Editing Thomas Danforth (section)

===Salem trials===
{{main|Salem witch trials}}
In 1692, Danforth was acting governor during the early months of the witch hysteria in [[Salem, Massachusetts|Salem]] and his name appears once in the Salem court records as part of a council which observed the proceedings on April 11.<ref>Woodward, ''Records of Salem Witchcraft'', Copied from the Original Documents, 1864</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2014}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Rn0PAAAAYAAJ|title=Records of Salem Witchcraft: Copied from the Original Documents ...|date=December 25, 1864|publisher=Priv. print. for W.E. Woodward|via=Google Books}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2014}}{{full citation needed|date=July 2014}} but his involvement ended in May upon the arrival of Sir [[William Phips]], the first royal governor under the new charter of the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]].<ref>Burr, George Lincoln {{Google books|Rm2VLpGmhqQC|Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706}}<!-- Introduction to Phips Letters --></ref>{{page needed|date=July 2014}} Danforth was not assigned to the special [[Court of Oyer and Terminer]] that Phips established shortly thereafter, and he was opposed to the manner in which magistrate [[William Stoughton (Massachusetts)|William Stoughton]] conducted the witch trials, which unconditionally accepted [[spectral evidence]] in its proceedings and vigorously presumed the guilt of the accused. In a letter by Thomas Brattle on October 8, 1692, Danforth is described as among a select group of "several about the Bay, men for understanding, judgement and piety... that do utterly condemn the said proceedings, and do freely deliver their judgment..."<ref>Burr, George Lincoln {{Google books|Rm2VLpGmhqQC|Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706|page=184}}</ref>

After the Court of Oyer and Terminer stopped sitting, a new [[Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature|Superior Court]] was created, and, in December 1692, Stoughton was elected by the governor's council to head the court, defeating Danforth by three votes. 

In the beginning of 1693, Danforth participated in Superior Court sessions overseen by Stoughton, which heard witchcraft cases. However, these sessions no longer considered spectral evidence as valid. When Stoughton temporarily removed himself to protest Governor Phips' ban on spectral evidence and other related reforms, Danforth sometimes presided over the court.

Danforth was known to be sympathetic to the plight of individuals accused, relocating some of them to his lands west of Boston in Framingham.<ref>Parr and Swope, p. 38</ref>

[[Sarah Cloyce]], a woman accused during the Salem witch trials, relocated with her husband to a property owned by Danforth and settled into a house on Salem End Road constructed in 1693.<ref>{{cite news |title=House tied to Salem witch trials rises from near-ruin |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/352290532/ |access-date=18 March 2024 |work=Lancaster Eagle-Gazette |date=31 Oct 2017}}</ref> In 1992, The [[Boston Globe]] published a historian's suggestion that Danforth might have facilitated Cloyce's escape from Ipswich jail and subsequently concealed her family on his property.<ref>{{cite news |title=Family retraces Salem connection |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/440124002/ |access-date=18 March 2024 |work=The Boston Globe |date=13 December 1992}}</ref>