ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
REPRODUCED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
General Editor, J. FRANKLIN JAMESON, Ph.D., LL.D.
DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
1648 — 1706
£3F
I-F73
ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
1648—1706
EDITED BY
GEORGE LINCOLN BURR, LL.D., Litt.D.
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PROFESSOR OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY
WITH THREE FACSIMILES
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1914, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No pari of this booh may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons
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CONTENTS
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
Edited by George L. Burr
PAGES
From “An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences” (better known as “Remarkable Providences”), by Increase
Mather, 1684 . 1
Introduction . .
The Preface .
Chapter V : Preternatural Happenings in New England
Case of Ann Cole, of Hartford, 1662 .
Case of Elizabeth Knap, of Groton, 1671 .
Case of the Morses, at Newbury, 1679-1681 .
The Tedworth Case, in England, 1661-1663 .
Case of Nicholas Desborough, of Hartford, 1683 .
Case of George Walton, at Portsmouth, 1682 .
Case of the Hortados, at Salmon Falls, 1682-1683 ....
The New York Cases of Hall and Harrison, 1665, 1670
Introduction .
Case of Ralph and Mary Hall, of Setauket, 1665 ....
Case of Katharine Harrison, 1670 .
“Lithobolia, or the Stone-throwing Devil,” by Richard Chamber-
lain, 1698 .
Introduction .
Dedicatory Letter and Verses .
Why the Author relates this Stone throwing and why he believes it
Witchcraft .
The Quaker George Walton and his Neighbors at Great Island (Ports¬ mouth) .
The Beginning of the Stone throwing (June, 1682) ....
The Author himself a Victim .
His Serenade and its Sequel; the Black Cat .
The Deviltries at Great Bay .
Notable Witnesses . .
The Author again an Object of Attack .
Injuries to Others, in House and Field .
The Lull in August; the Final Stone throwing in September The Author’s Conclusions .... •■rt’Vri *. » , •
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VI
CONTENTS
PAGB
The Pennsylvania Cases of Mattson, Hendrickson, and Guard, 1684,
1701 . 79
Introduction . 81
Case of Margaret Mattson and Gertrude Hendrickson, 1684 . . 85
Case of Robert Guard and his Wife, 1701 . 88
‘Memorable Providences, relating to Witchcrafts and Posses¬ sions,” by Cotton Mather, 1689 89
Introduction . 91
Dedicatory Epistle to the Hon. Wait Winthrop . 93
The Boston Ministers “to the Reader” . 95
The Introduction . 97
Case of the Goodwin Children, at Boston, 1688-1689 .... 99
The Goodwin Family . 99
The Trouble with the Laundress and her Mother . . . 100
The Strange Malady of the Children . 101
The Appeal to the Ministers and to the Magistrates; Arrest and Trial
of Goody Glover . 103
Her Condemnation and Execution . 105
The Continued Fits of the Children . 107
Efforts of the Ministers to help them . 109
The Author takes the Eldest Girl to his Home; her Behavior . . 110
His Experiments with her . 112
Her Imaginary Journeys . 114
Strange Power over her of the Author’s Study . 115
The Ministers’ Day of Prayer and its Effect . 118
The Author tests the Linguistic Powers of the Demons . . .119
And the Power of Scripture and Prayer to quell them . . . 120
Their Gradual Departure . 121
What the Author has learned from it all . 122
Postscript: the Devils return, but are again dispelled by Prayer . 124
Goodwin’s Account of his Children’s Bewitchment .... 126
Case of Deacon Philip Smith, of Hadley, 1684 . 131
Case of Mary Johnson, of Hartford, 1648 . 135
Case of the Boy at Tocutt (Branford) . 136
Other Bewitchments . 141
“A Brief and True Narrative of Witchcraft at Salem Village,” by
Deodat Lawson, 1692 . . 145
Introduction . 147
“The Bookseller to the Reader” . 152
The Author’s Visit to Salem Village . 152
The Antics of “the Afflicted” . 153
Examination of Goodwife*Corey . 154
Goodwife Putnam’s Afflictions . 157
Examination of Goodwife Nurse . 158
Tales told by Elizabeth Parris, Dorcas Good, Abigail Williams, Mercy
Lewis . 160
i
CONTENTS vii
! PAGE
Good wife Cloyse slams the Meeting-house Door . 161
Extraordinary Things about the Afflicted . 161
About the Accused . 162
Letter of Thomas Brattle, F.R.S., 1692 165
Introduction . 167
His Reasons for writing frankly . 169
The Procedure at Salem; the “Afflicted” and their Evidence . . 170
The “Confessors” . 173
Indictment and Trial . 174
“Spectre Evidence” . 176
The Executions . 177
Things to wonder at . . . . 177
The Troubles at Andover . 180
Zeal of the Judges . 182
The Doubters and their Reasons . 184
Extent of the Convictions; Hope from the impending General Court . 185
Efforts of certain Ministers to check the Matter . 186
Further Reasons for Hesitation . 187
Why the Confessions cannot be trusted . 189
Letters of Governor Phips to the Home Government, 1692, 1693 . 191
Introduction . 193
Letter of October 12, 1692: the Witch Panic as he found it, and what
he did about it . 196
Letter of February 21, 1693: Recapitulation of his Earlier Report; how the Panic was brought to an End . 198
From “The Wonders of the Invisible World,” by Cotton Mather,
1693 203
Introduction . 205
The Author’s Defence . 210
His Relation to the Salem Trials . 213
The Trial of George Burroughs . 215
The Trial of Bridget Bishop . 223
The Trial of Susanna Martin . 229
The Trial of Elizabeth How . 237
The Trial of Martha Carrier . 241
“Curiosities”: I. The Devil’s Imitation of Divine Things . . . 245
II. The Witches’ making themselves and their Tools invisible . . 246
III. The Bewitched delivered by the Execution of the Witches . . 248
IV. Apparitions reveal Old Murders by the Witches .... 249
Certificate of the Judges to the Truth of this Account . . . 250
“A Brand pluck’d out of the Burning,” by Cotton Mather, 1693 . 253
Introduction . 255
The Story of Mercy Short . 259
Her Bewitchment . 260
How the Devil and his Spectres appeared to her . 261
Vlll
CONTENTS
How they tormented her . .
Her Discourses to them .
How her Tortures were turned into Frolics
The Shapes worn by the Spectres .
Her Remarkable Answers and Strange Knowledge of Scripture The Methods used for her Deliverance ....
Her Deliverance on New Year’s Eve .
The Renewal of her Troubles after Seven Weeks The Strange Books brought by the Spectres for her signing The Books used at their Witch-meetings .... The Helpful Spirit, and how he aided her against the Others The Prayer-meetings and her Final Deliverance .
From “More Wonders of the Invisible World,” by Robert Calef
Introduction .
The Epistle to the Reader: the Author’s Reasons for his Book .
His Materials . .
Cotton Mather’s Letter of Enclosure .
His Another Brand pluckt out of the Burning (the Story of Mar¬ garet Rule) .
Introductory Anecdote of the Devil’s Appearance to an Indian .
Who Margaret Rule was; the Beginning of her Bewitchment
How she was tortured by Spectres .
And by the Devil .
Her Remarkable Fastings; how she was further tormented
Her Strange Revelations as to the Spectres .
The White Spirit and his Comfortings .
Her Pastor’s Efforts for her .
Her Tormentors’ Attempt with Poppets .
The Author’s Reply to his Revilers .
The Good that has come of the Affair .
Part II : Calef ’s Correspondence with Mather .
His Letter of Jan. 11, 1694, enclosing his Journal of his Visit to Mar¬ garet Rule on Sept. 13 .
And on Sept. 19 .
And rehearsing his earlier Letters of Sept. 29 and Nov. 24 .
Mather’s Reply (Jan. 15) .
Enclosed Certificates of Witnesses to Margaret Rule’s Levitation
Calef’s Rejoinder (Jan. 18) .
Part V : The Salem Witchcraft .
The Rev. Mr. Parris and the Divisions at Salem Village
The Strange Behavior of Divers Young Persons and its Ascription to
Witchcraft .
Mr. Lawson’s Visit and his Account; the Examinations of the Accused Mr. Lawson’s Sermon; the Solemn Fast at Salem .... The “White Man”; Good wife Cloyse and the Slammed Door; the
Public Examination of April 11 .
The Lord’s Prayer as an Ordeal; Specimen of a Mittimus .
PAGE
263
267
271
274
275
276
277
278 280 282 283 285
289'
291
296
306
307
308 308
310
311
312
313
314
316
317
318 320 322 324
324
327
329
333
337
338 341
341
342
343
345
346
347
CONTENTS
IX
PAGE
Arrival of Governor Phips; the Political Events leading to it . 348
Mrs. Cary’s Commitment and Escape . 349
Captain John Alden’s Narrative . 353
Opening of the Special Court at Salem (June 2) . 355
Bridget Bishop’s Fate; Advice of the Boston Ministers . . . 356
The Trials of June 30; Fate of Sarah Good; of Rebecca Nurse . . 357
The August Trials and Executions; George Burroughs, John Willard,
the Procters . 360
Procter’s Letter to the Ministers . 362
Old Jacobs and his Grand-daughter; her Confession and Retraction . 364
The September Trials . 366
The Coreys; Ward well; Mary Esty and her Letter .... 367 Mrs. Hale accused; Mr. Hale’s Change of View .... 369
Seizure of the Property of Fugitives . 370
Flight of George Jacobs and Fate of his Family . 371
The Andover Witchcraft . 371
The Gloucester Witchcraft . 373
End of the Special Court; Summary of its Work .... 373 How the Accused were brought to confess; Protestation of the An¬ dover Women . 374
Criticism of Cotton Mather’s Account of the Trials .... 378
The Laws in Force against Witchcraft . 381
The new Superior Court and how it dealt with the Witch Cases
(Jan.-April, 1693) . 382
Governor Phips’s General Pardon . 384
The Benham Case in Connecticut (1697); the Massachusetts Proc¬ lamation of a General Fast (Dec., 1696) . 385
Judge SewalPs Public Penitence . 386
The Penitence of the Jurors . 387
Criticism of Cotton Mather’s Life of Phips (1697) .... 388
And of its Author’s Teaching as to Witchcraft . 389
Calef’s own Convictions as to the Matter . 391
From “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft,” by John
Hale, 1702 395
Introduction . 397
An Epistle to the Reader, by John Higginson .... 399
Mr. Hale’s “Preface to the Christian Reader” . 402
The Origin and Nature of Devils . 406
Summary of New England Witch Cases, 1648-1692 .... 408
Margaret Jones; Mrs. Lake . 408
Mrs. Kendal . . 409
Mrs. Hibbins; Mary Johnson . 410
The Principles acted on in these Convictions . 411
Mrs. Morse; Goody Glover . 412
The Salem Witchcraft; its Beginnings . 413
Tituba’s Confession . 415
Conscientiousness of the Judges; the Authorities used by them . .415
X
CONTENTS
PAGE
Influence of the Confessions; their Agreement with the Accusations
and with each other; their Circumstantiality . 416
Specimen Confessions: Deliverance Hobbs’s . 417
Ann Foster’s; Mary Lacy’s ........ 418
William Barker’s . 419
Their Testimony against themselves and against each other . . 420
How Doubt at last \fras stirred . 421
Wherein lay the Error . 422
Like Mistakes in Other Places . . 424
The Application of the Whole . 425
The Virginia Case of Grace Sherwood, 1706 . 433
Introduction . . 435
Her First Trial; the Jury of Women . 438
The Appeal to the Governor and Council; the County Court in¬ structed to make Further Inquiry ....... 439
Her Second Trial; the Ducking . 441
The Verdict; her Detention for Trial by the General Court . . 442
Index . 443
FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS
A Brand pluck'd out of the Burning. First page of the original manu¬ script, in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society .
Autographs of Robert Calef and of his Son Robert. From various originals . $
Petition of Mart Esty. From the original at the Essex County Court House, Salem .
PAGE
259
292
368
1
'
NOTE
The first of the illustrations is a facsimile of the first page of the original manuscript of Cotton Mather’s narrative of the case of Mercy Short, A Brand 'pluck'd out of the Burning. For the privilege of printing both the facsimile and the text we are in¬ debted to the American Antiquarian Society, in whose library at Worcester the manuscript is preserved, and to Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, librarian of the society. The facsimile is slightly reduced.
The second plate is intended to elucidate the question whether More Wonders of the Invisible World was written by Robert Calef the elder or by his son Robert Calef the younger. Most writers hitherto have attributed it to the younger Calef; Professor Burr may be regarded as having settled the question (pp. 291-295) in favor of the elder. The plate shows facsimiles of the following: (1) from the Mather-Calef paper of 1694-1695 (see p. 306, note 1), the last three or four lines of Mather’s text, with the marginalia of Robert Calef at the side, and the first three or four lines of Calef’s marginalia beneath — lines unquestionably penned by the author of More Wonders ; (2) from the letter written to Lord Bellomont by that author, accompanying a copy of the book (see p. 292, note 1, below), the first three lines and the last, with signature; (3) from the appraisers’ report of 1693 (ibid.), the signature; (4) from the coroner’s verdict of 1696, the signature; (5) from the arbitrators’ report of 1697, the first three or four lines and the signature — all these of the elder Robert; (6) from the selectman’s report of 1717 (?), the lines showing it the elder Robert’s as a selectman of Roxbury, with the lines at the end and the signature; (7) signature of Robert Calef the younger, 1708; (8) signature of Robert the younger, 1719, with the words adjoining it in the receipt. For the second of these we are indebted to Mr. Wilberforce Eames of the New York Public Library, for the others to Mr. Worthington C. Ford of the Massa-
xiv
NOTE
chusetts Historical Society and to the official custodians of the vari¬ ous documents, in Boston.
The third illustration is a facsimile, slightly reduced, of the pe¬ tition of Mary Esty, preserved at Salem, Massachusetts, in the files of the Superior Court for Essex County. By the kindness of the clerk, and of Mr. George Francis Dow, secretary of the Essex In¬ stitute, it is here reproduced in such a manner as to show both pages of the original.
J. F. J.
PREFACE
These narratives of witchcraft are no fairy tales. Weird though they seem to us, they were to thousands of men and women in seventeenth-century America the intensest of realities. They were the bulletins of a war more actual, more cruel, more momentous, than any fray of flesh and blood. Nor were they bulletins alone, these messages of each latest skirmish in that age-long war of Heaven with Hell. To those enlisted in that war they were instruction, encouragement, appeal, as well; and as, in our day, to men once fascinated by world-politics, so in that to those awakened to these vaster interests of a universe, all pettier concerns seemed trivial and provincial. To count the matter a panic local to New England, or even a passing madness of the Christian world, is to take a narrow view of history.
But to the modern student there is danger of a graver error. For to count that witch-panic a something incident to human nature, and common to all lands and times, is to repudiate history altogether. Whatever in universal human experience anthropology or folk-lore may find akin to it, the witchcraft our fathers feared and fought was never universal, in place or time. It belonged alone to Christian thought and modern centuries; and clear as day to the historian of ideas is its rise, its progress, its decline.
It was not till the later thirteenth century that the theologians worked out their theory of human relations with Satan. Not till the fourteenth did the Holy Inquisition draw witchcraft fully into its own jurisdiction and, by confusing it with heresy, first make the witches a diabolic sect and give rise to the notion of the witch- sabbath. It was in the fifteenth that the theory and the procedure spread to the secular courts, and that in these, as in the ecclesiastical, the torture began to prove an inexhaustible source of fresh accusa¬ tions, fresh delusions. In the sixteenth the Reformation for a little distracted attention to heresy; but soon Protestant was vying with Catholic in the quest of the minions of Satan, and it was in the later
XVI
PREFACE
sixteenth century and the earlier seventeenth that panic and per¬ secution reached their height. Italy, Spain, France, which earliest had suffered, were earliest to listen to reason. Germany, long hesi¬ tant to begin, passed all other lands in thoroughness and in persis¬ tence. How many were the victims is even here a matter for guess¬ work; but they counted by many, many thousands. At Osnabruck 121 were burned in 1583, 133 in 1589; at Ellwangen 167 in 1612; at Wurzburg a careful list in February, 1629, names 158 burned since 1627, and the burnings were still going briskly on. Not even Scot¬ land could rival this German zeal; and Scotland was later to begin.
England, lacking both the Inquisition and the torture, long es¬ caped; but the religious exiles who flocked back from the Continent at the accession of Elizabeth brought the epidemic with them, and protest was hushed when in 1603 there mounted the English throne the king, a Scot and a Calvinist, whose own royal hand had plied against the witches both torture and the pen. The advent of James was followed, in 1604, by the enactment of a sterner statute, which, like those of Scotland and the Continent, embodied the teaching of the theologians and subordinated the crime to the sin. But, though for a time English zeal against witches was quickened, it was not till the Civil Wars threw the courts into the hands of men more prone to religious excitement that England knew a witch-panic like those of neighbor lands. Then, in 1645-1647, her Puritan Eastern counties, having found in enforced sleeplessness a substitute for the torture, sent witches to death by the score; and then it was, in 1647 and 1648, that in her New England colonies witch-trials first ap¬ pear. Of their story there our narratives will tell us. In the home land the superstition slowly waned, and, despite the able protests of its advocates and the occasional zeal of a pious judge, England saw her last witch-execution in 1682. Trials, indeed, there were till 1717, and in Scotland till the very eve of the act of Parliament which in 1736 ended the matter in British lands. On the Continent the trials dribbled on till the eighties.
But let it not be thought that there were ever wanting those who doubted and protested. We shall find them in seventeenth-century America; and, happily, they too have left us narratives.
Though, all told, the number of America’s contributions to this
PREFACE
XVII
eerie literature is not great, not all could find a place in the present volume. The general editor of the series has, however, included all that can be counted classical — those most quoted in their day or in ours. Narratives, not documents, have of course been preferred for the volume; but, for those regions where no narrative of witchcraft exists (i. e., outside New England), court records have had to take their place. And since, even in New England, the narratives rest often on such records and by the critical student must be compared with these, the notes attempt to point out where these records, if printed, may be found.
Not a few of the narratives here reprinted have now grown costly or even unprocurable; but only one is here for the first time published — Cotton Mather’s A Brand pluck'd out of the Burning (1693). A full account of its source and history will be found in the prefixed introduction (pp. 247^.). As in the other volumes of this series, the order of the narratives is chronological — though often with much overlapping. Where there is a connection between their themes, and especially where (as with the Salem witchcraft) the nar¬ ratives deal* with the same events, the introductions and notes aim to make the connection clear and to invite a parallel study. Of course, however, the present volume is not a history, and must pass in silence much that should interest the student of witchcraft in America.
Besides aiding the narratives to explain each other and guiding the student to the further materials for their critical study, it has been the editor’s aim to clear up whatever is obscure; but he has nowhere attempted to set forth the theory underlying the belief in witchcraft or to discuss the questions which still divide scholars.1 His effort has been only to put before the reader, with fairness and ex¬ actness, what can throw light on these American episodes.
It remains but to add a word of gratitude to those into whose
1 To those who need such help the editor may venture to name an older study of his own on The Literature of Witchcraft (in the Papers of the American Historical Association , IV.), which undertakes a survey of the development of that theory. Further light may be had from the familiar chapters of Lecky and of Lea, and from Dr. Wallace Notestein’s History of Witchcraft in England , now an indispensable guide to the English background of American dealings with witchcraft. And, for a discussion of certain fundamental issues, he may add two papers (by Professor G. L. Kittredge and himself) in the Proceedings (n. s., XVIII., XXI.) of the American Antiquarian Society.
PREFACE]
• •• xvm
labors he has entered. Most of these are adequately cited in the introductions or the notes; but certain whose help has been more general should find mention here. Samuel G. Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England and elsewhere in the United States (Bos¬ ton, 1869) is still the best clew to American witch-episodes as a whole. Justin Winsor’s chatty paper on The Literature of Witch¬ craft in New England (American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings , n. s., X.) is a convenient introduction to that literature, and George H. Moore’s Notes on the Bibliography of Witchcraft in Massachusetts (in the same society’s Proceedings, n. s., V.) is, like every word written on this subject by that acute scholar, a precious aid in its study. Quite indispensable as a conspectus of the literature as a whole is now the List of Works in the New York Public Library relating to Witch¬ craft in the United States, prepared in 1908 for that library by Mr. George F. Black, a scholar from whose studies in the history of witchcraft other fruit is to be hoped.
