Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (10 page)

Goody Disborough replied in astonishment that she had no idea what he was talking about. She accompanied Thomas Benit back to his uncle’s house, where she examined and stroked the sick child with what looked like genuine concern. “God forbid I should hurt the child,” she declared, shaking her head, and departed with a reproachful glance at her accusers. From anyone else such a display of concern would have been welcome and touching, but neither the Grummans nor the Benits trusted Goody Disborough. That distrust deepened when the child’s condition improved within a few hours. Such a speedy recovery seemed highly suspicious.

Ann Godfrey had a similar experience. Goody Disborough had made no secret of her resentment after her encounter with Ann and Elizabeth Benit. Goody Godfrey feared that the death of her heifer would not be the end of the quarrel, and when another of their sows fell sick the following summer, she knew instinctively that Goody Disborough’s evil eye was at work again. 
As the witch passed by her house, Ann Godfrey called out. “Come over here, Goody Disborough! I know you’ve bewitched my household before and now you do it again. There are folks who talk of making you pay for your witchcraft. Unbewitch my sow or you’ll regret it.” Goodwife Disborough scowled at her and continued on her way without even responding. But soon after that the sow recovered.

Such stories, accumulating year after year and passed on from neighbor to neighbor, boded ill for Mercy Disborough. In addition to suspected bewitchments, other strange and surely supernatural incidents intensified fears that Goody Disborough was a witch. In September 1692, when the special court convened in Fairfield, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Jesop made the short journey from Compo to relate what had happened when he visited the Disboroughs’ house late one day the previous winter.

“Thomas Disborough asked me to stay for dinner,” Edward declared. “I could see that a pig was roasting and it looked very fine, so I accepted with thanks. But when Goody Disborough brought the pig to table, it seemed to have no skin and looked very odd. We had plenty of light, so I’m sure I was not mistaken. 
Yet when Thomas began to slice the pig, the skin seemed to have reappeared and the pig looked exactly as it had on the spit, at which strange alteration I was much concerned. But fearing to displease Goody Disborough, I did accept some of the pig.

“That same evening Isaac Sherwood was also there and debated a piece of scripture with Goody Disborough. I being of the same mind as him concerning the passage and Sherwood telling her where the passage was, Goody Disborough got out a Bible so as to read the text. The Bible had large print and the light was good, but though I looked earnestly at the page I could not see one letter. Yet looking at it again when Goody Disborough turned over a few leaves, I could see and read it from over a yard away.

“Later that night,” Edward continued, “on the way home, I reached Compo Creek and the water seemed high, so I went to fetch a canoe on the bank about fifty yards away. Ordinarily I can shove it into the creek with ease, but though I lifted with all my might and managed to get one end up from the ground, I could by no means push it into the creek. I then noticed that the water seemed to be low enough that I could ride across after all, but by the time that I got on my horse and rode back to the bank the water appeared to be as high as before. I returned to the canoe and again could not budge it, so decided to ride around the creek. I’d gone that way many times and know it as well as the road in front of my house. I had my old cart horse Joe with me and you know how steady he is. But I couldn’t keep him in the road, no matter what I did. He kept turning off the road into the bushes or backing up nervously. We kept losing our way and wandered for most of the night before we managed to get home, though it was not much more than two miles.”

It is highly unlikely that Mercy Disborough’s trial was the first occasion on which Edward Jesop told this story. We can imagine him confiding in neighbors, perhaps at the tavern one evening—and they, glancing at one another as he paused in mid-tale to take a swig from a mug of beer, a few with barely concealed amusement and incredulity, but others clearly unnerved by what they were hearing. None of what Edward said could have completely surprised those listening, given what they had heard over the years about Mercy Disborough. Vague fears and suspicion now coalesced into firmer conviction that their neighbor was using dark powers to confound the residents of Compo. If they were right, no one was safe while Mercy Disborough remained at liberty.

Yet Goody Disborough’s neighbors were not defenseless against her occult machinations. When Henry Grey began to suspect she was bewitching his livestock, he decided to try an experiment that would, if he got it right, undo the damage she had inflicted and injure her in return. Goodman Grey had heard that boiling the blood or urine of a bewitched person, heating the hair or fingernail clippings of the victim over a fire, burning a bewitched object, or inflicting an injury upon a bewitched animal would put an end to the witchcraft and translate the harm back onto the witch. The witch would be hurt and exposed by the sudden injury—an antidote and revenge!

