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Review
| Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692, by Richard Godbeer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 177 pp. $20.00, cloth.
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| Stamford, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, does not immediately bring to mind the hysteria associated with witchcraft in colonial America—until now. Richard Godbeer's Escaping Salem adds new texture to the stories of witchcraft in early America. The story begins in 1692, concomitant with the infamous episodes that made Salem Village famous. In April of that year, Katherine Branch, a seventeen-year-old maidservant of Daniel and Abagail Wescot, began to exhibit puzzling behavior that appeared to be possession from another realm. She wept, convulsed, cried out in pain, moaned, appeared paralyzed, and even reported that a cat spoke to her. Moreover, Katherine also claimed that on two occasions the Devil manifested himself as a black calf and a white dog. |
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Katherine's parents (her "master" and "mistress") first summoned a midwife to survey the situation and even had neighbors observe their daughter's strange fits. The turning point came when Katherine named her tormenters. Daniel Wescot then filed a complaint with the county magistrates and after the necessary depositions, magistrates indicted Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough. The two women went to a jury trial and would hang if found guilty. |
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As Godbeer carefully shows, both Goody Clawson and Mercy Disborough had quite a few Fairfield and Stamford residents with quivers full of testimony against them. Yet, Connecticut Deputy Governor William Jones pointed out to the court that unless the court got a confession from the accused or had at least two witnesses to confirm that Clawson and Disborough had "entered a compact with Satan" (103), both women would walk free. The jury then returned with a "non-agreement" (114) verdict. The case subsequently went to Connecticut's General Court. |
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Meanwhile, deputy-governor Jones consulted several Connecticut ministers who soon returned a written opinion. Somewhat relieved, Jones found that the ministers' theological analysis conformed to his legal understanding of the case. In addition, the ministers opined that some of the actions of the "afflicted maid" (117) Katherine Branch seemed like a possible counterfeit. However, in October 1692 the case returned to the Fairfield meeting house and this time the jury found Mercy Disborough guilty while it found Goody Clawson "not guilty according to the indictment" (120). |
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While such verdicts seemed to end the case, some of Mercy Disborough's advocates argued that a jury member had missed one of his sessions after which the court illegally appointed a "substitute" member. A team of Connecticut magistrates agreed that this substitution was illegal and Mercy Disborough escaped the noose by acquittal. The "other" witchcraft trial of 1692 was over. |
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So, where does Godbeer's Escaping Salem fit within the panoply of books and articles devoted to witchcraft in colonial America? First, Escaping Salem brings to light a story that heretofore lurked in the shadows of Salem. Students of American history now have another account of witchcraft with which they can grapple in order to better understand the vicissitudes of colonial New England. Second, Godbeer convincingly demonstrates that Stamford officials (and many townspeople) responded to witchcraft with both hysteria and also commonly, with reserve and caution. These complex responses, Godbeer astutely suggests, serve as a window through which contemporary readers can better understand the religious and legal mindsets of early America. |
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Third, in a tremendously helpful Afterword, Godbeer not only situates his work within the historiography of witchcraft, but also describes the methodological and interpretive issues surrounding his use of documents (court transcripts, legal commentary). Keen students will appreciate the benefit from this glimpse into the mind of an historian. In addition, Godbeer's Escaping Salem is an eminently readable, entertaining, and accessible book. He makes the complex and often confusing legal and religious language of the colonists understandable, and his prose is rich and lucid throughout. He describes the Wescot's home, for instance, as a "laboratory of the occult" (34) and remarks that as Stamford's witchcraft episode reached a fever's pitch the "townspeople gathered in knots of righteous anxiety to relive their many ugly encounters" (73) with the accused witches. In the he offers offering commentary on modern witchhunts (e.g., McCarthyism) and notes how a journey into one's own "moral interior" (170) is painful—but often necessary as Puritan clergy and laypeople learned—and may provide a way to better grasp what he calls "human frailty" (171). |
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| University of Houston |
Phillip Luke Sinitiere |
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