The thanks of the reader as well as the editor’s are due to the American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, for the generous cour¬ tesy with which it has permitted the printing here of the unpublished narrative of Cotton Mather — a courtesy enhanced by help received from its librarians. Warm gratitude, too, is due to the Massa¬ chusetts Historical Society, to the Boston Public Library, to the New York Public Library, and to the custodians of the public records at Boston, for the use of the autographs which figure in our plate devoted to the identification of Robert Calef. But, should mention be made of all those to whom this volume is in debt for personal help, the list would be too long. Yet the editor cannot lay down his pen without a word of gratitude to his old teacher and lifelong friend, ex-President Andrew D. White, of Cornell, who first inspired him with an interest in this subject and a sense of its importance, and whose unflagging generosity has made possible the gathering of that library on witchcraft, now perhaps unequalled, which has been a chief source of the present volume.
George L. Burr.
Cornell University, March, 1914.
FROM “AN ESSAY FOR THE RECORDING OF IL¬ LUSTRIOUS PROVIDENCES,” BY INCREASE MATHER, 1684
INTRODUCTION
Increase Mather (1639-1723), divine, historian, college president, colonial statesman and diplomat, is a familiar fig¬ ure to the student of American history. Born the youngest son of a religious leader known in Old England as well as New, and graduated from Harvard in 1656, while Puritanism was still dominant in the mother land, he had choice of two worlds for his career, and at first elected for the old, where two of his brothers were already prospering. First a student for his masters degree at Dublin, then a preacher in En¬ gland and in the Channel Islands, he would gladly have re¬ mained beyond sea, but for the religious restrictions of the Restoration, which drove him home in 1661 — though not until he had come into a permanent closeness of touch with British thought and feeling. In Boston he speedily be¬ came the minister of the new North Church, and he re¬ tained this pastorate throughout his life, though from 1685 to 1701 he added to its duties those of the presidency of Harvard.1 * 3
But not his diligence as a student nor his devotion to his influential pulpit could blind him to the larger affairs of New England and of the Christian world. It was he who in 1679 stirred up his colleagues and the General Court to the con¬ vening of a synod of the clergy, which should consider what evils had “provoked the Lord to bring His Judgments on
1 As to his career see especially the careful study of Sibley, in his Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Harvard University (henceforward to be cited as
Harvard Graduates), I. 410-470, and the authorities there named.
3
4
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
New-England” and what was to be done “that so these Evils may be Reformed”; and it was he who put into form the result of their deliberations. Some of the “judgments” — King Philip’s war, the small-pox, the two great fires — he felt to call for lay activity as well as clerical; but the others com¬ plained of, the decay of piety and the departure from the fathers’ ways, were ills for pastoral healing, and in 1681, the year that followed the final session of that “reforming synod,” another general meeting of the ministers took, at his instance, that action for “the recording of illustrious providences” which is recounted in the following pages.
Such a method of arousing men to religion was nothing new in Christian history. So, a thousand years before, Pope Gregory, culling (precisely as did now the New England leader) the experiences of his fellow clerics, had compiled those Dialogues whose tales of vision and apparition served for centuries to make the invisible world as real as that of sight and touch; and from his day onward such “providences” had been to clerical historians the tissue of their story. In the later Middle Ages there multiplied collections of these ex- empla. Nor did the Reformation interrupt their use. Lu¬ ther’s own sermons and table talk were for Protestants a mine of “modern instances”; and out of such materials a Hondorff, a Lonicer, a Philip Camerarius, compiled their treasuries for the Lutheran pulpit, while their Zwinglian and Calvinistic neighbors were yet better equipped by the industry of Theodor Z winger and Simon Goulart. Puritan England had found such purveyors in Beard and Taylor and Samuel Clarke. But it was of the nature of these attempts to keep abreast of the warnings of Heaven that they speedily went out of date. Only an enterprise like that devised by Matthew Poole for their continual registry could meet the needs of callous and forgetful man.
But the suggestion of Poole was twenty years old, and^
INTRODUCTION
5
even the draft found in John Davenport’s papers must for some years have been in Mather’s hands: what new impulse stirred him now to action? It is not hard to guess. The group of Platonists who at Cambridge, the mother of New England Puritanism, had now inherited the spokesmanship of positive religion, laid the emphasis of their teaching on what they called “the spiritual world”; and since the Resto¬ ration they had found a notable ally. Joseph Glanvill, a young Oxford theologian, one of the keenest of English phil¬ osophic minds, and withal one of the most rational, had taken a brief for the defence, and in a brilliant essay on “the van¬ ity of dogmatizing” had in 1661 turned the guns of the ra¬ tionalists upon themselves. It was not the dogmatizing of theology, but that of the audacious rising science of things natural and human, whose premises he attacked and seemed to sweep away; and great was the applause of all committed to the “eternal verities.” But he speedily discerned that the strength of his skeptical adversaries lay in their denial and ridicule of what they counted the “old wives’ tales” of religion. “Atheism is begun in Sadducism. And those that dare not bluntly say, There is no God, content themselves (for a fair step, and Introduction) to deny there are Spirits, or Witches.” Wherefore, with astounding boldness, he came in 1666 to the defence of ghosts and witches in an essay, oft reprinted, whose most telling title was A Blow at Modern Saddu¬ cism. He had now adopted to the full the tenets of the Cam¬ bridge Platonists, whose leader, Henry More, became his cor¬ respondent, almost his colleague, and like them he championed all old tales; but his keen sight discerned that “things re¬ mote, or long past, are either not believed, or forgotten,” whereas “Modern Relations,” “being fresh, and near, and at¬ tended with all the circumstances of credibility, it may be expected they should have more success upon the obstinacy of Unbelievers.” To his essay he therefore now appended,
6
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
#nd swelled with each successive edition, a “ collection of modem relations,” which should demonstrate from present experience “the real existence of apparitions, spirits and witches.” This was indeed to carry the war into Africa, and the Africans rallied to their guns. John Wagstaffe in 1669 and 1671, the anonymous author of The Doctrine of Devils in 1676, John Webster in 1677, came to the defence of chal¬ lenged incredulity. Glanvill died in 1680, leaving unfinished that enlarged edition which should be his reply; but in 1681 it was published by his friend Henry More (with additions of his own, including a mass of new “relations”) under the aggressive title of Sadducismus Triumphatus.1
It was for a share in this battle royal, to which his book makes many allusions, that Increase Mather now marshalled the hosts of New England orthodoxy. Their broadside, de¬ livered in 1684, was this Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences .2 Almost at the same time (1685) George Sinclar, professor at Glasgow, brought out in Scotland the “choice collection of modern relations” which he called Satan1 s In¬ visible World Discovered . How English Puritanism echoed we shall see betimes.
Mather’s book was forthwith welcome. It went through two or three impressions in 1684 — at least the title-page was thus often reprinted — and a part of the copies went to the London market, equipped with the imprint of an English bookseller. The book is best known, not by the long title of its title-page, but by its running caption of “Remarkable Providences” — already his son quotes it by this name — and it was under this title, Remarkable Providences illustrative of the Earlier Days of American Colonisation , that a convenient
1 “Sadducism Triumphed Over.” More spells it Saducismus; but this was not Glanvill’s usage, and the later editions have a double d.
* It is true the book of Mather is not wholly on “the world of spirits” : other “providences” fill half the volume. But it is more largely so than any earlier collection of its sort, and in this the author’s interest clearly centres.
INTRODUCTION
7
little reprint, “with introductory preface by George Off or,” was published at London in 1856 (as a volume in John Russell Smith's “Library of Old Authors"); and again in 1890.
AN ESSAY FOR THE RECORDING OF ILLUSTRI¬ OUS PROVIDENCES
An Essay For the Recording of Illustrious Providences , Wherein an Account is given of many Remarkable and very Mem¬ orable Events , which have happened in this last Age ; Es¬ pecially in New-England.
By Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church at Boston in New- England. Psal. 107. 5. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the Children of Men. Psal. 145. 4. One Generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.
Boston in New-England, Printed by Samuel Green for Joseph Browning, And are to be sold at his Shop at the corner of the Prison Lane. 1684.1
The Preface.
About six and twenty years ago, a Design for the Re¬ cording of illustrious Providences was under serious consid¬ eration among some eminent Ministers in England and in Ireland.2 That motion was principally set on foot by the Learned Mr. Matthew Pool, whose Synopsis Criticorum, and other Books by him emitted, have made him famous in the World.3 But before any thing was brought to effect, the
1 This is the wording of what is believed the earliest impression of the title-page. It has a misprint in the first citation of Scripture : “Psal. 107. 5” should be Psal. 107. 8.
2 As the author signs his preface on January 1, 1684 (and he used our present calendar), the design of twenty-six years before must belong to 1658 or there¬ abouts. At that time he was himself in the British Isles and in close touch with their leading Puritan divines : it is highly probable that he speaks of the project from personal knowledge.
3 Matthew Poole (1624-1679) was one of the ablest scholars among the English Presbyterians. Educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, like so
8
1658] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
9
Persons to have been imployed, had their thoughts diverted another way. Nevertheless, there was a MSS. (the Composer whereof is to me unknown) then written, wherein the Sub¬ jects proper for this Record, and some Rules for the better managing a design of this nature, are described. In that MSS. I find notable Stories related and attested, which else¬ where I never met with. Particularly, the Story of Mr. Earl of Colchester, and another mentioned in our subsequent Essay.1 And besides those, there are some very memorable Passages written, which have not as yet been published, so far as I understand. There are in that MSS. several Remarkables about Apparitions, e. g. It is there said, that Dr. Frith, (who was one of the Prebends belonging to Windsor) lying on his Bed, the Chamber Doors were thrown open, and a Corps with attending Torches brought to his Bed-side upon a Bier; The Corps representing one of his own Family: After some pause, there was such another shew, till he, the said Dr., his Wife and all his Family were brought in on the Bier in such order as they all soon after died. The Dr. was not then sick, but quickly grew Melancholly, and would rising at Midnight repair to the Graves and monuments at Eaton2 Colledge; saying, that he and his must shortly take up their habitation among the Dead. The Relater of this Story (a Person of great integrity) had it from Dr. Frith's Son, who also added, My Fathers Vision is already Executed upon all the Family but my self, my time is next, and near at hand.
In the mentioned MSS. there is also a marvelous Relation concerning a young Scholar in France: For, it is there af¬ firmed, that this prophane Student, having by extravagant courses outrun his means, in his discontent walking solitarily, a Man came to him, and enquired the cause of his sadness. Which he owning to be want of Money, had presently a supply given him by the other. That being quickly consumed upon
many of the religious leaders of New England, he was at first a pastor in London, but, ejected in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity, devoted himself to scholarship, and is best known by the Synopsis Criticorum, into whose five huge folios (1669- 1676) he condensed the substance of earlier commentators on the Scriptures. Of his scheme for the recording of illustrious providences we know only what is here told us.
1 These stories are told in the chapter on “Apparitions,” not here reprinted.
a Eton.
10
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1658
his Lusts, as soon as his Money was gone his Discontent re¬ turned; and in his former Walk, he met with his former Re¬ liever, who again offered to supply him; but askt him to con¬ tract with him to be his, and to sign the contract with his Blood. The woful wretch consented: but not long after, considering that this contract was made with the Devil, the terrors of his Conscience became insupportable; so as that he endeavoured to kill himself to get out of them. Some Min¬ isters, and other Christians, being informed how matters were circumstanced, kept dayes of Prayer for him and with him: and he was carefully watched that so he might be kept from Self-Murder. Still he continued under Terror, and said he should do so, as long as the Covenant which he had signed, remained in the hands of the Devil. Hereupon, the Ministers resolve to keep a day of Fasting and Prayer in that very place of the Field where the distressed creature had made the woful Bargain, setting him in the midst of them. Thus they did, and being with special actings of Faith much en¬ larged to pray earnestly to the Lord to make known his power over Satan, in constraining him to give up that contract, after some hours continuance in Prayer, a Cloud was seen to spread it self over them, and out of it the very contract signed with the poor creatures Blood was dropped down amongst them; which being taken up and viewed, the party concerned took it, and tore it in pieces. The Relator had this from the mouth of Mr. Beaumond,1 a Minister of Note at Caon2 in Nor¬ mandy, who assured him that he had it from one of the Min¬ isters that did assist in carrying on the Day of prayer when this memorable providence hapned. Nor is the Relation im¬ possible to be true, for Luther speaks of a providence not unlike unto this, which hapned in his Congregation.3
This MSS. doth also mention some most Remarkable Judgments of God upon Sinners, as worthy to be Recorded
1 Jean de Baillehache, seigneur de Beaumont. Two of the name, father and son, held in succession the Huguenot pastorate at Caen, and were of like eminence.
2 Caen.
8 The “providence” he means is that related by Samuel Clarke ( Mirrour ... of Examples, fourth ed., London, 1671 — the edition used by Mather — I. 34) of a young man at Wittenberg whose contract the Devil threw in at the church window.
1658] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
11
for Posterity to take notice of. It is there said, that when Mr. Richard Juxon was a Fellow of Kings Colledge in Cam¬ bridge, he led a most vicious life: and whereas such of the Students as were serious in matters of Religion, did endeavour by solemn Fasting and Prayer to prepare themselves for the Communion which was then (this was about the year 1636) on Easter-Day, This Juxon spent all the time of prepara¬ tion in Drunken wild Meetings, and was up late and Drunk on the Saturday night. Nevertheless, on the Lords day, he came with others to the Communion, and sat next to the Relator, who knowing his Disorder the night before, was much troubled: but had no remedy; Church-Discipline not being then so practised as ought to have been. The Com¬ munion being ended, such of the Scholars as had the fear of God in their hearts, repaired to their Closets. But this Juxon went immediately to a Drunken-meeting, and there to a Cock¬ fight, where he fell to his accustomed madness, and pouring out a volley of Oaths and Curses; while these were between his Lips, God smote him dead in the twinkle of an eye. And though Juxon were but young, and of a comely person, his Carcase was immediately so corrupted as that the stench of it was insufferable, insomuch that no house would receive it; and his Friends were forced to hire some base Fellows to watch the Carcase till night; and then with Pitch and such like Gums covered him in a Coffin, and so made a shift to en¬ dure his Interment. There stood by a Scholar, whose name was George Hall, and who acted his part with Juxon in his prophaneness: but he was so astonished with this amazing Providence of God, as that he fell down upon his knees, beg¬ ging pardoning mercy from Heaven, and vowing a Reforma¬ tion; which vow the Lord enabled him to keep, so as that afterwards he became an able and famous Minister of the Gospel.
One strange passage more I shall here relate out of the MSS. which we have thus far made mention of. Therein I find part of a Letter transcribed; which is as followeth:
Lismore , Octob. 2. 1658. In another part of this Countrey, a poor man being suspected to have stollen a Sheep was questioned for it; he forswore the thing, and wished that if he had stollen it,
12
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1681
God would cause the Horns of the Sheep to grow upon him. This man was seen within these few dayes by a Minister of great repute for Piety, who saith, that the Man has an Horn growing out of one corner of his Mouth, just like that of a sheep: from which he hath cut seventeen Inches, and is forced to keep it tyed by a string to his Ear, to prevent its growing up to his eye: This Minister not only saw but felt this Horn, and reported it in this Family this week, as also a Gentleman formerly did, who was himself an eye-witness thereof. Surely such passages are a Demonstrative evidence that there is a God, who judgeth in the Earth, and who though he stay long, will not be mocked alwayes.
I shall say no more concerning the MSS. only that it was sent over to Reverend Mr. Davenport,1 by (as I suppose) Mr. Hartlib.2 How it came to lie dormient in his hands I know not: though I had the happiness of special Intimacy with that worthy Man, I do not remember that ever I heard him speak any thing of it. But since his Death, looking over his MSS’s I met with this, and communicated it to other Ministers, who highly approved of the noble design aimed at therein. Soon after which, some Proposals in order to the reviving of this work were drawn up, and presented at a gen¬ eral Meeting of the Ministers in this Colony, May 12, 1681, whichJt may not be unsuitable here to recite.
Some Proposals concerning the Recording of Illustrious Providences .
I. In Order to the promoving 3 of a design of this Nature, so as shall be indeed for Gods Glory, and the good of Posterity, it is
1 John Davenport (1597-1670), one of the most eminent of the Puritan di¬ vines, who, after a career as preacher in London and in Amsterdam, came in 1637 to New England and became the founder and leader of the New Haven theocracy. When at last that colony was merged in that of Connecticut he accepted (1668) the call of the conservative First Church in Boston, and there died.
2 Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-c. 1670), son of a Polish merchant of German
extraction and of an English mother, was born in Prussia, but spent most of his life in England. He is perhaps best known as the friend of Milton; but “every¬ body knew Hartlib.” By business a merchant, he was deeply interested in re¬ ligious affairs, and had a wide correspondence with Protestant scholars through¬ out Christendom, laboring for their union and incidentally carrying on at London a sort of general news agency. Writing September 3, 1661, to Governor Win- throp of Connecticut, Hartlib sends therewith “a small packet” for Mr. Daven¬ port, to whom he “cannot write for the present.” (Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings , 1878, p. 212.) 3 Promoting.
1681] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
13
necessary that utmost care shall be taken that All, and Only Re¬ markable Providences be Recorded and Published.
II. Such Divine Judgements, Tempests, Floods, Earth-quakes, Thunders as are unusual, strange Apparitions, or what ever else shall happen that is Prodigious, Witchcrafts, Diabolical Possessions, Remarkable Judgements upon noted Sinners, eminent Deliverances, and Answers of Prayer, are to be reckoned among Illustrious Provi¬ dences.
III. Inasmuch as we find in Scripture, as well as in Ecclesias¬ tical History, that the Ministers of God have been improved1 in the Recording and Declaring the works of the Lord; and since they are in divers respects under peculiar Advantages thereunto: It is proposed, that each one in that capacity may diligently enquire into, and Record such Illustrious Providences as have hapned, or from time to time shall happen, in the places whereunto they do belong: and that the Witnesses of such notable Occurrents2 be likewise set down in Writing.
IV. Although it be true, that this Design cannot be brought unto Perfection in one or two years, yet it is much to be desired that something may be done therein out of hand, as a Specimen of a more large Volumn, that so this work may be set on foot, and Posterity may be encouraged to go on therewith.
V. It is therefore Proposed that the Elders may concurre in desiring some one that hath Leisure and Ability for the management of such an undertaking, with all convenient speed to begin there¬ with.
VI. And that therefore other Elders do without delay make Enquiry concerning the Remarkable Occurrents that have formerly fallen out, or may fall out hereafter, where they are concerned, and transmit them unto the aforesaid person, according to the Direc¬ tions above specified, in order to a speedy Publication.
VII. That Notice be given of these Proposals unto our Brethren, the Elders of the Neighbour Colonies, that so we may enjoy their Concurrence, and Assistance herein.
VIII. When any thing of this Nature shall be ready for the Presse, it appears on sundry Grounds very expedient, that it should be read, and approved of at some Meeting of the Elders, before Publication.
