The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)

"Old Matthew Maule was executed for the crime of witchcraft. He was one of the martyrs to that terrible delusion, which should teach us, among its other morals, that the influen...

"The planters of New England were Englishmen, not exempt from English prejudices in favor of English institutions, laws and usages ... They had not been taught to question the w...

"Elizabeth Clawson wife of Stephen Clawson of Standford in the country of Fayrefeild in the Colony of Connecticutt thou art here indicted by the name of Elizabeth Clawson that n...

"This case is one of the most painful in the entire Connecticut list, for she impresses one as the best woman; how the just and high minded old lady had excited hate or suspicio...

"Remembering all this, it is not surprising that witches were tried, convicted and put to death in New England; and the manner in which the waning superstition was dealt with by...

"Although our fathers cannot be charged with having regarded the Devil in his respectful and deferential light, it must be acknowledged, that they gave him a conspicuous and dis...

"Hence among all the superstitions that have 'stood over' from primeval ages, the belief in witchcraft has been the most deeply rooted and the most tenacious of life. In all tim...

"It was not to be expected of the colonists of New England that they should be the first to see through a delusion which befooled the whole civilized world, and the gravest and...

"To deny the possibility, nay actual evidence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Tes...

"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."[C] John xv, 6.

"First, because Witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our daies, and very many are intangled with it, beeing either practitioners thereof in their owne persons, or at t...

"A belief in witchcraft had always existed; it was entertained by Coke, Bacon, Hale and even Blackstone. It was a misdemeanor at English common law and made a felony without ben...

Hamersley's and Morgan's comment--John Allyn's letter--The accusation--Its origin--Its victims--Many witnesses--Record evidence--The witnesses themselves--Memorials of their del...

Fundamentals--The scriptural citations--Old and New Testament--Josephus--Ancient and modern witchcraft--The distinction--The arch enemy Satan--Action of the Church--The later de...

Elizabeth Clawson--The indictment--Witnesses--"Kateran" Branch--Garney-- Kecham--Abigail and Nathaniel Cross--Bates--Sargent Wescot and Abigail-- Finch--Bishop--Holly--Penoir--S...

Goodwife Knapp--Her character--A notable case--Imprisonment--Harsh treatment--The inquisitors--Their urgency--Knapp's appeal--The postmortem desecration--Prominent people involv...

Opinions of Blackstone and Lecky--Witchcraft nomenclature--Its earlier and later phases--Common superstitions--Monna Sidonia's invocation-- Leland's Sea Song--Witchcraft's diver...

The Epidemic in Connecticut--Palfrey--Trumbulls--Winthrop's Journal--Treatment of witchcraft--Silence and evasion--The true story--How told--Witnesses--Testimony--All classes af...

Mercy Disborough--Cases at Fairfield, 1692--The special court--The indictment--Testimonies--Jesop--Barlow--Dunning--Halliberch--Benit-- Grey--Godfree--Search for witch marks--Or...

Perkins' definition--Burr's "Servants of Satan"--The monkish idea--The ancientness of witchcraft--Its universality--Its regulation--What it was--Its oldest record--The Babylonia...

Hawthorne--Latimer--Additional cases--Curious and vulgar testimony--All illustrative of opinion--Make it understandable--Elizabeth Seager--Witnesses--What they swore to--Garrett...

Fiske's view--The forefathers' belief--Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven laws--Sporadic cases--The Salem tragedy--Statements of Hawthorne, Fiske, Lowell, Latimer--The vic...