It had been a question before whether she might properly be called a demoniac, or person possessed of the Devil, but it was then put out of question. He began (as the persons with her testify) by drawing her tongue out of her mouth most frightfully to an extraordinary length and greatness, and many amazing postures of her body, and then by speaking vocally in her, whereupon her father and another neighbor were called from the meeting, on whom (as soon as they came in) he railed, calling them rogues, charging them for folly in going to hear a black rogue who told them nothing but a parcel of lies and deceived them, and many like expressions. After exercise I was called, but understood not the occasion till I came and heard the same voice, a grim, low, that audible voice it was. The first salutation I had was, “Oh! You are a great rogue.” I was at the first something daunted and amazed and many reluctances I had upon my spirits, which brought me to a silence and amazement in my spirits, till at last God heard my groans and gave me both refreshment in Christ and courage. I then called for a light to see whether it might not appear a counterfeit and observed not any of her organs to move. The voice was hollow, as if it issued out of her throat. He then again called me great black rogue. I challenged him to make it appear, but all the answer was, you tell the people a company of lies. I reflected on myself and could not but magnify the goodness of God not to suffer Satan to bespatter the names of his people with those sins which he himself hath pardoned in the blood of Christ.
I answered, “Satan, thou art a liar and a deceiver, and God will vindicate his own truth one day.” He answered nothing directly but said, “I am not Satan. I am a pretty black boy. This is my pretty girl. I have been here a great while.”13 I sat still and answered nothing to these expressions, but when he directed himself to me again, “Oh! You black rogue, I do not love you,” I replied through God’s grace, “I hate thee.” He rejoined, “But you had better love me.” These manner of expressions filled some of the company there present with great consternation. Others put on boldness to speak to him, at which I was displeased and advised them to see their call clear, fearing least by his policy and many apish expressions he used, he might insinuate himself and raise in them a fearlessness of spirit of him. I no sooner turned my back to go to the fire, but he called out again, “Where is that black rogue gone?” I, seeing little good to be done by discourse and questioning many things in my mind concerning it, I desired the company to join in prayer unto God. When we went about that duty and were kneeled down, with a voice louder than before something, he cried out, “Hold your tongue. Hold your tongue. Get you gone, you black rogue. What are you going to do? You have nothing to do with me,” et cetera. But through God’s goodness was silenced, and she lay quiet during the time of prayer, but as soon as it was ended, began afresh, using the former expressions, at which some ventured to speak to him, though I think imprudently. One told him God had him in chains. He replied, “For all my chains, I can knock thee on the head when I please.”14 He said he would carry her away that night. Another answered, “But God is stronger than thou.” He presently rejoined that, “’Tis a lie. I am stronger than God.” At which blasphemy I again advised them to be wary of speaking, counseled them to get serious parsons to watch with her, and left her, commending her to God.
On Tuesday following, she confessed that the Devil entered into her the 2nd night after her first taking. That when she was going to bed, he entered in (as she conceived) at her mouth and had been in her ever since and professed that if there were ever a Devil in the world, there was one in her, but in what manner he spake in her she could not tell. On Wednesday night, she must forthwith be carried down to the bay in all haste, she should never be well till an assembly of ministers was met together to pray with and for her, and in particular Mr. Cobbet. Her friends advised with me about it. I signified to them that I apprehended. Satan never made any good motion, but it was out of season, and that it was not a thing now feasible, the season being then extreme cold and the snow deep. That if she had been taken in the woods with her fits she must needs perish. On Friday in the evening she was taken again violently and then the former voice (for the sound) was heard in her again, not speaking, but imitating the crowing of a cock, accompanied with many other gestures, some violent, some ridiculous, which occasioned my going to her, whereby signs she signified that the Devil threatened to carry her away that night. God was again then sought for her and when in prayer that expression was used, that God had proved Satan a liar in preserving her once when he had threatened to carry her away that night and was entreated so to do again. The same voice, which had ceased 2 days before, was again heard by the bystanders 5 times distinctly to cry out, “Oh, you are a rogue,” and then ceased. But the whole time of prayer, sometimes by violence of fits, sometimes by noises she made, she drowned her own hearing from receiving our petition, as she afterward confessed.
Since that time she hath continued for the most part speechless, her fits coming upon her sometimes often, sometimes with greater intermission and with great varieties in the manner of them, sometimes by violence, sometimes by making her sick, but (through God’s goodness) so abated in violence that now one person can as well rule her, as formerly 4 or 5. She is observed always to fall into her fits when any strangers go to visit her, and the more go, the more violent are her fits. As to the frame of her spirits, he hath bin more averse lately to good counsel than heretofore, that sometimes she signifies a desire of the company of ministers.
