Teaser: In 1692, the unusual behavior of a young girl was explained as the result of the evil trickery of a witch. Soon, people were naming culprits, and those accused were on trial for their very lives. You’re all familiar with the story, right? But today we’re not talking about the famed witch panic that gripped Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 – no, we’re talking about the other witch panic that took place that very same year, 200 miles away in Stamford, Connecticut. What can this concurrent, but very different, witch panic teach us about ideas about witchcraft in colonial New England?
Transcript: Spectral Evidence, Floating Witches, and Angry Neighbors: The Other Witch Panic of 1692
Written by Sarah Handley-Cousins, PhD
Recorded by Averill Earls and Sarah Handley-Cousins
Sarah: In the early summer of June 1692, screams came from the home of Daniel and Abigail Wescot in Stamford, Connecticut. The sounds disturbed the Wescots’ neighbors, but didn’t surprise them – they knew all about the crisis that was happening inside that house. Everyone knew that seventeen year old indentured servant Kate Branch – the Wescots’ maidservant – was bewitched.
Averill : Kate had been like this for over a month. She would collapse into fits, screaming and crying, saying that she was being poked and pinched by unseen hands. Sometimes, she stopped making sounds altogether and appeared to be in a trance. She claimed to see visions – cats that could transform into women before her eyes.
Sarah: Who could be bewitching poor Kate? What person in Stamford could be responsible for such horrific tortures? The Wescots thought they knew who was to blame: Elizabeth Clawson, a quarrelsome, bitter Stamford resident who they’d crossed in the past. Certainly this unpleasant older woman was a witch, tormenting their innocent maid! But how would the legal minds of Stamford handle accusations of witch craft? How would they weigh evidence and determine the truth, when so many in Stamford seemed predisposed to dislike Clawson? How could they ensure that they punished guilty, demonic witches – and, alternately, how could they ensure they did not execute innocent people, falsely accused? This was the problem of the special court appointed to deal with the other witch panic of 1692.
I’m Sarah Handley-Cousins
And I’m Averill Earls
And we are your historians for this episode of DIG
Averill: As you hopefully already know, we have a co-authored book coming out on October 15, 2024! We have a lot of people to thank for helping us get to the point of publishing a beautiful, magenta-jacketed book about Spiritualism – and top of that list are all of our Patreon supporters. Our patrons funded research trips to Lily Dale, the purchase of rare and weird books we needed, subscriptions to digital newspaper archives, and writing retreats to get this beauty done. We couldn’t have done any of this without yall – especially our Auger and Excavator level patrons: Lisa, Karl, Karen, Jessy, Maria, Denise, Edward, Lauren, Colin, and Susan! We can’t thank you enough. Listener, if you enjoy what we do here but aren’t yet a patron of this show, it’s easy: just go to patreon.com/digpodcast to learn more.
Sarah: Before we go any further into Kate Branch’s torments, let me say that this episode is drawn very heavily from Richard Godbeer’s slim but powerful volume, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692. I first encountered this book as a teaching assistant for the amazing Tamara Thornton at the University at Buffalo. This short but packed little book teaches very well, so I highly recommend considering it for your next US I syllabus.
Back to Kate, screaming and crying in the home of her employers, Daniel and Abigail Wescot. The Wescots lived in Stamford, Connecticut, a small, rural Puritan community. Stamford was founded in 1641, an offshoot of the New Haven Colony, founded in 1638 by a group of Puritan merchants from England. Not unlike other communities in colonial New England, nearly all residents were Puritan, and the Congregational (ie, Puritan) Church made up the center of the village, both literally and figuratively. Residents lived closely together in the village, which meant that the residents and their properties were always under the watchful eye of their neighbors. This meant protection, of course, but also surveillance. Outside of the center of the village lay the farm lands, cultivated by town residents. The Wescots were prominent citizens: Daniel Wescot was a sergeant in the town militia, and had been elected twice a representative of the village in the colonial government. They were so well respected that residents of Stamford referred to them as Mister and Mistress, much more honorable terms than the typical Goodman and Goodwife (Goody).
Averill : The strange symptoms had started sometime toward the end of April 1692. Kate had been working in the field picking herbs when she was suddenly gripped with pains in her breast. The pain sent her back to the Wescots’ home, crying, where her masters asked why she had abandoned her work. She could not answer, and instead flung herself on the floor crying and clasping her hands in a prayer pose. She continued like this for days, unable to work. Then she started to talk about seeing a cat that was invisible to the rest of the household. The cat, she said, asked her to “go with it,” and promised to reward her with fine things if she obeyed. She refused, but the cat persisted. Kate saw a table materialize in her room, heavily laden with meats for a feast – around the table were cats who asked her to join them. Once, Wescot observed Kate running while in some kind of fit. When he asked her what she was doing, she explained that a cat was chasing her with a rat that it was trying to throw at her. Then, scared, she worried aloud that the cats would kill her for telling on them. Then, Kate started to see not only cats, but people, specifically a mysterious woman with the scars of a brand on her forehead.
