In Escaping Salem, historian Richard Godbeer tells the story of the Stamford witch trials of 1692. Though not as well-known as the infamous Salem witch trials, which happened around this same time in Massachusetts, Godbeer suggests that the little-known history of the Stamford trials is just as important, as it epitomizes the strict social and gender norms that governed 17th- and 18th-century Puritan communities across New England.
In April of 1692, Katherine Branch—the 17-year-old servant girl of Daniel and Abigail Wescot, a prominent Stamford couple—began experiencing strange, frightening, and painful fits. Similar fits had plagued the Wescots’ daughter Joanna years ago, so the Wescots were on high alert. They called on a midwife, Sarah Bates, to determine the cause of Kate’s fits, but none could be ascertained. Kate began to complain of nightly visits from a group of women who could transform into cats and encouraged her to sign her life over to Satan. The Wescots, as well as their friends and neighbors, kept nightly watch over Kate, who slowly began to describe and name the women who visited her in her dreams. One was Elizabeth Clawson, a woman with whom the Wescots had publicly quarreled in the past. Another was Goody Miller, whom Kate claimed had a “Devil’s mark”—an extra breast below her arm from which she fed animal familiars with her own blood. Kate also named Mercy Disborough, another woman from the neighboring town of Compo, as well as a family of women—Mary Staples, her daughter Mary Harvey, and her granddaughter Hannah Harvey—as witches. Daniel Wescot (who faithfully believed Kate’s claims), brought her several times to the home of Jonathan Selleck, a local magistrate, so that Kate could report these evil “witches” who lived among the good citizens of Stamford.
Jonathan Selleck knew that while witches could not be allowed to live among them, legislating witchcraft’s invisible crimes could result in widespread panic in the community. Goody Miller eventually fled to New York; Mary Staples, Mary Harvey, and Hannah Harvey were then tried, acquitted, and set free. The court then turned its attention to Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough. Many residents of Stamford and Compo were eager to come forward with stories of the older women’s ornery dispositions and unfairness as barterers, as well as of mysterious illnesses and sudden deaths that they believed the women had caused their families and livestock. Both Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson were held in jail, where they both claimed that the Devil tormented them each night. But rather than making the women seem more sympathetic, these tales only worsened their guilt in the eyes of their neighbors.
A special court was assembled to try the unique cases. Headed by Connecticut’s deputy governor, William Jones, the council was careful to abide by strict guidelines for evidence needed to try and convict a witch. One of these pieces of evidence was the presence of a Devil’s mark. A council of women repeatedly inspected Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough for extra breasts or other bodily abnormalities, and they discovered a discrepancy in an unnamed spot on Goody Disborough’s body. Both women were also subjected to “ducking,” the process of being tied up and submerged in water to determine one’s familiarity with the Devil. Both women floated during ducking—to many, this was evidence of their bodies’ rejection of baptismal waters and their affiliation with Satan. As evidence against the women mounted, William Jones remained skeptical of how their invisible crimes would be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
In September 1692, Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson at last stood trial. Very few records of the proceedings at the Fairfield meetinghouse exist—but what is clear is that the jury had a very difficult time making a decision. The judges and magistrates sought help from the Connecticut representative assembly as well as a council of ministers, but it became clear that only a jury of the women’s peers could decide their fates. On October 28th, the jury declared Goody Disborough guilty of “familiarity with Satan” and sentenced her to death by hanging. The jury acquitted Goody Clawson of her crimes. After a number of Compo residents protested that a change in the jury from September to October made the verdict against Goody Disborough unlawful, she was acquitted and released. But Godbeer suggests that upon release, both Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson faced down a lifetime of suspicion and fear stemming from their communities’ distrust.
In a lengthy afterword, Richard Godbeer delves into the social and political structures of the tight-knit Puritan communities that sent a shocking number of accused witches—mostly women—to their deaths in the 17th and 18th centuries. Strict gender norms, intense fear of Native populations, and religious piety reigned in this society—anything that threatened the careful order of this life could be demonized and punished. Godbeer ultimately argues that Puritan New England’s atmosphere of suspicion, scapegoating, and sexism still echoes throughout contemporary American society, as evidenced by phenomena like McCarthyism or the shaming of women who pursue positions of power. In order to survive, Godbeer ultimately claims, contemporary society must come together rather than continue to repeat patterns of demonizing those who deviate from the status quo.