These things being Read and Considered, the Author of this Essay was desired to begin the work which is here done;
1 Made good use of: the usual meaning of ‘‘improve” in these narratives.
2 Occurrences.
14
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1653
and I am Engaged1 to many for the Materials and Informa¬ tions which the following Collections do consist of. It is not easie to give an Account of things, and yet no circumstantial mistakes attend what shall be related. Nor dare I averr, that there are none such in what follows. Only I have been careful to prevent them; and as to the substance of each passage, I am well assured it is according to Truth. That rare accident about the Lightning which caused a wonderful change in the Compasses of a Vessel then at Sea, was as is in the Book expressed, Page 91, 92. Only it is uncertain whether they were then exactly in the Latitude of 38. For they had not taken an Observation for several dayes, but the Master of the Vessel affirms that to be the Latitude so near as they could conjecture. Since the Needle was changed by the Lightning, if a lesser Compass be set over it, the Needle therein (or any other touched with the Load-stone) will alter its polarity and turn about to the South, as I have divers times to my great admiration experimented. There is near the Northpoint a dark spot, like as if it were burnt with a drop of Brimstone, supposed to be caused by the Lightning. Whether the Magnetic impressions on that part of the Needle being dissipated by the heat of the Lightning, and the effluvia on the South end of the Needle only remaining untouched thereby, be the true natural reason of the marvelous altera¬ tion; or whither it ought to be ascribed to some other cause, the Ingenious may consider.
There is another Remarkable Passage about Lightning which hapned at Duxborough2 in New-England, concerning which I have lately received this following Account.
September 11, 1653, (being the Lords Day) There were small drizling Showers, attended with some seldome and scarce perceiv¬ able rumbling Thunders until towards the Evening; at what time Mr. Constant Southworth of Duxbury returning home after evening Exercise, in company with some Neighbours, Discoursing of some extraordinary Thunder-claps with Lightning, and the awful effects and consequents thereof, (being come into his own House) there were present in one room himself, his Wife, two Children, viz. Thomas (he was afterwards drowned) and Benjamin, (he was long after this
1 Indebted.
2 Duxbury, Massachusetts.
1653] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
15
killed by the Indians) with Philip Delano (a Servant,) there broke perpendicularly over the said House and Room a most awful and amazing clap of Thunder, attended with a violent flash, or rather flame of Lightning; which brake and shivered one of the Needles of the Katted or Wooden Chimney, carrying divers Splinters seven or eight Rods distance from the House: it filled the Room with Smoke and Flame. Set fire in the Thatch of a Leanto which was on the backside of a Room adjoyning to the former, in which the five per¬ sons abovementioned were. It melted some Pewter, so that it ran into drops on the out-side, as is often seen on Tin ware; melted round holes in the top of a Fire-shovel proportionable in quantity to a small Goose-shot; struck Mrs. South worths Arm so that it was for a time benummed; smote the young Child Benjamin in his Mothers Arms, deprived it of Breath for a space, and to the Mothers apprehension squeased it as flat as a Planck; smote a Dog stone-dead which lay within two foot of Philip Delano, the Dog never moved out of his place or posture, in which he was when smitten, but giving a small yelp, and quivering with his toes, lay still, blood issuing from his Nose or Mouth. It smote the said Philip, made his right Arm senseless for a time, together with the middle finger in special (of his right hand) which was benummed, and turned as white as Chalk or Lime, yet attended with little pain. After some few hours that finger began to recover its proper colour at the Knuckle, and so did gradually whiten unto its extremity; And although the said Delano felt a most violent heat upon his body, as if he had been scorched in the midst of a violent burning fire, yet his Clothes were not singed, neither had the smell of fire passed thereon.
I could not insert this story in its proper place, because I received it after that Chapter about Thunder and Lightning was Printed. Some credible persons who have been Eye¬ witnesses of it, inform me, that the Lightning in that House at Duxborough did with the vehemency of its flame, cause the Bricks in the Chimney to melt like molten lead: which particular was as Remarkable as any of the other mentioned in the Narrative, and therefore I thought good here to add it.
In this Essay , I design no more than a Specimen; And hav¬ ing (by the good hand of God upon me) set this Wheel a going, I shall leave it unto others, whom God has fitted, and shall incline thereto, to go on with the undertaking.1
1 We shall see how this suggestion fruited in the Memorable Providences and the Wonders of his son Cotton; and in 1694 the President and Fellows of
16
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1684
Some Digressions I have made in distinct Chapters, han¬ dling several considerable Cases of Conscience, supposing it not unprofitable, or improper so to do; since the things related gave the occasion: both Leisure and Exercise of Judgement are required in the due performance of a Service of this Na¬ ture: There are some that have more leisure, and many that have greater Abilities than I have: I expect not that they should make my Method their Standard; but they may follow a better of their own, as they shall see cause. The Addition of Parallel Stories is both pleasing and edifying: Had my reading and remembrance of things been greater, I might have done more that way, as I hope others will in the next Essay.
I could have mentioned some very memorable Passages of Divine Providence, wherein the Countrey in general hath been concerned. Some Remarkables of that kind are to be seen in my former Relations of the Troubles occasioned by the Indians in New-England.1 There are other particulars no less worthy to be Recorded, but in my judgement, this is not so proper a season for us to divulge them. It has been in my thoughts to publish a Discourse of Miscellaneous ob¬ servations, concerning things rare and wonderful, both as to the works of Creation and Providence, which in my small Readings I have met with in many Authors : 2 But this must suffice for the present. I have often wished, that the Natural History of New-England might be written and published to the World; the Rules and method described by that Learned and excellent person Robert Boyle Esq.3 being duely observed
Harvard College (Increase Mather being himself the President, and Cotton one of the eight fellows) addressed once more to the ministers of New England an appeal for the recording and reporting of “remarkables.” It may be found in bk. VI. of Cotton Mather’s Magnolia (1702), at the head of his collection of such providences, into which he incorporated many of those already related by his father.
1 He doubtless means both his A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New-England (Boston, 1676) and his A Relation of the Troubles which have hapned in New-England (Boston, 1677).
2 This project was never carried out.
3 Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was then the glory of English science. But he was also governor of the Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England. His “Heads for the Natural History of a Country” may be found in vol. III. (pp. 5-14) of his Philosophical Works (London, 1725).
1684] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
17
therein. It would best become some Scholar that has been born in this Land, to do such a service for his Countrey. Nor would I my self decline to put my hand (so far as my small capacity will reach) to so noble an undertaking, did not manifold diversions and employments prevent me from attending that which I should account a profitable Recreation. I have other work upon me, which I would gladlygfinish be¬ fore I leave the World, and but a very little time to do it in: Moreover, not many years ago, I lost (and that’s an afflictive loss indeed!) several Moneths from study by sickness. Let every God-fearing Reader joyn with me in Prayer, that I may be enabled to redeem the time, and (in all wayes wherein I am capable) to serve my Generation.
Increase Mather.
Boston in New-England ,
January 1, 168f.
CHAP. V.
Concerning things preternatural which have hapned in New- England. A Remarkable Relation about Ann Cole of Hartford. Concerning several Witches in that Colony. Of the Possessed Maid at Groton. An account of the House in Newberry lately troubled with a Daemon. A parallel Story of an House at Tedworth in England. Concerning another in Hartford. And of one in Portsmouth in New-England lately disquieted by Evil Spirits. The Relation of a Woman at Barwick in New-England molested with Apparitions , and sometimes tormented by invisible Agents.
Inasmuch as things which are preternatural, and not ac¬ complished without diabolical operation, do more rarely hap¬ pen,1 it is pitty but that they should be observed. Several
1 More rarely, that is, than those supernatural wonders that proceed from God. It is of these — of “remarkable sea-deliverances,” of “other remarkable preservations,” of “remarkables about thunder and lightning” — that earlier chapters have told. In chapter IV., however, the author argues that thunder¬ storms are sometimes the work of Satan, and he is now ready to take up Satanic marvels.
18
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1662
Accidents of that kind have hapned in New-England; which I shall here faithfully Relate so far as I have been able to come unto the knowledge of them.
Very Remarkable was that Providence wherein Ann Cole of Hartford in New-England was concerned.1 She was and is accounted a person of real Piety and Integrity. Neverthe¬ less, in the Year 1662, then living in her Fathers House (who has likewise been esteemed a godly Man) She was taken with very strange Fits, wherein her Tongue was improved by a Daemon to express things which she her self knew nothing of. Sometimes the Discourse would hold for a considerable time. The general purpose of which was, that such and such persons (who were named in the Discourse which passed from her) were consulting how they might carry on mischievous designs against her and several others, mentioning sundry wayes they should take for that end, particularly that they would afflict her Body, spoil her Name, etc. The general answer made amongst the Daemons, was, She runs to the Rock. This having been continued some hours, the Daemons said, Let us confound her Language, that she may tell no more tales. She uttered matters unintelligible. And then the Discourse passed into a Dutch-tone (a Dutch Family2 then
1 This story was reported by the Rev. John Whiting, from 1660 a pastor at Hartford, the home of his family, in a letter of December 4, 1682, now in the keeping of the Boston Public Library and published (1868) in the Mather Papers (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections , fourth series, VIII.) at pp. 466-469. The incidents occurred in 1662. This was by no means the earliest of Connecticut’s witch cases. On these in general see the sane and lucid study of C. H. Levermore, in the New Englander , XLIV. (1885), 788-817, and, condensed, in the New England Magazine , new series, VI. (1892), 636-644; also F. Morgan’s in Connecticut as a Colony and as a State (Hartford, 1904), I. 205-229, and in the American Historical Magazine, I. (1906), 216-238; and J. M. Taylor’s little monograph, The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (New York, 1908). On this episode in particular and the surviving records see also C. J. Hoadly, “A Case of Witchcraft in Hartford,” in the Connecticut Magazine , V. (1899), 557-560.
2 The name of this Dutch family, as appears from a letter of Governor Stuy- vesant of New Amsterdam addressed October 13, 1662, to the authorities at Hartford, was Varleth, or Varlet. Stuyvesant accredits his brother-in-law (Capt. Nicholas Varleth), now “ necessitated to make a second voyage” to aid 4 ‘his distressed sister Judith Varleth,” imprisoned on the charge of witchcraft, and urges on her behalf “her well known education, life, conversation and pro¬ fession of faith” — and with success, for this Judith, becoming at her father’s death his heiress, repaired to New Netherland and there (1666) marrying Stuy-
1662] ” I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
19
lived in the Town) and therein an account was given of some afflictions that had befallen divers; amongst others, what had befallen a Woman that lived next Neighbour to the Dutch Family, whose Arms had been strangely pinched in the night, declaring by whom and for what cause that course had been taken with her.1 The Reverend Mr. Stone (then Teacher of the Church in Hartford) 2 being by, when the Discourse hapned, declared, that he thought it impossible for one not familiarly acquainted with the Dutch (which Ann Cole had not in the least been) should so exactly imitate the Dutch- tone in the pronunciation of English. Several Worthy Per¬ sons, (viz. Mr. John Whiting, Mr. Samuel Hooker, and Mr. Joseph Hains) 3 wrote the intelligible sayings expressed by Ann Cole, whilest she was thus amazingly handled. The event was that one of the persons (whose Name was Green- smith) being a lewd and ignorant Woman,4 and then in Prison on suspicion for Witch-craft, mentioned in the Dis¬ course as active in the mischiefs done and designed, was by the Magistrate sent for; Mr. Whiting and Mr. Haines read what they had written; and the Woman being astonished
vesant’s able nephew, Nicholas Bayard, shared with him his notable role in the life of that colony. See Walker, History of the First Church in Hartford (Hart¬ ford, 1884), p. 177, note; Taylor (as above), pp. 151-152; Connecticut Colonial Records, 1636-1665, p. 387; Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, XIV. 518; Records of New Amsterdam (New York, 1897), V. 130, 137; New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, X. (1879), 35-36.
1 She was, says Mr. Whiting, a sister of one of the ministers in Hartford. Of Mr. Whiting himself?
2 Samuel Stone (1602-1663), educated at Cambridge, came to Massachusetts in 1633 with Cotton and Hooker, became the latter’s associate in the pastorate, and took part with him in 1636 in the founding of Hartford, where he remained a minister till his death. As to both Stone and Whiting (and as to this episode) see especially Walker, History of the First Church in Hartford (Hartford, 1884).
3 By “Mr. John Whiting” (see preceding notes) is of course meant Mather’s informant himself; but in his letter he says that he “came into the house some time after the discourse began.” Hooker, a son of the founder of the Connecticut colony and, like Whiting, of the Harvard class of 1653, had in 1662 just become pastor at the neighboring Farmington. Haynes (1641-1679), son of the governor, was an incipient divine, destined in 1664 to succeed Stone as Whiting’s fellow- pastor at Hartford.
4 “Considerably aged,” adds Whiting. She had twice been married before she became the wife of Nathaniel Greensmith, and by her first husband, Abraham Elson, had two daughters, who were now aged about seventeen and fifteen.
20
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1662
thereat, confessed those things to be true, and that she and other persons named in this preternatural Discourse, had had familiarity with the Devil : Being asked whether she had made an express Covenant with him, she answered, she had not, only as she promised to go with him when he called, which accordingly she had sundry times done; and that the Devil told her that at Christmass they would have a merry Meet¬ ing, and then the Covenant between them should be sub¬ scribed. The next day she was more particularly enquired of concerning her Guilt respecting the Crime she was accused with. She then acknowledged, that though when Mr. Hains began to read what he had taken down in Writing, her rage was such that she could have torn him in pieces, and was as resolved as might be to deny her guilt (as she had done before), yet after he had read awhile, she was (to use her own expres¬ sion) as if her flesh had been pulled from her bones, and so could not deny any longer: She likewise declared, that the Devil first appeared to her in the form of a Deer or Fawn, skipping about her, wherewith she was not much affrighted, and that by degrees he became very familiar, and at last would talk with her. Moreover, she said that the Devil had frequently the carnal knowledge of her Body. And that the Witches had Meetings at a place not far from her House; and that some appeared in one shape, and others in another; and one came flying amongst them in the shape of a Crow. Upon this Confession, with other concurrent Evidence, the Woman was Executed; so likewise was her husband, though he did not acknowledge himself guilty.1 Other persons ac¬ cused in the Discourse made their escape.2 Thus doth the
1 Nathaniel Greensmith and Rebecca his wife were hanged at Hartford in January, 1663. They seem to have been well-to-do, but not over-reputable, people. The Greensmiths, Whiting tells us, lived next door to the Coles. “The instance of the witch executed at Hartford,” says Mather in his next chapter, “considering the circumstances of that confession, is as convictive a proof as most single examples that I have met with.” And of Ann Cole he elsewhere adds ( Providences , ch. IV.) : “I am informed, that when Matthew Cole was killed with the lightning at North-Hampton, the daemons which disturbed his sister, Ann Cole (forty miles distant), in Hartford, spoke of it, intimating their concurrence in that terrible accident.”
2 Beside the Greensmiths and perhaps Judith Varlet there was implicated by Ann Cole a “Good wife Seager,” and Good wife Greensmith is known to have
1662] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
21
Devil use to serve his Clients. After the suspected Witches were either executed or fled, Ann Cole was restored to health, and has continued well for many years, approving her self a serious Christian.
There were some that had a mind to try whither1 the Stories of Witches not being able to sink under water, were true; and accordingly a Man and Woman mentioned in Ann Cole’s Dutch-toned discourse, had their hands and feet tyed, and so were cast into the water, and they both apparently swam after the manner of a Buoy, part under, part above the Water. A by-stander imagining that any person bound in that posture would be so born up, offered himself for trial, but being in the like matter gently laid on the Water, he immediately sunk right down. This was no legal Evidence against the suspected persons; nor were they proceeded against on any such account; However doubting that an Halter would choak them, though the Water would not, they very fairly took their flight, not having been seen in that part of the World since. Whether this experiment were law¬ ful, or rather Superstitious and Magical, we shall (<rw 0eco)2 enquire afterwards.3
Another thing which caused a noise in the Countrey, and wherein Satan had undoubtedly a great influence, was that which hapned at Groton.4 There was a Maid in that Town
mentioned several as accomplices, among them Judith Varlet and Goodwife Ayres. The latter and her husband are believed to be the “Man and Woman” told of in the next paragraph.
1 Whether. 2 “ With God,” i. e., God willing.
3 This was, of course, the well known “water test” for witches. Its origin in witch procedure is obscure; but it gained vogue in the later sixteenth century, finding its chief spokesman in the German schoolmaster Scribonius. As admin¬ istered on the Continent, the witch was “cross-bound,” i. e., with right thumb made fast to left great-toe and left thumb to right great-toe, and then flung, or let down, supine into the water (usually thrice in succession), and was counted guilty on failure to sink wholly under the water. The theory was that the pure element refused to receive a witch into its bosom or that dealing with Satan made the witch too light to sink — reputed phenomena which found many explanations. Rejected by the majority, both of jurists and theologians, the practice eventually lived on only as an illegal procedure of the mob. In pages not here reprinted Increase Mather discusses it and sharply condemns it as superstitious.
4 This case was reported by the Rev. Samuel Willard (1640-1707), who had witnessed it as pastor at Groton, but who from 1678 to his death was the eminent
22
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1671
(one Elizabeth Knap)1 who in the Moneth of October, Anno 1671, was taken after a very strange manner, sometimes weep¬ ing, sometimes laughing, sometimes roaring hideously, with violent motions and agitations of her body, crying out Money, Money, etc. In November following, her Tongue for many hours together was drawn like a semicircle up to the roof of her Mouth, not to be removed, though some tried with their fingers to do it. Six Men were scarce able to hold her in some of her fits, but she would skip about the House yelling and looking with a most frightful Aspect. December 17, Her Tongue was drawn out of her mouth to an extraordinary length; and now a Daemon began manifestly to speak in her. Many words were uttered wherein are the Labial Letters, without any motion of her Lips, which was a clear demon¬ stration that the voice was not her own. Sometimes Words were spoken seeming to proceed out of her throat, when her Mouth was shut. Sometimes with her Mouth wide open, without the use of any of the Organs of speech. The things then uttered by the Devil were chiefly Railings and Revil- ings of Mr. Willard (who was at that time a Worthy and Faithful Pastor to the Church in Groton.) Also the Daemon belched forth most horrid and nefandous Blasphemies, exalt¬ ing himself above the most High. After this she was taken speechless for some time. One thing more is worthy of Re¬ mark concerning this miserable creature. She cried out in some of her Fits, that a Woman, (one of her Neighbours) appeared to her, and was the cause of her Affliction. The Person thus accused was a very sincere, holy Woman, who did hereupon with the Advice of Friends visit the poor Wretch; and though she was in one of her Fits, having her Eyes shut,
minister of the Old South Church in Boston. The exceedingly minute and exact account is not a letter to Mather, but an inclosure in one, and is clearly a contem¬ porary journal completed in January, 1672, when the episode was barely at an end. It is printed in full in the Mather Papers (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, fourth series, VIII.) at pp. 555-570, and with yet greater care by Dr. S. A. Green, in his Groton in the Witchcraft Times (Groton, 1883), pp. 7-21. No document is more fundamental to the study of New England witchcraft. Mather’s brief summary is but a hint of its contents; but he must have used other sources as well (perhaps a lost letter of inclosure and doubtless Willard’s sermon on the subject, printed in 1673 with others in his Useful Instructions).
1 A girl of sixteen — born April 21, 1655 (Green, Groton, p. 6).
1679] I MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
23
when the innocent person impeached by her came in; yet could she (so powerful were Satans Operations upon her) de¬ clare who was there, and could tell the touch of that Woman from any ones else. But the gracious Party thus accused and abused by a malicious Devil, Prayed earnestly with and for the Possessed creature; after which she confessed that Satan had deluded her, making her believe evil of her good Neigh¬ bour without any cause. Nor did she after that complain of any Apparition or Disturbance from such an one.1 Yea, she said, that the Devil had himself in the likeness and shape of divers tormented her, and then told her it was not he but they that did it.
As there have been several Persons vexed with evil Spirits, so divers Houses have been wofully Haunted by them. In the Year 1679, the House of William Morse in Newberry2 in New-England, was strangely disquieted by a Daemon. After those troubles began, he did by the Advice of Friends write down the particulars of those unusual Accidents. And the Account which he giveth thereof is as followeth ;
On December 3, in the night time, he and his Wife heard a noise upon the roof of their House, as if Sticks and Stones had been thrown against it with great violence; whereupon he rose out of his Bed, but could see nothing. Locking the Doors fast, he returned to Bed again. About midnight they heard an Hog making a great noise in the House, so that the Man rose again, and found a great Hog in the house, the door being shut, but upon the opening of the door it ran out.
