thing of her that was inconsistent with her profession or unsuitable to Christianity, either in word, deed, or conversation, and am strangely surprised that any person should speak or think of her as one worthy to be suspected of any such crime that she is now charged with.  In testimony hereof I have here set my hand this 20th of June, 1692.

     WILLIAM HUBBARD.”

“Being desired by Goodman Buckley to give my testimony to his wife’s conversation before this great calamity befell her, I cannot refuse to bear witness to the truth; viz., that, during the time of her living in Salem for many years in communion with this church, having occasionally frequent converse and discourse with her, I have never observed myself, nor heard from any other, any thing that was unsuitable to a conversation becoming the gospel, and have always looked upon her as a serious, Godly woman.

     “JOHN HIGGINSON.”

“Marblehead, Jan. 2, 1692/3.—­Upon the same request, having had the like opportunity by her residence many years at Marblehead, I can do no less than give the alike testimony for her pious conversation during her abode in this place and communion with us.

     SAMUEL CHEEVER.”

William Hubbard was the venerable minister of Ipswich, described by Hutchinson as “a man of learning, and of a candid and benevolent mind, accompanied with a good degree of catholicism.”  He is described by another writer as “a man of singular modesty, learned without ostentation.”  He will be remembered with honor for his long and devoted service in the Christian ministry, and as the historian of New England and of the Indian wars.

John Higginson was worthy of the title of the “Nestor of the New-England clergy.”  He was at this time seventy-six years old, and had been a preacher of the gospel fifty-five years.  For thirty-three years he had been pastor of the First Church in Salem, of which his father was the first preacher.  No character, in all our annals, shines with a purer lustre.  John Dunton visited him in 1686, and thus speaks of him:  “All men look to him as a common father; and old age, for his sake, is a reverend thing.  He is eminent for all the graces that adorn a minister.  His very presence puts vice out of countenance; his conversation is a glimpse of heaven.”