The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) Part 12

Stories of Elizabeth's practice of witchcraft and other black arts followed her, and despite her attendance at church she fell under suspicion, and was arrested, and held by the magistrates for trial after hearing various witnesses. Credulity offers no better ill.u.s.trations than those which fell from the lips of some of the witnesses in this case.

_Tuning a psalm--A black thing--A double tongued woman--A doleful noise--Burning the herbs--The sick child--Gardiner's ox--The dead ram--Burning "the sow's tale"_

Goodwife Howell, during her illness which hastened Elizabeth's arrest, "tuned a psalm and screked out several times together very grievously,"

and cried "a witch! a witch! now are you come to torter me because I spoke two or three words against you," and also said, she saw a black thing at the beds featte, that Garlick was double-tongued, pinched her with pins, and stood by the bed ready to tear her in pieces. And William Russell, in a fit of insomnia or indigestion, before daybreak, "heard a very doleful noyse on ye backside of ye fire, like ye noyse of a great stone thrown down among a heap of stones."

Goody Birdsall "declared y't she was in the house of Goody Simons when Goody Bishop came into the house with ye dockweed and between Goody Davis and Goody Simons they burned the herbs. Farther, she said y't formerly dressing flax at Goody Davis's house, Goody Davis saith y't she had dressed her children in clean linen at the island, and Goody Garlick came in and said, 'How pretty the child doth look,' and so soon as she had spoken Goody Garlick said, 'the child is not well, for it groaneth,'

and Goody Davis said her heart did rise, and Goody Davis said, when she took the child from Goody Garlick, she said she saw death in the face of it, & her child sickened presently upon it, and lay five daies and 5 nights and never opened the eyes nor dried till it died. Also she saith as she dothe remember Goody Davis told her upon some difference between Mr. Gardiner or some of his family, Goodman Garlick gave out some threateningse speeches, & suddenly after Mr. Gardiner had an ox legge broke upon Ram Island. Moreover Goody Davis said that Goody Garlick was a naughtie woman."

Goody Edwards testified: "Y't as Goody Garlick owned, she sent to her daughter for a little best milk and she had some and presently after, her daughters milk went away as she thought and as she remembers the child sickened about y't time." Goody Hand deposed that "she had heard Goody Davis say that she hoped Goody Garlick would not come to Eastharapton, because, she said, Goody Garlick was naughty, and there had many sad things befallen y'm at the Island, as about ye child, and ye ox, as Goody Birdsall have declared, as also the negro child she said was taken away, as I understood by her words, in a strange manner, and also of a ram y't was dead, and this fell out quickly one after another, and also of a sow y't was fat and l.u.s.tie and died. She said they did burn some of the sow's tale and presently Goody Garlick did come in."

The settlers held a town meeting, and wisely questioning whether they had legal authority to hold a trial in a capital case, they appointed a committee to go "unto Keniticut to carry up Goodwife Garlick yt she may be delivered up unto the authoritie there for the trial of the cause of witchcraft which she is suspected for." The General Court of Connecticut took jurisdiction of the case, a trial of Goody Garlick was held, resulting in her acquittal, and she was sent back to Easthampton, to what end is not told in the records of the day.

CHAPTER X

"This case is one of the most painful in the entire Connecticut list, for she impresses one as the best woman; how the just and high minded old lady had excited hate or suspicion, we cannot know." _Connecticut as a Colony_ (1: 212), MORGAN.

"Mr. Dauenport gaue in as followeth--That Mr. Ludlow sitting with him and his wife alone, and discoursing of the pa.s.sages concerning Knapps wife, the Witch and her execution, said that she came downe from the ladder (as he understood it), and desired to speak with him alone, and told him who was the witch spoken of." _New Haven Colonial Record_ (2: 78).

"Shortly after this, a poor simple minded woman living in Fairfield, by the name of Knap, was suspected of witchcraft. She was tried, condemned and sentenced to be hanged." SCHENCK'S _History of Fairfield_ (1: 71).

"GOODWIFE KNAP"

This was one of the most notable of the witchcraft cases. It stands among the early instances of the infliction of the death penalty in Connecticut; the victim was presumably a woman of good repute, and not a common scold, an outcast, or a harridan; it is singularly ill.u.s.trative of witchcraft's activities and their grasp on the lives of the best men and women, of the beliefs that ruled the community, and of the crude and revolting practices resorted to in the punishments of the condemned, and especially since in its later developments it involved in controversy and litigation two of the great characters in colonial history, Rev.

John Davenport, one of the founders of New Haven, and Roger Ludlow, Deputy Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut.[I] Goodwife Knapp of Fairfield was "suspicioned." That was enough to set the villagers agog with talk and gossip and scandal about the unfortunate woman, which poisoned the wells of sober thought and charitable purpose, and swiftly ripened into a formal accusation and indictment.

