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English farmer accused of witchcraft (c. 1611 – 1692)
the English farmer accused of witchcraft

Giles Corey ( 16 August 1611 – 19 September 1692) was an English farmer, petty thief, and tried murderer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a guilty or not guilty plea. He was subjected to pressing in an effort to force him to plead—the only example of such a sanction in American history—and died after three days of this torture. Because Corey refused to enter a plea, his estate passed on to his sons instead of being seized by the local government. Corey is believed to have died in the field adjacent to the prison that had held him, in what later became the Howard Street Cemetery in Salem, which opened in 1801. His exact grave location in the cemetery is unmarked and unknown. There is a memorial plaque to him in the nearby Charter Street Cemetery.

Giles Corey was born in Northampton, England. He was baptized in the church of the Holy Sepulchre on 16 August 1611. Giles was the son of Giles and Elizabeth Corey. His birth is recorded in the parish records. His name is quite often spelled "Corey," but the baptismal record is "Cory." It is not certain when he arrived in North America, but there is evidence he was living in Salem Town as early as 1640. He originally lived in Salem Town but later moved to nearby Salem Village (now Danvers) to work as a farmer. There are quite a few entries in the court documents for which he was charged and confessed, mainly petty theft. Despite these charges, Corey was a prosperous land owning farmer in Salem and married three times. He is believed to have married his first wife, Margaret, in England. Margaret was the mother of his eldest four children: Martha, Margaret, Deliverance, and Elizabeth. and had a son named John. According to witnesses, Corey had severely beaten Goodale with a stick after he was allegedly caught stealing apples from Corey's brother in law. Though Corey eventually sent him to receive medical attention ten days later, Goodale died shortly thereafter. The local coroner, as well as numerous witnesses and eyewitnesses, testified against Corey, including neighbor John Proctor, who testified that he heard Corey admit he had beaten Goodale. Since corporal punishment was permitted against indentured servants, Corey was exempt from the charge of murder and instead was charged with using "unreasonable" force for which he was found guilty and fined. Corey's neighbor, John Proctor also accused Corey of the arson of his home. Later, one of Proctor's sons confessed. Corey's second wife, Mary Bright, died in 1684. Corey later married his third wife, Martha Rich. Martha was admitted to the church at Salem Village, where Giles had lived. At the time of the witch trials, Corey was 80 years old and living with Martha in the southwest corner of Salem Village, in what is now Peabody.

Martha Corey was arrested for witchcraft on 19 March 1692. Corey was so swept up by the trials that he initially believed the accusations against his wife until he himself was arrested based on the same charge on 18 April, along with Mary Warren, Abigail Hobbs, and Bridget Bishop. The following day, they were examined by the authorities, during which Hobbs accused Giles of being a wizard. Giles denied the accusations and refused to plead (guilty or not guilty), was sentenced to prison, and subsequently arraigned at the September sitting of the court. The records of the Court of Oyer and Terminer on 9 September 1692 contain a deposition by one of the people who accused Giles of witchcraft in Mercy Lewis v. Giles Corey:

I saw the apparition of Giles Corey come and afflict me urging me to write in his book, and so he continued most dreadfully to hurt me by times beating me and almost breaking my back till the day of his examination being the and then also during the time of his examination he did afflict and torture me most grievously and also several times since urging me vehemently to write in his book and I verily believe in my heart that Giles Corey is a dreadful wizard for since he had been in prison he or his appearance has come and most grievously tormented me. Again, in this court, Corey refused to plead.

Corey's wife Martha was hanged three days later on 22 September 1692. She had a son from a previous marriage named Thomas; he showed up as a petitioner for loss and damages resulting from his mother being executed illegally during the witch trials. He was awarded £50 on 29 June 1723. The gruesome and public nature of Corey's death may have caused residents of Salem to rethink their support for the witch trials. Despite Corey's efforts to protect his estate by refusing to plead, Corwin still attempted to extort money from Corey's heirs after the witch trials. In 1710, Corey's daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Moulton

According to a local legend, the apparition of Corey appears and walks his graveyard each time a disaster is about to strike the city. Notably, he was said to have appeared the night before the Great Salem Fire of 1914. The position of Sheriff of Essex County was also said to have suffered from the "curse of Giles Corey," as the holders of that office, since Corwin, had either died or resigned as a result of heart or blood ailments (Corwin died of a heart attack in 1696). The curse was said to have been broken when the sheriff's office was moved from Salem to Middleton in 1991.

Corey is a character in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1953), in which he is portrayed as a hot tempered but honorable man, giving evidence critical to the witch trials. His wife Martha was one of the 19 people hanged during the hysteria on Proctor's Ledge. In The Crucible, Giles feels guilty about his wife's accusation because he had told a minister that Martha had been reading strange books, which was discouraged in that society. Corey also appears in Robert Ward's operatic treatment of the play, in which his role is assigned to a tenor. A movie of the same name was released in 1996, featuring Peter Vaughan as Corey. Actor Kevin Tighe portrayed Corey in the pilot episode of the WGN television series Salem, in which he is pressed to death in a more or less historically accurate manner. Corey was the namesake behind one of Dan Barrett's musical projects. The band's music has been described as depressing. and is regarded as falling under the slowcore genre.