USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stratford > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 13
USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 13
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This insurrection business was moonshine in the eye of the historian, of which there probably never was a particle of evidence. Robert Bassett and John Chapman with the others had been arraigned before the New Haven Court about eight months previous for speaking against the New Haven Colony law that none should vote except church members, which was, in the minds of some of those in au- thority at that time, a terrible wickedness, and now, when they again moved with energy to protect the plantations to which they belonged from slaughter, after Massachusetts had broken its agreement and left these towns to take care of themselves or be annihilated, it was thought noble to make Roger Ludlow, Robert Bassett and John Chapman the scape- goats for the perfidy of others, who, although vested with authority to protect the people and ordered to it by the home government with war material furnished to hand, saw fit to sit down in their chairs of state and take their ease at the peril of the whole coast of Long Island Sound. Had the Dutch fleet escaped the English on the ocean, as was intended, there might not have been left a living man on the coast from Rhode Island to the New Netherlands.
No wonder Mr. Ludlow sailed the next spring for Vir- ginia, and Robert Bassett soon removed to Hempstead, L. I.
All these things added to the calamities which hindered the toiling planters at Stratford as well as elsewhere through-
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out one whole year, during which fortifications were estab- lished along the Sound at considerable expense of money and time, worked discouragement in the minds of the people, when in September, 1654, the Commissioners resolved on war with the Indian Chief Ninigret, or the Narraganset na- tion, and for this expedition soldiers were drafted from the several plantations in the following October: Windsor, 8; Pequot, 4; Mattabeseck, 1 ;6 Norwalk, o; Hartford, 9; Weth- ersfield, 6; Farmington, 2 ; Seabrook, 4; Fairfield, 6; Strat- ford, 5 = 45. The other colonies were to provide as follows : " Massachusetts, 40 horsemen and 153 foot; Plymouth, 41 ; and New Haven, 31." A part of this force was to be " dis- patched with all expedition to the Niantic country, and the remainder to hold themselves in readiness to march on notice from the commander in chief." But as in the previous case the Massachusetts General Court when it came together, refused to take any part in this war. The committee to draft the men in Stratford to fill this order was Thomas Sherwood and Thomas Fairchild, with the Assistant and Constables.
At this time (October, 1654) Connecticut and New Haven fitted a frigate of ten or twelve guns with forty men, to defend the coast against the Dutch (whom they had so def- erentially declined to fight the year before), and to prevent Ninigret and his Indians from crossing the Sound to prose- cute his hostile designs against the Indians in alliance with Connecticut. After considerable playing war by the Massa- chusetts Major Willard, who finally came with troops as commanding general in this expedition, the whole display ended without so much as any smoke of battle, and the brave troops returned home, while Ninigret flaunted his colors more lively than ever.
The Connecticut Court allowed its soldiers in this expe- dition pay as follows: common soldiers, 16ª per day ; drum- mers, 20ª ; sergeants, 28 ; ensigns, 28, 6ª ; lieutenants, 38; and stewards, 28 per day.'
This proposed Indian war again awakened fear of a rising or at least hostile conduct of the Indians still residing in for-
6 Middletown.
7 Col. Rec., i. 273.
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midable numbers in and near Stratford. Probably not less than one thousand Indians were residing in Stratford, Mil- ford, Fairfield and Derby, if not fifteen hundred ; and it was not an infrequent thing for individuals and families to have some difficulty with the Indians.
Thus matters continued as to the outside world with only now and then a report of trouble with Ninigret's people, until into the year 1656, when "The Protector, Oliver Cromwell, having conquered Jamaica, made it a favorite object to remove the people of New England to that island ; but while this proposition made some commotion as to its importance and desirability and the contrary, it soon ceased to excite interest, and the people remained on their several plantations to improve them as best they could.
Witches and Witchcraft.