On December 8, in the Morning, there were five great Stones and Bricks by an invisible hand thrown in at the west
1 Very different as to this kernel of the story is Willard’s MS. : “She declared that if the party were apprehended shee should forthwith bee well, but never till then; whereupon her father went, and procured the coming of the woman im¬ peached by her, who came downe to her on Thursday night, where (being desired to be present) I observed that she was violently handled, and lamentably tor¬ mented by the adversarye, and uttered unusual shriekes at the instant of the per¬ sons coming in, though her eyes were fast closed : but having experience of such former actings, wee made nothing of it, but waited the issue : God therefore was sought to, to signifye something whereby the innocent might bee acquitted, or the guilty discovered, and hee answered our prayers, for by 2 evident and cleere mistakes she was cleered, and then all prejudices ceased, and she never more to this day hath impeached her of any apparition.”
2 Newbury.
24
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1679
end of the house while the Mans Wife was making the Bed, the Bedstead was lifted up from the floor, and the Bedstaff 1 flung out of the Window, and a Cat was hurled at her; a long Staff danced up and down in the Chimney; a burnt Brick, and a piece of a weatherboard were thrown in at the Window: The Man at his going to Bed put out his Lamp, but in the Morning found that the Saveall of it was taken away, and yet it was unaccountably brought into its former place.2 On the same day, the long Staff but now spoken of, was hang’d up by a line, and swung to and fro, the Man’s Wife laid it in the fire, but she could not hold it there, inas¬ much as it would forcibly fly out; yet after much ado with joynt strength they made it to burn. A shingle flew from the Window, though no body near it, many sticks came in at the same place, only one of these was so scragged that it could enter the hole but a little way, whereupon the Man pusht it out, a great Rail likewise was thrust in at the Window, so as to break the Glass.
At another time an Iron Crook that was hanged on a Nail violently flew up and down, also a Chair flew about, and at last lighted on the Table where Victuals stood ready for them to eat, and was likely to spoil all, only by a nimble catching they saved some of their Meal with the loss of the rest, and the overturning of their Table.
People were sometimes Barricado’d out of doors, when as yet there was no body to do it : and a Chest was removed from place to place, no hand touching it. Their Keys being tied together, one was taken from the rest, and the remain¬ ing two would fly about making a loud noise by knocking against each other. But the greatest part of this Devils feats were his mischievous ones, wherein indeed he was sometimes Antick enough too, and therein the chief sufferers were, the Man and his Wife, and his Grand-Son. The Man especially had his share in these Diabolical Molestations. For one while
1 A “bedstaff” was a stick used to help in making a bed which stood in a recess, and the same name was given to the stick then fixed to the side of a bed to keep the bed-clothes from falling off: doubtless the same staff served both purposes. Later in this account we shall find it called a “bed-board”: at least Cotton Mather, repeating the tale in his Magnolia , identifies the two.
2 The “lamp” was of course a candle, and the “saveall” was a contrivance at the base enabling the wick to burn to the very bottom without waste.
1680] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES 25
they could not eat their Suppers quietly, but had the Ashes on the Hearth before their eyes thrown into their Victuals; yea, and upon their heads and Clothes, insomuch that they were forced up into their Chamber, and yet they had no rest there; for one of the Man’s Shoes being left below, ’twas filled with Ashes and Coals, and thrown up after them. Their Light was beaten out, and they being laid in their Bed with their little Boy between them, a great stone (from the Floor of the Loft) weighing above three pounds was thrown upon the mans stomach, and he turning it down upon the floor, it was once more thrown upon him. A Box and a Board were likewise thrown upon them all. And a Bag of Hops was taken out of their Chest, wherewith they were beaten, till some of the Hops were scattered on the floor, where the Bag was then laid, and left.
In another Evening, when they sat by the fire, the Ashes were so whirled at them, that they could neither eat their Meat, nor endure the House. A Peel1 struck the Man in the face. An Apron hanging by the fire was flung upon it, and singed before they could snatch it off. The Man being at Prayer with his Family, a Beesom2 gave him a blow on his head behind, and fell down before his face.
On another day, when they were Winnowing of Barley, some hard dirt was thrown in, hitting the Man on the Head, and both the Man and his Wife on the back; and when they had made themselves clean, they essayed to fill their half Bushel but the foul Corn was in spite of them often cast in amongst the clean, and the Man being divers times thus abused was forced to give over what he was about.
On January 23 (in particular) the Man had an iron Pin twice thrown at him, and his Inkhorn was taken away from him while he was writing, and when by all his seeking it he could not find it, at last he saw it drop out of the Air, down by the fire: a piece of Leather was twice thrown at him; and a shoe was laid upon his shoulder, which he catching at, was suddenly rapt from him. An handful of Ashes was thrown at his face, and upon his clothes: and the shoe was
1 A fire-shovel; or a similar implement for getting things into an oven Of cut of it.
2 A broom.
26
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1680
then clapt upon his head, and upon it he clapt his hand, holding it so fast, that somewhat unseen pulled him with it backward on the floor.
On the next day at night, as they were going to Bed, a lost Ladder was thrown against the Door, and their Light put out ; and when the Man was a bed, he was beaten with an heavy pair of Leather Breeches, and pull'd by the Hair of his Head and Beard, Pinched and Scratched, and his Bed-board1 was taken away from him; yet more in the next night, when the Man was likewise a Bed; his Bed-board did rise out of its place, notwithstanding his putting forth all his strength to keep it in; one of his Awls2 was brought out of the next room into his Bed, and did prick him; the clothes wherewith he hoped to save his head from blows were violently pluckt from thence. Within a night or two after, the Man and his Wife received both of them a blow upon their heads, but it was so dark that they could not see the stone which gave it; the Man had his Cap pulled off from his head while he sat by the fire.
The night following, they went to bed undressed, because of their late disturbances, and the Man, Wife, Boy, presently felt themselves pricked, and upon search found in the Bed a Bodkin, a knitting Needle, and two sticks picked3 at both ends. He received also a great blow, as on his Thigh, so on his Face, which fetched blood: and while he was writing a Candlestick was twice thrown at him, and a great piece of Bark fiercely smote him, and a pail of Water turned up with¬ out hands. On the 28 of the mentioned Moneth, frozen clods of Cow-dung were divers times thrown at the man out of the house in which they were; his Wife went to milk the Cow, and received a blow on her head, and sitting down at her Milking-work had Cow-dung divers times thrown into her Pail, the Man tried to save the Milk, by holding a Piggin4 side-wayes under the Cowes belly, but the Dung would in for all, and the Milk was only made fit for Hogs. On that night ashes were thrown into the porridge which they had made ready for their Supper, so as that they could not eat
1 See p. 24, note 1. 2 Morse was a shoemaker.
3 Pointed, sharpened.
4 A small wooden pail, with one stave long, to serve as a handle.
27
1680] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
it; Ashes were likewise often thrown into the Man’s Eyes, as he sat by the fire. And an iron Hammer flying at him, gave him a great blow on his back; the Man’s Wife going into the Cellar for Beer, a great iron Peel1 flew and fell after her through the trap-door of the Cellar; and going after¬ wards on the same Errand to the same place, the door shut down upon her, and the Table came and lay upon the door, and the man was forced to remove it e’re his Wife could be released from where she was; on the following day while he was Writing, a dish went out of its place, leapt into the pale, and cast Water upon the Man, his Paper, his Table, and dis¬ appointed his procedure in what he was about; his Cap jumpt off from his head, and on again, and the Pot-lid leapt off from the Pot into the Kettle on the fire.
February 2. While he and his Boy were eating of Cheese, the pieces which he cut were wrested from them, but they were afterwards found upon the Table under an Apron, and a pair of Breeches: And also from the fire arose little sticks and Ashes, which flying upon the Man and his Boy, brought them into an uncomfortable pickle; But as for the Boy, which the last passage spoke of, there remains much to be said concerning him, and a principal sufferer in these afflictions: For on the 18 of December, he sitting by his Grandfather, was hurried into great motions and the Man thereupon took him, and made him stand between his Legs, but the Chair danced up and down, and had like to have cast both Man and Boy into the fire: and the Child was afterwards flung about in such a manner, as that they feared that his Brains would have been beaten out; and in the evening he was tossed as afore, and the Man tried the project of holding him, but ineffectually. The Lad was soon put to Bed, and they presently heard an huge noise, and demanded what was the matter? and he answered that his Bed-stead leaped up and down: and they (iFe. the Man and his Wife) went up, and at first found all quiet, but before they had been there long, they saw the Board2 by his Bed trembling by him, and the Bed-clothes flying off him, the latter they laid on immediately, but they were no sooner on than off; so they took him out of his Bed for quietness.
1 See p. 25, note 1.
2 See p. 24, note 1.
28 NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1679
December 29. The Boy was violently thrown to and fro, only they carried him to the house of a Doctor in the Town, and there he was free from disturbances, but returning home at night, his former trouble began, and the Man taking him by the hand, they were both of them almost tript into the fire. They put him to bed, and he was attended with the same iterated loss of his clothes, shaking off his Bed-board, and Noises, that he had in his last conflict; they took him up, designing to sit by the fire, but the doors clattered, and the Chair was thrown at him, wherefore they carried him to the Doctors house, and so for that night all was well. The next morning he came home quiet, but as they were doing somewhat, he cried out that he was prickt on the back, they looked, and found a three-tin’d Fork sticking strangely there; which being carried to the Doctors house, not only the Doc¬ tor himself said that it was his, but also the Doctors Servant affirmed it was seen at home after the Boy was gone. The Boys vexations continuing, they left him at the Doctors, where he remained well till awhile after, and then he com¬ plained he was pricked, they looked and found an iron Spindle sticking below his back; he complained he was pricked still, they looked, and found Pins in a Paper sticking to his skin; he once more complained of his Back, they looked, and found there a long Iron, a bowl of a Spoon, and a piece of a Pan- sheard. They lay down by him on the Bed, with the Light burning, but he was twice thrown from them, and the second time thrown quite under the Bed; in the Morning the Bed was tossed about with such a creaking noise, as was heard to the Neighbours; in the afternoon their knives were one after another brought, and put into his back, but pulled out by the Spectators; only one knife which was missing seemed to the standers by to come out of his Mouth : he was bidden to read his Book, was taken and thrown about several times, at last hitting the Boys Grandmother on the head. Another time he was thrust out of his Chair and rolled up and down with out cries, that all things were on fire; yea, he was three times very dangerously thrown into the fire, and preserved by his Friends with much ado. The Boy also made for a long time together a noise like a Dog, and like an Hen with her Chickens, and could not speak rationally.
1680] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
29
Particularly, on December 26. He barked like a Dog, and clock’t like an Hen, and after long distraining to speak, said, there’s Powel, I am pinched; his Tongue likewise hung out of his mouth, so as that it could by no means be forced in till his Fit was over, and then he said ’twas forced out by Powel.1 He and the house also after this had rest till the ninth of January : at which time because of his intolerable ravings, and because the Child lying between the Man and his Wife, was pulled out of Bed, and knockt so vehemently against the Bed¬ stead Boards,2 in a manner very perillous and amazing. In the Day time he was carried away beyond all possibility of their finding him. His Grandmother at last saw him creep¬ ing on one side, and drag’d him in, where he lay miserable lame, but recovering his speech, he said, that he was carried above the Doctors house, and that Powel carried him, and that the said Powel had him into the Barn, throwing him against the Cart-wheel there, and then thrusting him out at an hole; and accordingly they found some of the Remainders of the Threshed Barley which was on the Barn-floor hanging to his Clothes.
At another time he fell into a Swoon, they forced some¬ what Refreshing into his mouth, and it was turned out as fast as they put it in ; e’re long he came to himself, and expressed some willingness to eat, but the Meat would forcibly fly out of his mouth; and when he was able to speak, he said Powel would not let him eat : Having found the Boy to be best at a Neighbours house, the Man carried him to his Daughters, three miles from his own. The Boy was growing antick as he was on the Journey, but before the end of it he made a grievous hollowing, and when he lighted, he threw a great stone at a Maid in the house, and fell on eating of Ashes. Being at home afterwards, they had rest awhile, but on the 19 of January in the Morning he swooned, and coming to himself, he roared terribly, and did eat Ashes, Sticks, Rug- yarn. The Morning following, there was such a racket with
1 This sentence is clearly of the nature of an interpolation; for the “rest” mentioned in the following clause must date from the events narrated in the preceding paragraph. The “Powel” meant was of course Caleb Powell — see p. 31, note 1.
2 See p. 24, note 1; yet head-board and foot-board may here be meant.
30
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1680
the Boy, that the Man and his Wife took him to Bed to them. A Bed-staff was thereupon thrown at them, and a Chamber pot with its Contents was thrown upon them, and they were severely pinched. The Man being about to rise, his Clothes were divers times pulled from them, himself thrust out of his Bed, and his Pillow thrown after him. The Lad also would have his clothes plucked off from him in these Winter Nights, and was wofully dogg’d with such fruits of Devilish spite, till it pleased God to shorten the Chain of the wicked Dae¬ mon.
All this while the Devil did not use to appear in any visible shape, only they would think they had hold of the Hand that sometimes scratched them; but it would give them the slip. And once the Man was discernably beaten by a Fist, and an Hand got hold of his Wrist which he saw, but could not catch; and the likeness of a Blackmore1 Child did appear from under the Rugg and Blanket, where the Man lay, and it would rise up, fall down, nod and slip under the clothes when they en¬ deavoured to clasp it, never speaking any thing.
Neither were there many Words spoken by Satan all this time, only once having put out their Light, they heard a scraping on the Boards, and then a Piping and Drumming on them, which was followed with a Voice, singing, Revenge! Revenge! Sweet is Revenge! And they being well terrified with it, called upon God; the issue of which was, that suddenly with a mournful Note, there were six times over uttered such expressions as, Alas! Alas! me knock no more! me knock no more! and now all ceased.
The Man does moreover affirm, that a Seaman (being a Mate of a Ship) coming often to visit him, told him that they wronged his Wife who suspected her to be guilty of Witch¬ craft; and that the Boy (his Grandchild) was the cause of this trouble; and that if he would let him have the Boy one day, he would warrant him his house should be no more troubled as it had been ; to which motion he consented. The Mate came the next day betimes, and the Boy was with him until night; after which his house he saith was not for some time molested with evil Spirits.
Thus far is the Relation concerning the Daemon at William
1 Blackamoor, negro.
1680] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
31
Morse his House in Newbery.1 The true Reason of these strange disturbances is as yet not certainly known : some (as has been hinted) did suspect Morse's Wife to be guilty of Witchcraft.
One of the Neighbours took Apples which were brought out of that house and put them into the fire; upon which they say, their houses were much disturbed. Another of the Neigh¬ bours, caused an Horse-shoe to be nailed before the doors, and as long as it remained so, they could not perswade the suspected person to go into the house; but when the Horse¬ shoe was gone, she presently visited them. I shall not here inlarge upon the vanity and superstition of those Experiments,
1 This “relation” was undoubtedly received from the Rev. Joshua Moodey, then minister at Portsmouth, in a letter of August 23, 1683 {Mather Papers, pp. 361-362); for a postscript speaks of its enclosure and says that he had it from William Morse himself. That Morse was its author we know only from Mather. Happily, there exist also many documents of the two witch-trials arising from the affair — those of Caleb Powell and Mrs. Morse. Some of these, preserved in the court records at Salem, were printed by Joshua Coffin in his History of Newbury (Boston, 1845), at pp. 122-134; and again, more carefully, with others, by W. E. Woodward in his Records of Salem Witchcraft (Boston, 1864), II. 251-261. Others, which had strayed from public keeping, were published by S. G. Drake, then their owner, in an appendix (pp. 258-296) to his Annals of Witchcraft (Boston, 1869), in which he summarizes the story (pp. 141-150). Two (her conviction at Boston and her release) have been printed in the Records of the Court of Assistants , I. (Boston, 1901), pp. 159, 189-190. Others still are in the Massachusetts archives (vol. CXXXV., fol. 11-19), where they have been used by Mr. W. F. Poole (see, in the N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register , XXIV., his note, p. 386, to an unpublished draft of Governor Hutchinson’s account). These documents supplement, and sometimes correct, the relation of Morse. Thus, from sworn statements of December, 1679 (Coffin, Newbury, pp. 124, 131-133), it is clear that the events above ascribed to December 3 belong to November 27, that the grandson’s name was John Stiles, that the “seaman” who charged him with the mischief was Caleb Powell, that the day the boy was in his keeping was December 2, 1679, and that on the very next day Morse instituted proceedings against Powell, who was indicted for witchcraft on December 8 (the day on which the disturbances were resumed) and was tried at Ipswich in March. He succeeded in clearing himself, but at the cost of Goodwife Morse. She was a midwife, and had long been suspected of witchcraft by some of her neighbors. Indicted in March, she was tried at Boston in May before the magistrates of the colony, was found guilty and sentenced to death, but was reprieved by the magistrates, and in June, 1681, after more than a year’s imprisonment, permitted, though without acquittal, to return to her home, “provided she goe not above sixteen rods from hir oune house and land at any time except to the meeting house,” For the end of her pitiful story see p. 412, below.
32
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1662
reserving that for another place: All that I shall say at pres¬ ent is, that the Daemons whom the blind Gentiles of old wor¬ shipped, told their Servants, that such things as these would very much affect them; yea, and that certain Characters, Signs and Charms would render their power ineffectual; and accordingly they would become subject, when their own di¬ rections were obeyed. It is sport to the Devils when they see silly Men thus deluded and made fools of by them. Others were apt to think that a Seaman1 by some suspected to be a Conjurer, set the Devil on work thus to disquiet Morse’s Family. Or it may be some other thing as yet kept hid in the secrets of providence might be the true original of all this Trouble.
A Disturbance not much unlike to this hapned above twenty years ago, at an house in Tedworth, in the County of Wilts in England, which was by wise men judged to pro¬ ceed from Conjuration.
Mr. Mompesson of Tedworth being in March 1661, at Lunger- shall,2 and hearing a Drum beat there, he demanded of the Bailiff of the Town what it meant, who told him, they had for some dayes been troubled with an idle Drummer, pretending Authority, and a Pass under the hands of some Gentlemen. Mr. Mompesson reading his Pass, and knowing the hands of those Gentlemen, whose Names were pretended to be subscribed, discovered the Cheat, and com¬ manded the Vagrant to put off his Drum, and ordered a Constable to secure him : but not long after he got clear of the Constable. In April following, Mr Momposson’s house was much disturbed with Knockings, and with Drummings; for an hour together a Daemon would beat Round-heads and Cuckolds, the Tattoo and several other points of War as well as any Drummer. On November 5, The Daemon made a great noise in the House, and caused some Boards therein to move to and fro in the day time when there was an whole room full of People present. At his departure, he left behind him a Sulphurous smell, which was very offensive. The next night, Chairs walked up and down the Room; the Childrens Shoes were hurled over their heads. The Minister of the Town being there, a Bed-staff was thrown at him, and hit him on the Leg, but without the least hurt. In the latter end of December, 1662, They heard a noise like the jingling of Money, the occasion of which was thought to be, some words spoken the night before, by one in the Family;
1 Caleb Powell. ? Ludgershall.
1683] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
33
who said that Fairies used to leave money behind them, and they wished it might be so now. In January Lights were seen in the House, which seemed blue and glimmering, and caused a great stiff¬ ness in the eyes of them that saw them. One in the room (by what Authority I cannot tell) said, “Satan, if the Drummer set thee a work give three knocks and no more”, which was done accordingly. Once when it was very sharp severe Weather, the room was suddenly filled with a Noisome smell, and was very hot though without fire. This Daemon would play some nasty and many ludicrous foolish tricks. It would empty Chamber-pots into the Beds; and fill Porringers with Ashes. Sometimes it would not suffer any light to be in the room, but would carry them away up the Chimney. Mr. Mompes- son coming one morning into his Stable, found his Horse on the ground, having one of his hinder legs in his mouth, and so fastened there, that it was difficult for several men with a Leaver to get it out. A Smith lodging in the House, heard a noise in the room, as if one had been shoeing an Horse, and somewhat come as it were with a Pincers snipping at the Smith’s Nose, most part of the night. The Drummer was under vehement suspicion for a Conjurer. He was condemned to Transportation. All the time of his restraint and absence, the House was quiet. See Mr. Glanvil’s Collection of Mod¬ ern Relations , P. 71, etc.1
But I proceed to give an account of some other things lately hapning in New-England, which were undoubtedly pre¬ ternatural, and not without Diabolical operation. The last year did afford several Instances, not unlike unto those which have been mentioned. For then Nicholas Desborough of Hartford in New-England was strangely molested by stones, pieces of earth, cobs of Indian Corn, etc., falling upon and about him, which sometimes came in through the door, some¬ times through the Window, sometimes down the Chimney, at other times they seemed to fall from the floor of the Cham¬ ber, which yet was very close; sometimes he met with them in his Shop, the Yard, the Barn, and in the Field at work. In the House, such things hapned frequently, not only in the night but in the day time, if the Man himself was at home, but never when his Wife was at home alone. There was no
1 This famous relation was first printed in 1668 as an appendix to the third edition of Glanvill’s essay on witchcraft (see above, pp. 5-6), and was much enlarged in the edition of 1681. What is here printed is not the briefer original form but an abridgment of Mather’s own.
