Part 7

The tract is reprinted in Historical Magazine (N.Y., vol. v. pp. 321-327), and is followed (vol. vi. p. 159) with a statement, by Rev. Lucius Alden, on the persons and localities mentioned therein. Brewster’s Rambles about Portsmouth, 2d series, 1869, has a chapter on the subject (pp. 343-351), with Mr. Alden’s statement; but none of these writers seem to be aware that Richard Chamberlayne was the author of Lithobolia. Since writing the above I find the tract under the name of Richard Chamberlain in British Museum Catalogue, 1814, and the title was so copied into Watt and Lowndes.

This was the Hortando case, a brief narrative of which, “sent in by an intelligent person,” is given in Remarkable Providences, pp. 116-118, and Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 453.

“The enclosed I transcribed from Mr. Tho. Broughton, who read to me what he took from the mouth of the woman and her husband, and judge it credible; though it be not the half of what is to be gotten. I expect from him a fuller and further account before I come down to the Commencement.” (Mr. Moody to Mr. Mather, August 23, 1683. Mather Papers, p. 360.) The date, place and attending circumstances make it clear that this was “the narrative sent in by an intelligent person,” which Mr. Mather printed.

Gov. Hutchinson found this case reported in Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 454.

Increase Mather’s Remarkable Providences is the work here alluded to; but the date should have been 1684 and not 1685. The book was issued in the Spring of 1684. Nathaniel Mather, in a letter to the author, dated Dec. 31, 1684, acknowledges receiving a copy on which “was written in your hand 7 ber 16.” (Mather Papers, p. 58.) John Bishop acknowledges the receipt of a copy, in a letter dated June 10, 1684. (Ibid. p. 312.) This erroneous date, and a typographical error in the Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 473, have led some writers to suppose that Cotton Mather wrote his first book on witchcraft in 1685. He was then twenty-two years of age. Before 1686 he published no works except Elegy on Rev. Nath. Collins, 1685, and The Boston Ephemeris, an Almanac for 1683, neither of which are in the printed list of his works. His first writing on witchcraft was issued in 1689.

This date is correct. It is singular that in his final draft the author should be in doubt, and say, “in 1687 or 1688.”

The names and ages of the children were as follows: Martha 13, John 11, Mercy 7, Benjamin 5.

Cotton Mather’s Memorable Providences, Boston, 1689. 2d ed. London, 1691.

Cotton Mather’s. On the 4th of October, 1688, Joshua Moody wrote a letter to Increase Mather, then in London, in which he spoke of the Goodwin case. (Mather Papers, pp. 367-8.) He says “We have a very strange thing among us, which we know not what to make of, except it be witchcraft, as we think it must needs be. Three or four children of one Goodwin, a mason, that have been for some weeks grievously tormented, crying out of head, eyes, tongue, teeth; breaking their neck, back, thighs, knees, legs, feet, toes, &c.; and then they roar out, Oh my head! Oh my neck! and from one part to another the pain runs almost as fast as I write it. The pain is doubtless very exquisite, and the cries most dolorous and affecting; and this is noteable, that two or more of them cry out of the same pain in the same part, at the same time, and as the pain shifts to another place in one, so in the other, and thus it holds them for an hour together and more; and when the pain is over they eat, drink, walk, play, laugh, as at other times. They are generally well a nights. A great many good Christians spent a day of prayer there. Mr. Morton came over, and we each spent an hour in prayer; since which, the parents suspecting an old woman and her daughter living hard by, complaint was made to the justices, and compassion had so far, that the women were committed to prison and are there now. Yesterday I called in at the house, and was informed by the parent that since the women were confined the children have been well while out of the house; but as soon as any of them come into the house, then taken as formerly; so that now all their children keep at their neighbors’ houses. If any step home they are immediately afflicted, and while they keep out are well. I have been a little larger in this narrative because I know you have studied these things. We cannot but think the Devil has a hand in it by some instrument. It is an example, in all the parts of it, not to be parallelled. You may inquire further of Mr. Oakes [Edward, Jr., the bearer of the letter], whose uncle [Dr. Thomas Oakes] administered physic to them at first, and he will probably inform you more fully.”