Sarah : From the beginning of Kate’s strange afflictions, Daniel and Abigail Wescot suspected they were the result of supernatural causes. Still, they didn’t want to move forward without evidence. They summoned a midwife, Goody Sarah Bates, to examine Kate and provide a medical assessment. Midwives were often the most available medical practitioner in rural places like Stamford, and in the colonial era, midwives would have delivered babies but also tended to the sick or dying and provided home-brewed medications. Though she was a practical woman, Goody Bates did not discount supernatural power to cause harm – everyone in colonial New England knew this was a possibility. After all, New Englanders lived in what one historian has called a “world of wonders,” a world in which not everything could be adequately explained by rational means.[1] Just as they believe that God was at work in the world, so did they believe that Satan was too. Since Puritans believed that God had ultimate authority over all of the universe, writes Richard Godbeer, that meant that if Satan tempted or tricked or tormented you, it was because God allowed it for some reason. Anything bad that happened – a severe storm, a cow or sheep dead in the prime of life, a devastating illness – was the work and will of supernatural forces, but so too were good things – a bountiful harvest, a safe passage, a healthy childbirth. Further, they believed that people could be the tools of the devil, ways for Satan to accomplish his evil trickery.
Averill: Sarah Bates examined Kate, keeping in mind potential causes both natural and supernatural. She knew that Kate’s mother had been known to have fits, too, caused by the ‘falling sickness.’ (Today, this would likely be called epilepsy.) Perhaps Kate was manifesting the same illness that had affected her mother. Based on this, Sarah Bates concluded that Kate was likely suffering from a natural ailment. To treat the ailment, Bates recommended that the Wescots burn feathers under Kate’s nose, a therapeutic measure that was known to be effective against the failing sickness. But though the Wescots tried the treatment, the midwife’s advice didn’t work – Kate was no better, and the torments continued. Surely this proved this was no natural affliction! Now, Kate was shouting through her pain, claiming that unseen hands were grasping at her: “A witch! A witch! Why will you kill me? Why will you torment me?”
Sarah: As her affliction continued unabated, neighbors started to stop by the Wescot residence to see her for themselves. They had theories about the causes, too. Many believed her when she cried out that witches were hurting her, but others thought she was exaggerating or even making up her symptoms. But when neighbors stopped in, they witnessed disturbing things that lent evidence to the claim that her symptoms were the result of a witch’s spell. Lights seemed to float through the Wescot home after dark. Bruises arose without cause on Kate’s body. When pricked, Kate produced pins that had appeared from nowhere. Even her fits seemed unnatural. But Daniel Wescot was not completely convinced that the affliction was unnatural until Stamford’s respected clergyman, John Bishop, offered his opinion of the case. Unlike most Stamford residents, Bishop was highly educated, having studied at Oxford in England before he immigrated to New England. He had also served as the minister of the Stamford Congregational Church for over fifty years. It was hard to find someone who had a more sterling reputation and respected opinion than John Bishop.
Averill : Reverend Bishop visited the Wescots several times, taking the situation very seriously and listening to their testimony. Once, he brought a colleague, a minister from a neighboring church, to witness the situation. The two clergymen agreed: Kate was unquestionably bewitched. Bishop spoke directly to Kate and told her unequivocally what was happening to her. When the cats tempted her and offered her feasts, they were tempting her to serve Satan. It was of the utmost importance that she resist these temptations – if she ever yielded to them, her salvation would be forever lost. They would pray for her and observe days of fasting to help fight off this spiritual assault. Bishop also reminded Daniel Wescot of his duty to Kate – as her master, he may not have been her true father, but he was in a position of fatherly duty and responsibility to her, as any head of household would be to a indentured servant. He and Abigail had a responsibility to care for her through this trial. But that was easier said than done. Caring for Kate through her symptoms was extremely demanding, and strained their ability to keep an eye on her at all times. Soon, they needed to bring in neighbors to help. This too was the norm: in New England Puritan communities, being a good neighbor was an expected aspect of being a member of the community.
Sarah: But bringing in their neighbors had another purpose: it meant more eye-witnesses of Kate’s disturbing struggles. Good neighbors would help to provide care, and while they did, they would see for themselves what was happening to Kate. Not only would this make it more likely that they would continue to believe and respect Daniel – in other words, when he said that Kate was bewitched, they wouldn’t question him but instead be more likely to believe, having seen it with their own eyes – but it would also mean that the Wescots could build a community of support in their attempts to find the culprit. If the Wescots were going to eventually turn to the law to punish the guilty party, they would need strong alliances with their neighbors to provide testimony and lend credibility to their claims.