34
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1683
great violence in the motion, though several persons of the Family and others also were struck with the things that were thrown by an invisible hand, yet they were not hurt thereby. Only the Man himself had once his Arm somewhat pained by a blow given him ; and at another time, blood was drawn from one of his Legs by a scratch given it. This molestation began soon after a Controversie arose between Desborough and an¬ other person, about a Chest of Clothes which the other said that Desberough did unrighteously retain: and so it con¬ tinued for some Moneths (though with several intermissions). In the latter end of the last year, when also the Man’s Barn was burned with the Corn in it; but by what means it came to pass is not known. Not long after, some to whom the matter was referred, ordered Desberough to restore the Clothes to the Person who complained of wrong; since which he hath not been troubled as before. Some of the stones hurled were of considerable bigness; one of them weighed four pounds, but generally the stones were not great, but very small ones. One time a piece of Clay came down the Chimney, falling on the Table which stood at some distance from the Chimney. The People of the House threw it on the Hearth, where it lay a considerable time: they went to their Supper, and whilest at their Supper, the piece of Clay was lifted up by an invisible hand, and fell upon the Table; taking it up, they found it hot, having lain so long before the fire, as to cause it to be hot.1
Another Providence no less Remarkable than this last mentioned, hapned at Portsmouth in New-England, about the same time : concerning which I have received the follow¬ ing account from a Worthy hand.2
1 These experiences of Nicholas Desborough were reported by the Rev. John Russell, of Hadley, in a letter of August 2, 1683, which may be found in the Mather Payers (pp. 86-88). Russell says he received the account from “Capt. Allyn, a neer neighbour to Disborough.” John Allyn, long secretary of the colony, was one of the foremost men in Connecticut.
2 The “worthy hand” was again that of the Rev. Joshua Moodey, of Ports¬ mouth. His earliest letter about the matter does not appear in the Mather Papers; but in a later one (July 14, 1683 — Mather Papers, pp. 359-360) he writes thus: “About that at G. Walton’s; because my Interest runs low with the Secre« tary, I have desired Mr. Woodbridge to endeavour the obtaining it, and if I can get it shall send it per the first; Though if there should bee any difficulty there--
1682] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
35
On June 11, 1682, Being the Lords Day, at night showers of stones were thrown both against the sides and roof of the house of George Walton:1 some of the People went abroad, found the Gate at some distance from the house, wrung off the Hinges, and stones came thick about them: sometimes falling down by them, some¬ times touching them without any hurt done to them, though they seemed to come with great force, yet did no more but softly touch them; Stones flying about the room the Doors being shut. The Glass-Windows shattered to pieces by stones that seemed to come not from without but within; the Lead of the Glass Casements, Window-Bars, etc. being driven forcibly outwards, and so standing bent. While the Secretary2 was walking in the room a great Ham¬ mer came brushing along against the Chamber floor that was over his head, and fell down by him. A Candlestick beaten off the Table. They took up nine of the stones and marked them, and laid them on the Table, some of them being as hot as if they came out of the fire; but some of those mark’t stones were found flying about again. In this manner, about four hours space that night : The Secretary then went to bed, but a stone came and broke up his Chamber-door, being put to (not lockt), a Brick was sent upon the like Errand. The abovesaid Stone the Secretary lockt up in his Chamber, but it was
about, you may doe pretty well with what you have already.” And writing again on August 23 ( Mather Papers, pp. 360-361), he says his endeavors have not been wanting to obtain it, but he finds it difficult. “If more may bee gotten, you may expect when I come, or else must take up with what you had from mee at first, which was the summe of what was then worthy of notice, only many other particular actings of like nature had been then and since. It began of a Lord’s day, June 11th, 1682, and so continued for a long time, only there was some respite now and then. The last sight I have heard of was the carrying away of severall Axes in the night, notwithstanding they were laied up, yea, lockt up very safe, as the owner thought at least, which was done this spring.” The “Secretary” (i. e., of the province) was that Richard Chamberlain from whose own pen we have the fuller account of the episode printed later in this volume (pp. 58-77); and there can be little doubt that what Mather gave to the press rests on the basis of his journal. As to “Mr. Woodbridge” see p. 65, note 1.
1 Walton (1615-1686) was a prosperous Quaker. “George Walton, and his wife Alice, and Daughter, Abishag . . . lived on the great Island in Piscataqua, and this Alice was one of the most accounted of the Women, for Profession in the Island, whom it troubled them to lose; but Truth took her, and overturned the Priest.” (Bishop, New-England Judged , pp. 466-467.) Great Island (now New¬ castle), then a part of the township of Portsmouth, was often the seat of the provincial government, and the secretary lodged at Walton’s house. As to Walton’s family and estate see his will ( Probate Records of the Province of New Hampshire, I. 299, and N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register, IX. 57).
2 Richard Chamberlain, secretary of the province. See preceding notes.
36
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
fetched out, and carried with great noise into the next Chamber. The Spit was carried up Chimney, and came down with the point forward, and stuck in the Back-log, and being removed by one of the Company to one side of the Chimney, was by an unseen hand thrown out at Window. This trade was driven on the next day, and so from Day to Day, now and then there would be some inter¬ mission, and then to it again. The stones were most frequent where the Master of the house was, whether in the Field or Barn, etc. A black Cat was seen once while the Stones came and was shot at, but she was too nimble for them. Some of the Family say, that they once saw the appearance of an hand put forth at the Hall Window, throwing stones towards the Entry, though there was no body in the Hall the while : sometimes a dismal hollow whistling would be heard; sometimes the noise of the trotting of an horse, and snorting but nothing seen. The Man went up the great Bay in his Boat to a Farm he had there, and while haling Wood or Timber to the Boat he was disturbed by the Stones as before at home. He carried a stirrup iron from the house down to the Boat, and there left it; but while he was going up to the house, the iron came jingling after him through the Woods, and returned to the house, and so again, and at last went away, and was heard of no more. Their Anchor leapt over¬ board several times as they were going home and stopt the boat. A Cheese hath been taken out of the Press and crumbled all over the floor. A piece of Iron with which they weighed up the Cheese-press stuck into the Wall, and a Kittle hung up thereon. Several Cocks of English-hay1 mowed near the house were taken and hung upon Trees; and some made into small whisps, and put all up and down the Kitchin, Cum multis aliis ,2 etc. After this manner, have they been treated ever since at times; it were endless to particularize. Of late they thought the bitterness of Death had been past, being quiet for sundry dayes and nights : but last week were some Return¬ ings again; and this week (Aug. 2, 1682) as bad^or worse than ever. The Man is sorely hurt with some of the Stones that came on him, and like to feel the effects of them for many dayes.
Thus far is that Relation.
I am moreover informed, that the Daemon was quiet all the last Winter, but in the Spring he began to play some ludi¬ crous tricks, carrying away some Axes that were locked up
1 Doubtless what is now known as “timothy.” In 1807 Kendall found this still called “English grass” in Connecticut.
2 “With many other things.”
1682] I. MATHER, REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
37
safe. This last Summer he has not made such disturbances as formerly. But of this no more at present.1
There have been strange and true Reports concerning a Woman now living near the Salmon Falls in Barwick2 (for¬ merly called Kittery) unto whom Evil Spirits have sometimes visibly appeared; and she has sometimes been sorely tor¬ mented by invisible hands: Concerning all which, an Intelli¬ gent Person has sent me the following Narrative.3
A Brief Narrative of sundry Apparitions of Satan unto and Assaults at sundry times and places upon the Person of Mary the Wife of Antonio Hortado, dwelling near the Salmon Falls: Taken from her own mouth, Aug. 13, 1683.
In June 1682 (the day forgotten) at Evening, the said Mary heard a voice at the door of her Dwelling, saying, What do you here? about an hour after, standing at the Door of her House, she had a blow on her Eye that settled her head near to the Door post, and two or three dayes after, a Stone, as she judged about half a pound or a pound weight, was thrown along the house within into the Chim¬ ney, and going to take it up it was gone; all the Family was in the house, and no hand appearing which might be instrumental in throw¬ ing the stone. About two hours after, a Frying-pan then hanging in the Chimney was heard to ring so loud, that not only those in the house heard it, but others also that lived on the other side of the River near an hundred Rods distant or more. Whereupon the said Mary and her Husband going in a Cannoo over the River, they
1 “As for Walton, the Quaker of Portsmouth, whose house has been so strangely troubled.” adds Mather in the following chapter, “he suspects that one of his neighbours has caused it by witchcraft; she (being a widow-woman) chargeth him with injustice in detaining some land from her. It is none of my work to re¬ flect upon the man, nor will I do it; only, if there be any late or old guilt upon his conscience, it concerns him by confession and repentance to give glory to that God who is able in strange wayes to discover the sins of men” — and see also p. 214.
2 Berwick, on the Maine side of the river.
3 This narrative too came from the Rev. Joshua Moodey (see his letters of July 14 and August 23, 1683 — Mather Papers, pp. 359-361), but at Mather’s instance. “I was very earnest with Mr. Emerson,” writes Moodey, “and at length obtained the enclosed, which I transcribed from Mr. Tho. Broughton, who read to mee what he took from the mouth of the woman and her husband, and judge it credible, though it bee not the half of what is to be gotten. I expect from him a fuller and farther account before I come down to the Commence¬ ment.” John Emerson, the schoolmaster, we shall meet again at Salem (see p. 377, note). Thomas Broughton was a well known Boston merchant, then so¬ journing in New Hampshire.
38
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1683
saw like the head of a man new-shorn, and the tail of a white Cat about two or three foot distance from each other, swimming over before the Cannoo, but no body appeared to joyn head and tail to¬ gether; and they returning over the River in less than an hours time, the said Apparition followed their Cannoo back again, but disap¬ peared at Landing. A day or two after, the said Mary was stricken on her head (as she judged) with a stone, which caused a Swelling and much soreness on her head, being then in the yard by her house, and she presently entring into her house was bitten on both Arms black and blue, and one of her Breasts scratched ; the impressions of the Teeth being like Mans Teeth, were plainly seen by many : Where¬ upon deserting their House to sojourn at a Neighbours on the other side of the River, there appeared to said Mary in the house of her sojourning, a Woman clothed with a green Safeguard, a short blue Cloak, and a white Cap, making a profer to strike her with a Fire¬ brand, but struck her not. The Day following the same shape ap¬ peared again to her, but now arrayed with a gray Gown, white Apron, and white Head-clothes, in appearance laughing several times, but no voice heard. Since when said Mary has been freed from those Satanical Molestations.
But the said Antonio being returned in March last with his Family, to dwell again in his own house, and on his entrance there, hearing the noise of a Man walking in his Chamber, and seeing the boards buckle under his feet as he walked, though no man to be seen in the Chamber (for they went on purpose to look) he returned with his Family to dwell on the other side of the River; yet planting his Ground though he forsook his House, he hath had five Rods of good Log-fence thrown down at once, the feeting of Neat Cattle plainly to be seen almost between every Row of Corn in the Field yet no Cattle seen there, nor any damage done to his Corn, not so much as any of the Leaves of the Corn cropt.
Thus far is that Narrative.
I am further informed, that some (who should have been wiser) advised the poor Woman to stick the House round with Bayes, as an effectual preservative against the power of Evil Spirits. This Counsel was followed. And as long as the Bayes continued green, she had quiet; but when they began to wither, they were all by an unseen hand carried away, and the Woman again tormented.
It is observable, that at the same time three Houses in three several Towns should be molested by Daemons, as has now been related.
THE NEW YORK CASES OF HALL AND HARRISON, 1665, 1670
INTRODUCTION
It is not strange that in the Dutch colony of New Nether- land we hear nothing of witches. The home land of the Dutch had, beyond all others, outgrown the panic. It was a physi¬ cian of Netherlandish birth, Johann Weyer, who in the later sixteenth century first wrote effectively against its cruelties. When his English pupil, Reginald Scot, protested yet more boldly, it was in Holland alone his book found reimpression. So far as is known, the seventeenth century saw there no executions for witchcraft, and after 1610 no trials. If the leaders of Dutch Calvinism were content with silence, the most eloquent spokesman of their Arminian rivals, Episcopius, was a frank disbeliever in the witch-pact and the witch-con¬ fessions. It was his fellow Arminian, Grevius, who first dem¬ onstrated the iniquity of torture, the fruitful source of such confessions throughout Christendom; and that other Dutch¬ man, Balthasar Bekker, who in 1691 struck at the root of the terror by doubting the Devil himself, was but the last of a long line of such bold thinkers. These were of course in ad¬ vance of their fellows; but that Holland was throughout the century a refuge for the victims and the foes of witch-perse¬ cution in neighbor lands would seem to point to a general skepticism, and how cautious, with all their credulity, even Calvinist divines had grown in such an atmosphere, New England learned in 1692 when she asked an opinion from her New York neighbors.1
No wonder, then, that (as Mrs. Van Rensselaer tells us) “the one and only sign of the delusion ... to be found in the
1 Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings, second ser., I. 348-358. See p. 195, below.
41
42
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
annals of the Dutch province is a fear expressed by Governor Kieft that the Indian medicine-men were directing their in¬ cantations against himself.” 1 Accusations of witchcraft the New York jurisdiction did not wholly escape; but they fol¬ lowed the English occupation and were, in differing ways, a legacy from New England. Even the Dutch dominion had included towns peopled from New England; and it was to these that in 1662 (the same year in which, as we have seen, he was interceding with the Connecticut government for his young kinswoman Judith Varlet)2 Governor Stuyvesant found it wise, while granting them their own magistrates and their own courts, to prescribe that “in dark and dubious matters, especially in witchcrafts, the party aggrieved might appeal to the Governor and Council.” 3 But when in 1664 the English king bestowed upon his brother, the Duke of York, the territory occupied by the Dutch colony and equipped him with the means to take it by force, he added to the gift that greater eastern half of Long Island which had not only been settled, but till now had been governed, by the New Englanders. There, from the first, witchcraft was in thought; for the earliest settlement, at Southampton, had adopted for its code the law of Moses as codified by the Rev. John Cot¬ ton, with the death penalty both for witchcraft and for con¬ sulting a witch.4 Already in 1658 Elizabeth Garlick, of Easthampton, had been indicted for witchcraft and sent to Connecticut for trial.5 It is intelligible, therefore, that in
1 History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century, I. 203.
2 See p. 18, note 2.
3 Bolton, History of the County of Westchester (revised ed., New York, 1881), II. 280, quoting vol. XXI. 233-238 of the “Albany Records.”
4 Howell, Southampton, pp. 47, 465; The First Book of Records of the Town of Southampton (Sag Harbor, 1874), p. 18 ff.
6 The evidence against her may be found in the Records of the Town of East- Hampton (Sag Harbor, 1887 ff.), I. 128-140, 152-155, the record of the Connecti¬ cut court (she was acquitted) in the Historical Magazine, VI. 53, and a letter of Governor Winthrop to the Easthamptonians in the Public Records of Connecticut,
INTRODUCTION
43
1665, the very first year of English control at New York, there came up from Seatalcott, or Setauket, the later Brook- haven, whose settlers had been drawn from the region of Boston, a case of witchcraft for trial by the supreme court of the colony, the “ Court of Assizes.” 1
The two documents which make up the extant record of this case, with those relating to a woman who crossed the border after trial for witchcraft in Connecticut, form, so far as is known, the entire witch-annals of the New York prov¬ ince. They must serve us here in lieu of a narrative.
The documents of the Hall case, first printed perhaps in the New York National Advocate (August 2, 1821) and thence borrowed by Niles’s Weekly Register (August 11), were in¬ cluded by Yates (with a part of the Harrison papers) in the appendix to his edition of Smith’s History of New York (Al¬ bany, 1814), and more fully printed by O’Callaghan in his Documentary History of New York (quarto ed., IV. 85-88; octavo ed., IV. 133-138). Those of the Harrison case, more fully ferreted out by Mr. Paltsits, are printed by him with especial care and with valuable notes, in the Minutes of the Executive Council of New York (Albany, 1910), I. 390-395, II. 52-55. The originals of the Hall documents perished in the fire which befell the State Capitol at Albany on March 29, 1911; the Harrison documents were but slightly damaged.
I. 572-573. That Mary Wright, of Oyster Bay, who in 1660 was punished for Quakerism in Boston, was sent thither on a charge of witchcraft, as has been stated, seems contradicted by what we know of her case (see Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts , I., ch. I., sub anno 1660; Bishop, New-England Judged, ed. of 1703, pp. 220, 340, 461; N. Y. Gen. and Biog. Record, III. 37 ff.)
1 This colonial “Court of Assizes” was made up of the governor and his council, with the sheriff of the colony and the justices of the three “ridings.” It was a new creation, and, having come together on September 28 for its first annual session, it found this among its earliest cases. It was, however, with the aid of members of this court that in the preceding winter Governor Nicolls had drawn the code — “the Duke’s Laws,” as they were to be called — which now governed the colony.
THE CASES OF HALL AND HARRISON
At the Court of Assizes held in New Yorke the 2d day of October 1665 etc.
The Try all of Ralph Hall and Mary his wife , upon suspicion
of Witchcraft.1
The names of the Persons who served on the Grand Jury.2
Thomas Baker, Foreman of the Jury, of East Hampton.
Capt John Symonds of Hempsteed.
Mr Hallet
Anthony Waters
Jamaica
1 Their troubles antedated the change in government, and it would seem that at first their neighbors were on their side; for, under date of June 9, 1664, the town records recite that “The magistrates haveing Considdered the Com- plaintes of Hall and his wife against mr. Smith, doo judge the sayde mr. Smith hath not suffitienly made good what he hath sd. of her, and therefore mr. Smith is orderred to pay the woman five markes.” {Records, Town of Brookhaven, up to 1800, Patchogue, 1880, p. 38.) But they had made a dangerous foe, for at Setauket “Mr.” Smith could then hardly have meant any other than that well- known Long Island character, Richard Smith, the founder of Smithtown, who had himself at Boston and at Southampton experienced imprisonment and banishment for Quakerism or Quakerly behavior, but was now a man of note in his region — the “Bull” Smith of local legend. (Bishop, New England Judged, ed. of 1703, p. 11; Howell, Early History of Southampton, L. /., second ed., Albany, 1887, p. 438; Early Long Island Wills, New York, 1897, p. 78 ff.)
2 Of this jury only the foreman was from the part of Long Island just gained from New England. The four next named, though English, were from those western townships which under Dutch rule had been a place of refuge for sectaries of every sort. “Mr. Hallet” was probably William Hallett, the sheriff who in 1656 had lost his place by opening his house to Baptist preaching. Most puzzling is “Mr. Nicolls of Stamford” — for Stamford was not even claimed by the New York province. Can it be that William Nicolls (son of Matthias Nicolls, now secretary of the province and a member of the court), who was later to have so large a place in New York history, had temporarily established himself at Stamford, on the border? Notable among the six New Yorkers is the name of Jacob Leisler, later to play so strange a role.