[Footnote I: Connecticut, through its Commission of Sculpture, in recognition of his services to the Colony, is to erect a memorial statue to Ludlow to occupy the western niche on the northern facade of the Capitol building at Hartford.]

Pending her trial the prisoner was committed to the house of correction or common jail for the safe keeping of "refractory persons" and criminals.

What terrors of mind and spirit must have waited on this "simple minded"

woman, in the cold, gloomy, and comfortless prison, probably built of rough logs, with a single barred window and ma.s.sive iron studded door, a ghost haunted torture chamber, in charge of some harsh wardsmen.

Knapp was duly and truly tried, and sentenced to death by hanging, the usual mode of execution. _No witch was ever burned in New England._

From the day sentence was p.r.o.nounced until the hanging took place, out in Try's field beyond the Indian field, in view of the villagers, whose curiosity or thirst for horrors or whose duty led them there, this prisoner of delusion was made the object of rudest treatment, espionage, and of inhuman attempts to wring from her lips a confession of her own guilt or an accusation against some other person as a witch.

The very day of her condemnation, a self-const.i.tuted committee of women, with one man on it,--Mistress Thomas Sherwood, Goodwife Odell, Mistress Pell, and her two daughters, Goody Lockwood, and Goodwife Purdy,--visited the prison, and pressed her to name any other witch in town, and so receive such consolation from the minister as would be for her soul's welfare.

Mistress Pell seems to have been the chief spokeswoman, and each member of the committee served in some degree as an inquisitor, or exhorter, not to repentance, but to disclosures. Baited and badgered, warned and threatened, the hapless prisoner protested she was innocent, denied the charges made against her, told one of the committee to "take heed the devile have not you," and also said, "I must not render evil for evil.... I have sins enough allready, and I will not add this [accusing another] to my condemnation." And at last in agony of soul she made that pathetic appeal to one of her relentless tormentors, "neuer, neuer poore creature was tempted as I am tempted, pray, pray for me."

But even after death on the scaffold, the witch-hunters of the day did not refrain from their ghoulish work, but desecrated the remains of Goodwife Knapp at the grave side in their search for witch marks.

All the facts during the imprisonment, execution and burial are set forth in some of the testimonies herewith given, in a chapter of related history (the evidence at the trial not being disclosed in any present record), and all of them marked by a total unconsciousness of their sinister and revolting character.

No case in the history of the delusion in New England is more replete in incidents and apt ill.u.s.trations, due to their fortunate preservation in the records of a lawsuit involving some of the prominent characters in that drama of religious insanity.

At a magistrate's court held at New Haven the 29th of May, 1654.

Present.

Theophilus Eaton Esqr, Gouernor.

Mr. Stephen Goodyeare, Dept, Gouernor.

Francis Newman Mr. William Fowler } Magistrats Mr. William Leete /

a suit was heard ent.i.tled--

Thomas Staplies of Fairfield, plant'.

Mr Rogger Ludlow late of Fairfield, defendt.

It was brought by an aggrieved husband to recover damages for defamation of the character of his wife. It centered in one of the dramatic incidents at Knapp's execution. In the last extremity, and in the presence of immediate death, the prisoner came down from the ladder, and asking to speak with Ludlow alone, told him that Goodwife Staplies was a witch.

Some time afterward Ludlow, at New Haven, told the Rev. John Davenport and his wife the story, in confidence, and under the promise of secrecy, but it spread abroad with inevitable accretions, and when it reached Fairfield Thomas Staplies went to law, to vindicate his wife's character in pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence. These are some of the statements and remarkable testimonies:

_Attorney Banke's declaration--Ensigne Bryan's answer--Davenport's view of an oath, Hebrews vi,16--His account and conscientious scruples--Mistress Davenport's forgetfulness--"A tract of lying"--"Indian G.o.ds"--Luce Pell and Hester Ward's visit to the prison--The "search" of Knapp--"Witches teates"--Feminine resemblances--Matronly opinions--Post-mortem evidence-- Contradictions--Knapp's ordeal--"Fished wthall in private"--Her denials-- Talk on the road to the "gallowes"_

"John Bankes, atturny for Thomas Staplies, declared, that Mr. Ludlow had defamed Thomas Staplies wife, in reporting to Mr. Dauenport and Mris.

Dauenport that she had laid herselfe vnder a new suspition of being a witch, that she had caused Knapps wife to be new searched after she was hanged, and when she saw the teates, said if they were the markes of a witch, then she was one, or she had such markes; secondly, Mr. Ludlow said Knapps wife told him that goodwife Staplies was a witch; thirdly, that Mr. Ludlow hath slandered goodwife Staplies in saying that she made a trade of lying, or went on in a tract of lying, &c.

