Witches
1663-1692
The Connecticut woods were a dark place in the middle of the 1600’s, far from the primary settlements of Massachusetts Bay and New Amsterdam. More than Indians and wolves, colonists had to worry about themselves. Science and enlightenment did not reign, life was fragile, and people believed that it was a normal thing to accuse your neighbor of witchcraft. The first person executed in America for witchcraft in America was on May 26, 1647 in the Hartford meeting house square, 45 years before Salem’s witch trials. Below is the story of a Hartford resident who confessed to witchcraft in 1663 – a rare thing to do – and then dragged her husband to the gallows with her at the last moment, and the story of a group of Stamford citizens who boldly stepped forward to save an accused witch in 1692. The worst possible outcome for those accused of witchcraft was that given to someone on that day in Stamford in 1692:
“You shall be carried from this place to the gaol from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and there hang till you be dead.”
Authorities involved in the trials often turned to A Guide to Grand Jury Men, written in 1627 by Richard Bernard. Richard was born in 1568 in Epworth, England and was educated at Cambridge. His religious thought brought him into various Puritan circles, including brief association with William Brewster prior to Brewster’s sailing on the MAYFLOWER. Richard was a prolific author and an advocate for the poor and the imprisoned – and in the middle of his publishing career, in 1627, he wrote A Guide to Grand-Jury Men. This was a practical guidebook to be read by anyone elected to serve on a witchcraft trial. Within the scope and understanding of the day, the book was a call for more rational judgement and reflection before condemnation. He attempted to use the scientific method and his understanding of sociology, philosophy and religion to counter the passions of the day and encourage the investigation of the inflictions for sources other than witchcraft. The work is full of colorful topics, including how one becomes a witch, the work of the Devil in causing this to happen, the signs of such, and examination protocol. Regardless, Bernard was unequivocally a believer: “Though some have gone about to prove that there are no Witches: yet the contrary tenant is undeniably true, that there are Witches.” Bernard is cited along with Increase Mather on May 12, 1693 by Samuel Wyllys, William Pitkin and Nathaniel Stanley to the Capital Court in Hartford, Connecticut, in the case of a Stamford witch hunt. Richard’s daughter, Mary, married Roger Williams. Ironically, Williams’ last posting as a minister before he fled to Narragansett Bay was Salem, Massachusetts, which later had its own witch issues. Additionally, what were then called “monstrous births” – deformed stillborn children or miscarriages – of both Mary Dyer (1637 in Boston, Massachusetts) and Anne Hutchinson (1638 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island) were not reported by Williams, although John Winthrop saw them as God’s justice and not witchcraft.
1663 – Rebecca, Hartford, Connecticut
Rebecca Greensmith was hung by the neck in Hartford, Connecticut on January 20, 1663, upon the elm tree pictured below, with a large crowd gathered. Her husband, Nathaniel, hung next to her. They had been indicted of witchcraft on December 30, 1662 by the court at Hartford. Her confession, and witness testimony, was sensational – participation in a coven, familiar creatures, sex with the devil, dancing around a cauldron, drinking in the woods with devilish creatures.
