She was repeatedly tried for witchcraft and ultimately imprisoned, though not put to death. Cole spent a good portion of her life in jail in Boston. Her repeated appearances in the Essex County court records paint a portrait of a quarrelsome woman whose life took a precipitous turn for the worse following her husband’s death. Possibly the most notorious moment in Cole’s many decades of suspicion is the 1673 escapade in which she attempted to entice a young girl, nine-year-old Ann Smith, into living with her. On many different occasions the relationship between witchcraft and children draws special attention. Often infants and children are the supposed victims of interference by witches or the objects of their covetous envy.1 Eunice Cole demonstrates the delicate relationship between class status, economic security, and reputation for women in this region during the first several decades of settlement, in which she served as both a foil and a potential cautionary tale to the other women in her community.
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