Home > Colonial America > Samuel Sewall Biography

March 28, 1652

Hampshire, England

January 1, 1730

Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts businessman and judge

"Tis pity there should be more caution used in buying a horse, or a little lifeless dust, than there is in purchasing men and women. . . . "

Samuel Sewall.

Samuel Sewall was a prominent businessman and judge in Boston during a time of social and political upheaval in the Massachusetts colony. He is perhaps best known for making a dramatic public apology for the role he played as a judge in the Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of nineteen people. Sewall is also famous for his diary, a remarkable work that spans more than fifty years and provides modern historians with a vivid picture of life in Puritan New England. (The Puritans were a Christian group who observed strict moral and spiritual codes; they...