"Ensigne Bryan, atturny for Mr. Ludlow, desired the charge might bee proued, wch accordingly the plant' did, and first an attestation vnder Master Dauenports hand, conteyning the testimony of Master and Mistris Dauenport, was presented and read; but the defendant desired what was testified and accepted for proofe might be vpon oath, vpon wch Mr.

Dauenport gaue in as followeth, That he hoped the former attestation hee wrott and sent to the court, being compared wth Mr. Ludlowes letter, and Mr. Dauenports answer, would haue satisfyed concerning the truth of the pticulars wthout his oath, but seeing Mr. Ludlowes atturny will not be so satisfyed, and therefore the court requires his oath, and yt he lookes at an oath, in a case of necessitie, for confirmation of truth, to end strife among men, as an ordinance of G.o.d, according to Heb: 6,16, hee therevpon declares as followeth,

"That Mr. Ludlow, sitting wth him & his wife alone, and discoursing of the pa.s.sages concerning Knapps wife the witch, and her execution, said that she came downe from the ladder, (as he vnderstood it,) and desired to speake wth him alone, and told him who was the witch spoken of; and so fair as he remembers, he or his wife asked him who it was; he said she named goodwife Stapleies; Mr. Dauenport replyed that hee beleeued it was vtterly vntrue and spoken out of malice, or to that purpose; Mr.

Ludlow answered that he hoped better of her, but said she was a foolish woman, and then told them a further storey, how she tumbled the corpes of the witch vp & downe after her death, before sundrie women, and spake to this effect, if these be the markes of a witch I am one, or I haue such markes. Mr. Dauenport vtterly disliked the speech, not haueing heard anything from others in that pticular, either for her or against her, and supposing Mr. Ludlow spake it vpon such intelligenc as satisfyed him; and whereas Mr. Ludlow saith he required and they promised secrecy, he doth not remember that either he required or they pmised it, and he doth rather beleeue the contrary, both because he told them that some did ouerheare what the witch said to him, and either had or would spread it abroad, and because he is carefull not to make vnlawfull promises, and when he hath made a lawfull promise he is, through the help of Christ, carefull to keepe it.

"Mris. Dauenport saith, that Mr. Ludlow being at their house, and speakeing aboute the execution of Knapps wife, (he being free in his speech,) was telling seuerall pa.s.sages of her, and to the best of her remembrance said that Knapps wife came downe from the ladder to speake wth him, and told him that goodwife Staplyes was a witch, and that Mr.

Daueport replyed something on behalfe of goodwife Staplies, but the words she remembers not; and something Mr. Ludlow spake, as some did or might ouer-heare what she said to him, or words to that effect, and that she tumbled the dead body of Knapps wife vp & downe and spake words to this purpose, that if these be the markes of a witch she was one, or had such markes; and concerning any promise of secrecy she remembers not."

"Mr. Dauenport and Mris. Dauenport affirmed ypon oath, that the testimonies before written, as they properly belong to each, is the truth, according to their best knowledg & memory.

"Mr. Dauenport desired that in takeing his oath to be thus vnderstood, that as he takes his oath to giue satisfaction to the court and Mr.

Ludlowes atturny, in the matters attested betwixt M' Ludlow & Thomas Staplies, so he lymits his oath onely to that pt and not to ye preface or conclusion, they being no pt of the attestation and so his oath not required in them.

"To the latter pt of the declaration, the plant' pduced ye proofe following,

"Goodwif Sherwood of Fairfeild affirmeth vpon oath, that vpon some debate betwixt Mr. Ludlow and goodwife Staplies, she heard M' Ludlow charge goodwif Staplies wth a tract of lying, and that in discourse she had heard him so charge her seuerall times.

"John Tompson of Fairfeild testifyeth vpon oath, that in discourse he hath heard Mr. Ludlow express himselfe more then once that goodwife Staplies went on in a tract of lying, and when goodwife Staplyes hath desired Mr. Ludlow to convince her of telling one lye, he said she need not say so, for she went on in a tract of lying.

"Goodwife Gould of Fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that in a debate in ye church wth Mr. Ludlow, goodwife Staplyes desired him to show her wherein she had told one lye, but Mr. Ludlow said she need not mention ptculars, for she had gon on in a tract of lying.

"Ensigne Bryan was told, he sees how the plantife hath proued his charge, to wch he might now answer; wherevpon he presented seuerall testimonies in wrighting vpon oath, taken before Mr. Wells and Mr.

Ludlow.

"May the thirteenth, 1654.