New England ministers urged their flocks to refrain from such experiments, declaring that these were not ordained by God in holy scripture and so must depend on the Devil’s assistance. No good person, they declared, would go to the Devil for help against the Devil. God would expose the witch if and when He saw fit. 
Meanwhile, the victim should pray and repent for sins that may have played a role in prompting the affliction. But some folk quietly ignored such strictures. If a witch was involved in their troubles, they wanted to strike back. And how could it be that the use of defensive magic against a witch was itself evil?

Goodman Grey recalled hearing that Elizabeth Seager, a Hartford woman accused of witchcraft in the 1660s, was identified and punished in this way. One of Elizabeth Seager’s neighbors, Goodwife Garrett, had taken a cheese out of storage to find one side full of maggots and the other completely unharmed. Goodwife Garrett suspected that Goody Seager had bewitched the cheese. Elizabeth Seager happened to be in their barn husking corn and so Goody Garrett flung the maggoty side into the fire. 
Immediately, she heard Goodwife Seager cry out and shortly afterward she came into the house, complaining of terrible pains: “What do I ail? What do I ail?”

Goodwife Garrett and her husband recounted that incident in court when Elizabeth Seager was tried for witchcraft. Henry Grey did not know (and nor do we) how that evidence figured in the jury’s deliberations, but perhaps he could produce similar evidence against Goody Disborough. Accordingly, he cut off a piece of the sick heifer’s ear, hoping that would do the trick. 
But the animal remained almost lifeless. Goodman Grey then sent for his cart whip and struck the cow with it. She immediately clambered to her feet and ran away. Henry Grey followed and struck her several times. Within an hour, the heifer had recovered completely and chewed her cud quite contentedly.

There was now no doubt in Goodman Grey’s mind that someone had cast an evil eye on his cattle. Flogging the cow had undone the spell and its injury would be translated back onto the witch. Grey asked his neighbors to let him know if they saw anyone in the town suffering from unusual pains. The following day he received a report from Ann Godfrey. She told him that she had just been to visit Thomas and Mercy Disborough. Goody Disborough was lying prostrate on her bed. She stretched out her arm to Ann and declared piteously, “I am almost killed.”

A few weeks later, Henry Grey met Goody Disborough unexpectedly at his brother Jacob’s house. She was still harping on their disagreement over the kettle and made no effort to hide her pleasure over his recent problems.

“I said when you wouldn’t keep the kettle that it would cost you two cows.” Her self-righteous tone infuriated Goodman Grey, but it also occurred to him that she had made a serious tactical error.

“I can prove you said that,” he retorted.

“Aye,” she said in a quite different tone of voice and then fell silent.

On returning home, Goodman Grey’s wife informed him that one of their calves had suddenly taken sick that day and so she had sent for their whip, but the calf was back on its feet by the time that the whip arrived. So far as Henry Grey could tell, the incident had taken place about the same time as his confrontation with Goody Disborough.

Now Goodman Grey heard that magistrates had arrested Goody Disborough and were questioning her about the torments of a young woman in nearby Stamford. The magistrates apparently wanted to hear from anyone with information bearing on their investigation. This was his opportunity. Henry Grey arranged to meet with a court official in Fairfield to record his testimony. He took Ann Godfrey with him so that she could repeat her account of Mercy Disborough’s prostration.

Meanwhile, similar experiments were taking place within the Wescots’ household. Some of the neighbors watching over Kate decided to cut off a lock of her hair to burn it and perhaps bring her relief. If one of the women Kate had named was seen with a burn over the next few days, that would confirm that she was the witch responsible. Kate was in one of her trances when this was under discussion and did not seem to be aware of what was going on around her. Yet each time one of the neighbors approached with scissors, she drew back quickly. Even when they tried to cut Kate’s hair from behind, creeping up on her quietly and without warning, she would immediately turn around and prevent it. The witch afflicting her was evidently anxious to prevent them from carrying out the experiment.