Rebecca was accused during the fits of their neighbors’ daughter, Ann Cole. Others joined in the accusations as well, including the husband of another woman accused of being a witch by and eight-year-old girl, and witnesses such as Robert Sterne:
Robt Sterne Testifies as followeth. I saw This woman Goodwife Seager in the woods with three more womn and with them I saw two black creatures like two Indians but taller I saw likewise a Kettle there over a fire, I saw the womn dance round these black Creatures and whiles I looked upon them one of the women G Greensmith saii lookr who is yonder and then they ran away up the hill. I stood still and the black things came towards mee and then turned to come away: He further saith I know the persons by their Habits or clothes haveing observed such clothes on them not long before. (original)
As written by Increase Mather in his 1684 “Remarkable Providences,” Rev. John Whiting and Rev. Joseph Haynes heard the following in a prison interview with Rebecca which she also confessed to the court:
Mr. Whiting and Mr. Haines read what they had written, and the woman being astonished thereat, confessed those things to be true, and that she and other persons named in this preternatural discourse, had had familiarity with the devil. Being asked whether she had made an express covenant with him, she answered, she had not, only as she promised to go with him when he called, which accordingly she had sundry times done, and that the Devil told her that at Christmass they would have a merry Meeting, and then the Covenant between them should be subscribed. The next day she was more particularly enquired of concerning her Guilt respecting the Crime she was accused with. She then acknowledged, that though when Mr. Haines began to read what he had taken down in Writing, her rage was such that she could have torn him in pieces, and was as resolved as might be to deny her guilt (as she had done before), yet after he had read awhile, she was (to use her own expression) as if her flesh had been pulled from her bones, and so could not deny any longer: she likewise declared, that the Devil first appeared to her in the form of a Deer or Fawn, skipping about her, wherewith she was not much affrighted, and that by degrees he became very familiar, and at last would talk with her; Moreover, she said that the Devil had frequently the carnal knowledge of her Body; and that the Witches had Meetings at a place not far from her House; and that some appeared in one shape, and others in another; and one came flying amongst them in the shape of a Crow.
Rebecca added:
I also testify that I Being in ye woods at a meeting there was with me Goody Seager Goodwife Sanford and Goodwife Ayres: & at another time there was a meeting under a tree in ye green by our house & there was there James Walkley Peter Grant’s wife Goodwife Aires & Henry Palmer’s wife of Wethersfield, & Goody Seager, & there we danced, & had a bottle of sack: it was in ye night, and something like a catt cald me out to ye meeting & I was in Mr. Varlets orchard with Mrs. Judith Varlet and she tould me that shee was much troubled with ye Marshall Jonath: Gilbert, she cried, & she said If it lay in her power she would do him a mischief, or what hurt she could. (original)
Why did she confess? Was it the truth, or capitulation? An unusual aspect of the case is that she turned against her husband in court. He had visited her in prison and, since she had already confessed against herself, he said: “let me alone and say nothing of me and I will be good unto thy children.” Was this a threat, or a loving promise? Or, as she said, did she speak “out of love to my husband’s soul and it is much against my will that I am now necessitate to speak against my husband.” She gives four vivid examples that sent him to the noose with her. That, in response to her question regarding all the great work he’d done in the past, “he had help yet I know not of.” That they were both in the woods looking for a lost cow when “I saw a Creature a red Creature following my husband and when I came to him I asked him what it was that was with him and he told me it was a fox.” That they were driving hogs in the woods and “looking back I saw two things – Creatures like dogs one a little blacker than ye other they came after my husband pretty close to him and one did seem to me to touch him. I asked him what they were he told me he thought foxes. I was still afraid when I saw any thing because I heard so much of him before I married him.” And that “I have seen logs that my husband hath brought home in his cart that I wondered at it that he could get them into the cart being a man of little body and weake to my apprehension and ye logs were such that I thought two men such as he could not have done it.”
Perhaps not damning now, but it certainly was in the dark and questionable woods of 1662 Connecticut. The laws of the state were, unfortunately, bound up in religion, and followed straight from the Biblical code: “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death.” (Exodus 22.18; Leviticus 20.27, Deuteronomy 18.10,11)
At the Particular Court in Hartford, Rebecca was indicted:
“for not having the feare of God before thine eyes Thou hast enterteined familiarity with Satan the Grand Enemy of God and mankind and by his help hast acted things in a preternaturall way beyond humane abilities in a naturall course for which according to ye Law of God and ye established Law of the Common wealth thou deservest to die. The said Rebecha Confesseth in open Court that she is Guilty of ye Charge laid agaynst her.” (link)
Prior to marrying Nathaniel Greensmith, Rebecca had been married to Jarvis Mudge and, earlier, to Abraham Elsen. Both had died and left her widowed. It was a quick succession of dead husbands and it’s uncertain why they were attracted to her. John Whiting, a 1653 Harvard graduate and pastor of the First Church in Hartford, later referred to her as “a lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman.” Perhaps she really was a witch.
