Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-02-15
wITCHCRAFT IN CONNECTICUT.
Two Executions on Gallows Hill, Near
Hartford-The Ducking Test.

Two Executions on Gallows Hill, Near
Hartford-The Ducking Test.
From the Hartford Times
1t has been supposed that Salem, and the
neighboring Massachusetts settlements there
about, monopolized pretty much all the WITCH
craft OF those dark years Q791-92. &c.,) in
which this shocking mania of Old World su-
perstition burst out on this side of the At
lantic. 1t has even been denied that the de-
fusion ever gained foothold in Connecticut;
and the reports of executions in Connecticut
have not only been denied, but have remained
to all but close students a very doubtful
matter at most. But we suspect this is an
erroneous view of the subject, and that Con-
necticut was really not 80 very much freer
from the horrible superstition than her sister
colony OF Massachusetts bay, A good many
old women were popularity accused Of a crimi-
nal familiarity with Satan" and some of them
certainly were tried for that sin-and. if the
truth must be told, there was more than one
execution for witchcraft here in Connecticut
But the Connecticut delusion, though it seems
to have been earlier than the similar misfor-
tune in Massachusetts, never did reach such
shocking proportions, nor go to such extremes
as tnat. There were two executions here IN
Hartford in or about 1868, of two women,
Greensmith and Barnes, convicted of witch
AN EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION
CATER she had been cenvictedD of the truth
of her Familiarity with the DEVIL" as the Gus
tomary charge. in such cases. was worded. Her
confession-which is not fit for print-showed
at least robust and most fertile and peculiar
imagination. 1t is one of the strange features
OF that witchcraft mania, here and in Massachu-
sets, that so many of the persons who were
convicted were ready to confess the truth Of
the charge made against them. 1t must have
been an Illustration OF unconscious psycholo-
giving, by great wave, surrounding atmos-
phere of fanatical superstitious delusion which
reigned for while in those places and which
made the accused wretches really feel that they
| had done the evil charged upon them, and
which their excited imaginations added to and
broadened out into the widest grotesqlterie of
monstrous fantasies and absurdities.
THE SCENE OF THE HARTFORD HANGINGs
was on the commanding summit near the head
OF Vernon street (not far from Trinity college),
on that remarkable ridge, or dixie, of trap-rock,
naturally placed (for a geological marveD on
top of an infinitely newer free-stone formation
dixie which here sweeps down through a con-
siderable section of Connecticut The location
was for more than a century thereafter known
as ''Gallows hill" We do not know that any
other witches were hanged there; the delusion
seems to have been worse, and to have been
followed by more executions in Fairfield
ously with the mania at Salem-in 1892.
In the Times of August 8, 1920, are several
columns OF an account Of Connecticut witch
craft, written by VIM. L. Stone in the New York
Commercial Advertiser, Of which he was then
the editor, and from which paper the Times
quoted it. 1t seems to be only part of Stones
long account; and it was obtained, when he
was editor of the Connecticut Mirror, here in
Hartford, from time-stained bundle of old
MSS. upon which he CHANGED to come, in look
ing over large lot of ancient papers that ha6
| been brought to light from the old garnet of
the Wyllis mansion. Wyllis was the old colonial
secretary, and naturally would be in the way
| OF having charge of such old papers as these
which were in separate packet, labeled
''wITCHCRAFT TRIALS
and that was what attracted Colonel Stones
attention md led him to a careful study of the
papers. What afterward became of them we
know not; but the extracts SO fully made by
Stone are important as throwing light on the
| part taken by Connecticut in the history of the
witchcraft delusion. On the 18th page the
Times of to-day reproduces the indictment of
one Mercy Disborough from the Times of 1920
| The testimony, given by some two hundred
| witnesses, Colonel Stone judged, was of the
| customary sort in witchcraft cases; testimony
| to the mysterious and supernatural character
OF the prosecutions and COMMISSIONS wrought
| upon sundry very innocent persons living in
that neighborhood.
MERCY DIsBoRoUGH
| was on of a number of witches thereabout-
two of whom, at least, were indicted at the
same time, in the only court of oyer and ter
miner ever organized in Connecticut, to wit
Mercy Disborough and Elizabeth Clawson
Goody Clawson escaped conviction. but Mercy
Disborough, of Compo Gin the present town
ship of Westport), was not SO lucky. Both
were bound, hand and foot according to the
good old English custom. and pitched head
first into the water. The test was that if the
accused sank and drowned, it was prima facie
| case of innocence. If she ioated. she was
clearly witch and must be executed. Mercy
Disborough and Goody Clawson both fioated-
like corck"-nor did one pious servant of
the Lord succeed in pressing the former
under, albiet he did dutifully and
stoutly try. The Clawson woman, however,
| were acquitted; but Mercy Disborough was not
SO easily let off. She had sorely afflicted di-
vers persons by supernatural pinchings, prick
ings, and still worse punishments. But there
was some hitch in the proceedings; there was
| another trial, and though she was again con-
victed, it is pretty well ascertained that for
some occult reason she never was executed
The Times says, editorially Q82O) that one
whole family, named Godfrey, in Fairfield
county, were hanged for witchcraft. and that
one witch was burned in Hartford-but this
latter statement was an error. Witchcraft, q
mixture of superstition. paganism, and
DISTORTED CHRISTIANITY,
got its definite character from the old doctrine
of satan. In the vain ponderings On the origin
of euil, the constitution of the will, and such
problems, the superstition of the middle ages
rose like foul exhalation and swept over Eng
land and Germany. The world was subject
not to one God but two-and 1.-The Devil" had
a power only second to that Of God, and this
power, which had enabled him to seduce Eve,
qualified him to lead astray her descendants
There was one wizard to every hundred witches;
SO the men Oftener escaped accusation. But
what frightful time it was!-when any mali
cious or alf-psychologized woman could
accuse any other of her sex, and have her tried
(and very likely convicted) of such monstrous
things! 1t seems astonishing that convictions
of witchcraft were reached in England as late
as 1736-and executions in Germany almost as
late as the beginning of this century.
She Whipped the Masher.
YOUNG WOMAN IN BOSTON SHOWS SKILL WITH
HER FISTS.
A Boston special to the New York Tribune
says: "A small crowd of men and women Just
out of the theaters witnessed an odd street