Averill : They also needed to determine just who was doing the bewitching. Witnesses to her behavior would be helpful, but no one could do anything until they could identify a culprit. For quite some time, Kate talked in vague terms about the woman with the brand scars on her face, or a woman who wore two coats. But soon, she invoked a name: Stamford resident Elizabeth Clawson. Daniel Wescot later testified in court that Kate had clearly accused Clawson: “The next day (after seeing the branded woman) she named a person calling her Goody Clauson & said ‘there she is sitting on a reel’ & again said she saw her sit on the pommel of a chair, saying ‘I’m sure you are a witch, else you could knot sit so & and she saw this person before named at times for a week together.” Later, Kate described the woman she had seen in her visions, giving lots of details about her clothing. Just minutes later, Daniel Wescot went outside only to see Goody Clawson walking down the street wearing exactly what Kate had described.
Sarah: Elizabeth Clawson had lived in Stamford for many years, so was familiar to everyone in the village. Goody Clawson had moved to Stamford in 1655 with her husband, Stephen, and was now in her early sixties. Clawon had a bad reputation – some Stamford residents even previously suspected her of a witch. Daniel and Abigail Wescot had clashed with Clawson, too. Many years before, the Wescots bought some flax from Goody Clawson. It seems that Clawson had charged them a certain price based on the weight of the flax – but when the Wescots received it, the weight didn’t match what Clawson charged them for. Flax was a necessity in New England life – it was used in cloth making as well as for the wicks for the essential candles and lamps that lit residents’ homes, but the disagreement was about more than just prices and fairness. As we mentioned a minute ago, neighborliness was an expectation of Puritan life. This extended to transactions. A good Puritan did not take advantage of another neighbor – they were honest in their dealings. For instance, the community might set a standard price for a bushel of apples. Trying to charge more than that, or trying to get more by making the bushel light or perhaps loading it with some bad apples at the bottom of the basket, would prove that you were not a good neighbor. Moreover, each member of the society might grow or produce something that others relied on. Certain families, for instance, might grow the flax that other members of the community relied on; others might have the orchards or the wheat. In other words, the community was profoundly interdependent. So Goody Clawson’s perceived dishonesty materially affected the Wescots and reflected poorly on her place in the community. Almost more important, though, was that the Wescots called into question her integrity and the two neighbors argued bitterly, setting up a personal feud that continued for years.
Averill : Being a bad neighbor also meant that you were not a good Christian. The first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, gave a sermon in 1630 while onboard a ship that was bringing more settlers to the Massachusetts colony that underscored that Puritan settlers must work together in order for the new settlements to thrive, and that this community spirit was a reflection of their Christian beliefs. Winthrop urged them to be good neighbors: “We must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection, we must be wiling to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ condition our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” So there was another layer when Goody Clawson was unfair with the flax – it was a violation of a social contract of neighborly cooperation that Stamford residents shared in.
Sarah: After that argument over the flax, Clawson had been angry and resentful of the Wescots, and seemed to have it out for Abigail particularly. She never missed an chance to curse or yell at her in public. Once, Abigail had walked past Goody Clawson’s house and threw rocks at her – another time, Goody Clawson screamed that Abigail was a “proud slut,” an elitist who was too fond of fine things. Clawson seemed particularly angry about the Wescot’s high status in Stamford’s society. The Wescots, suffice it to say, were not big fans of Goody Clawson. Later, neighbors would recall in court unusual or supernatural things they suspected Elizabeth Clawson of doing. John Finch believed that she was responsible for the death of his young daughter after he argued with Clawson. Another neighbor, Goody Newman, recalled that she she had gotten into a verbal altercation with Goody Clawson after Newman’s daughter took a piece of fruit from Clawson’s orchard. Afterward, three of her sheep died suddenly and mysteriously. Kate’s accusation fit in with what many in Stamford were already suspecting.
Averill : But Clawson wasn’t the only woman accused. Soon, Kate started talking about another woman who had a hunched back – surely this was Goody Miller, the only woman with a hunched back in Stamford. Then she started to describe yet another woman, this one with “pretty, thick lips” who turned into a cat, then back into a woman. Abigail Wescot turned to a visiting neighbor and whispered, “I know a woman at Fairfield who was suspected formerly; she has thick lips. I supposed you know who I mean: Mercy Holbridge.” Just then, Kate saw the woman again, and finally was able to name her – it was Mercy Woodbridge. Kate hesitated, then corrected herself – nope, it was Mercy Holbridge.