Historically speaking, the topics of witches and witch- craft are to-day treated as questions of undoubted absurdity, demanding only pity for their unfortunate victims. They are also often ignorantly spoken of as the inventions of the early settlers of New England, whereas they had been more strongly believed and cherished in England hundreds of years before New England was discovered, and always main- tained as doctrines taught in the Bible. The New England people revived a few old Mosaic laws and teachings, but witches and witchcraft were none of them. Two eras for the mania of treating these matters by severe penalties of law, passed over New England, but suddenly disappeared ; the one about 1650, the other in 1692; but the influence of a sentiment or legendary stories of witches, still lives through- out the United States as well as England, Germany and other countries on the globe. Among the first impressions of fear produced upon the mind of the author of this book, were those resulting from seeing " witch marks" in the unfinished chambers of dwellings in the western part of Albany county, N. Y .- his native place-which region was settled first by the Dutch, and afterwards by New England people, in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He does not remem- ber having ever seen a dwelling (and he saw many) built by
IO
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the Dutch, that had not these marks on the inside of the roof to prevent witches from troubling the family ; and the witch stories of his boyhood days, represented as actual transac- tions in that region, were almost without number. This belief as developed in that part of the country did not origi- nate in New England but came with the Dutch from their native land. The following is one of those stories related about fifty years ago, as stated above, and is given as illustra- tive of the beliefs of those times, and also as showing that witch troubles existed elsewhere besides in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
A farmer's wife in churning cream to secure butter, spent several hours without success, and gave up the effort as use- less. Upon her husband coming into the house, she related her fruitless toil of the morning, when he, being strongly impressed with the thought that some one had bewitched the cream out of envy toward his family, took his old musket and fired a full charge through the cream and the bottom of the churn. He then stopped the hole made through the bot- tom of the churn and his wife with a few minutes' labor fin- ished the churning, securing the proper amount of butter; but that day, at the time of the shooting an old woman of the place was taken suddenly with a fit and died without any apparent cause, and the matter was talked of as though the community was rid of one witch. Many stories were told, particularly to the effect, that children and young people were prostrated by sickness for weeks and years by the envy and spite of witches, who were always represented as being old women.
The following account of witch troubles in Fairfield County having been collected with great carefulness and expense of time by Major W. B. Hinks and the Rev. B. L. Swan in some " Historical Sketches," printed in 1871, is so complete that it is here given as a proper historical summary of this lamentable delusion.
" It will doubtless be a matter of surprise to many to learn that any trials and executions for this imaginary crime ever took place outside of the State of Massachusetts, and
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particularly in this vicinity, historians generally being silent upon the subject. Dr. Trumbull indeed, in the preface to his history of Connecticut, says that one or two executions at Stratford were reported by an obscure tradition, and that this tradition together with a minute in Goff's Journal by Gov- ernor Hutchinson, respecting the execution of Ann Coles,1 'is all the information to be found ' on this subject. He also adds that 'after the most careful research, no indictment of any person for that crime nor any process' relative thereto can be found.
Omitting all mention of cases in other parts of the State, let us inquire respecting the executions stated by Dr. Trum- bull, to have taken place in Stratford.
We have here something more trustworthy than obscure tradition to guide us, for in the month of May, 1651, the fol- lowing order was passed by the General Court, in session at Hartford :
" The Governor, Mr. Cullick and Mr. Clarke, are desired to goe down to Stratford to keep Courte upon the tryal of Goody Bassett for her life, and if the Governor cannott goe, then Mr. Wells is to go in his room."
That the Goody Bassett mentioned in this entry was put to death as a witch, cannot perhaps be positively demon- strated; but there is strong indirect evidence to show that such was the case, contained in the minutes of a trial pre- served in the New Haven records. In this trial, which took place in 1651, one of the witnesses in the course of her testi- mony referred to a goodwife Bassett who had been con- demned for witchcraft at Stratford, and another alluded to the confession of the witch at that place.3
" The place of her execution is pointed by tradition to . this day, and would seem to be determined by the names " Gallows Brook" and "Gallows Swamp" in the first vol- ume of Stratford town records. The former was a small
1 Ann Coles, is the case supposed to be referred to in Mather's Magnalia, book vi. ch. vii.
Col. Rec. i. 220. 3 New Haven Col. Rec. ii. 77-88.
