 After the Court of Oyer and Terminer stopped sitting, a new 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 early 1693, Danforth sat on Superior Court sessions conducted by Stoughton that continued to hear witchcraft cases, but without accepting spectral evidence. By this time the hysteria was dying down, and the court ( sometimes with Danforth leading after Stoughton temporarily removed himself in protest at the ban on spectral evidence and other reforms imposed by Governor Phips. Danforth was sympathetic to the plight of individuals accused, relocating some of them to his lands west of Boston; Salem End Road in Framingham is part of the area where they settled.
