Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (5 page)

Daniel and Abigail Wescot’s home had become the stage for a grim and perplexing drama. At its center was the luridly physical and yet mystifying spectacle of Katherine Branch’s fits. Around the young woman there crowded a growing cast of characters, all determined to figure out who or what was causing her fits. The residents of Stamford were anything but hasty in concluding that witchcraft must be responsible for Kate’s torments: differing points of view jostled and competed for ascendancy. At first, not even the Wescots assumed that their servant was bewitched. Their first step was to call in the local medical expert, not the town minister: they began by seeking a natural cause for Kate’s afflictions. Even once the Wescots became convinced that witches were in fact causing the young woman’s torments, not all of their neighbors followed suit: some suspected that Kate was faking her symptoms. Those who believed that she was under an evil hand, and those who did not, were equally determined to justify their points of view. Their approach was experimental: they converged upon the Wescots’ home and turned it into a laboratory of the occult with Kate as the specimen under investigation. They watched her; they tested her; and they reached conclusions based on what they observed.

Daniel and Abigail Wescot knew that they could not take effective action against the witches afflicting Kate without the help of their neighbors. If the malign intruders were to be identified and tried for their crimes, the Wescots would need supportive testimony. Mister and Mistress Wescot encouraged their neighbors to visit them, partly because they needed help looking after Kate but also to let other folks see for themselves the maidservant’s ghastly symptoms and hear her accusations. Any visitor to their home was now a potential witness in court.

Katherine Branch’s torments were impressive and a growing number of townsfolk had become convinced that she was indeed bewitched. Yet even those who agreed that Kate’s afflictions were the result of witchcraft reacted in different ways. Stamford’s pastor, John Bishop, saw the situation largely in terms of a spiritual struggle: he warned the young woman that Satan wanted to lure her into his service; the Devil’s minions might promise to end her agonies if she succumbed, but she must resist or else face the greater torments of hell. He and neighboring ministers promised to pray that God would give Kate the strength to withstand the Devil’s advances. The Wescots appreciated Mister Bishop’s support, but focused their own energies on the practical challenge of removing the human witches who were apparently causing Kate’s affliction. Their next task was to discover who was tormenting their servant and making her unfit to carry out her duties. They wanted to end Kate’s ordeal as quickly as possible, for their sake as much as for hers, and they wanted those responsible to be made incapable of ever again afflicting a member of their household.

At first Kate was extremely vague in describing those who tormented her, but about three weeks after the fits began, she became much more informative. Kate told the Wescots that she had seen the specter of a woman in the house wearing a silk hood and a blue apron. That evening, she went out of doors, apparently calm in spirits, but a few moments later ran back inside, clearly terrified, and grabbed Daniel Wescot around his waist. When he asked her what had happened, Kate told him that she had seen an old woman at the door with two firebrands in her forehead. Her master asked what kind of clothes the woman wore. Kate said that the woman was wearing two homespun coats, one tucked up around her, the other hanging down.

It was on the following day that Kate first named one of the women afflicting her: Goody Clawson. This revelation came as no surprise to the Wescots. Elizabeth Clawson, a woman in her early sixties, had lived in Stamford with her husband Stephen ever since their marriage in 1655. Goody Clawson was suspected by many of having occult powers and of using them against her enemies. She was no friend of the Wescots. The Wescots had quarreled with Goody Clawson almost a decade before over the weight of some flax that she had supplied to them. Stamford’s barter economy depended on the exchange of goods and labor. Flax, a fiber, was used to make cloth and also wicks for candles and lamps.

Since their disagreement over the flax, Goody Clawson had carried a grudge against the Wescots, especially Abigail, and leapt at any opportunity to insult her. On one occasion, as Kate’s mistress passed by the Clawsons’ house, Goody Clawson came outside and threw stones at her. Abigail Wescot had good reason to believe that Clawson resented the status that she enjoyed as the wife of a prominent householder. Mistress Wescot was one day visiting the home of Stephen Clawson, Jr., when Goody Clawson followed her into the house, demanded to know why she did not visit her, and then became verbally abusive. “Proud slut!” she declared. “You’re fond of your fine clothes and you love to be mistress, but you never will be mine!”