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stream, long since dried up or diverted into another channel, emptying into the swamp, a portion of which yet remains, a little south of the present railroad depot. A rude bridge stoned up at the sides, crossed this brook, just where the Old Mill road and the railway intersect. The remains of the bridge were exhumed by the workmen about thirty years since, when the railroad was graded at that point. At that bridge, uniform tradition states the execution of the witch by hanging to have taken place. Near by where the street from the village turns off toward the depot, was, until quite recently, a small quartz boulder, with hornblende streaks like finger marks upon it, which was connected with the fate of Goody Bassett, by an ancient and superstitious tradition. The story was, that on her way to the place of execution, while struggling against the officers of the law, the witch grasped this stone and left these finger marks upon it. The stone, with its legend, came down to our day, but a few years since an unromantic individual used it in building a cellar wall, not far from the place where it had been lying.
" In October, 1653, about two and a half years after the event just narrated, the General Court passed another resolu- tion in the following words: "Mr. Ludlow, Mr. Wells, Mr. Westwood and Mr. Hull, are desired to keep a perticulier Courte at Fairfield, before winter to execute justice there as cause shall require.4
"The unfortunate person on whose account justice was to be executed was, as before, a woman, charged with witch- craft. She is designated simply as 'Knapp's wife,' or ' good- wife Knapp,' in the only account we have of the proceedings ; namely, a number of depositions in the case of Thomas Staples of Fairfield, who in the spring of 1654, sued Roger Ludlow of that place, for calling his wife a witch. It is not impossi- ble that goody Knapp may have been the wife of Roger Knapp of New Haven, who removed to Fairfield, although his name is not mentioned among the residents there until 1656. His son, Nathaniel, lived in Pequannock in 1690, and joined the church afterwards organized there, his name occur-
4 Col. Rec., i. 249.
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ring frequently upon the early records of the North Church in Bridgeport.
" The trial took place in the autumn of 1653, before a jury and several 'godly magistrates' (the same probably that are named in the order of the General Court), and doubtless lasted several days. There were many witnesses, but the indictment and the substance of the greater part of their tes- timony are wanting. We learn, however, that a strong and perhaps decisive point against the accused, was the evidence of Mrs. Lucy Pell and Goody Odell, the midwife, who by direction of the Court had examined the person of the pris- oner, and testified to finding upon it certain witch marks, which were regarded as proof positive of intimacies. Mrs. Jones, wife of the Fairfield minister, was also present at this examination, but whether as a spectator or as one of the examiners, is not clearly stated.
"The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and goodwife Knapp was sentenced to death. After her condemnation she was visited by numbers of the towns-people, who constantly urged her to confess herself a witch and betray her accompli- ces, on the ground that it would be for the benefit of her soul ; and that while there might have been some reason for her silence before the trial, since a confession then might have prejudiced her case, there could be none now, for the reason that she was sure to die in any event. 'The pains of perdition were held up to her as sure to be her portion, in case of a refusal.
" Upon one of these occasions, the minister and a number . of the towns-people being present, the poor woman replied to her well-meaning tormentors that she ' must not say anything that was not true,' she 'must not wrong anybody,' but that if she had anything to say before she went out of the world she would reveal it to Mr. Ludlow, at the gallows. Elizabeth Brewster, a bystander, answered coarsely, 'if you keep it a little longer till you come to the ladder, the devil will have you quick, if you reveal it not till then.' 'Take care,' replied the prisoner indignantly, 'that the devil have not you ; for you cannot tell how soon you may be my companion.' 'The
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truth is,' she added, 'you would have me to say that good- wife Staples is a witch, but I have sins enough to answer for already, and I hope that I shall not add to my condemnation ; I know nothing against goodwife Staples, and I hope she is an honest woman.' She was sharply rebuked by Richard Lyon, one of her keepers, for this language, as tending to create discord between neighbors after she should be dead, but she answered, 'goodman Lyon, hold your tongue, you know not what I know; I have been fished withall in private more than you are aware of. I apprehend that goodwife Staples hath done me wrong in her testimony, but I must not return evil for evil.' When further urged, and reminded that she was now to die, and therefore should deal truly, she burst into tears, and desired her persecutors to cease, saying, in words that must have lingered long in the memory of those who heard, and which it is impossible now to read without emotion,-' never, never, poor creature was tempted as I am tempted ; pray, pray for me.'