Postscript:
The Hartford Daily Courant on Sunday, May 11, 1930, page E3, had a lengthy story called “Ancient Elm Holds Memory of Witch Hangings” As in any town, local knowledge and stories are passed on and, in this instance, it says that “This old elm still stands and is a familiar sight to thousands of Hartford people…it stands on the north side of Albany Avenue near the intersection of Garden Street, partly supported by a retaining wall. Its aged roots on the south side are exposed.” Two buildings immediately to the right of the tree in the photo still exist in 2020 as 86-88 Irving Street. They were built in 1927 and are somewhat higher than the level of Albany Ave, explaining the retaining wall in the Courant photo. The elm clearly stood on the grounds of what are now a gas station and an adjacent liquor store. Until Dutch Elm disease arrived in America in 1930, the life expectancy of an elm tree was 400 years, meaning this tree could have been 133 years old when Rebecca hung from it.
1692 – Elizabeth, Stamford, Connecticut
Connecticut was aware of the happenings in Salem, Massachusetts, where its witch hunt commenced in February 1692. A Stamford servant girl, Katherine Branch, was afflicted with…something. Perhaps it was epilepsy, but through her fits, seizures, pinchings, prickings and visions – which were not wholly believed by her neighbors – she caused a court of inquiry to be called. Her story involved many talking cats, magical levitations and, ultimately, the naming of “goody Clauson” and five others as witches. It all began because Katherine’s employers, Daniel and Abigail Wescot, had a disagreement nine years earlier with Elizabeth Clawson over the weight of some spun flax. Her accusation was that, after this and other perceived slights, the victims’ property, livestock, or bodies were bewitched. In addition to young Katherine, others chimed in with their own stories through endless pages of testimony to lend support that angry words followed by three dead sheep indicated certain witchcraft:
Standford June 30th 1692 – Marry Newman: agged thirty three years: or therabouts testifyes: that about two years past: that shee had some diferance with Goody Clauson: & angry words past be tweene them: & the next day following: they sd newman had 3 sheep dyed sudenlly: & they opened them & could not fynde by anny thing within them the cause of their deaths:& som neighbours sd they believe they wer bewicht: this shee is ready to be deposed of as I attest: Jonathn Selleck Comssr Sworn in court atest John Allyn Secy Septr 15 1692 (original)
In May, Elizabeth was put in custody and subject to court of inquiry in Stamford, where Katherine also testified, and where Elizabeth was presented with the allegations – “this she denyd roundly & abosolutely without ye Least stick or hesitancy: morever she averd yet: she never saw or knew of ye girl before & yet she never heard there was such a person in ye world before now.”
She was subject to a body search on May 28 for “any Suspicious signs, or marks, did appear that were not Common or yet were pternaturall” – on the belief that the bewitched were suckled by the Devil or his familiars. In this extraordinarily humiliating procedure, a group of women searched her entire body, including her genitals. On Elizabeth, the women “do with one voice return their answer yet they founde nothing, save wort on one of her arms.” On Mercy Disborough, also accused, they “so all unanimously agree, consent & affirt, yet they founde a Teat or like one in her privat parts, at Least an Inch Long which Is not Common in other women, & for which they can give no naturall Reason for -.” Then, “upon a 2nd search”, they declared “on ye body of goody Clauson they do unanimously agree yt there is nothing found on her body yt is not Common to other women.”
The initial findings in Stamford led to a much broader investigation, with the colony’s General Court establishing a court of Oyer and Terminer (“hear and determine”) in June, to be held in Fairfield. As part of this, Elizabeth was subjected to a water ducking test on June 2. The belief was that baptismal water would reject a witch, thereby causing the body to float. Of course, a witch that didn’t know how to swim might drown, or an innocent might float. “The Testimonie of Abram Adams & Jonath Squire also is that when Eliz Clawson was bownd head & foote & put into the water she swam like a corck & one laboured to pry her into the water & she boyed up like a corck sworn in court sept 15 1692 as att John Allyn Secrety” (original)
On June 4, 1692, an astounding petition was submitted in support of Elizabeth by her neighbors. It was written by Abraham Ambler, who was a town clerk, selectman, and representative to the colonial assembly. His authorship added weight to the argument, as did the signatures of 71 people, spread across two pages, all of whom now bore the risk of becoming accused themselves as witches. Out of a local population of roughly 500, this was significant action – not just in number but also in intent. My photograph of the original document with some family signatures is overlaid on a facsimile below.