It was soon after this altercation that the Wescots’ eldest daughter Joanna began to suffer from strange pains and nightmarish visions. At the time, the Wescots had suspected that their vicious and vindictive neighbor was somehow responsible for Joanna’s afflictions. It now appeared that she was turning her bile against their servant.

“There she is,” Kate cried, “sitting on the spinning wheel!” Later she saw Clawson perched on the back of a chair. “I’m sure you are a witch,” she declared, “else you could not sit so.”

During the days that followed, the woman whom Kate named as Goodwife Clawson appeared to her over and over again. On one such occasion the afflicted servant declared, “Goody Clawson, let’s have a turn, heels over head. Shall you go first, or shall I?”

A brief silence followed. “Well, if I go first, you shall do it after.” And having said that, Kate turned heels over head two or three times and lay down on the floor, saying, “Come, if you won’t do it, I’ll beat your head against the wall!” Having spoken these words, Kate got up and looked around. “She’s gone,” she declared, and then fell into convulsions.

On another occasion Kate described the woman’s attire in detail. Mister Wescot went outside immediately after Kate had spoken and saw Goodwife Clawson in the street, dressed exactly as Kate had described.

Soon after, Kate cried out during one of her fits that she could see a second specter in the form of a short and lame old woman. She called her “hook backed” and “crump backed.” This woman wore a homespun coat with a waistcoat underneath and a black cap. Kate confirmed the description on returning to her senses and the Wescots soon decided that the lame woman must be Goody Miller: she was, after all, the only person in Stamford who fit Kate’s description. Why Goody Miller wanted to bewitch their servant was a mystery since they had never quarreled with her and nor to their knowledge had Kate.

During the weeks that followed, several neighbors watching over Kate reported that they also heard her name Goody Miller, sometimes calling her “Goody Crump” or “Goody Hipshod.” David Selleck and Abraham Finch watched in horror as Kate cried out during one of her fits, “Goody Miller, hold up your arm higher that the black dog may suck you better. Now I’m sure you are a witch for you’ve got a long teat under your arm.” Both David and Abraham had heard that witches fed demonic spirits in the form of animals—just as mothers fed their infant children, except that witches used a third nipple hidden somewhere on their bodies and nourished the familiars with blood, not milk. Once Kate came to her senses, the two men asked her what she had seen during her fit. She answered that she saw Goody Miller give suck to a black dog and that the witch had a long teat under her arm.

Soon after Kate first named Goody Clawson and Goody Crump, Daniel Wescot had to leave for Hartford to attend a meeting of the colony’s representative assembly. During his absence, Kate was disturbed again by cats, one of which turned into a third woman.

“Are you sure they were cats?” Abigail Wescot asked. “Couldn’t it have been your fancy?”

“They were cats,” Kate answered firmly.

“Well,” declared Mistress Wescot, “if they be cats they are no ordinary cats for ordinary cats can’t turn themselves into a woman and then into a cat again. What sort of a woman was it that you saw?”

“She was a pretty tall woman.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Woolen cloth, the best quality homespun.”

“Was there anything unusual about her face?”

“Not really.”

“What about her mouth?”

“I think she had pretty thick lips.”

Abigail Wescot saw that Kate’s eyes were once again glazing over: she was clearly no longer in her right senses. Mistress Wescot turned to Joseph Bishop, a neighbor who was also present in the room. She presumed that she could speak to him freely without Kate hearing.

“I know a woman at Fairfield who was suspected formerly; she has thick lips. I suppose you know who I mean: Mercy Holbridge.”

Kate started and gasped, “There she is again.”

Mistress Wescot and her neighbor watched as Kate proceeded to ask the specter who she was. There followed a short silence, after which Kate announced that the woman’s name was Mercy Woodbridge, but then she paused. After a moment Kate said that she had misheard the name and that it was really Mercy Holbridge. She went on to ask where the woman lived. The specter replied that she lived at Compo. When Kate came out of her fit, she asked her mistress where Compo was. Abigail Wescot replied grimly that it was a village just outside Fairfield.