Sarah: Goody Miller was a weird accusation – no one could think of anything she’d ever done to arise suspicion. But Mercy Holbridge, now married to Thomas Disborough, a fifty-two year old woman who lived further north in Compo, Connecticut, was another story. Mercy’s father, Arthur Holbridge, had been arrested and charged with theft and fraud; her mother had cheated neighbors over the price of apples; and Mercy herself had landed in court for a variety of small crimes and been accused by neighbors of fraudulently selling a kettle as “new” when it was actually old, used, and in bad shape. Thomas Benit recalled that Mercy Holbridge Disborough had once angrily said to him that she would make him “bare as a bird’s tail,” then his livestock began to die off. Goody Grey claimed that she bewitched her oxen, making them jump a fence and escape, and cursed their beer barrels, causing them to burst. Once, John Grumman had directly accused Mercy of bewitching his sick child, and insisted she come to his home to take away her curse. Mercy tended to the sick child, and the child got better very quickly. Suspicious, indeed. Some testimony was downright weird: Mercy Disborough once invited Edward Jesop to eat at her home – a neighborly gesture. She and her husband had roasted a pig that smelled delicious. When Jesop looked at the pig, it appeared to have no skin. But when it was brough to the table and sliced, the skin seemed to reappear. Later, when Mercy opened up her Bible to read from it, Jesop could have sworn that the pages were blank.
Averill : Let’s step aside here to unpack this accusation before we go any further into how the story unfolds. While Kate did eventually accuse several people, it was these two women – Mercy Disboroguh and Elizabeth Clawson – that appeared at the center. They were the ones tormenting Kate the most, and they were also the accusations that seemed the most accurate to the community. These accusations reveal a lot about Puritan New England society, and are in line with patterns that modern scholars have identified about witchcraft panics. First, the central two accused were women. Puritans believed, not in an abstract or theoretical way, that it was Eve that lead to the downfall of humanity in the garden of Eden. Because of this, all women inherited Eve’s flaws – they were weak in body, mind, and spirit, but also possessing a mysterious and latent power. Women were expected to be submissive wives and attentive mothers. In an agricultural society, women were also necessary to the successful running of the household – they raised the children, managed servants, and shared task within the household economy. In order to have a functioning society, Puritans relied on women to perform their role well. In other words, Puritans needed women to be a true, Biblical ‘helpmeet.’ Women who disrupted these expectations threatened to undermine the very functioning of society.
Sarah: Women who failed up to live up to this vision were suspicious and potentially dangerous. Women who argued, failed to respect authority, neglected their children, or failed to be good neighbors threatened good social order. Since godly women upheld these expectations, it seemed logical to Puritans that women who defied that were in league with Satan. Certain women were more likely than others to invite this suspicion. Older women, especially women who had passed menopause, were especially vulnerable to witchcraft accusations as their aging bodies were perhaps less sexually appealing and they were no longer able to fulfill the purpose of childbearing. Older women whose husbands had died were also suspicious because they lived independently, acting as their own head of household, and were less able to perform deference to authority. Both Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough capture these realities: not only were they both quick to get into arguments with neighbors and refused to be properly submissive, they were both older – Clawson was 61 and Disborough was 52. But moreover, there were theological reasons that women were especially susceptible to witchcraft accusations: the Protestant Reformation, which broke the Christian church into the general categories of “Protestant” and “Catholic,” had introduced the belief in a “priesthood of all believers,” which essentially taught that individuals could, and should, directly engage with God through prayer and reconciliation. This was in contrast with the Catholic tradition of intercession, in which the priest or even a saint is called upon to intercede on behalf of the believer through their own prayers. This might seem like a fine theological point unrelated to witchcraft, but some historians have argued that this was actually quite revolutionary for women, because this meant that all people – men and women equally – could go to God for forgiveness and salvation. This made women responsible for their own souls – something that many doubted they were capable of. As historian Christina Larner notes, witchcraft was “only possible for women who had free will and responsibility attributed to them.”[2]
Averill : Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough were also bad neighbors. Most accusations of witchcraft were directed at a close neighbor with whom the victim had some kind of bad blood. Richard Godbeer says that “accuser and accused mosly lived within the same cluster of houses, often next door, or just down the street.” More, the neighbor was almost always someone who had either rebuffed a request for aid or a favor OR who had somehow been dishonest (or been accused of being dishonest) in some kind of trade or exchange. Afterwards, Godbeer explains, “in the weeks, months, and even years that followed, the person who had had turned down a neighbor’s request for help or accused a neighbor of deceit blamed that same individual for later misfortunes.”[3] In other words, the accused witch had perhaps asked a neighbor for a cup of sugar, then been rejected. Then, for years afterward, the neighbor who didn’t share would blame the person who asked for the sugar for any misfortune, such as the death of livestock, a crop failure, or a family member’s sickness. Clawson and Disborough fit this pattern very well. Clawson and the Wescots had argued over the flax, and for years afterward, the Wescots were uncomfortable around her and she had been blamed for other families’ misfortunes. Mercy Disborough was from a family accused of various frauds and thefts, and she herself had been accused of selling a kettle to a neighbor that was supposedly new but was, in reality, banged up and leaky. Those interactions had left both Clawson and Disborough resentful and vengeful, angry that they had been maligned. Witchcraft, Puritans believed, was often a tool for revenge. Godbeer writes, “the alleged witch retaliated by becoming the ultimately nightmarish neighbor, wreaking havoc and destruction within her enemy’s household.”[4] These interactions, though frustrating and infuriating, weren’t illegal – there was no authority that you could go to complain about being sold a bad kettle or not getting a requested cup of sugar and demand justice! Accusing a bad neighbor of witchcraft could be a way to achieve justice or get revenge.