44
1665]
NEW YORK CASES
45
of New Yorke.
to the Barr by Allard An-
Thomas Wandall of Marshpath1 Kills.
Mr Nicolls of Stamford Balthazer de Haart John Garland Jacob Leisler Anthonio de Mill Alexander Munro Thomas Searle
The Prisoners being brough thony, Sheriffe of New Yorke, This following Indictmt was read, first against Ralph Hall and then agst Mary his wife, vizt.
The Constable and Overseers of the Towne of Seatallcott, in the East Riding of Yorkshire2 upon Long Island, Do Pre¬ sent for our Soveraigne Lord the King, That Ralph Hall of Seatallcott aforesaid, upon the 25th day of December, being Christmas day last was Twelve Monthes,3 in the 15th yeare of the Raigne of our Soveraigne Lord, Charles the Second, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc, and severall other dayes and times since that day, by some detestable and wicked Arts, commonly called Witchcraft and Sorcery, did (as is sus¬ pected) maliciously and feloniously, practice and Exercise at the said towne of Seatalcott in the East Riding of Yorkshire on Long Island aforesaid, on the Person of George Wood, late of the same place, by wch wicked and detestable Arts, the said George Wood (as is suspected) most dangerously and mortally sickned and languished, And not long after by the aforesaid wicked and detestable Arts, the said George Wood (as is likewise suspected) dyed.
Moreover, The Constable and overseers of the said Towne of Seatalcott, in the East Riding of Yorkshire upon Long Island aforesaid, do further Present for our Soveraigne Lord the King, That some while after the death of the aforesaid
1 Maspeth.
2 When, in honor of its new proprietor, New Amsterdam became New York, Long Island was for the same reason named “Yorkshire.” Its “East Riding” was the portion, now Suffolk county, which had hitherto been New England’s.
* /. e., a year ago last Christmas — December 25, 1663: the years of Charles II.’s reign were reckoned from the death of his father.
46
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1665
George Wood, The said Ralph Hall did (as is suspected) divers times by the like wicked and detestable Arts, commonly called Witchcraft and Sorcery, Maliciously and feloniously practise and Exercise at the said Towne of Seatalcott, in the East Riding of Yorkshire upon Long Island aforesaid, on the Person of an Infant Childe of Ann Rogers, widdow of the aforesaid George Wood deceased, by wh wicked and detest¬ able Arts, the said Infant Childe (as is suspected) most dan¬ gerously and mortally sickned and languished, and not long after by the said Wicked and detestable Arts (as is likewise suspected) dyed, And so the said Constable and Overseers do Present, That the said George Wood, and the sd Infante sd1 Childe by the wayes and meanes aforesaid, most wickedly maliciously and feloniously were (as is suspected) murdered by the said Ralph Hall at the times and places aforesaid, agst the Peace of Our Soveraigne Lord the King and against the Laws of this Government in such Cases Provided.2
The like Indictmt was read, against Mary the wife of Ralph Hall.
There upon, severall Depositions, accusing the Prisonrs of the fact for which they were endicted were read, but no witnesse appeared to give Testimony in Court viva voce.
Then the Clarke3 calling upon Ralph Hall, bad him hold up his hand, and read as followes.
Ralph Hall thou standest here indicted, for that having not the feare of God before thine eyes, Thou did’st upon the 25th day of December, being Christmas day last was 12 Moneths, and at sev’all other times since, as is suspected, by some wicked and detestable Arts, commonly called witchcraft and Sorcery, maliciously and feloniously practice and Exer-
1 This repetition of “sd” is clearly accidental.
2 “The Laws of this Government” — “the Duke’s laws,” as they were later called — had been drawn up in the preceding winter by Governor Nicolls himself, with the aid of other members of this court; and, though based on those of the New England colonies, they omitted all mention of witchcraft. That was sig¬ nificant; but it meant only that there was no provision for its punishment per se, as insult to the majesty of Heaven: harm wrought by witchcraft, whether to person or property, was covered by the general statutes, and where, as in this case, the harm charged was death, the offense (as the indictment shows) was accounted murder.
3 The clerk.
1668]
NEW YORK CASES
47
cise, upon the Bodyes of George Wood, and an Infant Childe of Ann Rogers, by which said Arts, the said George Wood and the Infant Childe (as is suspected) most dangerously and mor¬ tally fell sick, and languisht unto death. Ralph Hall, what dost thou say for thyselfe, art thou guilty, or not guilty?
Mary the wife of Ralph Hall was called upon in like man¬ ner.
They both Pleaded not guilty and threw themselves to bee Tryed by God and the Country.
Where upon, their Case was referred to the Jury, who brought in to the Court, this following verdict vizt.1
Wee having seriously considered the Case committed to our Charge, against the Prisonrs at the Barr, and having well weighed the Evidence, wee fmde that there are some suspi- tions by the Evidence, of what the woman is Charged with, but nothing considerable of value to take away her life. But in reference to the man wee finde nothing considerable to charge him with.
The Court there upon, gave this sentence, That the man should bee bound Body and Goods for his wives Apperance, at the next Sessions, and so on from Sessions to Sessions as long as they stay wthin this Government, In the meane while, to bee of their good Behavior. So they were return’d into the Sheriffs Custody, and upon Entring into a Recognizance, according to the Sentence of the Court, they were released.
A Release to Ralph Hall and Mary his wife from the Recog¬ nizance they entred into at the Assizes.
These Are to Certify all whom it may Concerne That Ralph Hall and Mary his wife (at present living upon Great Minifords Island)2 are hereby released and acquitted from any and all Recognizances, bonds of appearance or othr obli¬ gations — entred into by them or either of them for the peace or good behavior upon account of any accusation or Indic- temt upon suspition of Witch Craft brought into the Cort of Assizes against them in the year 1665. There haveving beene no direct proofes nor furthr prosecucion of them or
1 Videlicet , “to wit”: we now abbreviate it by “viz.”
* Now “City Island” — in Long Island Sound, at its western end.
48
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1670
eithr of them since. — Given undr my hand at Fort James in New Yorke this 21th day of August 1668.
R. Nicolls.
At the Fort July 7th 1670.
Before the Governor.
Upon the Complaint of Thomas Hunt Sen’r and Edward Waters on behalfe of the Towne of West Chester against a Woman suspected for a Witch who they desire may not live in their Towne; The Woman appeares with Capt. Ponton1 to justify her selfe; her Name is Katharine Harryson.2
Their Peticion, as also another from Jamaica against her settling there were read.
Shee saith shee hath lived at Wethersfield 19 yeares, and came from England thither; Shee was in Prison 12 Months.
Shee was tryed for Witchcraft at Hartford in May last, found guilty by the Jury, but acquitted by the Bench, and released out of Prison, putting her in minde of her Promise to remove.3
1 Captain Richard Panton, of West Chester, in whose home she had found shelter.
2 Katharine Harrison was the widow of John Harrison, of Wethersfield, who died in 1666, leaving her an ample estate and three daughters. Rebecca, the eldest (born February 10, 1654), became at some time before June 28, 1671, the wife of Josiah Hunt of West Chester, or Westchester, son of that Thomas Hunt who now (July 7) is named as a complainant against her on behalf of that town, but in a following document (August 24) appears on her behalf. It is possible that this marriage antedated her coming to West Chester and explains it, but more likely that it was a result of it and explains the changing attitude of Thomas Hunt. (See Adams and Stiles, History of Ancient Wethersfield, New York, 1904, 1. 682, II. 416; N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register , XVIII. 58; N. Y. Gen. and Biog. Record, XLIII. 117; N. Y. Executive Council Minutes, I. 53, note.)
3 There then follows a transcript, from the records of the Connecticut Court of Assistants, of this action in her case— in its session of May 20, 1670. The documents of her trial, still extant at Hartford in the records of the county court and in those of the Court of Assistants (I. 1-7), and in part printed in the Connecticut Colonial Records (II. 118, 132), in Adams and Stiles, Ancient Wethers¬ field (I. 682-684), and in Taylor, The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (New York, 1908), pp. 47-61, show that she was imprisoned and indicted in May, 1669, tried in October and found guilty by a jury, but by a special Court of As¬ sistants, to which the General Assembly had referred the matter with power, was in May, 1670, dismissed, as stated above, with a reminder of her promise to leave Wethersfield.
1670]
NEW YORK CASES
49
An Ordr for Katherine Harrison to Remove from Westchestr.
Whereas Complaint hath beene made unto me by the In¬ habitants of Westchestr agt Katherine Harrison late of Weth- ersfeild in his Ma’ties Colony of Conecticott widdow. That contrary to the consent and good liking of the Towne she would settle amongst them and she being reputed to be a person lyeing undr the Supposicion of Witchcraft hath given some cause of apprehension to the Inhabitants there, To the end their Jealousyes and feares as to this perticuler may be removed, I have thought fitt to ordr and appoint that the Constable and Overseers of the Towne of Westchestr do give warning to the said Katherine Harrison to remove out of their precincts in some short tyme after notice given, and they are likewise to admonish her to retorne to the place of her former abode, that they nor their neighbours may receive no furthr disturbance by her. Given undr my hand at Fort James in New Yorke this 7th day of July 1670.
[Francis Lovelace].
An Ordr for Katherine Harrison and Captn Richard Panton to appeare at the Fort before the Governor.
Whereas Complaint hath beene made unto me by the Inhabitants of Westchestr agt Katherine Harrison widdow That she doth neglect or refuse to obey my late Ordr con¬ cerning her removall out of the said Towne, These are to re¬ quire you that you give notice unto the said Katherine Har¬ rison as also unto Captn Richard Panton at whose house she resydeth, That they make their personall appearance before me in this place on Wednesday next being the 24th of this Instant month, when those of the Towne that have ought to object agt them doe likewise attend, where I shall endeavor a Composure of this difference betweene them. Given undr my hand at Fort James in New Yorke this 20th day of Au¬ gust 1670.
[Francis Lovelace.]
To the Constable of Westchestr.
50
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1670
Pres’t At the Fort. Aug: 24th 1670.
The Governour
Mr. Delavall
The Secretary
The Matter to bee considered of is the Complaint of the Towne of West-chest er against Katharine Harryson Widdow suspected of Witch-craft etc :
They being all appointed to appeare before the Governour this day;
There appeared for the Towne Edward Waters Constable and John Quinby;
For the Woman Capt. Ponton, Thomas Hunt Senr, and Junr, Roger Townsend, and one More.1
Capt. Ponton produced a Lett’r from Capt. Talcott2 to him in Justification of the Womans Innocency, and another Letter from John Allen Secretary of Connecticott Governm’t, in excuse of not sending the Womans Papers.
Josiah Willard3 being desired to say what hee knew con¬ cerning the Woman, making Relation of what is certifyed by Mr. Allen, hee is one of that Governm’t that knew of her Arraignment, and was spoken to (that hee would bee present) by the Constable, but hath nothing to say further.
It being taken into Consideracion, It is Ordered that the Discussion of this Matter bee referrd to the next Gen[er]al Court of Assizes; In the meane time that shee give Security for her good Behaviour, during the time of her Abode amongst them at West-Chester.
A warrant to the Constable of Westchestr to take an Account of the Goods of Katherine Harrison.
These are to require you to take an Account of such Goods as have lately beene brought from out of his Ma’ties Colony of Conecticott unto Katherine Harrison, and having taken a
1 1, e., one more appeared.
2 Captain John Talcott, then treasurer of the Connecticut colony, was one of its foremost men. He was a member of the Court of Assistants, and was doubtless largely responsible for its action. He was well known at West Chester, for in 1663 at the head of a troop from Connecticut he had taken the place from the Dutch.
3 Of Wethersfield — a trader, and doubtless here on some mercantile errand. He was a brother of the Rev. Samuel Willard, whom we have met (pp. 21-22) and shall meet again.
1670]
NEW YORK CASES
51
Note of the perticulers that you retorne the Same unto me for the doeing whereof this shall be yor warrant. Given undr my hand at Fort James in New Yorke this 25th day of August 1670.
[Francis Lovelace.]
To the present Constable of Westchester.
An Ordr concerning Katherine Harrison .
Whereas severall Adresses have beene made unto me by some of the Inhabitants of Westchestr on behalf e of the rest desiring that Katherine Harrison late of Wethersfeild in his Ma’ties Colony of Connecticott widdow at present residing in their Towne may be ordered to remove from thence and not permitted to stay wthin their Jurisdiction upon an apprehen¬ sion they have of her grounded upon some troubles she hath layne undr at Wethersfeild upon suspition of Witchcraft, the reasons whereof do not so clearly appeare unto me, Yett not- wthstanding to give as much satisfaction as may be to the Complts1 who pretend their feares to be of a publique Con- cerne, I have not thought fitt absolutely to determyne the mattr at present, but do suspend it untill the next Genrll Cort of Assizes, when there will be a full meeting of the Coun¬ cell and Justices of the peace to debate and conclude the same. In the meane tyme the said Katherine Harrison wth her Children may remaine in the Towne of Westchestr where she now is wthout disturbance or molestation, she having given sufficient security for her Civill carriage and good be¬ haviour. Given undr my hand at Fort James in New York this 25th day of August in the 22th yeare of his Ma’ties Raigne Annoq.* Domini 1670. [Feancis Lovelace.]
Anno 1670.
Appeals, Actions , Presentmts etc . Entredfor Hearing and Tryall at the Gen[er]all Cort of Assizes to bee held in New Yorke be¬ ginning on the first Wednesday of Octobr 1670.
Katherine Harryson bound over to appeare upon the Complt of the Inhabitants of Westchester upon suspicion of Witch-craft.
1 Complainants.
1 1. e.t “ and in the year of Our Lord” : the q stands for the enclitic que, and.
52
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES (1670
In the case of Katherine Harryson Widdow, who was bound to the good Behaviour upon Complt of some of the Inhabitants of Westchester untill the holding of this Court, It is Ordered, that in regard there is nothing appears against her deserving the continuance of that obligacion shee is to bee releast from it, and hath Liberty to remaine in the Towne of Westchester where shee now resides, or any where else in the Governmt during her pleasure.1
[Francis Lovelace.]
1 Alas, it is to be feared that her neighbors did not make her life happy. Certain documents as to her property (printed in the N. Y. Executive Council Minutes , II. 393-395) make it probable that she left Westchester in May; and an entry of May 9, 1672, in the records (yet unpublished) of the Connecticut Court of Assistants — “The court upon acc’* of work done by Katherin Harrison for Daniel Gerrad doe see cause to remit of the five pounds Katherin Harrison is to pay Dan’ll Gerrad Twenty Shillings’’ — may mean that she was permitted to return to Hartford, though perhaps it refers to work done while she was in custody. In any case, she was in New York later, for, “during the temporary occupation of New York by the Dutch in 1673, an accusation was brought against her before Governor Colve, but was promptly and contemptuously dismissed” (Drake, Annals of Witchcraft , Boston, 1869, pp. 133-134; Levermore, “Witch¬ craft in Connecticut,” in the New Englander, XLIV. 812).
LITHOBOLIA, BY RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN,
1698
INTRODUCTION
That the “R. C. Esq.” who in 1698 published at London the following narrative was Richard Chamberlain, sometime secretary of the province of New Hampshire, is beyond all doubt. His own statement that he was in that province in His Majesty’s service, and lodged at George Walton’s, in a year easily recognized by internal evidence as 1682, would suffice to identify him; for not only was there no other “R. C.” in that well-known circle, but the Puritan pastor at Ports¬ mouth, writing at that very time of this very episode (see p. 35, above), makes the secretary a lodger at George Walton’s and a source of information as to these happenings. Nor can this story be any bookseller’s expansion of the narrative then published; for its mass of added detail squares not less per¬ fectly with every local tradition. If “ the Contents hereof ” are not now to be found in the records of His Majesty’s “ Council-Court held for that province,” where Chamberlain himself doubtless inscribed them, it is amply explained by the mutilation and scattering of those records; and enough remains (see p. 31, note) to show the affair matter of record.
There was reason, too, why precisely Richard Chamber- lain should have been one of the objects of such wrath, human or infernal, as found utterance in this “stonery.” It was the very crisis of a dispute that for half a century had disturbed the peace of New Hampshire. John Mason, to whom in 1629 that region had been granted and who in 1631 had under¬ taken its settlement, had died in 1635 without making ade¬ quate provision for its administration. The multiplying col-
55
56
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES
onists, who even before and during his personal control had occupied lands by other title than his grant, now ignored his claims; and the widow and infant grandchildren who were his heirs soon left them wholly to their own devices. The growing Puritan element leaned on the neighboring Massa¬ chusetts, and that colony discovered that its own charter could be interpreted to include the territory now settled in New Hampshire. Lands were thenceforward often granted by the Boston government, and oftener by the town authorities set up by it in New Hampshire; and the feeble protests of the Mason heirs found little hearing, the political changes in England making it impossible to enforce them. But with the Restoration, in 1660, matters changed, and by 1680 Robert Mason had not only won from a venal court the rejection of the Massachusetts claim and full recognition of his proprietor¬ ship in New Hampshire, but was given a seat in the Council of the royal province into which the colony was now recon¬ stituted and was permitted to nominate its governor and sec¬ retary. A governor was not at once found; but as its secre¬ tary he named Richard Chamberlain.
Of Chamberlain’s history we know little. The Lords of Trade had stipulated that the new secretary should be “well versed in the law,” and there can be little doubt that he was that “Richard Chamberlayne, son and heir of William C., of London, gent.,” who in May, 1651, was admitted to Gray’s Inn (not six months after Mason’s all-powerful kinsman and adviser, Edward Randolph), who was “ called to the bar 11 Nov. 1659, ancient 17 April 1676,” and whose daughter Elizabeth was in 1695 wedded to that “much Honoured Mart. Lumley, Esq.,” to whom he dedicates this booklet. If so he was of a good family, whose pedigree can be traced for several genera¬ tions in the visitations of the heralds. Perhaps already an acquaintance of Mason, he soon became his intimate friend. They crossed the sea together, arriving in New Hampshire
INTRODUCTION
57
in December, 1680, and at once entering on their functions in the government. Though outvoted in the Council, Mason proceeded to the enforcement of his territorial claims, and soon by his demands, however legal, earned fear and hate not only for himself but for Chamberlain, who was believed to have instigated them. The colonists were left their improved lands, on payment of a moderate quit-rent; but all wild lands, including their pastures and their woodlands, Mason counted his, to grant at will. But the colonists, except a few Quakers, stoutly held out, and Mason returned to England to urge his case, leaving Chamberlain to bear the brunt. The latter had his abode on Great Island, under the guns of the fort, at the house of the Quaker George Walton; and it is there, in the summer of 1682, that the following narrative has its scene.
The booklet is now very rare, and this is probably the first complete reimpression of it. With the exception of the pref¬ atory matter it was, however, reprinted in 1861 in the His¬ torical Magazine , V. 321-327.
LITHOBOLIA
Lithobolia: or, the Stone-Throwing Devil . Being an Exact and True Account (by way of Journal) of the various Actions of Infernal Spirits, or ( Devils Incarnate) Witches, or both; and the great Disturbance and Amazement they gave to George Waltons Family, at a place calVd Great Island in the Province of New-Hantshire in New-England, chiefly in Throwing about (by an Invisible hand) Stone, Bricks, and Brick-bats of all Sizes, with several other things, as Hammers , Mauls, Iron-Crows, Spits, and other Domestick Utensils, as came into their Hellish Minds, and this for the space of a Quarter of a Year.
By R. C. Esq; who was a Sojourner in the same Family the whole time, and an Ocular Witness of these Diabolick Inventions.
