Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (6 page)

The very next day, Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough were brought before the court for questioning. Clawson’s home was within walking distance of the meetinghouse, but Disborough had to be fetched from Compo. Both women insisted that they were innocent.

“You have been named by a servant maid of Mister Wescot’s as having a hand in afflicting her by witchcraft,” declared Jonathan Selleck. “Are you one of those who afflict her?”

“I absolutely deny that I am any such person,” replied Clawson. Her tone, the magistrates would have noted disapprovingly, was abrupt and far from respectful. She acknowledged that there had been “a dissension” between her and the Wescots some eight or nine years since, but denied that she was now taking revenge for that quarrel.

“I know of no means whereby the maid is afflicted,” she declared.

Mercy Disborough also spoke confidently and without hesitation.

“I never saw or knew of the girl before,” she declared, “and never heard there was such a person in the world till now.”

During Goody Disborough’s examination, Kate was carried into the meeting house in a stupor. She came to her senses while Disborough was speaking and, endeavoring to raise herself up, asked, “Where is she?”

Mister Wescot helped Kate up and at that point Goody Disborough turned to face her. Kate immediately fell down into another fit. A few minutes later, she came to herself again and asked,

“Where is Mercy? I hear her voice.”

She had been lying with her face away from Goody Disborough, but now turned and saw her.

“It’s her! I’m sure it’s her!”

Kate straight away fell into another bout of convulsive fits.

The magistrates gave orders for both women to be placed “under restraint of authority.” Mercy Disborough was sent to the county jail in Fairfield; Elizabeth Clawson remained in Stamford under house arrest for several weeks until she too was removed to Fairfield. Once they were “under restraint,” Kate said that she could no longer see their specters. When the apparition of the woman whom she called Goody Hipshod next appeared to her, Kate asked mockingly where the other two witches were and then informed the specter that they had been apprehended. Goody Hipshod, she declared, would soon be joining them.

Just over a fortnight later, on 13 June, Daniel Wescot arrived with Katherine Branch at the house of Jonathan Selleck, one of the magistrates who had questioned her at the meetinghouse and who wished to examine Kate further. Mister Selleck was the wealthiest man in Stamford and his house doubtless reflected that. It was probably bigger than the Wescots’ home and more expensively decorated. Some of the furniture may have been imported from England instead of being made locally and the woodwork would have been more elaborately carved than in most homes. The cut of Mister Selleck’s clothes and the quality of fabric from which they were made would also have exhibited his social status. Kate may not have been inside the house previously: perhaps she was awed by the magistrate and his evident wealth; or perhaps she was too preoccupied with the task in hand to take much notice of her surroundings. After all, she had a story to tell.

The Hoyt-Barnum House in Stamford,
built in the late seventeenth century and now restored to its original condition.
Like most houses in New England, this one was built of wood; the framework consisted of posts and beams held together by wooden pins. The house had a stone foundation, and the chimney was also made from stones bonded by a mortar consisting of clay, animal hair, and straw. 
(Source: This photograph is reproduced by kind permission of the Stamford Historical Society.)

Kate told Mister Selleck that since her first examination four more women had appeared to her: a girl and her mother who both lived in Fairfield but whose names she did not know; a woman from New York who called herself Mary Glover; and another woman from Boston, whom the girl from Fairfield named as Goody Abison. Since Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough had been arrested, Kate added, they had come only once in the night to afflict her. But Goody Miller had tormented her repeatedly, along with these other women. Kate claimed that she was not their only victim: last night, she declared, Goody Miller and Goody Abison had dragged one of Mister Wescot’s children out of bed and along the floor.

A woman named Mary Glover had indeed been accused of witchcraft in 1688, but she had lived in Boston, not New York, and was hanged that same year. Where was Kate getting her information? Mister Selleck asked Kate if her master or mistress or any other person had mentioned in her hearing any of the persons whom she now accused of tormenting her. Kate answered that she had never heard their names until the apparitions themselves told her who they were. Mister Selleck then asked Kate if she would take an oath as to the truth of what she said, especially her claim that nobody had mentioned the persons she accused before the specters themselves gave her the names. Kate answered that she would do so willingly.

At the end of June, Daniel Wescot brought Kate back to tell Jonathan Selleck about her most recent afflictions. Neighbors crowded into the house, some doubtless drawn by sympathy for Kate’s plight, others by the thrilling prospect of witnessing one of her attacks. The room was thick with anticipation.

Kate told Mister Selleck that Goody Clawson had reappeared last Saturday night and tormented her more grievously than ever. “She held my head back, pulling my arms, and pressed upon me, causing me much pain.” Daniel Wescot now stepped in to confirm and elaborate on his servant’s account. “She made a terrible screeching noise,” he declared. “She cried out, ‘Goody Clawson, Goody Clawson, why will you kill me? Why will you torment me?’ Her head was bent backward and when I went to lift her up she seemed three times heavier than her normal weight. The maid cried out, ‘Get off me!’ several times. When she came to her senses, I asked her who was tormenting her and she answered, ‘Goody Clawson, Goody Clawson, Goody Clawson.’ During her fit, she and the bedstead shook so hard that we were all much affrighted.”

The torments had been repeated the following night, though not to such extremes. Then Elizabeth Clawson was finally removed from Stamford and sent away to be kept with Mercy Disborough at the jail in Fairfield, since when, Kate declared, she had been afflicted only by Goody Miller.

