Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (4 page)

The Devil as a black, horned creature with wings, accompanying witches on broomsticks
The woman on the ground may also be a witch, or the three figures on broomsticks may be urging her to join the witch confederacy. The crucial feature is the presence of the Devil—ministers insisted that he was behind all acts of witchcraft and that those afflicted by witches were in great peril since the servants of Satan often promised to end their torments if the victims agreed to become new recruits.
(Source: Woodcut from
Wonders of the Invisible World
, an account of the Salem witch trials written by Boston minister Cotton Mather, published in 1692.)

Watching over a servant as she endured these strange fits was, to be sure, not as heart-wrenching for the Wescots as it had been to tend their own daughter when she went through similar torments. Yet it did distress them to see Kate—or indeed anyone—in such agony. They could hardly send the young woman away, as they had Joanna, to escape the evil eye of whoever was bewitching her: Kate was their servant and they could not spare her labor. Nor could they simply turn her out. Abigail Wescot trusted Kate a good deal less than did her husband, but the couple did agree that as master and mistress it was their duty to see her through this ordeal.

That duty involved protecting Kate from the physical torments and insidious overtures of the creatures afflicting her. Sometimes those who fell victim to supernatural assaults harmed themselves or others during their fits. Clearly she could not be left alone. Abigail would have to keep an eye on her as Kate dressed and made ready for breakfast. Watching her during meals was easy enough. But she would also have to be supervised closely while doing her household chores. Whenever Kate went outside to work in the yard, someone must accompany her. And night would bring no reprieve, for during the hours of darkness she was constantly afflicted by strange visions and torments. One night she had near forty such episodes.

The Wescots followed their pastor’s instructions, but their close observation of Kate disrupted completely their routine duties, while their constant dread of her next fit played havoc with their nerves. Husband and wife were soon exhausted. After consulting with his wife, Daniel decided to ask their neighbors for help in keeping watch over Kate so that he and Abigail could get some rest. Neighbors could also help his wife to cope while he was away from home. Though the timing was unfortunate, Daniel had to leave on a trip to Hartford, over sixty-five miles away.

The Wescots’ neighbors responded readily. To request assistance in time of need was customary and expected in a place like Stamford. At harvest the men would help each other gather their crops; women would often meet in each other’s households to give help and companionship as they spun and wove, prepared to give birth, and struggled through illness. These were, in a very practical sense, communities of households, sharing labor, exchanging goods, and providing Christian fellowship.

But Daniel Wescot had other reasons for calling in his neighbors. They could confirm that something supernatural was indeed plaguing his home. Daniel knew that some neighbors suspected Kate of feigning her fits and he did not want it put about that he was being duped by his own maid. Besides, if neighbors shared in watching over Kate, they could help identify the witches afflicting her. Kate’s descriptions of the women who came to her during the fits were so far very hazy, but Daniel was determined to ferret them out. He thought he knew who might have tormented his daughter several years ago. Might not the same person be involved in his servant’s bewitchment? If Daniel had witnesses to confirm Kate’s reports or, better still, if the watchers themselves saw women entering the house as afflicting specters, that would strengthen his hand, should he seek to prosecute the malefactors.

Daniel Wescot had no intention of letting Kate’s tormentors get away with their attacks. Left unchecked, the afflictions might spread to other members of his household. It would break his heart if Joanna’s fits returned; and there were the other children to consider. Whoever was bewitching Kate might well be doing it to spite him and his wife rather than Kate herself. If so, the witches had to be stopped before they tired of tormenting the servant and went after his own kin.

It was over twenty years since anyone had been tried for witchcraft in Connecticut, but Daniel remembered hearing that an Irish woman had been hanged for witchcraft in Boston just a few years ago. He wanted the witches responsible for his household’s afflictions punished and he wanted to be rid of them. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That was, after all, God’s Word.

David Selleck was feeling extremely anxious by the time he and Abraham Finch arrived at the Wescots’ house to watch over Katherine Branch through the night. Mister Wescot and his wife looked worn and tense, which did nothing to calm David’s nerves as he and Abraham sat with the Wescots and drank a cup of cider. The rituals of hospitality over and done with, the master of the house led them up to the room where Kate was sleeping.

