At age seven, Sarah was brought from England to Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a child with her parents Thomas and Joanna Smith in 1638. She joined the Ipswich church around 1650 and married a local yeoman, William Buckley. Her parents moved to Bradford.
In 1675, William Buckley was sued by Simon Bradstreet of Salem for unpaid debts. Bradstreet was a former Ipswich resident and became the governor of Massachusetts in 1779. William Buckley lost his house and lands, and the family moved to Salem Village, which is now the town of Danvers. In 1680, Buckley was again sued for debts, incurred by his son, and he lost his cobbler’s tools, leaving the family destitute without a means to produce an income, without land or home.
On May 23, 1692, a complaint for witchcraft was filed by Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersoll of Salem Village and a warrant was issued the same day. Sarah and her widowed daughter Mary Witheridge had been accused by the “bewitched” girls of Salem Village, who claimed that the women’s specters had attacked them. Sarah and Mary were examined on May 18. The primary witnesses against them were the “afflicted girls,” who as usual, went into fits upon the sight of the women. Their statements and the court proceedings are recorded in the Salem Witchcraft Papers, Vol. 1.
Despite the family’s many hardships, Sarah Buckley was held in high regard by those who knew her. The Rev. William Hubbard of Ipswich was known as “a man with a candid and benevolent mind,” and testified for Sarah Buckley:
“These are to certify whom it may or shall concern that have known Sarah the wife of William Buckley of Salem 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 anything 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 whereof I have here set my hand this 20th of June 1692, William Hubbard”
Sarah Buckley and Mary Witheridge were held in shackles for eight months in the cold crowded jail, with all of the horrors and deprivations of the accused. They were both acquitted in January 1693. On January 3, 1693, the new court sat in Salem, tried 21 people, and found only three guilty, who Governor Phips then pardoned. On May 2, 1693 the Superior Court convened in Ipswich , and charges were dismissed against all except five who were all found not guilty. The witchcraft trials met their end in Ipswich.
Their few remaining possessions had all been seized by the sheriff. Although they were not found guilty, they were required to pay for the expenses of their imprisonment before being released, leaving the family desperately impoverished. At that point, Sarah Buckley disappears from recorded history; we find a record of Sarah’s husband’s death a few years later. Their daughter, also named Sarah Buckley, married Jacob Bennett.
Soon after the witchcraft trials ended, Mary Whitredge married her second husband Benjamin Proctor. He and his parents John and Elizabeth Proctor were also originally from Ipswich. Benjamin and his parents had been complained of by Nathaniel Ingersoll and were arrested for witchcraft. The sheriff seized all of their household belongings. Benjamin Proctor was released, and John Proctor was hanged in August 1692, but Elizabeth’s sentence was never carried out, due to her pregnancy. Mary and Benjamin Proctor raised four children in Salem Village, where he died in 1717. Mary died in 1748.
Sources:
Historic Ipswich 
Thank you for writing this article! Sarah (Smith) Buckley was my great-grandmother x9.
The “bewitched” girls of Salem Village…
I can’t believe this happened.
Such a sad story.. these poor people didn’t have a chance…