Mistress Wescot knew Mercy Holbridge’s history. Originally from New Haven, she was now a resident of Compo and in her early fifties. The family was trouble. Mercy’s father, Arthur Holbridge, had been charged with theft and shady business dealings. Mercy had also been presented in court for various misdemeanors; Abigail recalled that Daniel had at one time given testimony against her. When Arthur Holbridge died, he left his family poverty-stricken and they became a charge upon the community. Mercy’s life had changed for the better when she married Thomas Disborough of Compo, but she was known to be a difficult and vindictive neighbor. This was not the first time that Mercy had been suspected of witchcraft.

Several days later when Daniel Wescot returned home from Hartford, he made Kate repeat her description of this third woman.

“What does she look like?”

“She’s of middle stature with thick lips.” Mistress Wescot may well have noted the discrepancy between this answer and Kate’s earlier description of the witch as a tall woman, though the thick lips did conform with what she had said before—and also with Abigail’s own suspicions. Mister Wescot meanwhile continued his interrogation.

“How old is she?”

“Neither old nor young. She has on a dirty shift and a dirty cap.”

“And where does she live?”

“Compo. I’ve been to Compo.” This last remark doubtless perplexed Mistress Wescot. When Kate first spoke to the specter, she had not known where Compo was. Yet now she claimed to have been there.

Kate seemed to know that this third woman was no stranger to the Wescot household. “Mercy,” she cried out during one of her fits, “why do you meddle with me? I never did you any wrong. What’s it to me if my master did?” Once Kate emerged from the fit, Daniel Wescot asked her why she had spoken in that way.

“The woman told me that you wronged her in giving evidence against her.” When she next went into a fit, Kate conversed again with the woman. “Why do you meddle with me? What’s it to me if my master did that? But I’ve told him of it and he said nothing. I believe you lie.”

Kate had now named three women. It was almost five weeks since the onset of her fits and her master decided that the time had come to act. Daniel Wescot lodged a formal complaint on behalf of his servant and appeared with her before a preliminary court of inquiry on the twenty-seventh of May 1692. The court consisted of four local magistrates: Jonathan Bell and Jonathan Selleck, both of whom lived in Stamford, along with two men from nearby Fairfield, John Burr and Nathan Gold. Their task was to determine whether the evidence that Mister Wescot presented justified a formal prosecution. Trials were time consuming, costly, and not to be undertaken lightly. Preliminary courts of inquiry could identify accusations that were frivolous or for which there was little supporting evidence; they could dismiss cases there and then, or they could determine that a full-scale trial should go ahead.

The magistrates met with Mister Wescot and his maidservant at the Stamford meetinghouse, the same building in which religious services and town meetings took place. The meetinghouse was a simple thirty-eight-foot-square timber building with a steep roof, built two decades ago to replace a smaller structure that the town had outgrown. Since then the population had continued to expand and the town had recently installed additional seating. The wooden benches were austerely functional and there was little decoration such as one would see in an English parish church or a Catholic chapel. The meetinghouse was a straightforward, multipurpose structure. Daniel Wescot would have been used to spending time in the building for town meetings as well as for church services, though never before had he come there for a purpose such as this.

Mister Selleck and his fellow magistrates asked Kate if she knew who it was that afflicted her. She replied without hesitation that she did.

“I’ve seen Goody Clawson sitting on a spinning wheel and on the back of a chair. This very day I’ve also seen Goody Hipshod.”

“Who?”

“That’s what I call her. I saw her sitting on the bedhead.”

“Have you seen any other?”

“Yes, a woman who used to be called Mercy Holbridge but is now Mercy Disborough.”

“How do you know her name?”

“She told me. She lives at Compo.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been there.”

One of the magistrates asked her how she got there.

“I went on foot,” Katherine explained, “and Mercy was my guide, there and back again.”

Mister Wescot doubtless listened intently to this explanation. He had probably heard from his wife about the inconsistency in Kate’s remarks about Compo: at first, in conversation with Mistress Wescot, she had said that she did not know where Compo was; later, when questioned by Mister Wescot, she claimed to have been there. It now transpired that their servant had recently visited Compo in secret with Mercy Disborough, which would explain the apparent discrepancy. It was hardly reassuring, though, to learn that their servant was being led hither and thither by witches. Kate had been in her right mind since she entered the meeting house and gave calm, confident answers to the magistrates’ questions. But she now fell into another fit and the magistrates decided to end their interrogation, at least for the time being.