The Contents hereof being manifestly known to the Inhabitants of that Province , and Persons of other Provinces, and is upon Record in his Majesties Council-Court held for that Province. London, Printed, and are to be Sold by E. Whitlook near Stationer s-H all, 1698.1
To The much Honoured Mart. Lumley, Esq;2
Sir,
As the subsequent Script deserves not to be called a Book, so these precedent Lines presume not to a Dedication: But, Sir, it is an occasion that I am ambitious to lay hold on, to discover to You by this Epitome (as it were) the propension
1 Title-page of the briginal.
2 Martin Lumley, Esq. (1662-1710) son of Sir Martin Lumley, of Great Bardfield, Essex, himself succeeded to that baronetcy in 1702. When Lithobolia was written he had probably just become a kinsman of the author; for in 1695 he married for his second wife “Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Chamberlayn of Gray’s Inn.” (See article of J. W. Dean, in N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register , XLIIL 183-185.)
58
1698]
LITHOBOLIA
59
and inclination I have to give a more full and perfect demon¬ stration of the Honour, Love, and Service, I own (as I think my self oblig’d) to have for You. To a Sober, Judicious, and well Principled Person, such as your Self, plain Truths are much more agreeable than the most charming and surprising Romance or Novel, with all the strange turns and events. That this is of the first sort, (as I have formerly upon Record attested) I do now aver and protest ; yet neither is it less strange than true, and so may be capable of giving you some Diver¬ sion for an hour: For this interruption of your more serious ones, I cannot doubt your candor and clemency, in pardoning it, that so well know (and do most sensibly acknowledg) your high Worth and Goodness; and that the Relation I am Digni¬ fied with, infers a mutual Patronization.
Sir, I am
Your most Humble Servant,
r. a
To the much Honoured R. F. Esq;1
To tell strange feats of Daemons, here I am;
Strange, but most true they are, ev’n to a Dram,
Tho’ Sadduceans cry, ’tis all a Sham.
Here’s Stony Arg’uments of persuasive Dint,
They’l not believe it, told, nor yet in Print :
What should the Reason be? The Devil’s in’t.
And yet they wish to be convinc’d by Sight,
Assur’d by Apparition of a Sprite;
But Learned Brown2 doth state the matter right :
Satan will never Instrumental be
Of so much Good, to’ Appear to them ; for he
Hath them sure by their Infidelity.
But you, my Noble Friend, know better things;
Your Faith, mounted on Religions Wings,
Sets you above the Clouds whence Error springs,
1 “R. F., Esq.,” has not been identified.
2 Sir Thomas Browne. See his Religio Medici, pt. I., § 30.
60
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
Your Soul reflecting on this lower Sphear,
Of froth and vanity, joys oft to hear
The Sacred Ora’cles, where all Truths appear,
Which will Conduct out of this Labyrinth of Night, And lead you to the source of Intellectual Light.
Which is the Hearty Prayer of
Your most faithful Humble Servant,
R. C.
Lithobolia: or , the Stone-throwing Devil, etc.
Such is the Sceptical Humour of this Age for Incredulity, (not to say Infidelity,) That I wonder they do not take up and profess, in terms, the Pyrrhonian Doctrine of disbelieving their very Senses. For that which I am going to relate hap¬ pening to cease in the Province of New-Hampshire in America, just upon that Governour’s Arrival and Appearance at the Council there, who was informed by my self, and several other Gentlemen of the Council, and other considerable Persons, of the true and certain Reality hereof, yet he continued tenacious in the Opinion that we were all imposed upon by the waggery of some unlucky Boys;1 which, considering the Circumstances and Passages hereafter mentioned, was altogether impossible.
I have a Wonder to relate; for such (I take it) is so to be termed whatsoever is Preternatural, and not assignable to, or the effect of, Natural Causes: It is a Lithobolia,2 or Stone¬ throwing, which happened by Witchcraft (as was supposed) and maliciously perpetrated by an Elderly Woman, a Neigh¬ bour suspected, and (I think) formerly detected for such kind of Diabolical Tricks and Practises;3 and the wicked Instiga-
1 Edward Cranfield, first royal governor of New Hampshire. He arrived in October, 1682, and left in June, 1685. Though Mason’s nominee, he for some time leaned to the side of the colonists against the methods of Mason and Cham¬ berlain.
2 “Lithobolia” is, of course, only Greek for “ stone-throwing.”
3 Who she was it is not hard to guess. On July 4, 1682, Hannah Jones begged the “advice and relief” of the President and Council “in regard of George Walton’s dealing with her, who falsely accuseth her of what she is clear of, and hath so far prevailed that upon that account your humble petitioner is bound in a bond of the peace; since which said Walton’s horse breaks into her pasture and
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
61
tion did arise upon the account of some small quantity of Land in her Field, which she pretended was unjustly taken into the Land of the Person where the Scene of this Matter lay, and was her Right; she having been often very clamor¬ ous about that Affair, and heard to say, with much Bitterness, that her Neighbour ( innuendo 1 the fore-mentioned Person, his Name George Walton)2 should never quietly injoy that
doth her damage.” (Provincial Records, in New Hampshire Hist. Soc., Collec¬ tions, VIII. 99.) Of her being “formerly detected” in witchcraft there is no record; but she was a daughter of Thomas Walford, and her mother, Jane Wal- ford, had in 1656 been tried for witchcraft, and, though cleared, found it necessary in 1669 to bring an action for slander against a physician who again accused her. (N. H. Hist. Soc., Collections, I. 255-257; Documents and Records relating to the Province of New Hampshire, I. 217-219; Probate Records of the Province of New Hampshire, I. 87-92, 222-224.) Jane Walford was now dead ( Probate Records, I. 92); but there was reason enough for George Walton to fear the malice of her daughter. For Thomas Walford, a blacksmith who in 1623 had come with Gorges to Weymouth, who had later become the earliest settler in Charlestown, and who in 1631, expelled from the Bay for his Anglican tenets, had found a refuge at Portsmouth, had prospered at last, and at his death in 1666 left to his heirs broad acres. But these lands were among those forfeit to the Mason claim, and Walton was a buyer. ( Probate Records, I. 299, and cf. p. 37, above, note 1.) Now that the government was passing into the hands of the Mason party, what hope was there except from Heaven or Hell? “Your petitioner,” prayed Hannah Jones, “being under bond, knows not what to do to help herself.” It was doubtless Secretary Chamberlain who as a justice had put her under bond; but the planters still had a majority in the Council, and Good wife Jones was ordered to complain to Captain Stileman “if she be at any time, during her being bound to the good behavior, injured by the said Geo. Walton.” Her complaint came : on August 31 Elizabeth Clark, aged forty-two, made affidavit to Deputy-President Stileman “that she heard George Walton say that he believed in his heart and conscience that Grandma Jones was a witch, and would say so to his dying day.” But Wal¬ ton, too, had evidence to offer: on September 4 Samuel Clark testified “that he was present when Goody Jones and Geo. Walton were talking together, and he heard the said Goody Jones call the said Walton a wizzard, and that she said, if he told her of her mother, she would throw stones at his head, and this was on Friday, the 25th of August, 1682.” And other witnesses testified that on that day “they saw several stones to fly,” though they “saw no hand or person to throw them,” and that “the said George Walton was hit several times.” (Pro¬ vincial Records, in N. H. Hist Soc., Collections, VIII. 99-100.) But this is to anticipate the relation.
1 “Hinting at.”
2 As to Walton see introduction and p. 35, note 1, above. A letter from the Rev. Lucius Alden, of Newcastle, printed in 1862 in the Historical Magazine, VI. 159, describes his house and its site and identifies other people and places mentioned in this narrative.
62
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
piece of Ground. Which, as it has confirm'd my self and others in the Opinion that there are such things as Witches, and the Effects of Witchcraft, or at least of the mischievous Actions of Evil Spirits; which some do as little give Credit to, as in the Case of Witches, utterly rejecting both their Operations and their Beings, we having been Eye-Witnesses of this Matter almost every Day for a quarter of a Year together; so it may be a means to rectifie the depraved Judgment and Sentiments of other disbelieving Persons, and absolutely convince them of their Error, if they please to hear, without prejudice, the plain, but most true Narration of it; which was thus.
Some time ago being in America (in His then Majesty's Service) I was lodg'd in the said George Walton's House, a Planter there, and on a Sunday Night,1 about Ten a Clock, many Stones were heard by my self, and the rest of the Family, to be thrown, and (with Noise) hit against the top and all sides of the House, after he the said Walton had been at his Fence-Gate, which was between him and his Neighbour one John Amazeen an Italian,2 to view it; for it was again, as formerly it had been (the manner how being unknown) wrung off the Hinges, and cast upon the Ground; and in his being there, and return home with several Persons of (and frequent¬ ing) his family and House, about a flight shot distant from the Gate, they were all assaulted with a peal of Stones, (taken, we conceive, from the Rocks hard by the House) and this by unseen Hands or Agents. For by this time I was come down to them, having risen out of my Bed at this strange Alarm of all that were in the House, and do know that they all look'd out as narrowly as I did, or any Person could (it being a bright Moon-light Night), but cou'd make no Discovery. There¬ upon, and because there came many Stones, and those pretty great ones, some as big as my Fist, into the Entry or Porch of the House, we withdrew into the next Room to the Porch,
1 June 11, 1682. See p. 35, above, and Mather Papers, p. 361.
2 “John the Greek,” as he was called, the illiterate constable of Great Island, was one of the most stubborn in refusing to pay dues to Mason. He had married the widow of Jeremiah Walford (Hannah Jones’s brother) and was the guardian of his son and estate. {Probate Records , I. 222-224; Provincial Records, in N. H. Hist. Soc., Collections, I. 71, 118.)
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
63
no Person having receiv’d any Hurt, (praised be Almighty Providence, for certainly the infernal Agent, constant Enemy to Mankind, had he not been over-ruled, intended no less than Death or Maim) save only that two Youths were lightly hit, one on the Leg, the other on the Thigh, notwithstanding the Stones came so thick, and so forcibly against the sides of so narrow a Room. Whilst we stood amazed at this Accident, one of the Maidens imagined she saw them come from the Hall, next to that we were in, where searching, (and in the Cellar, down out of the Hall,) and finding no Body, another and my self observed two little Stones in a short space succes¬ sively to fall on the Floor, coming as from the Ceiling close by us, and we concluded it must necessarily be done by means extraordinary and preternatural. Coming again into the Room where we first were (next the Porch), we had many of these lapidary Salutations, but unfriendly ones; for, shutting the Door, it was no small Surprise to me to have a good big Stone come with great force and noise (just by my Head) against the Door on the inside; and then shutting the other Door, next the Hall, to have the like Accident; so going out again, upon a necessary Occasion, to have another very near my Body, clattering against the Board-wall of the House; but it was a much greater, to be so near the danger of having my Head broke with a Mall, or great Hammer brushing along the top or roof of the Room from the other end, as I was walk¬ ing in it, and lighting down by me; but it fell so, that my Landlord had the greatest damage, his Windows (especially those of the first mention’d Room) being with many Stones miserably and strangely batter’d, most of the Stones giving the Blow on the inside, and forcing the Bars, Lead, and hasps of the Casements outwards, and yet falling back (sometimes a Yard or two) into the Room; only one little Stone we took out of the glass of the Window, where it lodg’d its self in the breaking it, in a Hole exactly fit for the Stone. The Pewter and Brass were frequently pelted, and sometimes thrown down upon the Ground; for the Evil Spirit seemed then to affect variety of Mischief, and diverted himself at this end after he had done so much Execution at the other. So were two Candle¬ sticks, after many hittings, at last struck off the Table where they stood, and likewise a large Pewter Pot, with the force of
64
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
these Stones. Some of them were taken up hot, and (it seems) immediately coming out of the Fire; and some (which is not unremarkable) having been laid by me upon the Table along by couples, and numbred, were found missing; that is, two of them, as we return’d immediately to the Table, having turn’d our backs only to visit and view some new Stone-charge or Window-breach; and this Experiment was four or five times repeated, and I still found one or two missing of the Number, which we all mark’d, when I did but just remove the Light from off the Table, and step to the Door, and back again.
After this had continued in all the parts and sides of the first Room (and down the Chimney) for above four hours, I, weary of the Noise, and sleepy, went to Bed, and was no sooner fallen asleep, but was awakened with the unwelcome disturbance of another Battery of a different sort, it issuing with so prodigious a Noise against the thin Board-wall of my Chamber (which was within another) that I could not imagin it less than the fracture and downfall of great part of the Chamber, or at least of the Shelves, Books, Pictures, and other things, placed on that side, and on the Partition- Wall between the Anti-Chamber and the Door of mine. But the Noise immediately bringing up the Company below, they assured me no Mischief of that nature was done, and shewed me the biggest Stone that had as yet been made use of in this unac¬ countable Accident, weighing eight pound and an half, that had burst open my Chamber Door with a rebound from the Floor, as by the Dent and Bruise in it near the Door I found next Morning, done, probably, to make the greater Noise, and give the more Astonishment, which would sooner be effected by three Motions, and consequently three several Sounds, viz. one on the Ground, the next to and on the Door, and the last from it again to the Floor, then if it had been one single Blow upon the Door only; which (’tis probable) wou’d have split the Door, which was not permitted, nor so much as a square of the Glass-Window broken or crack’d (at that time) in all the Chamber. Glad thereof, and desiring them to leave me, and the Door shut, as it was before, I endeavoured once more to take my Rest, and was once more prevented by the like passage, with another like offensive Weapon, it being a whole Brick that lay in the anti-Chamber Chimney, and used
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
65
again to the same malicious purpose as before, and in the same manner too, as by the mark in the Floor, whereon was some of the dust of the Brick, broken a little at the end, apparant next Morning, the Brick it self lying just at the Door. How¬ ever, after I had lain a while, harkning to their Adventures below, I drop’d asleep again, and receiv’d no further Moles¬ tation that Night.
In the Morning (Monday Morning) I was inform’d by sev¬ eral of the Domesticks of more of the same kind of Trouble; among which the most signal was, the Vanishing of the Spit which stood in the Chimney Corner, and the sudden coming of it again down the same Chimney, sticking of it in a Log that lay in the Fireplace or Hearth; and then being by one of the Family set by on the other side of the Chimney, pres¬ ently cast out of the Window into the Back-side. Also a pressing-iron lying on the ledge of the Chimney back, was convey’d invisibly into the Yard. I should think it (too) not unworthy the Relation, that, discoursing then with some of the Family, and others, about what had past, I said, I thought it necessary to take and keep the great Stone, as a Proof and Evidence, for they had taken it down from my Chambers; and so I carried it up, laid it on my Table in my Chamber, and lock’d my Door, and going out upon occasions, and soon returning, I was told by my Landlady that it was, a little while after my going forth, removed again, with a Noise, which they all below heard, and was thrown into the anti- Chamber, and there I found it lying in the middle of it ; there¬ upon I the second time carried it up, and laid it on the Table, and had it in my Custody a long time to show, for the Satis¬ faction of the Curious.
There were many more Stones thrown about in the House that Morning, and more in the Fields that Day, where the Master of the House was, and the Men at Work. Some more Mr. Woodbridge,1 a Minister, and my self, in the Afternoon
1 The Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, who had begun in 1680 at Bristol, Rhode Island, his career as a preacher, but had dissatisfied a part of his flock {Mather Papers, pp. 695-696), and seems to have been seeking a fresh one in the north. It was through him that Pastor Moodey of Portsmouth sought, for Increase Mather’s Providences, an account of the happenings on Great Island. (See above, p. 34, note 2, and Mather Papers, p. 360.)
66
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES {1682
did see (but could not any Hand throwing them) lighting near, and jumping and tumbling on the Grass: So did one Mrs. Clark, and her Son, and several others; and some of them felt them too. One Person would not be perswaded but that the Boys at Work might throw them, and strait her little Boy standing by her was struck with a Stone on the Back, which caused him to fall a crying, and her (being convinc’d) to carry him away forth-with.
In the Evening, as soon as I had sup’d in the outer Room before mine, I took a little Musical-Instrument, and began to touch it (the Door indeed was then set open for Air), and a good big Stone came rumbling in, and as it were to lead the Dance, but upon a much different account than in the days of Old, and of old fabulous Inchantments, my Musick being none of the best. The Noise of this brought up the Deputy- President’s Wife,1 and many others of the Neighbourhood that were below, who wonder’d to see this Stone followed (as it were) by many others, and a Pewter Spoon among the rest, all which fell strangely into the Room in their Presence, and were taken up by the Company. And beside all this, there was seen by two Youths in the Orchard and Fields, as they said, a black Cat, at the time the Stones were toss’d about, and it was shot at, but missed, by its changing Places, and being immediately at some distance, and then out of sight, as they related : Agreeable to which, it may not be improper to insert, what was observed by two Maids, Grand-Children of Mr. Walton, on the Sunday Night, the beginning of this Lithoboly. They did affirm, that as they were standing in the Porch-Chamber Window, they saw, as it were, a Person putting out a Hand out of the Hall Window, as throwing Stones toward the Porch or Entry; and we all know no Person was in the Hall except, at that instant, my self and another, having search’d diligently there, and wondring whence those should come that were about the same time drop’d near us; so far we were from doing it our selves, or seeing any other there to do it.
On Monday Night, about the Hour it first began, there were more Stones thrown in the Kitchin, and down the Chim-
1Mrs. Elias Stileman. Till the arrival of Governor Cranfield President Waldron and Deputy-President Stileman remained in power.
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
67
ney, one Captain Barefoot/ of the Council for that Province, being present, with others; and also (as I was going up to Bed) in an upper Chamber, and down those Stairs.
Upon Tuesday Night, about Ten, some five or six Stones were severally thrown into the Maid’s Chamber near the Kitchin, and the Glass-Windows broke in three new places, and one of the Maids hit as she lay. At the same time was heard by them, and two young Men in the House, an odd, dismal sort of Whistling, and thereupon the Youths ran out, with intent to take the suppos’d Thrower of Stones, if possi¬ ble; and on the back-side near the Window they heard the Noise (as they said) of something stepping a little way before them, as it were the trampling of a young Colt, as they fan¬ cied, but saw nothing; and going on, could discover nothing but that the Noise of the stepping or trampling was ceas’d, and then gone on a little before.
On Saturday Morning I found two Stones more on the Stairs; and so some were on Sunday Night convey’d into the Room next the Kitchin.
Upon Monday following Mr. Walton going (with his Men) by Water to some other Land, in a place called the Great Bay, and to a House where his Son was placed, they lay there that Night, and the next Morning had this Adventure. As the Men were all at work in the Woods, felling Wood, they were visited with another set of Stones, and they gathered up near upon a Hat-full, and put them between two Trees near adjoin¬ ing, and returning from carrying Wood, to the Boat, the Hat and its contents (the Stones) were gone, and the Stones were presently after thrown about again, as before; and after search, found the Hat press’d together, and lying under a square piece of Timber at some distance from thence. They had them again at young Walton’s House, and half a Brick thrown into a Cradle, out of which his young Child was newly taken up.
Here it may seem most proper to inform the Reader of a parallel passage, (viz.) what happened another time to my Landlord in his Boat; wherein going up to the same place
1The bluff and jovial Walter Barefoot, physician, politician, speculator, rescuer of Quakers and horror of Puritans, soon to be commandant, judge, acting governor, and at this moment as deputy collector especially obnoxious to the Massachusetts party, is well known to all students of New Hampshire history.
68
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
(the Great Bay) and loading it with Hay for his use at his own House, about the mid-way in the River (Pascataqua)1 he found his Boat began to be in a sinking Condition, at which being much surpriz’d, upon search, he discover’d the cause to be the pulling out a Plug or Stopple in the bottom of the Boat, being fixed there for the more convenient letting out of the Rain-Water that might fall into it; a Contrivance and Com¬ bination of the old Serpent and the old Woman, or some other Witch or Wizard (in Revenge or innate Enmity) to have drown’d both my good Landlord and his Company.