Yet it appears that her fortitude sometimes gave way, and that she was induced to make a frivolous confession to the effect that Mrs. Staples once told her that an Indian had brought to her several little objects brighter than the light of day, telling her that they were Indian gods, and would cer- tainly render their possessor rich and powerful; but that Mrs. Staples had refused to receive them. This story she subsequently retracted.
" The procession to the place of execution, which is stated by an eye-witness to have been 'between the house of Michael Try and the mill,' or a little west of Stratfield bound- ary, included magistrates and ministers, young persons and those of maturer years, doubtless nearly the entire popula- tion of Fairfield. On the way to the fatal spot the clergyman® again exhorted the poor woman to confess, but was rebuked by her companion Mrs. Staples, who cried, ' Why bid her con- fess what she is not ? I make no doubt, but that if she were a witch she would confess."
" Under the shadow of the gallows the heart of Goody Knapp must again have failed her, for being allowed a
5 Rev. John Jones, who came from England in 1635.
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moment's grace after she had mounted the ladder, she descended and repeated her former trifling story respecting Mrs. Staples, in the ear of Mr. Ludlow, her magistrate. If this was done in hope of obtaining a reprieve, as seems likely, the poor creature was disappointed, for she was speedily turned off by the executioner, and hung suspended until life was extinct.
" When the body had been cut down and laid upon the green turf beside the grave, a number of women crowded about it eager to examine the witch signs. In the foreground we see Mrs. Staples kneeling beside the corpse, and in the language of one of the witnesses, 'wringing her hands and taking ye Lord's name in her mouth,' as she asseverates the innocence of the murdered woman. Calling upon her com- panions to look at the supposed witch-marks, she declares that they were naught but such as she herself or any woman had. ' Aye, and be hanged for them, and deserve it too,' was the reply of one of the older women present. Whereupon a general clamor ensued, and seeing that there was now noth- ing to be gained, and much to be apprehended if she persisted, Mrs. Staples yielded, and returned home.
Among the names occurring in that narrative are some like Gould, Buckly and Lyon, that are common in Fairfield to this day. The Odells and Sherwoods may have been resi- dents of Pequannock.6 Mr. Ludlow saw fit to repeat the story told him by the dying woman, and to further assert that Mrs. Staples had not only laid herself under the suspicion of being a witch, but " made a trade of lying." Hence the suit already mentioned, in which the New Haven Court had the good sense to give a decision in favor of the plaintiff, and allow him fifteen pounds damages.
The last trial in the State of Connecticut for the crime of witchcraft took place in Fairfield in 1692, the same year in which the delusion rose to such a fearful height in Salem, Massachusetts. Capt. John Burr, one of the magistrates in this trial, was the father of the principal founder of St. John's Church, Bridgeport, and the name of Isaac Wheeler, a jury-
6 There were no settlers at Pequannock as early as 1654.
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History of Stratford.
man, may be seen upon the records of the North Congrega- tional Church in Bridgeport.
Mercy Disborough, one of the accused persons was from Compo or Westport. Three others, Elizabeth Clawson, goody Miller, and the widow Staples were indicted at the same time. The last named may have been the same person who, as we have seen, was suspected of being a witch nearly forty years before. The following extracts show the compo- sition of the Court, and the manner of conducting the trial.
" At a special court of Oyer and Terminer, held at Fayre- field, September 19th, 1692. Present, Robert Treat, Esq., Govenour, William Jones, Esq., Deputy Govenour, John Allyn, Secretary, Mr. Andrew Leete, Capt. John Bur, Mr. William Pitkin, Capt. Moses Mansfield, (composing the Court.)
"' The Grand Jurors impaneled were Mr. Joseph Bay- ard, Sam'l Ward, Edward Hayward, Peter Ferris, Jonas Waterbury, John Bowers, Samuel Sherman, Samuel Galpin, Ebenezer Booth, John Platt, Christopher Comstock, Wm. Reed ; who presented a bill of indictment against Mercy Dis- borough, in the words following, to wit :
"' A bill exhibited against Mercy Disborough, wife of Thomas Disborough, of Compo, in county of Fayrefield, in colony of Connecticut.
