The fact, that, while his colleague, Nicholas Noyes, took so active and disastrous a part in the prosecutions, he, at an early stage, discountenanced them, shows that he was a person of discrimination and integrity.  That he did not conceal his disapprobation of the proceedings is demonstrated, not only by the tenor of his attestation in behalf of Goodwife Buckley, but by the decisive circumstance that the “afflicted children” cried out against his daughter Anna, the wife of Captain William Dolliver, of Gloucester; got a warrant to apprehend her; and had her brought to the Salem jail, and committed as a witch.  They never struck at friends, but were sure to punish all who were suspected to disapprove of the proceedings.  How long Mrs. Dolliver remained in prison we are not informed.  But it was impossible to break down the influence or independence of Mr. Higginson.  It is not improbable that he believed in witchcraft, with all the other divines of his day; but he feared not to bear testimony to personal worth, and could not be brought to co-operate in violence, or fall in with the spirit of persecution.  The weight of his character compelled the deference of the most heated zealots, and even Cotton Mather himself was eager to pay him homage.  Four years afterwards, he thus writes of him:  “This good old man is yet alive; and he that, from a child, knew the Holy Scriptures, does, at those years wherein men use to be twice children, continue preaching them with such a manly, pertinent, and judicious vigor, and with so little decay of his intellectual abilities, as is indeed a matter of just admiration.”

Samuel Cheever was a clergyman of the highest standing, and held in universal esteem through a long life.

From passages incidentally given, it has appeared that it was quite common, in those times, to attribute accidents, injuries, pains, and diseases of all kinds, to an “evil hand.”  It was not confined to this locality.  When, however, the public mind had become excited to so extraordinary a degree by circumstances connected with the prosecutions in 1692, this tendency of the popular credulity was very much strengthened.  Believing that the sufferer or patient was the victim of the malignity of Satan, and it also being a doctrine of the established belief that he could not act upon human beings or affairs except through the instrumental agency of some other human beings in confederacy with him, the question naturally arose, in every specific instance, Who is the person in this diabolical league, and doing the will of the Devil in this case?  Who is the witch?  It may well be supposed, that the suffering person, and all surrounding friends, would be most earnest and anxious in pressing this question and seeking its solution.  The accusing girls at the village were thought to possess the power to answer it.  This gave them great importance, gratified their vanity and pride, and exalted them to the character of prophetesses.