[29] A friend skilled in the Indian dialects suggests that Mr. Mather’s pronunciation of the Indian language was probably so imperfect that the Devil was excusable for not understanding it.
P.
[30] In the year 1720, at Littleton, in the Massachusetts Province, a family were supposed to be bewitched in much the same manner with this of Goodwin’s. I shall give a brief account of the affair, and the manner how the fraud came to be disclosed, to show the similitude between the two cases, and to discourage parents from showing the least countenance to such pranks in their children.
One J. B. of Littleton, had three daughters of 11, 9, [and] 5 years of age. The eldest being a forward girl, and having heard and read many strange stories, used to surprise the company where she was with her manner of relating them. Pleased with applause she went from stories to dreams, and from dreams to visions, attaining the art of swooning away, and being to all appearance breathless for some time; and upon her reviving would tell strange stories of what she had met with in this and other worlds. When she met with the words God, Christ or Holy Ghost in the Bible, she would drop down with scarce any signs of life in her. Strange noises were heard in the house, stones came down the chimney and did great mischief. It was common to find her in ponds of water, crying out she should be drowned, sometimes upon the top of the house, and sometimes upon the tops of trees, and, being asked, said she flew there; complained of beating and pinching by invisible hands which left the marks upon her. She complained of a woman of the town, one Mrs. D—y, and that she appeared to her, and once her mother struck at the place where the girl said she saw D—y, and thereupon the girl cried out you have struck her upon the belly, and it was found that D—y complained of a hurt in her belly about the same time. Another time the mother struck at a place where the girl said there was a yellow bird, and she then told her mother she had hit the side of its head, and it turned out that D. was hurt in the side of her head at that time.
D. being with child, when the first blow was struck, took to her bed soon after and died, and, as soon as it was known, the girl was well.
The next daughter, after her sister had succeeded so well, imitated her in complaining of D. and outdid her in her feats of running to the top of the barn where a man could not have got without danger, and pretended she was carried in the air; but, upon the news of D.’s death, she was well too. The youngest though but five years old attempted the same things, and in some instances went beyond her sisters; but she would not be well until a considerable time after D.’s death.
The second daughter really believed the first bewitched, by her being in ponds, upon trees, &c; but had the curiosity to try if she could not do the same things. The third, seeing her sisters were pitied and tenderly used, was willing to share with them. The eldest, seeing the others following her, let them into the secret, and then they acted in concert.
The neighbors in general agreed they were under an evil hand; some affirmed they had seen them flying, and it was pronounced a piece of witchcraft, as much as ever had been at Salem. Their parents were indulgent to them, and though some of the people were not without suspicion of fraud, yet no great pains were taken to detect them. Physicians were employed to no purpose, and ministers prayed over them without success.
After the children altered their behavior, they all persisted in it that there had been no fraud; and, although the affair lay with great weight upon the conscience of the eldest, and she would sometimes say to her next sister they should one time or other be discovered and brought to shame, yet it remained a long time a secret. The eldest, not having been baptized, desired and obtained baptism; and being examined by the minister as to her conduct in this affair, she persisted in her declarations of innocency. Having removed to Medford, she offered to join to the church there, in 1728, and gave a satisfactory account of herself to the minister of the town, who knew nothing of the share she had in this transaction; but, the Lord’s day before she was to be admitted, he happened to preach from this text, “He that speaketh lies shall not escape.” The woman supposed the sermon to be intended for her, and went to the minister to inquire. He informed her no body had been with him to object anything against her; but she had then determined to make a full confession, and disclosed the matter to him, owning the whole and every part to be the fraud of her and her sisters, and desired to make the most public acknowledgment of it in the face of the church, which was done accordingly. They had gone so far in their complaints that they found it necessary to accuse somebody, and pitched upon this particular woman, D—, having no former prejudice again (sic) her. The woman’s complaints, at the same time the children pretended she was struck, proceeded from other causes which were not properly inquired into. Once they were in danger of being detected by their father in one instance of their fraud; but the grounds of suspicion were overlooked or neglected through his prejudice and credulity in favor of his children.
H.