George Burroughs was graduated at Harvard College in 1670; had been a preacher for many years prior to 1692, and, during some of them, ministered to the people at Salem Village. But before the outburst of witchcraft there, he had found a home far off to the north-east, on the shores of Casco Bay, in the Province of Maine, where he was then humbly and quietly laboring in his profession, but not in impenetrable seclusion. Clairvoyants are masters of both seclusion and space to a marvelous extent. Throughout a region far, far around, wherever the special light pertaining to the mediumistic or illuminated condition revealed its possessor and put forth its attractions, there the opened inner vision of the accusing girls might make them practically present. Emanations from one residing at Falmouth or at Wells might readily meet and blend with those from sensitives at their home in Salem. Thought flies fast and far. With equal speed, and quite as far, can the unswathed inner perceptives of an entranced or illumined mortal be attracted. Old memories and undissolved psychological attachments may have operated in this case. One of the accusing girls had lived for a time in the family of Burroughs while he resided at the Village. Chains of association are never broken and rendered forever unusable, though they often become exceedingly attenuated, and cease to retain recognition in our ordinary conditions. Several of the accusing girls alleged that Burroughs was one, and a leading and authoritative one, in the band of apparitional beings from whom their torments came. He was "cried out upon," arrested, tried, condemned, and executed.
The opinions of different writers as to the real character and worth of this man have been very diverse. While some have accounted him an hypocritical wizard, others have deemed him a man of beautiful and beneficent life. Mather regarded him with aversion, and says, "Glad should I have been if I had never known the name of this man." Afterward the same author charged Burroughs with "tergiversations, contradictions, and falsehoods." Sullivan, in his History of Maine, says, that "he was a man of bad character, and of a cruel disposition." Hutchinson asserted, on insufficient grounds, that when under examination, "he was confounded, and used many twistings and turnings." But Fowler says, "All the weight of character enlisted against him fails to counteract the favorable impression made by his Christian conduct during his imprisonment, and at the time of his execution." Calef says, that, the day before execution, Margaret Jacobs, who had testified against him, came to the prisoner, acknowledging that she had belied him, and asking his forgiveness; "who not only forgave her, but also _prayed with and for her_." The same adducer of "_Facts_" states that, "when upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his innocency, with such solemn and serious expressions as were to the admiration of all present; his prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord's prayer) was so well worded, and uttered with such composedness and such (at least seeming) fervency of spirit, as was very affecting, and drew tears from many, so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. _The accusers said the black man stood and dictated to him._ As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he (Burroughs) was no ordained minister, and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light; and this somewhat appeased the people, and the executions went on." His prayers, and his whole deportment and spirit during these last trying scenes, indicate his possession of a calm, strong soul, which bore him, on the wings of innocence and piety, into a region of serenity which his traducers and murderers were unfited to enter and knew not of. The brief account which Upham's researches enabled him to furnish of this man's life prior to the witchcraft mania presents still further evidences of his sterling worth. That author says, "Papers on file in the State House prove that in the District of Maine, where he lived and preached before and after his settlement at the Village, he was regarded with confidence by his neighbors, and looked up to as a friend and counselor.... He was self-denying, generous, and public-spirited, laboring in humility and with zeal in the midst of great privations." Land had been granted to him, and when the town asked him to exchange a part of it for other lands, "he freely gave it back, not desiring any land anywhere else, nor anything else in consideration thereof."