On Thursday last in the evening, she came a season to her speech, and (as I received from them with her) again disowned a covenant with the Devil, disowned that relation about the knife fore mentioned, declared the occasion of her fits to be discontent, owned the temptations to murder, declared that though the Devil had power of her body, she hoped he should not of her soul, that she had rather continue so speechless than have her speech, and make no better use of it than formerly she had, expressed that she was sometimes disposed to do mischief, and was as if some had laid hold of her to enforce her to it and had double strength to her own, that she knew not whither the Devil were in her or no. If he were, she knew not when or how he entered, that when she was taken speechless, she fared as if a string was tied about the roots of her tongue and reached down into her vitals and pulled her tongue down, and then most when she strove to speak.
On Friday in the evening she was taken with a passion of weeping and sighing, which held her till late in the night. At length she sent for me, but then unreasonableness of the weather and my own bodily indisposedness prevented. I went the next morning, when she strove to speak something but could not, but was taken with her fits, which held her as long as I tarried, which was more than an hour, and I left her in them. And thus she continues speechless to this instant, January 15, and followed with fits, concerning which state of hers I shall suspend my own judgment and willingly leave it to the censure of those that are more learned, aged, and judicious. Only I shall leave my thoughts in respect of 2 or 3 questions which have risen about her, namely,
1. Whether her distemper be real or counterfeit: I shall say no more to that but this, the great strength appearing in them and great weakness after them will disclaim the contrary opinion. For though a person may counterfeit much, that such a strength is beyond the force of dissimulation.15
2. Whither her distemper be natural or diabolical, I suppose the premises will strongly enough conclude the latter, that I will add these 2 further arguments:16
1. The actings of convulsion, which these come nearest to, are (as persons acquainted with them observe) in many, that the most essential parts of them quite contrary to these actings.
2. She hath no ways wasted in body or strength by all these fits, though so dreadful, but gathered flesh exceedingly,17 and hath her natural strength when her fits are off, for the most part.
3. Whether the Devil did really speak in her: to that point which some have much doubted of, this much I will say to countermand this apprehension.
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1. The manner of expression I diligently observed and could not perceive any organ, any instrument of speech (which the philosopher makes mention of) to have any motion at all, that her mouth was sometimes shut without opening, sometimes open without shutting or moving, and then both I and others saw her tongue (as it used to be when she was in some fits, when speechless) turned up circularly to the roof of her mouth.
2. The labial letters, diverse of which were used by her, namely, B. M. P., which cannot be naturally expressed without motion of the lips, which must needs come within our ken, if observed, were uttered without any such motion, she had used only linguals, gutturals, et cetera, the matter might have been more suspicious.
3. The reviling terms then used were such as she never used before nor since, in all this time of her being thus taken. She hath bin always observed to speak respectively concerning me.
4. They were expressions which the Devil (by her confession) aspersed me and others withal, in the hour of temptation. Particularly she had freely acknowledged that the Devil was wont to appear to her in the house of God and divert her mind and charge her she should not give ear to what the black coated rogue spake.
5. We observed when the voice spake, her throat was swelled formidably as big at least as one’s fist. These arguments I shall leave to the censure of the judicious.
4. Whether she have covenanted with the Devil or no: I think this is a case unanswerable. Her declarations have been so contradictory one to another that we know not what to make of them and her condition is such as administers many doubts. Charity would hope the best. Love would also fear the worst, but this much is clear, she is an object of pity, and I desire that all that hear of her would compassionate her forlorn state. She is (I question not) a subject of hope, and therefore all means ought to be used for her recovery. She is a monument of divine severity and the Lord grant that all that see or hear may fear and tremble. Amen.18
s. w.
REBECCA FOWLER, CALVERT COUNTY, MARYLAND 1685
One of the rare Chesapeake witches, Fowler was accused of being led by the Devil to injure a man named Francis Sandsbury using witchcraft and sorcery. She was hanged. Usually Chesapeake witchcraft cases were milder than their New England equivalents, often limited to bad-mouthing and rumor. Accused witches in the South were fewer in number and were usually acquitted. Fowler is thought to be the only witch executed in the Maryland colony, though a man named John Cowman was accused of witchcraft, condemned, and then begged a stay of execution.1
Court Records of Rebecca Fowler2
At a meeting of the provincial court on the 29th day of September, 1685, Rebecca Fowler was indicted by a grand jury.
For that she, the said Rebecca Fowler, the last day of August in the year of our Lord, 1685, and at diverse other days and times, as well before and after, having not the fear of God before her eyes, but being led by the instigation of the Devil certain evil and diabolical arts, called witchcrafts, enchantments, charms, and sorceries, then wickedly, devilishly, and feloniously, at Mount Calvert Hundred3 and several other places in Calvert County of her malice forethought feloniously did use, practice, and exercise, in, upon, and against one Francis Sandsbury, late of Calvert County aforesaid, laborer, and several other persons of the said county, whereby the said Francis Sandsbury and several others, as aforesaid, the last day of August, in the year aforesaid and several other days and times as well before as after, at Mount Calvert hundred and several other places in the said county, in his and their bodies were very much the worse, consumed, pined, and lamed again the peace, et cetera, and against the form of the statute in this case made and provided.