On Wednesday, as they were at work again in the Woods, on a sudden they heard something gingle like Glass, or Metal, among the Trees, as it was falling, and being fallen to the Ground, they knew it to be a Stirrup which Mr. Walton had carried to the Boat, and laid under some Wood; and this being again laid by him in that very Boat, it was again thrown after him. The third time, he having put it upon his Girdle or Belt he wore about his Waste, buckled together before, but at that instant taken off because of the Heat of the Weather, and laid there again buckled, it was fetch’d away, and no more seen. Likewise the Graper, or little Anchor of the Boat, cast over-board, which caus’d the Boat to wind up; so staying and obstructing their Passage. Then the setting-Pole was divers times cast into the River, as they were coming back from the Great Bay, which put them to the trouble of Padling, that is, rowing about for it as often to retrieve it.
Being come to his own House, this Mr. Walton was charg’d again with a fresh Assault in the out-Houses; but we heard of none within doors until Friday after, when, in the Kitchin, were 4 or 5 Stones (one of them hot) taken out of the Fire, as I conceive, and so thrown about. I was then present, being newly come in with Mr. Walton from his middle Field (as he call’d it), where his Servants had been Mowing, and had six or seven of his old troublesome Companions, and I had one fall’n down by me there, and another thin flat Stone hit me on the Thigh with the flat side of it, so as to make me just feel, and to smart a little. In the same Day’s Evening, as I was walking out in the Lane by the Field before-mentioned, a great Stone made a rusling Noise in the Stone-Fence between
1 The Piscataqua.
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
69
the Field and the Lane, which seem’d to me (as it caus’d me to cast my Eye that way by the Noise) to come out of the Fence, as it were pull’d out from among those Stones loose, but orderly laid close together, as the manner of such Fences in that Country is, and so fell down upon the Ground. Some Persons of Note being then in the Field (whose Names are here under-written) to visit Mr. Walton there, are substan¬ tial Witnesses of this same Stonery, both in the Field, and afterward in the House that Night, viz. one Mr. Hussey, Son of a Counsellour there.1 He took up one that having first alighted on the Ground, with rebound from thence hit him on the Heel; and he keeps it to show. And Captain Barefoot, mentioned above, has that which (among other Stones) flew into the Hall a little before Supper; which my self also saw as it first came in at the upper part of the Door into the middle of the Room; and then (tho’ a good flat Stone, yet) was seen to rowl over and over, as if trundled, under a Bed in the same Room. In short, these Persons, being wonderously affected with the Strangeness of these Passages, offer’d themselves (desiring me to take them) as Testimonies; I did so, and made a Memorandum, by way of Record, thereof, to this effect. Viz.
These Persons under-written do hereby Attest the Truth of their being Eye-Witnesses of at least half a score Stones that Evening thrown invisibly into the Field, and in the Entry of the House, Hall, and one of the Chambers of George Walton’s. Viz.
Samuel Jennings, Esq; Governour of West-Jarsey. Walter Clark, Esq; Deputy-Governour of Road-Island. Mr. Arthur Cook.
Mr. Matt. Borden of Road-Island.
Mr. Oliver Hooton of Barbados, Merchant.
Mr. T. Maul of Salem in New-England, Merchant. Captain Walter Barefoot.
Mr. John Hussey.
And the Wife of the said Mr. Hussey.2
1 Of Christopher Hussey, of Hampton.
2 The governors of West Jersey and Rhode Island are sufficiently identified by their titles. Both were Quakers, as were all the others excepting Barefoot. Cook
70
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
On Saturday, July1 24, One of the Family, at the usual hour at Night, observ’d some few (not above half a dozen) of these natural (or rather unnatural) Weapons to fly into the Kitchin, as formerly; but some of them in an unusual manner lighting gently on him, or coming toward him so easily, as that he took them before they fell to the Ground. I think there was not any thing more that Night remarkable. But as if the malicious Daemon had laid up for Sunday and Monday, then it was that he began (more furiously than formerly) with a great Stone in the Kitchin, and so continued with throwing down the Pewter-Dishes, etc. great part of it all at once coming clattering down, without the stroke of a Stone, little or great, to move it. Then about Midnight this im¬ pious Operation not ceasing, but trespassing with a continu- ando ,2 2 very great Stones, weighing above 30 pound a piece (that used to lye in the Kitchin, in or near the Chimny) were in the former, wonted, rebounding manner, let fly against my Door and Wall in the ante-Chamber, but with some little distance of time. This thundring Noise must needs bring up the Men from below, as before, (I need not say to wake me) to tell me the Effect, which was the beating down several Pictures, and displacing abundance of things about my Cham¬ ber: but the Repetition of this Cannon-Play by these great rumbling Engines, now ready at hand for the purpose, and the like additional disturbance by four Bricks that lay in the outer-Room Chimney (one of which having been so imploy’d the first Sunday Night, as has been said) made me despair of taking Rest, and so forced me to rise from my Bed. Then finding my Door burst open, I also found many Stones, and great pieces of Bricks, to fly in, breaking the Glass-Windows, and a Paper-Light, sometimes inwards, sometimes outwards : So hitting the Door of my Chamber as I came through from the ante-Chamber, lighting very near me as I was fetching the Candlestick, and afterward the Candle being struck out, as I was going to light it again. So a little after, coming up
was a Philadelphian; Thomas Maule, the Salem merchant who was later (1695) to stir such fury in Massachusetts by his arraignment of the Puritan regime. What Maule thought ofj witchcraft must be gathered not only from his own book, but from that of his Beverly neighbor, the Rev. John Hale, pp. 155-161.
1 June. 2 A “to be continued.”
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
71
for another Candle, and being at the Stare-foot door, a wooden Mortar with great Noise struck against the Floor, and was just at my Feet, only not touching me, moving from the other end of the Kitchin where it used to lye. And when I came up my self, and two more of the same House, we heard a Whistling, as it were near us in the outer Room, several times. Among the rest of the Tools made use of to disturb us, I found an old Card for dressing Flax in my Chamber. Now for Monday Night, (June 26) one of the severest. The disturbance began in the Kitchin with Stones; then as I was at Supper above in the ante-Chamber, the Window near which I sate at Table was broke in 2 or 3 parts of it inwards, and one of the Stones that broke it flew in, and I took it up at the further end of the Room. The manner is observable; for one of the squares was broke into 9 or 10 small square pieces, as if it had been regularly mark’d out into such even squares by a Workman, to the end some of these little pieces might fly in my Face (as they did) and give me a surprize, but without any hurt. In the mean time it went on in the Kitchin, whither I went down, for Company, all or most of the Family, and a Neigh¬ bour, being there; where many Stones (some great ones) came thick and threefold among us, and an old howing Iron,1 from a Room hard by, where such Utensils lay. Then, as if I had been the design’d Object for that time, most of the Stones that came (the smaller I mean) hit me (sometimes pretty hard) to the number of above 20, near 30, as I remember, and whether I remov’d, sit, or walk’d, I had them, and great ones sometimes lighting gently on me, and in my Hand and Lap as I sate, and falling to the Ground, and sometimes thumping against the Wall, as near as could be to me, without touching me. Then was a- Room over the Kitchin infested, that had not been so before, and many Stones greater than usual lumbring there over our Heads, not only to ours, but to the great Dis¬ turbance and Affrightment of some Children that lay there. And for Variety, there were sometimes three great, distinct Knocks, sometimes five such sounds as with a great Maul, reiterated divers times.
On Tuesday Night (June 28) we were quiet; but not so on Wednesday, when the Stones were play’d about in the House.
1 A hoeing-iron — the metal part of a hoe.
72
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
And on Thursday Morning I found some things that hung on Nails on the Wall in my Chamber, viz. a Spherical Sun-Dial, etc. lying on the Ground, as knock’d down by some Brick or Stone in the ante-Chamber. But my Landlord had the worst of that Day, tho’ he kept the Field, being there invisibly hit above 40 times, as he affirm’d to me, and he receiv’d some shrowd1 hurtful Blows on the Back, and other Parts, which he much complained of, and said he thought he should have reason to do, even to his dying day; and I observ’d that he did so, he being departed this Life since.2
Besides this, Plants of Indian Corn were struck up by the Roots almost, just as if they had been cut with some edged Instrument, whereas re veraz they were seen to be eradicated, or rooted up with nothing but the very Stones, altho’ the in¬ jurious Agent was altogether unseen. And a sort of Noise, like that of Snorting and Whistling, was heard near the Men at Work in the Fields many times, many whereof I my self, going thither, and being there, was a Witness of; and parting thence I receiv’d a pretty hard Blow with a Stone on the Calf of my Leg. So it continued that day in two Fields, where they were severally at Work: and my Landlord told me, he often heard likewise a humming Noise in the Air by him, as of a Bullet discharg’d from a Gun; and so said a Servant of his that work’d with him.
Upon Saturday (July 1), as I was going to visit my Neigh¬ bour Capt. Barefoot, and just at his Door, his Man saw, as well as my self, 3 or 4 Stones fall just by us in the Field, or Close, where the House stands, and not any other Person near us. At Night a great Stone fell in the Kitchin, as I was going to Bed, and the Pewter was thrown down; many Stones flew about, and the Candles by them put out 3 or 4 times, and the Snorting heard; a Negro Maid hit on the Head in the Entry between the Kitchin and Hall with a Porringer from the Kitchin : also the pressing-iron clattered against the Partition Wall between the Hall and a Chamber beyond it, where I lay, and Mr. Randolph,4 His Majesty’s Officer for the Customs, etc.
Some few Stones we had on Sunday Morning, (July 2)
1 Shrewd, i. e., sharp. 2 Early in 1686. 3 “In fact.”
4 Edward Randolph, arch-foe of the Massachusetts theocracy and for more than a dozen years (1676-1689) chief inspirer of the royal policy as to the colonies.
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
73
none at Night. But on Monday Morning (the 3d) both Mr. Walton, and 5 or 6 with him in the Field, were assaulted with them, and their Ears with the old Snorting and Whistling. In the Afternoon Mr. Walton was hit on the Back with Stones very grievously, as he was in his Boat that lay at a Cove side by his House. It was a very odd prank that was prac¬ tis’d by the Devil a little while after this. One Night the Cocks of Hay, made the Day before in the Orchard, was spread all abroad, and some of the Hay thrown up into the Trees, and some of it brought into the House, and scatter’d. Two Logs that lay at the Door, laid, one of them by the Chimny in the Kitchin; the other set against the Door of the Room where Mr. Walton then lay, as on purpose to confine him therein: A Form that stood in the Entry (or Porch) was set along by the Fire side, and a joint Stool upon that, with a Napking spread thereon, with two Pewter Pots, and two Candlesticks: A Cheese-Press likewise having a Spit thrust into one of the holes of it, at one end; and at the other end of the Spit hung an Iron Kettle; and a Cheese was taken out, and broke to pieces. Another time, I full well remember ’twas on a Sunday at Night, my Window was all broke with a violent shock of Stones and Brick-bats, which scarce miss’d my self : among these one huge one made its way through the great square or shash of a Casement, and broke a great hole in it, throwing down Books by the way, from the Window to a Picture over-against it, on the other side of the Chamber, and tore a hole quite through it about half a foot long, and the piece of the Cloth hung by a little part of it, on the back-side of the Picture.
After this we were pretty quiet,1 saving now and then a few Stones march’d about for Exercise, and to keep (as it were) the Diabolical hand in use, till July 28, being Friday , when about 40 Stones flew about, abroad, and in the House and Orchard, and among the Trees therein, and a Window broke before, was broke again, and one Room where they never used before.
August 1. On Wednesday the Window in my ante-Chamber was broke again, and many Stones were plaid about, abroad,
1 It will be remembered that about this time Hannah Jones was put under bond. See pp. 60-61, note 3.
74
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
and in the House, in the Day-time, and at Night. The same Day in the Morning they tried this Experiment; they did set on the Fire a Pot with Urin, and crooked Pins in it, with design to have it boil, and by that means to give Punishment to the Witch, or Wizard (that might be the wicked Procurer or Contriver of this Stone Affliction) and take off their own; as they had been advised. This was the Effect of it : As the Liquor begun to grow hot, a Stone came and broke the top or mouth of it, and threw it down, and spilt what was in it; which being made good again, another Stone, as the Pot grew hot again, broke the handle off ; and being recruited and fill'd the third time, was then with a third Stone quite broke to pieces and split; and so the Operation became frustrate and fruitless.
On August 2, two Stones in the Afternoon I heard and saw my self in the House and Orchard; and another Window in the Hall was broke. And as I was entring my own Chamber, a great square of a Casement, being a foot square, was broke, with the Noise as of a big Stone, and pieces of the Glass flew into the Room, but no Stone came in then, or could be found within or without. At Night, as I, with others, were in the Kitchin, many more came in; and one great Stone that lay on a Spinning-Wheel to keep it steady, was thrown to the other side of the Room. Several Neighbours then present were ready to testifie this Matter.
Upon August 3, On Thursday the Gate between my said Landlord and his Neighbour John Amazeen was taken off again, and thrown into Amazeen’s Field, who heard it fall, and averr'd it then made a Noise like a great Gun.
On Friday the Ath, the Fence against Mr. Walton's Neigh¬ bour's Door, (the Woman of whom formerly there was great Suspicion, and thereupon Examination had, as appears upon Record;) this Fence being maliciously pull'd down to let in their Cattel into his Ground ; he and his Servants were pelted with above 40 Stones as they went to put it up again; for she had often threatned that he should never injoy his House and Land.1 Mr. Walton was hit divers times, and all that Day in the Field, as they were Reaping, it ceas'd not, and their fell (by the Mens Computation) above an hundred Stones.
1 See p. 37, note 1. Walton had doubtless fenced in the land in controversy.
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
75
A Woman helping to Reap (among the rest) was hit 9 or 10 times, and hurt to that degree, that her left Arm, Hip, Thigh, and Leg, were made black and blue therewith; which she showd to the Woman,1 Mrs. Walton, and others. Mr. Wood- bridge,2 a Divine, coming to give me a Visit, was hit about the Hip, and one Mr. Jefferys a Merchant,3 who was with him, on the Leg. A Window in the Kitchin that had been much batter’d before, was now quite broke out, and unwindow’d, no Glass or Lead at all being left: a Glass Bottle broke to pieces, and the Pewter Dishes (about 9 of them) thrown down, and bent.
On Saturday the 5th, as they were Reaping in the Field, three Sickles were crack’d and broke by the force of these lapidary Instruments of the Devil, as the Sickles were in the Reapers hands, on purpose (it seems) to obstruct their Labour, and do them Injury and Damage. And very many Stones were cast about that Day; insomuch, that some that assisted at that Harvest-Work, being struck with them, by reason of that Disturbance left the Field, but were follow’d by their invisible Adversaries to the next House.
On Sunday , being the 6th, there fell nothing considerable, nor on Monday, (7th) save only one of the Children hit with a Stone on the Back. We were quiet to Tuesday the 8th. But on Wednesday (9th) above 100 Stones (as they verily thought) repeated the Reapers Disquiet in the Corn-Field, whereof some were affirm’d by Mr. Walton to be great ones indeed, near as big as a Man’s Head; and Mrs. Walton, his Wife being by Curiosity led thither, with intent also to make some Discovery by the most diligent and vigilant Observation she could use, to obviate the idle Incredulity some inconsiderate Persons might irrationally entertain concerning this venefical4 Operation; or at least to confirm her own Sentiments and Belief of it. Which she did, but to her Cost; for she received an untoward Blow (with a Stone) on her Shoulder. There were likewise two Sickles bent, crack’d, and disabled with them, beating them violently out of their Hands that held them; and this reiterated three times successively.
1 1, e., to Hannah Jones. 2 See p. 65, note 1.
3 George Jeffrey, or Jaffrey, of Great Island.
4 Sorcerous — from the Latin venefica, a witch.
76
NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT CASES [1682
After this we injoy ’d our former Peace and Quiet, un¬ molested by these stony Disturbances, that whole month of August, excepting some few times; and the last of all in the Month of September, (the beginning thereof) wherein Mr. Walton himself only (the Original perhaps of this strange Adventure, as has been declared) was the designed conclud¬ ing Sufferer; who going in his Canoo (or Boat) from the Great Island, where he dwelt, to Portsmouth, to attend the Council, who had taken Cognizance of this Matter,1 he being Summoned thither, in order to his and the Suspect’s Examination, and the Courts taking Order thereabout, he was sadly hit with three pebble Stones as big as ones Fist ; one of which broke his Head, which I saw him show to the President of the Council; the others gave him that Pain on the Back, of which (with other like Strokes) he complained then, and afterward to his Death.2
Who, that peruses these preternatural Occurrences, can possibly be so much an Enemy to his own Soul, and irrefutable Reason, as obstinately to oppose himself to, or confusedly fluctuate in, the Opinion and Doctrine of Demons, or Spirits, and Witches? Certainly he that do’s so, must do two things
1 See pp. 60-61, note 3.
2 What order the courts took thereabout does not appear from the extant records; but that Hannah Jones was not punished may be inferred from our author’s silence. As to the land dispute, it is recorded that in December, 1682, John Amazeen, the constable, with his step-son Jeremiah Walford and others, came with a warrant from Captain Stileman and arrested George Walton and his helpers for wood-cutting on the lands granted him by Mason; and that, though Walton carried it to the courts and offered evidence that some of the wood cut for him had been seen in John Amazeen’s yard, the jury found for the defendants’ cost of court. Walton appealed to the King in Council — Walford and Amazeen, so wrote Secretary Chamberlain, claiming by a town grant of 1658 and “the jury being all of them possessed of lands by virtue of town grants”; but, though he gave Edward Randolph power of attorney to prosecute, the appeal was in 1684 dismissed. (Provincial Records, in N. H. Hist. Soc., Collections, VIII. 118, and Calendar of State Papers , America and West Indies, 1681-1685, passim.) At home, however, John Amazeen saw himself made an example of, his live-stock levied on, and himself thrown into prison for his refusal of dues to Mason. Cham¬ berlain lost his secretaryship with the change of government in 1686, but remained as clerk of the courts till 1689, when, with the collapse of the Andros administra¬ tion, he seems to have returned to England. (Vaughan’s Journal, in N. H. Hist. Soc., Collections, VIII. 187; N. H. Prov. Papers , I. 590, 600; Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings, XVII. 227.)
1682]
LITHOBOLIA
77
more: He must temerariously unhinge, or undermine the Fundamentals of the best Religion in the World; and he must disingenuously quit and abandon that of the Three Theologick Virtues or Graces, to which the great Doctor of the Gentils gave the Precedence, Charity, through his Unchristian and Uncharitable Incredulity.
Finis.
THE PENNSYLVANIA CASES OF MATTSON. HENDRICKSON, AND GUARD, 1684, 1701
I
INTRODUCTION
At a first glance the utterances of the early Friends in Europe and America do not suggest a difference, in their be¬ liefs as to witchcraft, from those of the Puritan world about them. George Fox thought himself endowed with a divine power for the detection of witches, and tells us himself how he turned from his path to tell a group of women that they were in the spirit of witchcraft or rebuked in open meeting those he discerned to be under the power of an evil spirit.1 Richard Farnworth, long his chief lieutenant, put forth in 1655 a printed discourse “as a Judgment upon Witchcraft, and a deniall, testimony, and declaration against Witchcraft from those that the world reproachfully calleth Quakers,”2 and Fox himself in 1657 devoted one largely to “the ground of Inchantings and seducing Spirits” and “of Nicromancy, which doth defile Witches and Wizards.”3 We have just met a New England Quaker as an accuser, and more than one gave testimony against the Salem witches. Even those
1 See pp. 20-21 of the Witchcraft and Quakerism (Philadelphia, 1908) of Mrs. Amelia Mott Gummere, who quotes from the original MS. of Fox’s journal.
2 His anonymously published Witchcraft Cast out from the Religious Seed and Israel of God (London, 1655).
3 His A Declaration of the Ground of Error . . . and the Ground of Inchant¬ ings and Seducing Spirits, and the Doctrine of Devils, the Sons of Sorcerers, and the Seed of the Adulterer, and the Ground of Nicromancy, which doth defile Witches and Wizards (London, 1657). But this book, like Farnworth’s, is mainly a dissuasive from fortune-telling or the use of it. How slow was Fox’s spirit to the darker suspicions