Mister Wescot told his neighbors they would need to take turns keeping watch over Kate as she slept. Someone had to be within easy reach to restrain her once the fits began and David agreed to go first, if only to get it over with. He settled on the narrow bed, just a few inches away from the young woman. He could hear her breathing, but she gave no other sign of life. Abraham sat nearby, gazing apprehensively at nothing in particular. It had been an arduous day and David felt tired, but there was no danger of him falling asleep—he felt far too tense.

Suddenly the Wescots’ youngest daughter cried out in another room. David sat up in alarm and glanced down at Kate; thank-fully, she was still asleep. Abraham crept out to investigate and returned a few minutes later. Nothing more than a bad dream, he reported, and her parents were calming her down.

When the time came for David to be relieved, he carried a light into the adjoining room, where he paced to and fro, unable to relax. All of a sudden he heard Kate scream and rushed back into her room. There he found Abraham sitting up on the bed, deathly pale, with Kate lying across his feet in what seemed to be a dead faint.

“She cried out,” Abraham said, “and when I looked up I saw a ball of fire as big as my two hands pass across the room to the hearth, and then it disappeared.”

Minutes later Kate came to her senses and they asked her why she had screamed. A woman had come into the room, she said, a woman with fiery eyes.

Once Kate settled down again, David took another turn lying beside her. Abraham, still shaken, lay on a chest nearby. Not long afterward David felt a pricking in his side that caused him to start. Abraham asked what had happened and he answered, “she pricked me.”

“No, I didn’t,” Kate retorted, “it was Goody Crump.”

Before either man could ask who that was, Kate held her hand over the side of the bed, palm open, and said, “Give me that thing that you pricked Mr. Selleck with!”

She then closed her hand. Abraham took hold of it, opened it up, and found a pin, which he removed. Kate’s hand had been empty when she stretched it over the side of the bed, he would swear it. Both men were now completely unnerved.

A few nights later, Ebenezer Bishop, another of the Wescots’ neighbors, was sitting beside Kate’s bed when she suddenly called out: “Goody Clawson! Goody Clawson!”

Staring intently at what seemed to be an empty corner of the room, Kate declared, “Goody Clawson, turn head over heels!”

After this she had a violent fit and cried out at the top of her voice, “Now they’re going to kill me! They’re pinching me on the neck!”

Ebenezer took the light, leaned over from where he was sitting, and examined the young woman’s neck. He could see a red mark about the same size as a large coin. Shortly afterward Kate cried out that they were pinching her again and pointed to her shoulder, where he could now see another red patch.

A few hours later both marks turned black and blue as though she had been bruised. But who or what had done this to Kate? Ebenezer had been sitting right beside her. He knew that no visible force had caused those marks. Any doubts he may have had that Kate was under an evil hand faded as he observed the marks on her neck and shoulder darken to a stark, menacing color while she slept fitfully.

Joseph Garnsey offered to spend time at the Wescots’ house while Mister Wescot was away in Hartford, partly as a gesture of neighborly support but also because he was curious to see the maidservant’s fits for himself. How could he not, after hearing the descriptions of Kate’s torments that were circulating through the neighborhood? Abraham Finch had told him of the fireball. And the stories of her physical contortions were equally amazing. Samuel Holly, another neighbor who had watched over Kate, told Joseph that the young woman’s breasts inflated like bladders and then suddenly collapsed into her body, soon afterward filling out again. “And there was a great rattling in her throat as if she was choking,” Samuel added. “Believe me, all that I saw was beyond nature.”

Mister Wescot himself claimed that during one of her fits Kate stuck out her tongue to a great length. “I put it back into her mouth again,” he said, “and then looked in her mouth, and could see no tongue but what looked like a lump of flesh down her throat.”