To this indictment Rebecca pleaded not guilty. She was tried before a jury who rendered the following verdict:
We find that Rebecca Fowler is guilty of the matters of fact charged in the indictment against her and if the court finds the matters contained in the indictment make her guilty of witchcraft, charms, and sorceries, et cetera, then they find her guilty. And if the court finds those matters contained in the indictment do not make her guilty of witchcraft, charms, sorceries, et cetera, then they find her not guilty.
In view of this finding of the jury, judgment was “respited” until the court had time to further consider the case. After the court reconvened a few days later, Rebecca was again brought to the bar and the judges having “advised themselves of and upon the premises, it is considered by the court that the said Rebecca Fowler be hanged by the neck until she be dead, which was performed the ninth day of October aforesaid.”
GOODWIFE GLOVER, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 1688
Cotton Mather, theologian son of Increase Mather, presided over the possession of John Goodwin’s children, ultimately resulting in the execution of an Irish laundress named Glover for having bewitched them. The experience led Cotton Mather to write Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), which in some respects formed a follow-up to his father’s previous work, while also making him disposed to view the behavior of the afflicted girls in the Salem panic definitely the result of witchcraft. The Goodwin case resembles the Knapp possession, though in this case a responsible witch was identified and convicted. Goodwife Glover raises the intriguing question of witches and ethnicity, for at her trial she was reported to speak only in Gaelic.1 While for the most part accused witches in North America were of English background and Puritan religion, Glover’s case, taken together with witches from other backgrounds and regions, suggests that witchcraft, as a cultural belief, was not limited to the Puritan realm.
The Case of the Goodwin Children2
Section 1. There dwells at this time, in the south part of Boston, a sober and pious man, whose name is John Goodwin, whose trade is that of a mason and whose wife (to which a good report gives a share with him in all the characters of virtue) has made him the father of six (now living) children. Of these children, all but the eldest, who works with his father at his calling, and the youngest, who lives yet upon the breast of its mother, have labored under the direful effects of a (no less palpable than) stupendous witchcraft. Indeed, that exempted son had also, as was thought, some lighter touches of it in unaccountable stabs and pains now and then upon him, as indeed every person in the family at some time or other had, except the godly father and the sucking infant, who never felt any impressions of it. But these four children mentioned were handled in so sad and strange a manner, as has given matter of discourse and wonder to all the country, and of history not unworthy to be considered by more than all the serious or the curious readers in this New English world.
Section 2. The four children (whereof the eldest was about thirteen and the youngest was perhaps about a third part so many years of age) had enjoyed a religious education and answered it with a very cowardly ingenuity. They had an observable affection unto divine and sacred things and those of them that were capable of it seemed to have such a resentment of their eternal concernments as is not altogether usual. Their parents also kept them to a continual employment, which did more than deliver them from the temptations of idleness, and as young as they were, they took a delight in it, maybe as much as they should have done. In a word, such was the whole temper and carriage of the children that there cannot easily be anything more unreasonable than to imagine that a design to dissemble could cause them to fall into any of their odd fits, though there should not have happened, as there did, a thousand things, wherein it was perfectly impossible for any dissimulation of theirs to produce what scores of spectators were amazed at.
Section 3. About midsummer in the year 1688, the eldest of these children, who is a daughter, saw cause to examine their washerwoman upon their missing of some linen, which ’twas feared she had stolen from them, and of what use this linen might be to serve the witchcraft intended, the thief’s tempter knows! This laundress was the daughter of an ignorant and a scandalous old woman in the neighborhood, whose miserable husband before he d
ied had sometimes complained of her that she was undoubtedly a witch,3 and that whenever his head was laid, she would quickly arrive unto the punishments due to such a one. This woman in her daughter’s defense bestowed very bad language upon the girl that put her to the question, immediately upon which the poor child became variously indisposed in her health, and visited with strange fits beyond those that attend an epilepsy or a catalepsy4 or those that they call the diseases of astonishment.5
Section 4. It was not long before one of her sisters and two of her brothers were seized, in order one after another with effects like those that molested her. Within a few weeks, they were all four tortured everywhere in a manner very grievous, that it would have broken a heart of stone to have seen their agonies. Skillful physicians were consulted for their help, and particularly our worthy and prudent friend Dr. Thomas Oakes, who found himself so affronted by the distempers of the children that he concluded nothing but a hellish witchcraft could be the original of these maladies. And that which yet more confirmed such apprehension was that for one good while, the children were tormented just in the same part of their bodies all at the same time together, and though they saw and heard not one another’s complaints, though likewise their pains and sprains were swift like lightning, yet when (suppose) the neck or the hand or the back of one was racked, so it was at that instant with the other two.