Sandwalk: The Hanging of Goodwife Knapp in 1653

Sandwalk: The Hanging of Goodwife Knapp in 1653: Roger Knapp was born about 1618 in England and came to New England in the early 1640s. He eventually settled in Fairfield in the colony Click link above to read article.

Things that go bump in the night…

by Emma Davidson and the Royal Society 
I’ll take any excuse to write a suitably seasonal blog post, and a recent enquiry concerning a paper about witchcraft in our Robert Boyle collection prompted me to see if we had any other eerie archives or ghoulish grimoires. As you might expect, early Fellows of the Royal Society appear to have been just as interested in these matters as they were in everything else. Various papers about suitably spooky subjects were also published in the Royal Society’s journals, particularly Egyptian mummies, as Girl Scientist has identified in her recent piece for the Guardian.

In addition to the prevalence of preserved people in our publishing, witchcraft makes a number of appearances in the Royal Society’s archives. One of Henry Oldenburg’s many correspondents sent him an account of some witches living in Rouen in 1671 (EL/B2/12), whilst Robert Boyle’s papers contain a neatly transcribed extract from Sir James Melville’s Memoirs (published in 1683) detailing a group of witches in Lothian who were allegedly involved in a plot against King James. In the usual way of such trials things did not end well for the accused and they were burnt. Adding verisimilitude to the verdict, the account contains some wonderful descriptions of the Devil, who features as a co-conspirator in the plot: apparently “his face was terrible, his nose like the beak of an eagle, great burning eyes, his hands and his legs were hoary with claws upon his hands and feet like the gryphon” (BP/37/103).

Another letter to Oldenburg describes a Cornish family who were beset by what sounds like a poltergeist, suffering nightly from an “extraordinary and violent whirling of clotts of plaisterings, and great stones from an invisible hand in the house”. This distressing activity ceased when the maid-servant was away from the house, and they solved the problem by dismissing her, although the suspected source of the disturbances was an old woman (suspected of being a witch) who had died some two months previously following a falling-out with the beleaguered family which had been caused by some injudicious comments passed on by the maid (EL/C1/20).

In addition to ill-advised diabolical entanglements and disturbances initiated from beyond the grave, accusations of witchcraft were also based on what we would consider to be rather more mundane concerns, as the following cautionary extract from the first Journal Book demonstrates:
Dr Wilkins put the Company in mind to improve their former consideration of making a History of the weather, in order to build thereupon an art of prognosticating the changes thereof : And he suggested that to some of the Members of the Society it might be recommended to make constant observation , at least of the most considerable changes of weather ; in order whereunto, Mr Hooke was desired to engage herein, which he did : and Dr Wilkins undertook to recommend the same to Dr Power. It was also thought fit that Dr Wren should be written to, to send to the Society a scheme of his weather–engine formerly proposed, to see whether it needed any addition or not.
Sir Kenelm Digby related that Dr Dee, by a diligent observation of the weather for 7 years together acquired such a prognosticating skill of weathers, that he was therefore counted a witch (JBO/1/146).
This fascination with witchcraft was recognised by C.R. Weld in his book “A History of the Royal Society“, published in 1848, which includes a rather fine engraving of Matthew Hopkins, the Witch Finder General. Weld applauded the fact that the founding of the Society heralded a move into more rational times, and criticised the earlier superstitions which gave rise to accusations of witchcraft.

The archives also contain at least one ghost story, recounted in a letter from Cave Beck in 1668, in which a shape-shifting spectre appears before a ship-board audience before disappearing into neighbouring woods (EL/B1/137).

Sir James McGrigor

Sadly the book collection is more than a little disappointing in this respect, although we do have lots of works on alchemy, including one about the Philosopher’s stone. I did, however, manage to track down An essay on apparitions, written by Sir James McGrigor FRS and published in 1823. This takes a much more scientific approach to its subject matter, as is set out in the introduction:
The following Essay was written originally for a Literary Society to prove the reality of Ghosts, and by accounting for their appearance from natural causes, to remove those impressions of terror which are made upon the minds of youth, when apparitions are supposed to be preternatural.
This subject was illustrated by a number of cases, drawn from the author’s own experience, and which cases were all of them capable of being authenticated at the time by members of the Society.
Moving into the rather more recent past, and turning to “the minds of youth”, our extensive collection of Howard Florey’s papers and correspondence contains a charming Halloween letter (pdf) from his 8 year old son, Charles. Written on 31 October 1942, Charles describes the hybrid dwarf/clown/monkey outfit he plans to wear for Halloween, and mentions a school party involving cookies and candy. No “impressions of terror” there.
At least one current Fellow has taken an interest in this sort of thing too: David Dolphin put forward an interesting theory about vampires, published in New Scientist in 1988.
With the nights getting longer and darker as winter approaches, and as wind and rain fill the black hours with unfamiliar and unexpected sounds, it is perhaps little wonder that even the most cynical amongst us might experience an occasional frisson of unease at this time of year. In the words of one of my favourite poems:
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.