We have here a motive other than curiosity or credulity, which led Mr. Mather to take one of the Goodwin children to his own house, where he kept her till spring and till she fully recovered. This letter of Mr. Moody’s was prior to any writing on the subject by Mr. Mather. An account of this case is in the Magnalia, vol. ii. pp. 456-465. See also North American Review, vol. cviii. pp. 350-359.

A friend skilled in the Indian dialects suggests that Mr. Mather’s pronunciation of the Indian language was probably so imperfect that the Devil was excusable for not understanding it.

In the year 1720, at Littleton, in the Massachusetts Province, a family were supposed to be bewitched in much the same manner with this of Goodwin’s. I shall give a brief account of the affair, and the manner how the fraud came to be disclosed, to show the similitude between the two cases, and to discourage parents from showing the least countenance to such pranks in their children.

One J. B. of Littleton, had three daughters of 11, 9, 5 years of age. The eldest being a forward girl, and having heard and read many strange stories, used to surprise the company where she was with her manner of relating them. Pleased with applause she went from stories to dreams, and from dreams to visions, attaining the art of swooning away, and being to all appearance breathless for some time; and upon her reviving would tell strange stories of what she had met with in this and other worlds. When she met with the words God, Christ or Holy Ghost in the Bible, she would drop down with scarce any signs of life in her. Strange noises were heard in the house, stones came down the chimney and did great mischief. It was common to find her in ponds of water, crying out she should be drowned, sometimes upon the top of the house, and sometimes upon the tops of trees, and, being asked, said she flew there; complained of beating and pinching by invisible hands which left the marks upon her. She complained of a woman of the town, one Mrs. D—y, and that she appeared to her, and once her mother struck at the place where the girl said she saw D—y, and thereupon the girl cried out you have struck her upon the belly, and it was found that D—y complained of a hurt in her belly about the same time. Another time the mother struck at a place where the girl said there was a yellow bird, and she then told her mother she had hit the side of its head, and it turned out that D. was hurt in the side of her head at that time.

D. being with child, when the first blow was struck, took to her bed soon after and died, and, as soon as it was known, the girl was well.

The next daughter, after her sister had succeeded so well, imitated her in complaining of D. and outdid her in her feats of running to the top of the barn where a man could not have got without danger, and pretended she was carried in the air; but, upon the news of D.’s death, she was well too. The youngest though but five years old attempted the same things, and in some instances went beyond her sisters; but she would not be well until a considerable time after D.’s death.

The second daughter really believed the first bewitched, by her being in ponds, upon trees, &c; but had the curiosity to try if she could not do the same things. The third, seeing her sisters were pitied and tenderly used, was willing to share with them. The eldest, seeing the others following her, let them into the secret, and then they acted in concert.

The neighbors in general agreed they were under an evil hand; some affirmed they had seen them flying, and it was pronounced a piece of witchcraft, as much as ever had been at Salem. Their parents were indulgent to them, and though some of the people were not without suspicion of fraud, yet no great pains were taken to detect them. Physicians were employed to no purpose, and ministers prayed over them without success.