Our neighbor Stephen Clason having desired us whose names are under written: seing there is such a report of his wife raised by sume among us: that we would speak: what we know conserning his said wife and her behaviour among us for so many yeers now know all whome it may consern that we doe declare that since we have known our said neighbour goodwife Clason we have not known her to be of a contentious frame nor given to use threatning words nor to act malisiously towards her neighbors but hath bons sivil and orderly towards others in her conversations and not to be a busy body in others mens conserns: given under our hands in Stamford: 4th June 1692
Based on the evidence presented – both in support of, and against, Elizabeth – the court recommended a trial, which commenced on September 14. It was led by William Jones, deputy governor. Elizabeth was “accused as Guilty of witchcraft” and read her indictment.
Elizabeth Clawson wife of Stephen Clawson of Standford in the county of Fayrefield in the colony of Connecticut thou art here indicted by the name of Elizabeth Clawson that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast had familiarity with Satan the Grand Enemie of God & man & that by his instigation & help thou hast in a preternatural way afflicted & done Harm to the bodyes & estates of sundry of his Majesties’ subjects or to some of them contrary to the peace of our Sovereigne Lord the King and Queen their crown & dignity & that on the 25th April in the 4th year of their Majesties’ reigne & at sundry other times for which by the law of God & the law of the colony thou deserves to dye. (original)
Jones ran the trial along the lines of his own notes on Grounds for Examination of a Witch (original) and these notes were certainly influenced by Richard Bernard’s Guide to Grand-Jury Men. In addition to further testimony, Elizabeth was given two more body searches in Fairfield.
“we hos names ar her onder ritene haveing bine apainted by the honred Court to sarch the toe wemen namly goody closene and goody desbrowe that weche is ouir joyeynt aprehenens conserng goody Closene we find in har prifat parte mor thane is comene to wemene we cant say tetes bouet somthing exterordenery and goody desbrowes was somthing like it bouet agret dell les goody closens a dark red and desbras of apal coler sworn in court Septr 14 1692 attests John Allyn secry. Sary Gold An wakman in yi behaf of tha rest. We An Hardy & Martha Henry being by the court appoynted to make search on the body of Eliz. Clawson we have attended the same & doe find to our best apprehensions that nout is seen by us which we could not find on her at Standford on the body of Eliz Clawson & on Mercys body they find what thay saw on her was grown somwhat less and a smale one which they sawe not before sworn in court Septr 15 1692 John Allyn secry attest (original)
Unlike the confession in the 1663 trial of Rebecca Greensmith, Elizabeth maintained her innocence and neighbors continued to support her:
Abram Finch above written further testifieth that he being at goody Clasons upon a Sabbath day at night after she was seased by athority there was discorse about her being a witch she said she had not confessed nor wold not confess as long as she had breath to draw: or to that Effect. – Sworn in court Septr 15 92 Johan Allyn Sercy (original)
The Fairfield jury could not reach a verdict. Details of the trial were read in Hartford at the October meeting of the General Court, which pushed it back again to another court of Oyer & Terminer in Fairfield who, at the same time, asked a group of ministers in Hartford to read all the documentation related to the case and submit an opinion. On October 17, the ministers delivered their opinion to Governor Treat, in which they offered that “conviction of witchcraft by swimming is unlawful and sinfull”, and that ”unusuall exresencies found upon their bodies ought not to be allowed as evidence against them without ye approbation of some able physicians.” They also dismissed Katherine’s afflictions and, “as to ye other strange accidents as ye dying of cattle etc: we apprehend ye applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender & uncertain grounds.” (original)
The court met again on October 28 and, thankfully, reached a conclusion in Elizabeth’s case as rational as the ministers’ opinion:
The jury being called to make a return of their verdict upon the Indictment of Eliz. Clawson the prisoner they return that they find Elizabeth Clawson the prisoner at the Bar not Guilty according to the Indictment The court approved of the verdict & Granted her Jayle delivery the prisoner payeing her just fees & prison charges for the Time she was Imprisoned. Fayrefield – October 28 1692 (original)
Elizabeth was acquitted and released from jail, where she’d spent many long months. Her husband died in 1700, and Elizabeth followed him on May 10, 1714, at the age of 83.
