My 8 times Great Grandmother
Susannah was not the witch in this story, nor was she an accuser.
In their village lived a woman called Goody or Goodwife Knapp. Goodwife or Goody was the equivalent of Mrs. Despite the fact Goody Knapp had a good reputation in her neighborhood as a just and high-minded old lady, someone began to accuse her of being a witch. The suspicion was enough to call up fear and hatred in her Puritan community. She was convicted in her neighbors minds before they ever took her to trial.
She was kept in "jail" pending her trial. I'm sure the conditions were primitive, at best. How afraid she must have been, cut off from her family. No one to help her. No lawyers were there to argue her innocence. Goody Knapp was duly tried and found guilty and was sentenced to hang. (No witches were burned in the New World). From that day until her death by hanging, she was hounded by her friends and neighbors to confess, gawked at, and treated cruelly by her jailers. On the day she was condemned, a committee of her neighbors came to coerce her into naming other neighbors as witches. Our Susannah was part of this committee. The accused was told that if she gave up others as witches, it would be for her souls sake. She told the committee to "take heed the devile have not you," and also said, "I must not render evil for evil...I have sins enough already, and I will not add this (accusing another of witchcraft) to my condemnation". Finally, "neuver, neuver poore creature was tempted as I am tempted, pray, pray for me." Usually those accused who confessed and named others as witches were not executed. Those who defied the court were killed.
Not even after death did they leave her in peace. Another delegation of women, including Susanna and her daughter Deborah, examined the body for "witch marks", (moles, birthmarks or any blemish), sometimes teates for suckling her familiar, usually a cat, but two dogs were hung as witches "familiars". No marks could be found until the midwife pointed them out. One woman, Goodwife Staples, who was Goody Knapp's friend, after turning her friend's body this way and that, declared that if these be the markes of a witch, she was one, or had such markes. Wrong thing to say.
Witch fever mounted. Roger Ludlow, Deputy Governor of both the Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay colonies, told Rev. John Davenport and his wife, that Goody Knapp came down from the scaffold or ladder to confess to him that there was another witch in the village. She named her friend, Goody Staples. This information went through the village like wildfire. Strangely enough Mr. Ludlow and Goody Staples had a history of disagreements. In 1651 Ludlow won a suit against Mary Staples. While she was in jail he tried to get Goody Knapp to reveal that Goody Staples was also a witch. She refused.
Thomas Staples, Goody Staples husband, fearful for his wife's safety, filed a defamation suit against Roger Ludlow. This lawsuit was important historically. The lawsuit hinged on the dramatic incident at Goody Knapp's execution, where Knapp came off of the ladder (scaffold) to whisper in Ludlow's ear that Mary Staples was a witch.
Mr. John Banks, representing Mr. Staples accused Ludlow of telling Reverend and Goody Davenport that Goody Staples had laid herself open to accusation because she had re-examined Knapp and when she saw the teates, said if those were the marks of a witch, then she was one, as she had such marks. Also Ludlow said that Knapp told him that Staples was a witch. He was also accused of saying Goody Staples was "in a tract of lying".
Ensign Bryan, attorney for Mr. Ludlow, demanded proof of the charges. Reverend and Goody Davenport, under oath, swore that the facts of their conversation with Ludlow were correct. The Davenports had not believed what Mr Ludlow told them.
Goodwife Sherwood affirmed she heard Mr. Ludlow call Staples a liar several times. Others affirmed this testimony. Susanna testified about the examination of Knapp's body. It seems from the testimony that no one saw marks until pressured to see them.
Deborah Lockwood, Susanna's daughter, (age about 17) testified about a conversation between Goody Staples and Goodwife Gould on their way to the execution. During this conversation, Goody Staples said she was persuaded Goodwife Knapp was no witch. Goodwife Gould said, Sister Staples, she is a witch and hath confessed and had familiarity with the devil. Staples replied, I was with her yesterday or last night and she said no such thing as she heard.
Many more people testified in this matter on both sides. In the end, Mr. staples won his suit against Mr. Ludlow for defamation and accusing Mary Staples with going on "in a tract of lying, in reparation of his wife's name".
Mary Staples was a perfect candidate for a witchcraft accusation. She was a shrewd and quarrelsome woman. She showed little patience with the Puritan social standards and was openly critical of her neighbors. Sounds like someone to muzzle. Women of the day were considered so prone to sin that they had to be closely controlled by men, who presumably, were sinless. You noticed that Mary Staples' husband filed suit as she had no standing in court. In effect her husband was her master, as if she were a slave. He was permitted to beat her legally. Likely to "beat the devil out of her".
In fact poor Goody Staples was indicted, tried and acquitted of witchcraft in 1692.
If you are an ancestor of Susanna, don't be too hard on her. She was a product of her time and she likely felt the pressure to conform. She had seen what non-conformity could bring. Surely, A powerful lesson.
Without science in the 17th century, they had no idea why their cow got sick, their baby died or the milk soured in the pan. Lack of knowledge or ignorance begets superstition, fear and hatred. It did then and it does now.