Sarah: As we already discussed, neighborliness and cooperation was an imperative in Puritan New England, not just because it was godly, but because it was imperative to survival. But they weren’t simply the product of Biblical teachings or living in the Connecticut wilderness. An emerging market economy in the sixteenth and seventeenth century in both Europe and the American colonies meant that there was more social mobility and the creation of an impoverished underclass. Traditional community values were strained as some people profited while others suffered, and when the growing ranks of poor tried to access community support. This could be especially difficult in the colonies. People had to reconstruct communities (sometimes similar and often different than those they knew in England) and their material goods seemed even more precious as they had to be laboriously produced or imported at great cost from across the Atlantic. It’s easy to see how neighbors might be quick to get frustrated or be resentful of class differences – as Elizabeth Clawson was angry with the wealthier and more respected Abigail Wescot.
Averill: But it’s important to also note that Godbeer (and other historians) warn against taking this to mean that witchcraft accusations were only used as petty or cynical tools of revenge. Puritans didn’t use witchcraft as a ploy, in other words. We have to remember that witchcraft, magic, demons, etc, were all part of average Puritan’s understanding of the world – that “world of wonders” that we mentioned before. Godbeer explains that “allegations of witchcraft brought together three important components of premodern culture: the inability to explain or control illness and other forms of midfortune, a deeply embedded belief in super natural forces that could be used to inflict harm, and the densely personal nature of human interactions.”[5] In other words, witchcraft wasn’t just a ploy that some Puritan New Englanders used – when a neighbor acted out of line with social expectations, or when a woman acted in ways counter to godly womanhood, it made a lot of sense to those around them that the explanation for their actions was supernatural.
Sarah: Let’s return to poor Kate, the worried Wescots, and the accused Elizabeth and Mercy. The case became the responsibility of William Jones, the deputy governor of Connecticut and the man responsible for investigating claims of witchcraft in Stamford. He treated the job with gravity, both in assuring that accusations were taken seriously and in being careful not to punish the innocent. He was not a lawyer, but had read deeply in the literature, both legal and theological, from Europe and the colonies on witch-hunting. He relied on texts like William Perkins’ Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft, Richard Bernard’s Guide to Grand Jury Men, and Increase Mather’s Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences. While we often believe that witch trials were shams in which judges acted hastily or out of superstition, witchtrials had the same requirements as other capital cases: they required clear proof of guilt and eye witness testimonies for each accusation. In some cases, that burden of proof was alleviated by a confession. In 1663, the accused Rebecca Greensmith was executed in Hartford, Connecticut because she confessed that she signed a compact with the devil and used her powers of witchcraft to hurt members of her community. But often, witch trials were complicated by the fact that it was, in fact, difficult to prove that someone or something had been harmed by magic.
Averill: At the same time, investigators like William Jones were also aware the public demanded justice. While Puritan New Englanders valued the rigor of the court and respected the need for clear evidence, they sometimes disagreed over what was damning evidence. Also in the 1660s, an accused witch named Elizabeth Seager was tried three times and was ultimately acquitted each time. Expecting public outcry, the magistrates overseeing the case tried to justify their actions by essentially saying that she was still a witch, but they just didn’t have enough evidence, and that if they had further evidence, they should accuse her again. (Imagine poor Elizabeth Seagers life after her final acquittal in 1665 – sheesh! Maybe she lived happily in the woods with her familiar and burbling kettles full of concoctions. Eye of newt, anyone?) William Jones had a difficult task ahead of him. Jones required that accused had to fit certain requirements in order to be considered for formal investigation and trial. These were his Grounds for Examination of a Witch. For instance, the second ‘grounds’ was that the court had to have grounds to investigate someone as a witch if another person, known to be or accused to be a witch, accused them. (Side note: this was what, in large part, led to the huge numbers of witches tried and executed in Salem, as more and more people were accused by those already accused.) Another grounds was if, after arguing with a person, “mischief doth follow, for parties devillishly disposed after cursings do use threatenings and that also is a great presumption against them.”
Sarah: The magistrates thus found that they had grounds to investigate Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough. Both had argued with neighbors after which “mischief doth follow.” They also satisfied another grounds, ground number 6, that stated “if the party suspected have the devil’s mark, for tis thought when the Devil maketh his covenant with them he always leaves his mark behind him to know them for his own.” Both Mercy Disborough and Elizabeth Clawson were both rumored to have an extra nipple, a Devil’s mark, through which they suckled demonic imps and animal familiars. Others who Kate had accused were also found to be subject to investigation for other reasonss – Goody Staples, for instance, had “common report” of suspicion, meaning that community members had generally complained about her before. Mary and Hannah Harvey were then also subject to investigation because they were related to Goody Staples, another grounds.