Genealogical Notes
Rebecca Greensmith
Descendants of Jarvis Mudge are not descendants of Rebecca Greensmith. Rebecca and Jarvis did not have children together. Ancestor Jarvis Mudge had been married to, and widowed, Rebecca Greensmith. Presumably she had yet to become a witch, but we cannot know and she’d had three dead husbands in a row. We descend from Jarvis’s children from a prior marriage. With the publication of The American Genealogist, No. 321, Vol. 81, No. 1, January 2006, new evidence from several entries in the medical records of John Winthrop, the younger, governor of the Connecticut Colony from 1657-1658, show that this wife of Jarvis Mudge was Mary Steele (born May 7, 1620 in Fairstead, Essex, England), daughter of George Steele and Margery Sorrell. Jarvis Mudge was born in England in Stroud, due west of Oxford. He was in Boston by December 4, 1638, when he was asked to appear in court. Assuming that one had to be perhaps 18 to appear in court, Jarvis was likely born around 1620; no parish record is presently available. He was in Hartford by March 1640, and farther down the river in Wethersfield by 1644. He married his first wife, Mary Steele, by about 1640. They had four children: Moses, Martha, Micah and Mary. The birthdate of Micah is unknown, but is believed to have been around 1645. There is no death record for Mary, but by December 1649, Jarvis had married Rebecca, recently a widow of Abraham Elsen who had died before his inventory was taken on May 8, 1648. Rebecca had two living daughters, Sarah and Hannah, born in 1644 and 1645. They were married in Wethersfield, Connecticut and subsequently moved down the river to a newer settlement, then named “Pequot” which is present day New London. Jarvis was one of the original settlers of the town. Jarvis died shortly before March 17, 1652, the date his will was administered, and he was the first recorded death in the new plantation. Even for the times, Jarvis died surprisingly young. After his death, Rebecca sold off the lands, to the benefit of her daughters, and appears to have moved back to Wethersfield alone. She married, and took the name of, Nathaniel Greensmith after 1653. She also shows up in Winthrop’s medical journal: “Greensmith his wife body swelled feare wormes very ill…” After the execution of Rebecca and Nathaniel for witchcraft in January 1663, the Hartford court’s disposition of the estate only named “Hannah and Sarah Elsen.” There were no mentions of the Mudge children. However, her Mudge stepchildren did move to Hartford with her, as Moses was sued for defamation five days before Rebecca’s execution. Micah and Moses appeared in the will of their grandfather, George Steele, dated May 24, 1663, in Hartford. Micah married Mary Alexander in Northampton, Massachusetts on September 23, 1670. His daughter, Abigail, is not named in his will of March 17, 1721, as she died on April 24, 1705. They had many children, none named Rebecca. An irony of the trial is that Micah’s daughter, Abigail (1683-1705), married William Phelps (1669—1733) whose grandfather, Edward Griswold, was on the jury that convicted Rebecca.
Elizabeth Clawson
Ancestors Katherine & John Austin’s son, John, and his wife, Hannah, both signed Elizabeth Clawson’s petition. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Joseph Finch – both ancestors. His parents, John Finch and Martha Brett, had three other sons who were also signers: Abraham, Isaac, and Samuel. Abraham’s sons, John and Abraham, also signed. Samuel’s wife, Sarah Hait (Hoyt), also signed, as did four other family members. The 1699 Hoyt house in Stamford is pictured above (when I worked in Stamford, it was downtown in its original location, but has since been moved). Their son, Joseph, was married to Abigail Seely and her brother, Jonas, also signed.