The Devil went down to Newbury

Newburyport News Witches were among us before 1692 by Melissa Berry

               

                                “Cotton Mather came galloping down

                                           All the way to Newbury town

                                 With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,

                                  And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;

                                       ... And the tales he heard and the notes he took

                                   Behold! Are they not in this Wonder-Book?”

                                                                           — John Greenleaf Whittier

Old Newbury had its share of spectral sensation way before 1692. The “unseen fury” of the Morse home held hostage by an evil presence is colorfully told by Cotton Mather, and court records reveal a herdsman shacking up at the Spencer-Peirce Farm who had “familiarity with the devil,” bewitching the entire countryside: cattle and citizens.

In 1679 the Morse home was the center of a rogue evil possession cooked up by grandson John Stiles whose “juvenile imposture” was “universally received as proof Satan resided there.” Stiles’ hoax “lithobolia attacks” are well documented by Emerson Baker in “The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England.”

The little scamp Stiles never did ‘fess up. Poor Caleb Powell, the only one not drinking the Kool-Aid in the matter, knew it was the little whippersnapper, and Coffin’s history calls it a “tragic-comedy” when his well-intentioned intervention turns into a witchcraft conviction. Powell was acquitted by spring; however, Goody Morse was brought up on charges for possessing her home and grandson. She managed to get out alive, but not without a grueling year of trials and jail time.

Another naughty knave coasted into town weaving an abominable web that no one could untangle. John Godfrey, wicked warlock of Essex County, supposedly “accompanied by an evil Spirit,” and “being instigated by the devil,” had “made much hurt & mischief by several acts of witchcraft to the bodies & goods of several persons as by several evidences may appear contrary to the peace” (court records). If truth be told, Godfrey was no more of a black arts augurer than Morse was a witch, but Essex County residents wanted him to get the rope.

Godfrey arrived on the ship Mary and John with John Spencer to work the farm in Newbury herding cattle. Spencer locked horns with the local Puritan posse and returned to England, leaving the estate to his nephew, John Spencer. Godfrey stayed on and mastered a position as local herdsman. However, his deviant lifestyle was more wolf than shepherd.

Godfrey’s plebeian nature (cursing, drunkenness, tobacco smoking, traveling on Sabbath, slander) was constantly landing him in front of the magistrates who administered heavy fines and public humiliation, one sentence ordering him to stand “upon pillory with inscription written in Capital letters upon a paper: for suborning witnesses.”

Godfrey had a side profession selling and deeding properties. His methods for collecting were anything but orthodox. He had filed 100-plus laws suits and counter-suits over property, goods and services. He won more than he lost, ticking off the community and earning a reputation as a bullying loan shark. Fed up with “the devilish rogue,” the town folk cried witchery on him.

The Spencer farm would be the subject of his witch convictions (1669) when William Osgood, a carpenter, was hired by Spencer to build a barn. Godfrey had words with Osgood and years later he bought land from him. Both transactions were not harmonious; and after 20 years of bad blood and Osgood’s relatives and friends getting the screws from Godfrey, they all came together to testify in a series of court appearances.

Godfrey became an infamous “perennial witchcraft suspect” often found “suspiciously guilty” but not “legally guilty” and was released with a verbal warning to discontinue his “blasphemous” way of life. He always returned to the nest of his accusers and almost immediately resorted back into his cheeky lifestyle and no one got free from his tyrant web. He did visit the gallows and was sentenced to stand with a halter about his neck followed with a whipping, but that was for setting fire to a home he had tried to foreclose on.

Baker points out that these earlier cases “demonstrated that witches could be held accountable for a wide range of evil deeds, not just unleashing their specters to harm people.” Furthermore, Baker adds, “the fact that all these earlier cases were convicted but spared shows just how reluctant the government of Massachusetts had become, by the 1680s, to execute a witch. These facts make the cases a most interesting contrast with the trial and execution of so many witches in Salem a decade later.”

Thanks Emerson Baker, www.salemstate.edu/~ebaker. And look for “A Storm of Witchcraft: The Trials of Salem and a Nation” in 2014.