Averill: As the investigation moved forward, the women’s bodies were inspected for the devil’s mark. While Elizabeth Clawson had been accused of having a devil’s mark, numerous women testified that she had no such mark or teat, “save for a wart on one of her arms.” Mercy Disborough also didn’t have a devil’s mark on her chest or sides, but she did have a mysterious “teat or something like it” on her privy parts. What exactly it was, no one knew, but it seemed suspiciously like a devil’s mark. Upon further investigation, another group of women called upon to inspect their bodies found nothing unusual. Devil’s marks were complicated to determine, because premodern understandings of bodies, medicine, and science meant that some bodily differences couldn’t be explained by other means. They also were up to interpretation – and magistrates such as William Jones couldn’t see them for themselves. Instead, they had to rely on the testimony of trusted women who sometimes couldn’t agree. In the 1650s, a woman named Goodwife Knapp was executed for witchcraft partly on the grounds that she had devil’s marks. After her death, another woman inspected her body again and found nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, when she shared that with yet another woman, that woman responded: “I know not what you have, but for myself, if any find such things about me, I deserve to be hanged as she was.”[6] Unsure about which inspection to trust, Jones called for a third investigation of the accused women. The results were, again, mixed. Two of the women, Sara Gold and Ann Wakeman, testified that both women had something “extraordinary” in their private parts, “more than is common to women. They weren’t sure exactly what it was, and weren’t prepared to call it a teat. But the other women involved in the inspection, Ann Hardy and Martha Henry, stated that they saw nothing out of the ordinary on Elizabeth Clawson’s body, and nothing more on Mercy Disborough’s than the first inspection had shown. Proof against the women, it seemed to Jones, would be hard to find.
Sarah: The next option was to test Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough with accepted means of determining a witch. Most legal and theological minds agreed that there were “proofs” or experiments that investigators could use to determine a witch from an innocent woman. Some were better than others – less good ‘proofs’ were things like having the accused stick their hand in boiling water or pick up a red hot iron; if they showed pain, they were guilty. But a better option was ducking: tying up and then throwing the accused into a body of water. If she sunk, she was innocent; if she floated, she was, of course, a witch. The reasoning here was that if the accused floated, the water – associated with the waters of baptism – “rejected” the evil and unholy witch. It turns out that Daniel Wescot had already asked Goody Clawson if she would submit to being ducked, and she reluctantly agreed. Mercy Disborough was more eager. When in jail awaiting her trial, Disborough asked to be ducked. When her jailer asked why, she explained “it was to validate her innocency.”[7] Both were ducked on June 2, 1692. Elizabeth Clawson “bobbed up and down like a cork,” and Mercy Disborough floated.
Averill: But William Jones was uneasy. In his reading on the use of ducking as a proof, it was falling out of favor as a reliable method of investigation. Increase Mather had written about this in his Essay, not all water could be said to be baptismal water unless it was consecrated or used in the act of baptism. Therefore, just any old body of water would not work. He argued: “The bodies of witches have not lost their natural properties; they have weight in them as much as others. Moral changes and viciousness of mind make no alteration as to these natural properties which are inseparable from their bodies.” Further, the Bible did not include ducking. Was it not possible that it was actually invented by Satan? In fact, Jones was a little worried even about accepting Kate’s testimonies. After all, wasn’t what she was sharing ultimately coming from Satan if she was bewitched?! Jones was very aware that that very year, in Salem, Massachusetts, a disagreement had erupted over the use of so-called “spectral evidence,” on the very grounds that it was of the Devil. In fact, Cotton Mather and several other Puritan clergyman had written a highly publicized letter to the court invesigating the accused witches in Salem urging them to dismiss spectral evidence on theological grounds, but the court dismissed it, citing other evidence, and proceeded with a wave of executions. Later, the court shifted and agreed that spectral evidence was unacceptable; as a result, the rate of convictions and executions dropped significantly. It had been a bit of a theological mess. William Jones didn’t want a similar mess in Stamford.