After the children altered their behavior, they all persisted in it that there had been no fraud; and, although the affair lay with great weight upon the conscience of the eldest, and she would sometimes say to her next sister they should one time or other be discovered and brought to shame, yet it remained a long time a secret. The eldest, not having been baptized, desired and obtained baptism; and being examined by the minister as to her conduct in this affair, she persisted in her declarations of innocency. Having removed to Medford, she offered to join to the church there, in 1728, and gave a satisfactory account of herself to the minister of the town, who knew nothing of the share she had in this transaction; but, the Lord’s day before she was to be admitted, he happened to preach from this text, “He that speaketh lies shall not escape.” The woman supposed the sermon to be intended for her, and went to the minister to inquire. He informed her no body had been with him to object anything against her; but she had then determined to make a full confession, and disclosed the matter to him, owning the whole and every part to be the fraud of her and her sisters, and desired to make the most public acknowledgment of it in the face of the church, which was done accordingly. They had gone so far in their complaints that they found it necessary to accuse somebody, and pitched upon this particular woman, D—, having no former prejudice again (sic) her. The woman’s complaints, at the same time the children pretended she was struck, proceeded from other causes which were not properly inquired into. Once they were in danger of being detected by their father in one instance of their fraud; but the grounds of suspicion were overlooked or neglected through his prejudice and credulity in favor of his children.

Gov. Hutchinson condensed the above statement from a manuscript prepared by Ebenezer Turell, minister of Medford, to whom the confession was made, which has since been printed in full in Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. xx. pp. 6-22. Though fully in the belief that there were fraud and deception in the actions of the Littleton children, Mr. Turell could not divest himself of the idea that there was also diabolical agency manifested in these transactions. “I make no doubt,” he says (p. 16), “but in this sinning Satan was very officious.” Again (p. 19) he gives this excellent advice: “Never use any of the Devil’s legerdemain tricks. You only gratify Satan, and invite him into your company to deceive you.” Persons who can accept the possibility of diabolical agency will find in Mr. Turell’s narrative ample scope for the exercise of their belief.

Elisha Hutchinson, a merchant in Boston, and grandfather of the author. He was the grandson of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, who was banished, in 1637, for her religious opinions.

William Perkins, 1558-1602, a Puritan divine, and Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge. Several editions of his works, in three volumes folio, appeared from 1605 to 1635. One of his papers was on Witchcraft, and was a standard and, for the times, a charitable authority.

Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. He was chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal Society. The title of the work here mentioned is “Saducismus Triumphatus: or Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions: with a letter of Dr. Henry More on the same subject; and an authentic but wonderful Story of certain Swedish Witches; done into English by Anth. Horneck, Preacher at the Savoy.” London, 1681. 8vo. 328 pp. Several later editions were issued. The story of the Swedish witchcrafts contained in this volume is mentioned by Increase Mather in Remarkable Providences, 1684, p. 132, ed. 1856, and by Cotton Mather in Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693, pp. 44, 88. Mr. C. W. Upham, supposing that C. Mather was the only person in New England, in 1692, who knew of this case, bases an argument upon it in Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, 1869, pp. 34-35.

Joseph Keble, 1632-1716, Fellow of All-Saint’s College and a legal writer of little modern reputation.

Michael Dalton, 1554-1620, an English lawyer, author of several legal works which were popular in their time.

Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, “two wrinkled old women,” were tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale at Bury St. Edmunds, county of Suffolk, in 1664-5. The case is reported in Tryals of the Witches, London, 1682. The document is copied into Howell’s State Trials, vol. vi. pp. 647-702, to which is prefixed Gov. Hutchinson’s entire account of witchcraft in New-England. An abstract of the case is in Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 55-60; and allusions to the same are found in nearly all subsequent treatises on witchcraft. It is perhaps the most noted case on record, as Sir Matthew Hale here sanctioned by his great name the admission of spectral evidence, and the dogma that the devil could act only through persons in league with him, that is, actual witches. In the Dowse Library is “A Discourse concerning the great mercy of God in preserving us from the Power and Malice of Evil Angels; written by Sir Matthew Hale, at Cambridge 26 March 1661 , upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the week before at St. Edmund’s Bury.” London, 1693. 4to.

1684.

Sir William Phips arrived at Boston, May 14, 1692. Increase Mather returned from his four years’ mission as colonial agent in England, in the same vessel.

The organization and commission of the court is given in note 44.