Richard Godbeer
Historian Richard Godbeer is the author of Escaping Salem. Throughout the book, Godbeer offers commentary about 17th-century culture, connections between various players in the history of the Stamford witch trials, and the larger context…
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Katherine (Kate) Branch
Kate Branch was a 17-year-old servant of Daniel and Abigail Wescot, a prominent and wealthy Stamford couple. When Kate began to experience terrifying, painful fits (alternating episodes of convulsions and paralysis) in the spring…
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Elizabeth Clawson
Elizabeth Clawson was accused of witchcraft by Katherine Branch, the 17-year-old servant girl of the prominent Wescot family. At this time, Goody Clawson was in her sixties. She was known in Stamford for her…
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Mercy Disborough
Mercy Disborough accused of witchcraft by Katherine Branch, the 17-year-old servant girl of the prominent Wescot family. At this time, Goody Disborough was in her early fifties. Though Kate had never met the woman…
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Daniel Wescot
Daniel Wescot the patriarch of the well-to-do Wescot family of Stamford, Connecticut; he was Abigail Wescot’s husband and Joanna Wescot’s father. When the Wescots’ 17-year-old servant girl, Katherine Branch, began experiencing nightly…
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Abigail Wescot
Abigail Wescot was Daniel Wescot’s wife and Joana Wescot’s mother. Abigail enjoyed the privilege of being referred to by the honorific “Mistress” rather than the humbler title “Goodwife” or “Goody,” as most Puritan…
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Jonathan Selleck
Jonathan Selleck was the wealthiest and most prominent of the four magistrates comprising Stamford’s local court, which oversaw the law and community disputes. Daniel Wescot repeatedly brought his servant Katherine Branch to Selleck’s home so…
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William Jones
William Jones was Connecticut’s deputy governor and a member of the special court assembled to try the accused witches of Stamford and Compo in 1692. Jones, like Jonathan Selleck, was aware of how carefully…
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Mary Newman
Mary Newman was a Stamford resident who testified against Elizabeth Clawson after Goody Clawson was accused of witchcraft by Katherine Branch. Goody Newman claimed that Goody Clawson bewitched and killed three of her family’s…
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Sarah Bates
Sarah Bates was a local Stamford midwife who examined Katherine Branch in order to determine whether she was truly being tormented by witches as she slept. Sarah could not determine what the cause of Kate’s…
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David Selleck, Ebenezer Bishop, and Abraham Finch
David Selleck, Ebenezer Bishop, and Abraham Finch were three Stamford men who took turns keeping watch over Katherine Branch for several nights in order to investigate her claims of being tormented by witches in her…
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Goody Miller
Goody Miller was a Stamford woman whom Katherine Branch accused of witchcraft after allegedly seeing nightly visions of Goody Miller nursing a black dog from an extra breast below her arm. Witches were, at the…
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Mary Staples
Mary Staples was an older woman and whom Katherine Branch named as one of the many supposed witches who tormented Kate nightly. This wasn’t the first time she’d been accused of witchcraft. Mary Staples, as…
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Goodman Grey
Goodman Grey was a Compo resident who accused Mercy Disborough of being a witch. As evidence, he provided testimony about several suspicious incidents concerning Goody Disborough. Once, Goody Disborough sold Goodman Grey a kettle which…
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Minor Characters
Joanna Wescot
Joanna Wescot was the young daughter of Daniel and Abigail Wescot, a prominent Stamford couple. Years before the Wescots’ servant Katherine Branch began experiencing mysterious fits in 1692, Joanna herself was plagued by inexplicable fits.
Reverend John Bishop
Reverend John Bishop was an Oxford-educated Stamford resident who, at the behest of Daniel Wescot, helped to examine Katherine Branch and evaluate whether or not she was truly being tormented by witches.
Thomas Hanford
Thomas Hanford was a Stamford-area pastor who helped Reverend John Bishop to examine Katherine Branch.
Mary Harvey
Mary Harvey was Mary Staples’s daughter and Hannah Harvey’s mother. Katherine Branch accused all three women of being witches who appeared to her each night to torment her and tempt her into the service of Satan.
Hannah Harvey
Hannah Harvey was Mary Harvey’s daughter and Mary Staples’s granddaughter. Hannah was one of the suspected witches whom Katherine Branch accused of tormenting her each night.
Edward Jesop
Edward Jesop was a Compo resident who accused Mercy Disborough of being a witch. As evidence, he told an anecdote about how, during a debate over scripture at a dinner party, the pages of the host’s Bible blurred when Goody Disborough got near them.