Kate’s master also described how on one occasion she had been lying on the bed and was suddenly flung up against the headboard. He had not been paying attention at that instant and so did not see her rise up, but, hearing a noise, he turned toward the bed and saw her coming down. Minutes later it happened again. This time he saw her go up and down, with no apparent means of propulsion. Another time Kate was lying on the bed and then suddenly sprang up without the help of her hands or feet, landing on the floor six feet from the bed. Joseph had heard many stories of bewitchment, but none to equal this. Surely such occurrences were “beyond nature.”

Yet Joseph had also heard talk about Kate’s fits being counterfeit. Sarah Kecham told him about an experiment that she and several others had witnessed. After watching Kate lie in a stupor and then suddenly scream out in terror, Thomas Asten had declared that he was sure she was bewitched. Sarah disagreed, saying she did not believe there to be any witch in the town. Goodman Asten replied, “I’ve heard it said that if a person is bewitched, you can take a sword and hold it over them and they will laugh themselves to death.”

He took a sword and held it over Kate, whereupon she burst into laughter. Sarah whispered that Kate might have laughed simply because she knew that the sword was being held over her and Mister Wescot, who was present, signaled Goodman Asten to repeat the experiment in such a way that the servant would not know the sword was there. This time she neither laughed nor changed her expression in any way.

Joseph also wondered about Daniel Wescot’s role in his servant’s supposed affliction. Rumor had it that Nathaniel and Abigail Cross had confronted Mister Wescot with the charge that Kate was counterfeiting her torments, to which he replied, “I’ll venture both my cows against a calf that she’ll do a trick tomorrow morning that nobody else can.” Goody Cross had wanted to know what Daniel Wescot meant by that remark. “Can you make her do it when you want?” she asked. “Yes,” he declared, “when I want I can make her do it.” Did Mister Wescot have some kind of control over his servant’s fits? Or was he trying to make people believe that? And if so, why?

Joseph decided to see the afflictions for himself and so volunteered to watch over Kate in company with Nathaniel Wyatt. At first the young woman went about her chores as if nothing was wrong. Joseph was unsure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Then she went into the yard to fetch some clothes that were drying and the two men followed. All of a sudden Kate collapsed. Joseph carried her hastily into the house and laid her on a bed. She lay there motionless as if in a trance. Joseph prepared to sit with her in case she began to have fits and needed to be restrained, but Nathaniel had other plans. “There are some who think she dissembles,” he reminded Joseph. “Now’s our chance to make trial of that.” True enough, especially since Mister Wescot was away and could not meddle.

The two men got permission from Mistress Wescot to carry out an experiment. Nathaniel, standing next to the bed, asked Joseph for a sharp knife. No sooner had Joseph reached for one than Kate came to her senses, jumped up, and ran outside to the henhouse. The two men smiled at each other: if Kate was truly senseless, how could she know that they were about to cut her and so run away to prevent them from hurting her? But their smiles vanished as they heard Kate’s piercing scream. Joseph ran out to her and demanded to know what had happened.

“I’m in such pain that I cannot live,” she declared and then fell into a paralyzed stupor. They carried her back into the house, stiff as a board, and again laid her on the bed. Joseph took up the knife a second time, determined not to be fooled by the young woman. As he brandished it, Kate again sprang to life, crying out, “You’re going to cut me!” She then lay down again and said, “I’ll tell you how it is with me. I’m possessed by the Devil and he appeared to me in the henhouse in the shape of a black calf. He wants me to be a witch and if I will not he’ll tear me in pieces.” The two men glanced at each other. Did she really expect them to believe this? But then Kate screamed again, pointing toward the window. “I see him! There he is!” As Joseph looked in that direction, he was startled to see a light dart into the house and across the room. Nathaniel had clearly also seen it and was equally astonished.

“Kate,” asked Joseph, “what else have you seen?”

“The Devil’s appeared to me in the shape of a white dog,” she replied, “and in the shape of three women.”

“Are the three women witches?”

“I cannot tell. They might be honest women for all I know, or they might be witches.”

Joseph stared at Kate, uncertain what to think. If she was truly bewitched, were these women the witches who were afflicting her? And if so, what could be done to stop them?