Sarah: Jones had other worries. In fact, the doubts he had about the case seemed to only grow. Confessions could be helpful, but even those were coming under criticis in 1692. Indeed, in Salem, Jones knew well that many accused witches had confessed, but then had later recanted and testified to horrific abuses used by magistrates to get confessions. Neither woman confessed in this case – in fact, they strenuously insisted on their innocence. Jones worried also about the issue of the grounds. Was it acceptable to consider accusing a neighbor on the basis that, following a disagreement, “mischief” had followed? Not only did that seem like unstable and circumstantial, but it worried him that it might mislead the public into believing that accusations would result in convictions to settle their petty grievances. He also learned, through depositions of witnesses, that Kate had not actually mentioned Satan until after the two ministers, John Bishop and Thomas Hanford, visited and warned her not to give into the Devil. Was it possible that she only chose Elizabeth Clawson because she knew her master and mistress had a beef with her? If the devil was actually at work, wouldn’t Kate had said this earlier in her torments? And were either Elizabeth Claweson or Mercy Disborough known to have a history of “practices of witchcraft?” In other words, had neighbors ever gone to the two women for occult or magic work – such cunning folk were not the same as witches, but the categories could overlap. A cunning woman or man could help to heal the sick, or perhaps tell fortunes. Most people saw this as harmless and often actually quite useful – of course, clergy weren’t quite so sure. If someone with such powers was accused of witchcraft, it might lend credibility to the accusation. But neither Clawson or Disborough had a reputation as a cunning woman. Then again, Mercy Disborough seemed to have some kind of devil’s mark – that strange fleshy protrusion in her ‘privy parts.’ That seemed to be actually some of the best evidence in the whole case. It was a complex and trying case indeed.
Averill: In September 1692, Jones and his small group of fellow magistrates gathered at the court house in Fairfield to try the case. Here, the witnesses would testify again, but this time before a jury of men from Hartford – not people they knew, but impartial and imposing men from another region. Witnesses were sworn in, and two men served as prosecutors for the Crown. The accused women had no lawyer, and while they were allowed to cross-examine witnesses, they were not sworn in, meaning their word had less credibility as the witnesses sworn to tell the truth. It’s not clear whether Kate attended the trial, or what the mood was in the court house, or how Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough appeared or behaved. Perhaps reflecting Jones’s doubts about the case, the grand jury was not able to come to a decision. Tasked with determining if the women were guilty of “familiarity with Satan, the grand enemy of God and man,” the jury was not convinced that they found sufficient or damning proof.[8] The two women were remanded back to the jail to wait, as the magistrates decided what to do.
Sarah: Then the governor of Connecticut got involved. In October, he reported to the state assembly on the state of the case against the two women, and the assembly members responded by insisting that the special court had to make a timely decision. They insisted that the governor “appoint a time for the said court to meet again as soon as may be, and that the jury be called together and that they make a verdict upon the case and the court to put a final issue thereto.”[9] Around the same time, Jones got further evidence to weigh. After the jury failed to come to a conclusion, he decided to get a further opinion in the case, this one from theologians and ministers. He sent the case materials, including the depositions, to learned ministers and asked for their report. The report arrived in mid October. First, the ministers confirmed that ducking was an inappropriate measure for testing a witch. Second, they stated that the testimony of women on the existence of devil’s marks was insufficient – a doctor (not a midwife) needed to determine that. They didn’t reject the importance of devil’s marks as evidence, but rather insisted that trained physicians must be the ones to determine whether a lump or bump was a devil’s mark and not, say, a wart. Third, the ministers were suspicious of Kate. She seemed suspicious, and her fits, they thought, could just be the same affliction that had plagued her mother. Her condition needed care and study, but perhaps she was herself under the influence of the devil because of her fragile health: “We apprehend her applying of them to these persons merely from the appearance of their specters to her to be very uncertain and fallible from the easy deception of her senses and subtle devices of the Devil, wherefore we cannot think her a sufficient witness.”[10] Finally, they expressed their doubt about the deaths of the cattle and sheep as the result of witchcraft, saying it was on “very slender and uncertain grounds.”[11]
Averill: At the end of October (ooooooh witchy), the court issued its final decision. It’s not clear whether the jury had been provided with the ministers’ report. First the jury was asked to return Mercy’s verdict. When they returned, their result was not what Jones expected: they found Mercy Disborough guilty. Jones was rattled enough that he actually sent the jury back and asked them to consider again. He reminded them that they must only issue that verdict if they could say they had “indisputable evidence of familiarity with Satan.”[12] But when the jury returned again, they confirmed it: they would not change their verdict. They believed that Mercy Disborough was guilty. The magistrates had to retreat to discuss this, but ultimately and reluctantly, accepted the jury’s result. The governor then passed the sentence – Mercy Disborough would hang from the neck until dead. Then the jury was asked for Elizabeth Clawson’s verdict. This time they stated that they found the woman not guilty. The magistrates, not convinced that there was sufficient evidence themselves, were undoubtedly relieved. After months of imprisonment, Elizabeth Clawson was released from jail to return to her normal life – well, at least as normal as it could be after almost being convicted for bewitching a neighbor.
Sarah: But the story didn’t actually end with these verdicts. Jones and his fellow magistrates were still uneasy about Mercy’s conviction, but there wasn’t much they could do. There was some precedent for overturning convictions, but it was very frowned upon.
