Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (8 page)

The magistrates accordingly issued a formal proclamation that anyone with evidence against “the widow Mary Staples, Mary Harvey, the wife of Josiah Harvey, and Hannah Harvey” should come forward and would be heard. Only two witnesses appeared. Hester Grumman testified that during an illness that spring she had seen the specters of Mary Staples and Mercy Disborough in her room, dancing at the foot of her bed. John Tash told the court that some thirty years before he had taken Goody Staples on his horse from one town to another as a favor and that while they were crossing some swampy ground he became worried that she was no longer on the horse. Goody Staples was a light woman, to be sure, so he reached back and felt for her; there seemed to be no one there. Yet as soon as they were back on firm land he could feel her behind him again.

Goody Grumman and Goodman Tash clearly felt that their depositions should count as compelling evidence. Yet, as one of the magistrates put it, such anecdotes could carry “no great weight” in a court of law. The magistrates therefore decreed on Saturday, 16 September, that the three women should be set free. “The aforesaid persons,” they declared, “are acquitted by proclamation, nothing of consequence appearing against them, and all persons are commanded to forebear speaking evil of the aforesaid persons for the future upon pain of displeasure.”

The court could now focus its attention on Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough. The evidence relating to Elizabeth Clawson was by no means entirely one-sided. Many of Goody Clawson’s neighbors refused to believe the allegations against her and had come forward to testify on her behalf. At the request of her husband, no fewer than seventy-six townsfolk (forty-eight men and twenty-eight women, including twenty-three couples) signed a petition of support. Among the women was Sarah Bates, the midwife who examined Kate soon after her fits began; Goody Bates now sided formally with those who rejected the servant’s accusations against Goody Clawson. This was a sizeable group of Stamford residents, including many town leaders such as Jonathan Bell, one of the magistrates who presided over the initial hearing in late May, and Abraham Ambler, who had over the years served as town selectman, town clerk, and representative to the colonial assembly. The petition, which was written in Abraham Ambler’s hand and dated 4 June 1692, insisted that Goodwife Clawson did not have the temperament of a witch: 

Our neighbor Stephen Clawson having desired us whose names are under written, seeing there is such a report of his wife raised by some among us, that we would speak what we know concerning his said wife and her behavior among us for so many years. Now know all whom it may concern that we do declare that since we have known our said neighbor Goodwife Clawson we have not known her to be of a contentious frame nor given to use threatening words nor to act maliciously towards her neighbors, but hath been civil and orderly towards others and never a busybody in other men’s concerns.

Eleazer Slawson and Clement Buxton also vouched for Goody Clawson in separate declarations. “I have always observed her,” declared Goodman Slawson, “to be a person for peace and to counsel for peace and when she hath had provocations from her neighbors would answer and say, ‘We must live in peace for we are neighbors,’ and would never to my observation give threatening words, nor did I look at her as one given to malice.”

Other neighbors, however, portrayed Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough as argumentative and vindictive. Following the arrest of the two women, a wave of Stamford and Compo residents came forward to relate quarrels with one or the other which had been followed by mysterious illness or misfortune. These witnesses were clearly convinced that Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough took revenge for disagreements or personal slights by bewitching the goods, cattle, or bodies of those who crossed them. The magistrates recognized that all of this testimony would have to be examined with great care. But at least they need not depend in these two cases on Katherine Branch’s controversial testimony.

Both women reacted to the allegations against them in ways that seemed to incriminate them further. Just over a week after the initial court of inquiry first questioned Elizabeth Clawson, Daniel Wescot went to confront her about the bewitchment of his servant and her anger toward his family. “You told the magistrates that you never lay down to sleep in anger,” he declared. “How can that be when you’re still angry with me? Are you still angry with me?”

“What do you think?” Goody Clawson replied. That evening Kate’s fits became more violent than they had been of late. Mistress Wescot, hearing her youngest daughter cry out, went into the room where she had been put to bed. The infant was lying on the floor near the hearth, at some distance from the bed. A large chair and chest placed beside the bed would have made it impossible for the infant girl to fall of her own accord. Daniel Wescot followed his wife into the room and found her sitting on the chair by the bed, her face contorted in anger and fear.

Having returned his daughter to her bed, Daniel Wescot went to lie with Kate to prevent her falling off the bed or being thrown to the floor. Kate took hold of his hair and pulled it hard. Daniel grabbed Kate’s hands and held them firmly in his own. At that moment something whipped across his face like a cord; it smarted for some time after.

A petition on behalf of Elizabeth Clawson, signed by
seventy-six Stamford residents (forty-eight men and
twenty-eight women), dated 4 June 1692
A majority of the
women signed with a “mark” because they could not write their names;
some of those who could not write may have been able to read, which
New Englanders saw as a higher priority because that enabled people to
read holy scripture.
(Source: Reproduced by kind permission of the Stamford Historical Society. )

The Wescots did not believe it a coincidence that these new afflictions struck within a few hours of Daniel’s conversation with Goody Clawson. The witches were evidently now coming after their own children. The next morning Daniel related this latest turn of events to Jonathan Selleck, so that it could be entered as evidence against Elizabeth Clawson once her trial began.

