“Robert Pike was one of the most remarkable men of the period in which he lived. Born in England in 1616, he came to Salem, Mass., with his father's family when nineteen years of age. He was one of the founders of Salisbury, Mass., and resided there from 1689 to the time of his death in 1707, aged 91 years. He married Sarah Sanders and had a family of eight children, one of whom was Rev. John Pike, minister in Dover. His biographer says of Robert Pike that he was engaged in three conspicuous controversies during his life. The first was his arraignment by the General Court in 1653, for his hostility to the persecution of the Quakers. The second was his resistance to the dogmatic authority of the clergy, in the person of his pastor, Rev. John Wheelwright. The third was his bitter opposition to the witchcraft prosecutions in 1692. In all of these controversies, Mr. Pike stood practically alone. He was a century in advance of his time, and a century more than vindicated his advanced positions. The historian of the Salem witchcraft delusion says that "not a voice comes down to us of deliberate and effective hostility to the movement, except that of Robert Pike in his cool, close and powerful argumentative appeal to the judges who were trying the witchcraft cases. It stands out against the deep blackness of those proceedings like a pillar of light upon a starless midnight sky.'' Confronting the judges stood this sturdy old man, his head whitened with the frosts of seventy-six winters, and demonstrated that there was no legal way of convicting a witch, even according to the laws and beliefs of those times.

“It required no small amount of courage for him to take the stand he did against the opinions of the highest judicial tribunal in the province, when no one was considered safe from the charge of having dealings with the evil one, and he himself might be the next one arraigned. But having the courage of his convictions he rose to the demands of the situation and proclaimed his opposition by a formal and thorough exposition. The great merit of this position, so far as it has come down to us, belongs solely to him, and no man of his century is entitled to greater honor. He was a leading man in Salisbury, often associated with Thomas Bradbury on committees and commissions for the transaction of public business. At the age of thirty-two he was chosen a member of the General Court, and had a much longer service iu that capacity and as councilor and assistant, than any of his contemporaries.

“He was well educated, wrote a fine, flowing hand, apparently with great facility, and was an eloquent and forcible speaker. He defended Mrs. Mary Bradhury on her trial for wichcraft, but all eloquence and argument were lost upon the infatuated judges and jury. It is a marvel how Mr. Pike breasted the storm, when any resistence to the popular demand was deemed evidence of complicity with witches, imps and all the powers of darkness, to overthrow the true church on earth. He also plead the cause of Susanna Martin, whose memory is perpetuated by the poet Whittier, and of several others of the accused, and bis opposition to the infamous proceedings and rulings of the court, and the insane demands of the people, appear to have caused no charge to be made against him.”2816