Woman Who Made Framingham Better in 2015: Janice Thompson

UPDATED to fix broken link at bottom of report.

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Days before Halloween, Janice Thompson is in the Old Burying Ground on Main Street in Framingham, dressed as Sarah Cloyes, one of three sisters accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692.

As groups of young and old on the Framingham History Center’s Voices from the Old Burying Ground tour, stop to see her, Thompson comes to life as the historical woman and only sister to survive the Salem Witch Trials.

Eventually, Sarah and her husband Peter escape Salem, and build a home on what is now Salem End Road in the spring of 1693, under the name Sarah and Peter Clayes.

Just a week earlier, Thompson learned that the house, older than the Town of Framingham, would soon be in the hands of the Sarah Clayes House Trust.

In October, Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company bid more than $800,000 in a foreclosure auction for the Sarah and Peter Clayes House, and in December Goldman Sachs donated the house to the Trust for $1.

Thompson, leader of the Sarah and Peter Clayes House Preservation Project, had been working to save the house since 2004.

But there is still more work to be done to save what is known as the “witch house.”

Why Called the ‘Witch House’?

Sarah Cloyes was born in 1638. She lived in Salem, under a pastor, described by Thompson portraying her as “stern and judging.”

When the Salem Witch hysteria engulfed the community, Sarah, and her sisters Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey were taken away to jail. The three of them spent the summer of 1692 in shackles paid for my their own families. Both of Sarah’s sisters were killed.

“I never knew why I survived, and my sister’s didn’t,” said Thompson as Clayes.

Sarah was eventually released from jail and her husband eventually took her to a place called Danforth’s Farms, owned by Thomas Danforth, the judge who proceeded over Sarah’s first trial.

Sarah and Peter arrived in the area in the winter of 1693 and lived in caves, and changed their name to Clayes.

In the spring of 1693, the couple built their home on what is now 657 Salem End Road.

Clayes died in 1704, four years after the Town of Framingham was incorporated.

Today, that battered house is in need of massive repairs and renovations.

The windows and doors are boarded up. Outside, white paint is flaking, and inside there are structural issues.

In 2014, thanks to a grant from Biddy and Bob Owens, preservationist Bill Finch spent days inside the house, assessing the historic elements of the architecture room by room.

He could date elements of the house back to the 1776s but not 1693.

In his multi-page report, he found parts of the home “retain substantial architectural integrity.” and thus there is a “high preservation priority.”

Thompson has expressed interest in turning the house into a museum. The house, even in its dilapidated state, is protected under the town’s historical preservation plan.

But repairs could cost anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.

But after a decade of trying to save the house, Thompson, an Ashland resident, has seen the first part of her dream realized.

And in the process saved a part of Framingham’s history.

The decaying property could have been purchased at the foreclosure auction and the house demolished to make way for a newer, modern home.

For that reason, Thompson was chosen as Framingham Patch’s woman who made a difference in Framingham in 2015.

If you would like to donate to the Trust, click here.

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Photo by Petroni Media Company