"' Mercy Disborough, wife of Thomas Disborough, of Compo in Favrefield, 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 bodyes and estates of sundry of their Majestie's Subjects, or to some of them, contrary to the peace of our sovereign Lord and Ladie, the King and Queen, their crown and digni- tie ; and on the 25th of April of their majestie's reigns, and at sundry other times, for which by the laws of God and this colony, thou deservest to die.' JOHN ALLYN, Secretary.
Fayrefield, 15th September, 1662.
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"' The indictment having been read, the prisoner pleaded not guilty ; and referred herself to tryal by God and her countrie, which countrie was the jury after written.'
Names of the petit jury :- James Beers, Isaac Wheeler, John Osborn, John Miles, Ambrose Thompson, John Hubby, John Bowton, Samuel Hayes, Eleazer Slawson, John Belden, John Wakeman, Joseph Rowland,'
The depositions of nearly two hundred witnesses were taken in this case. That their evidence was of trifing charac- ter, will be inferred from the annexed specimens, and these clearly show the excited state of public feeling at the time, that such accusations were the means of putting in jeopardy the lives of several innocent persons, and of causing the sen- tence of death to be passed upon one. Two of the deposi- tions copied here relate to the water ordeal, and there is also evidence to show that the persons of the accused were exam- ined for proofs of guilt."
" ' At a Court held at Fayrefield ye 15th day of Septem- ber, 1692. The testimony of Hester Groment, aged thirty- five years or thereabouts, testifieth ; that when she lay sick some time in May last she saw, about midnight or past, the widow Staples, that is, the shape of her person, and the shape of Mercy Disborough, sitting upon the floor by the two chests that stand by the side of the house in the iner rume, and Mrs. Staples' shape dancing upon the bed's feet with a white cup in her hand, and performed some three times. Sworn in Court, September 15th, 1692.
Attest : JOHN ALLYN, Secretary.
"' Edward Jesop, aged about twenty-nine years, testi- fieth ; that being at Thomas Disburow's house at Compoh, sometime in ye beginning of last winter in the evening, he asked me to tarry and sup with him; and there I saw a pig roasted that looked very well, but when it came to ye table (where we had a very good lite) it seemed to me to have no skin upon it, and looked very strangely ; but when ye sd. Dis-
? Conn. Col. Rec., iv. 76, note. Samuel Sherman and Samuel Galpin of Strat- ford were on the Grand Jury which found a true bill for witchcraft against Mercy Disborough in September, 1692.
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burrow began to eat it, ye skin (to my apprehension) came upon it, and it seemed to be as it was when it was upon the spit, at which strange alteration of ye pigg I was much con- cerned. However, fearing to displease his wife by refus- ing to eat, I did eat some of ye pig ; and the same time Isaac Sherwood being there, and Disburrow's wife and he discours- ing concerning a certain place of Scripture, and I being of ye same minde that Sherwood was concerning ye place of Scripture, and Sherwood telling her where ye place of Scrip- ture was, she brought a bible (that was of very large print,) but though I had a good light and looked directly upon the book I could not see one letter; but looking upon it while in her hands, after she had turned over a few leaves, I could see to read it above a yard off.
" Ye same night going home, and coming to Compoh creek, it seemed to be high water, whereupon I went to a can- nooe that was about ten rods off (which lay upon such a bank as ordinarily I could have shoved it into ye creek with ease), though I lifted with all my might and lifted one end from the ground, I could by no means push it into ye creek ; and then the water seemed so loe yt I might ride over, whereupon I went again to the water side, but then it appeared as at first, very high ; and then going to ye canooe again, and finding I could not get it into ye creek I thought to ride round to where I had often been, and knew ye way as well as before my own dore, and had my old cart horse ; yet I could not keep him in ye road, do what I could, but he often turned aside into ye bushes, and then went backwards, so that though I kept upon my horse and did my best endeavour to get home, I was ye greater part of ye night wandering before I got home, altho' it was not much more than two miles.
Fayrefield, September 15th, 1692. Sworn in Court Sep- tember 15, 1692.
Attest : JOHN ALLYN, Secretary.
" Mr. John Wakeman, aged thirty-two years, and Samuel Squire, made oath that they saw Mercy Disburrow put into the water, and that she swam upon the water. This done, in Court, September 15th, 1692.
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