Once Mister Selleck finished questioning Kate, she left the house, accompanied by his Indian servant. But a few minutes later the Indian reappeared: Kate had got some three hundred yards from the house when she suddenly fell down in a fit. Mister Selleck’s son John and David Selleck, a cousin, went outside and carried Kate back to the house, stiff as a board. Coming out of her stupor, she screamed and cried out, “Goody Clawson, you kill me! Goody Clawson, you kill me!” Kate’s head was bent backward, her arm twisted around to her back.

“You’re breaking my arm,” she cried and fell into such violent fits that two men could scarcely restrain her, to the amazement of those still gathered in the house.

Daniel Wescot and Jonathan Selleck decided not to move Kate until the following morning. All night long her torments continued. During brief gaps between spasms of agony she conversed with the apparitions. “Goody Clawson,” she asked in a woe-begone tone, “why do you torment me so? I never did you any harm in word or deed. Why are you all come now to afflict me?”

A little later she declared, “I will not yield, for you are witches and your portion is hellfire to all eternity. Mister Bishop has often told me I must not yield and the minister from Norwalk has said the same, so I hope God will keep me from yielding to you.”

Kate named five women whose specters she conversed with that night: Elizabeth Clawson, Mercy Disborough, Goody Miller, the little girl, and her mother. The girl she now addressed as Sarah.

“Is Sarah Staples your right name? I’m afraid you tell me a lie. Tell me your right name!”

This she repeated several times before declaring, “Yes, I must tell my master and Mister Selleck if they ask me, but I’ll tell no one else.”

A short silence.

“Hannah Harvey? Is that your name? Then why did you tell me a lie before? Well then, what is the name of the woman who comes with you?”

Another silence.

“Yes, I must tell my master and Mister Selleck if he asks me, but I’ll tell no one else. You will not tell me? Then I will ask Goody Crump.”

“Goody Crump,” she said, turning in another direction, “what is the name of the woman who comes with Hannah Harvey?” She asked this several times and then declared, “Mary! Mary what? Mary Harvey? Well then, is Mary Harvey the mother of Hannah Harvey? Now I know it! Why did you not tell me before? There were more cats came at first, and I shall know all your names. What creature is that with a great head and wings and no body and all black? Hannah, is that your father? I believe it is, for you are a witch. Hannah, what is your father’s name? And have you no grandfather and grandmother? How came you to be a witch?”

She stopped again and then resumed after listening carefully.

“A grandmother? What is her name?” Another pause.

“Goody Staples? What was her maiden name?”

Mister Selleck most likely knew that the husband of a New Haven woman named Mary Staples had won a slander suit many years before against a neighbor who accused her of being a witch and a liar. It had been an ugly business. Goodwife Staples had angrily confronted the neighbor in church. Many witnesses, including the local minister, later testified in court for one side or the other. Staples had a daughter Mary whose married name was Harvey; Mary had a daughter named Hannah.

Mister Selleck’s attention was drawn back to Kate’s fits. She began to sing songs and hum tunes, “gigs for them to dance by,” as she said. She then recited a great many religious verses and also the dialogue between Christ and the Devil as well as the Lord’s Prayer, the Commandments, and the Catechism (an outline of Puritan faith in the form of questions and answers that children in godly households learned by heart).

Early the following morning Jonathan Selleck wrote to Nathan Gold, who had presided with him over the initial inquiry. “Yesterday,” he reported, “Mister Wescot brought his maid Kate down to my house to be examined, and I took her relation concerning how she had been afflicted of late, which is too long to relate, but I refer you to the bearer of this letter, my son John Selleck, who was a spectator with several others at the time. The poor girl was forced to stay all night and as yet has not come to her senses. But when she does I shall examine her about what she discoursed in her fits. She said in her fits last night that there was a creature she saw among them with a great head and wings, all black, and Kate asked the girl she called Hannah if it was her father. I believe it is. What this may mean the Lord knows. I fear that all the persons she has named are wicked and I desire the Lord to make discovery of them.”

When Kate came to her senses that morning, Jonathan Selleck questioned her about the previous evening’s ordeal. She described again the torments inflicted by Elizabeth Clawson, Mercy Disborough, Goody Miller, and Mary and Hannah Harvey. “They were terribly mad at me for telling things against them.”

Kate began to weep quietly. No flailing and screaming, thought Mister Selleck, no drama and spectacle...just a frightened and exhausted young woman. Something truly horrifying must be causing such anguish. It was his responsibility to protect her and to punish those responsible. Such was his duty as a neighbor, as a fellow Christian, and as an officer of the law. Daniel Wescot had placed his trust in him by bringing the maid repeatedly to his house so that he could attest to her fits, question her, and act on her allegations. Mister Selleck did not intend to betray that trust.

Jonathan Selleck knew that other residents of Stamford also suspected Goody Clawson of witchcraft and he had heard of the suspicions surrounding Goody Disborough in Compo. But how exactly would the Lord “make discovery of them” in such a way that their crimes could be proven in a court of law? And what of those neighbors who refused to believe in Elizabeth Clawson’s guilt and were already mobilizing on her behalf? Ahead lay legal and political thickets that he was glad not to be facing alone.

As magistrate Jonathan Selleck pondered the chilling scenes that he had witnessed over the past few weeks, he became increasingly worried about the dangers facing Stamford. Mister Selleck had spent his entire adult life in the town and was regarded as one of its foremost residents. Though born in Boston, he and his younger brother John had moved to Connecticut in 1660. Jonathan was twenty at the time, John seventeen. The two brothers became partners in trade, following in the footsteps of their father, a merchant who had traveled down to Barbados regularly until his death in 1654. Jonathan was the more sedentary of the two; it was John who ferried their cargo back and forth, spending weeks and sometimes months away at sea. The town, realizing that it stood to benefit from the Selleck brothers’ commercial ventures, had granted them land for a warehouse.