Instead, it was Mercy’s friends that raised their concerns Many of her supporters submitted a petition arguing that there were abnormalities in the jury – one of the jurors hadn’t attended all the sessions, and was replaced by another man. It wasn’t fair, her supporters claimed, to take the jury’s verdict as a result. The Connecticut General Court agreed this was concerning and granted Disborough a stay of execution while three other magistrates investigated. It took months for their final decision. They agreed that the jury change was illegal and invalidated the verdict. But more, the three magistrates added that they did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove that Mercy Disborough was a witch at all. They pointed to the hysteria in Salem as an example of what could happen when people lost sight of evidence. “Those who will make witchcraft of such things ( shoddy evidence), will make hanging work apace.” And thus, Mercy Disborough was acquitted and released from the jail.
The Stamford case, though it happened in the same year as the Salem witch panic, shows a very different response to the fear that witches walked among the citizens in colonial New England. The magistrates moved slowly, weighed evidence carefully, read deeply in the most respected literature to come to a conclusion. They considered the social elements that might have led to the witchcraft accusations (neighbors’ disagreements aren’t quite evidence of the Devil’s evil work) and the gaps in their knowledge of medicine (were Kate’s fits the result of an inherited disease)? While the Salem witch trial is the one that we’re all familiar with – and the one that has shaped the way we think about witch craft and witch trials in the United States, the Stamford trials remind us that Salem wasn’t typical, but an aberration.
Averill: It is interesting to frame Salem as an aberration in New England.
Sarah: Right? That’s, I think that’s probably key here.
Averill: But I think also too, because this is 1692, right? Like this is pretty late, right for English society to be pursuing witches
Sarah: I think that because there were larger there were larger panics, like in Europe, right? Yes, like, extensive panics, that were more like Salem is what I mean.
Averill: But really not, not at the end of the 17th century. Like 1619, or whenever Matthew Hopkins was, I think that’s the 1670s maybe that late. But he was also, in a way, an aberration, because he esd the Witchfinder General, like he named himself the Witchfinder General. And wasn’t super popular with a lot of you know, reasonable magistrates and judges, because he incited a lot of violence and whipped people up into a frenzy. So I think it’s interesting that, yes, that this Stamford case is the norm for the end of the 17th century. And Salem’s is sort of almost a remnant of has already passed in European thought about witchcraft and and judicial systems as well.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think for me too, I was actually, I was teaching about Puritan New England the other day, and I, you know, I reminded my students, partly because I had it in my mind from from doing this, that, like, Salem is an aberration, as, as you just described, in these different ways, right? But in many ways, like the fact that a which trial took place is not surprising, right there, like it is one of many which trials that take place throughout New England during this time period. It’s just that those trials are much more limited. And so this case is interesting because it is a it’s kind of like it’s a deep dive into what those more typical, smaller trials looked like, right? It also tells it’s also interesting, because it’s kind of an opportunity to be reminded, in some ways, of that, like contingency thing, right? Because, like this, there’s, there’s no real outside reason why the Stamford case didn’t go just the same way as the Salem case, right?
Averill: Like, or even conversely, there’s no reason why Salem couldn’t have gone this, like this, right?
Sarah: Right.
Averill: Well, um, but Massachusetts sucks. So that’s why?
Sarah: Well, it’s, it’s different magistrates, it’s different people. They’re consulting different books, right? Like, their use of spectral evidence, acceptance of spectral evidence, is totally different. Like, it’s just very interesting to me that, like, William Jones is taking this very steady approach, and, like, he’s really questioning everything, including, sort of, like, Okay, well, the standard has been to use ducking like there’s, yes, there, there is centuries of use of that. But is that actually theologically correct? You know what I mean? And so it’s, it’s actually really interesting how, sort of, how much we see him, sort of questioning the, what is, quote, unquote, the standards, yeah, of which investigations. So it’s a fascinating little case. Again, it’s a really interesting little book. And it works really well with students, because it’s very, very brief, and it’s well written, and it’s written in such a way that I kind of messed with it a little bit. I didn’t want to present it in quite the same way that Godbeer did. It’s written kind of like a mystery, like you read about the case, rather than how I presented it, where I kind of described the situation, and then we went deeply into the context of, like, why people would make these kinds of accusations. None of that sort of context and explanation comes until the end of the book, like he sort of unpacks it at the end, which really works when you’re teaching with it, because students really get into the narrative. But I just felt like in an audio format, it made more sense to kind of unpack those things as we went.
Notes
[1]Richard Godbeer, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Panic of 1692 (Oxford University Press, 2004), 147.
[2] Quoted in Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 153; original quote in Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 101.
[3] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 155.
[4] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 155.
[5] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 160
[6] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 95.
[7] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 97
[8] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 113
[9] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 115
[10] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 117
[11] Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 117
[12]Godbeer, Escaping Salem, 119
Bibliography
Godbeer, Richard. Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Panic of 1692. Oxford University Press, 2004.
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