After several failed attempts, one of the men present took Kate in his arms to restrain her forcibly so that a lock of her hair could be cut. Kate was a frail slip of a girl, yet she now became so strong and seemingly so heavy that he could not hold her still. The others in the room still could not get at her hair. Kate cried out as if she were in agony and eventually they gave up.

When Kate came to herself, they asked her if she would now be willing to have a lock of her hair cut off. “Yes,” she replied, “you can have all of it if you like.” Here was compelling proof, her watchers agreed, that Kate was bewitched. Between her fits she was eager to cooperate, hoping to end her ordeal, but when controlled by the witches she would not, or could not, allow anything to be done that might incriminate the women afflicting her.

There were those in Stamford who believed that Kate had resisted being bled by the midwife Goody Bates for the same reason. Mistress Wescot wanted her servant bled because at the time she was not certain whether Kate’s fits were caused by disease or supernatural assault. Kate, who had been lying in a stupor, suddenly leapt to life as the midwife prepared to operate. Some neighbors suspected that Kate’s fits were counterfeit and she simply did not want to be cut, but others wondered if the witches had caused her to resist—perhaps her tormentors were afraid that if Kate was bled they would be exposed if someone noticed soon afterward that they were also cut.

As a growing number of suspicious incidents came to light, each in turn fueled local fear and hostility toward Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough. The doubts that some folk had about Kate’s credibility had by no means disappeared, but these were increasingly overshadowed by the accumulation of evidence against the accused. For years people had shared their suspicions only with trusted friends and relatives. After all, courts were often fickle in dealing with witchcraft cases: they would ask for information against an accused person and then, like as not, judge it inadequate, so that the witches went free. Goodwife Seager, exposed through the burning of maggoty cheese, had been convicted in 1665 but released the following year when the governor’s council rejected the grounds on which the jury had found her guilty. Accusing someone of witchcraft was risky because witches were notoriously vengeful and if set free might well wreak havoc among those who had testified against them. But once Daniel Wescot stepped forward, others took heart and volunteered incriminating information against the accused.

As officials gathered evidence throughout the summer, there emerged a long history of suspicion and resentment surrounding the two women. Katherine Branch’s allegations against Mercy Disborough and Elizabeth Clawson were clearly part of a larger story. But how would the special court react to such testimony? 
Would these magistrates prove any more reliable than those who presided over witchcraft cases in the past? Surely the overwhelming volume of evidence against the two women would force the court to act decisively. Such was its duty as protector of the peace and of the King and Queen’s subjects. Such, at least, were the hopes of those who believed the accused to be guilty as charged.

William Jones, Connecticut’s deputy-governor and a member of the special court appointed to deal with the witch accusations in Stamford and Compo, did not take his responsibilities lightly. There survives in the archives a memorandum in William Jones’s handwriting that summarizes carefully the established procedures for prosecuting an accused witch. It includes two sets of requirements: one for arresting and examining someone suspected of witchcraft, the other for convicting and hanging an indicted witch. Mister Jones most likely compiled this guide in preparation for the trials that would take place at the end of the summer in Fairfield. Like most other New England magistrates, William Jones had no legal training; he sat on the bench as a part-time public service, not as a full-time professional career. But he had devoted considerable time and energy to reading legal manuals and theological works that discussed the issues involved in witchcraft cases. He would now presumably compare the requirements for examination and conviction outlined in these texts with the evidence against Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough.

Presiding over any case that carried the death penalty was a daunting responsibility. New England courts insisted on judicial rigor in capital cases: they demanded clear proof of guilt and required two independent witnesses for each incriminating act. In many cases where the evidence was circumstantial or problematic in some other way, magistrates handed down a sentence short of death, even as they voiced their suspicion that the defendant was, in fact, guilty. Some of the crimes that carried the death penalty were extremely difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt—and none more so than witchcraft, a supernatural and therefore invisible crime. If a defendant was willing to confess, the problem disappeared. In 1663 Rebecca Greensmith from Hartford, Connecticut, went to the gallows after admitting that she had signed a compact with the Devil and used witchcraft to harm her enemies. But confessions were rare and without them magistrates were left with evidence that was mostly either circumstantial or spectral. Most magistrates considered the former a dubious basis on which to justify a death sentence and, as for the latter, could one trust information given by specters, which were, after all, the emissaries of the Devil?