Mercy Disborough also made intemperate remarks following her arrest that deepened suspicions against her. Joseph Stirg and Benjamin Dunning visited Goody Disborough in the county jail. Benjamin asked if she was going to cooperate with the court and name the other witches working with her.

“Do you think,” Mercy replied, laughing bitterly, “that I would be such a fool as to hang alone?”

Joseph declared that this amounted to an admission of guilt. Goody Disborough was, after all, suggesting that she knew other witches and could incriminate them, which meant that she herself was a witch. Mercy made no response. Perhaps she realized that she had made a tactical blunder and was now determined to keep quiet; perhaps she was too angry to say anything else. In any case, Joseph and Benjamin felt sure that the magistrates would be interested to hear about the accused woman’s outburst and so they each submitted a deposition reporting the incident.

Thomas Halliberch, Mercy Disborough’s jailkeeper, was completely baffled by some of her remarks. Mercy told him one morning that she had suffered terrible torments throughout the night. He replied that it must be the Devil, to which Mercy answered that she believed it was and that she had called on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for protection. The Devil told her that she had damned her soul and she feared as much, but hoped it was not so. “I put my trust in the Lord Jesus,” Mercy declared. “If he has deceived me, I would not have others trust him. I believe that there’s divination in all my troubles.”

The jailkeeper wondered what his prisoner meant by this. Did she believe, or want him to believe, that she herself was bewitched? That she was trying to ward off evil forces? If she was not a witch, why was the Devil appearing to her? Did he want her to become a witch? Why was Mercy Disborough worried that she had damned herself? What did she mean by declaring that Christ might have deceived her? Was she trying to shift blame for giving way to the Devil’s advances away from herself? Was she already a witch and trying to explain away a conversation with Satan that she feared others might have heard? Her words were highly suspicious, the jailor concluded, and so he relayed them to the court.

After reviewing the dozens of depositions against Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough, the magistrates decided to accept the Grand Jury’s recommendation that they both be tried for witchcraft. Indictments were accordingly drawn up and issued: 

Elizabeth Clawson, wife of Stephen Clawson of Stamford in the county of Fairfield in the colony of Connecticut, thou art here indicted by the name of Elizabeth Clawson that, not having the fear of God before thine eyes, thou hast had familiarity with Satan, the grand enemy of God and man, and that by his instigation and help thou hast in a preternatural way afflicted and done harm to the bodies and estates of sundry of their Majesties’ subjects or to some of them contrary to the peace of our sovereign Lord the King and Queen, their crown and dignity, and that on the 25th April in the 4th year of their Majesties’ reign and at sundry other times, for which by the law of God and the law of the colony thou deservest to die.

Mercy Disborough, wife of Thomas Disborough of Compo in Fairfield, thou art here indicted by the name of Mercy Disborough that, not having the fear of God before thine eyes, thou hast had familiarity with Satan, the grand enemy of God and man, and that by his instigation and help thou hast in a preternatural way afflicted and done harm to the bodies and estates of sundry of their Majesties’ subjects or to some of them contrary to the peace of ye sovereign Lord the King and Queen, their crown and dignity, and that on the 25th April in the 4th year of their Majesties’ reign and at sundry other times, for which by the law of God and the laws of this colony thou deservest to die.

Both defendants again declared themselves innocent. Both were committed to trial. If found guilty, both would be hanged. Whether or not that happened would depend in large part on the depositions given by neighbors in Stamford and Compo. Impressive though these depositions were in their sheer quantity, the magistrates and jurymen would need to pay close attention to the actual content. It was not enough to establish that people in Stamford and Compo believed the two women to be guilty. The evidence must satisfy specific criteria established by legal experts on both sides of the Atlantic. These criteria were far from straightforward and the magistrates responsible for overseeing the trials now faced three considerable challenges: first, to make sure that they themselves understood the established grounds for conviction in witchcraft cases and avoided the kinds of confusion that had plagued some trials in the past; second, to ensure that the jurymen not only understood but also abided by those guidelines; and third, perhaps most daunting of all, to handle as diplomatically as possible the mounting public pressure for conviction. Many residents of Stamford and Compo were convinced of Elizabeth Clawson’s and Goody Disborough’s guilt; they had their own ideas as to what constituted proof; and they were not going to be pleased if the court viewed the situation differently.

John Finch wore a grim, implacable expression as he resurrected painful memories of his little daughter’s death. It was all very well for ministers to preach submission to God’s will, but what about Elizabeth Clawson’s role in bringing about his child’s untimely end? Whatever God’s ultimate motives in allowing this to happen, John Finch was convinced that a witch had murdered his daughter. He wanted revenge.

“I’ve been thinking about the quarrel my wife and I had with Goody Clawson a year ago,” he declared to Mary Newman, “and the price we paid for crossing her. It was soon after that quarrel that our daughter was taken with screaming and crying—the poor child was in agony. I remember well the night that it began. We opened her clothing and examined her body, but found nothing that might be causing her such pain and suffering. She continued in anguish for about a fortnight and then she died. We were sure that Goody Clawson had a hand in it.”