Free Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer

we have known our said neighbor Goodwife Clawson we have not known her to be of a contentious frame nor given to use threatening words nor to act maliciously towards her neighbors, but hath been civil and orderly towards others and never a busybody in other men’s concerns.
    Eleazer Slawson and Clement Buxton also vouched for Goody Clawson in separate declarations. “I have always observed her,” declared Goodman Slawson, “to be a person for peace and to counsel for peace and when she hath had provocations from her neighbors would answer and say, ‘We must live in peace for we are neighbors,’ and would never to my observation give threatening words, nor did I look at her as one given to malice.”
    Other neighbors, however, portrayed Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough as argumentative and vindictive. Following the arrest of the two women, a wave of Stamford and Compo residents came forward to relate quarrels with one or the other which had been followed by mysterious illness or misfortune. These witnesses were clearly convinced that Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough took revenge for disagreements or personal slights by bewitching the goods, cattle, or bodies of those who crossed them. The magistrates recognized that all of this testimony would have to be examined with great care. But at least they need not depend in these two cases on Katherine Branch’s controversial testimony.
    Both women reacted to the allegations against them in ways that seemed to incriminate them further. Just over a week after the initial court of inquiry first questioned Elizabeth Clawson, Daniel Wescot went to confront her about the bewitchment of his servant and her anger toward his family. “You told the magistrates that you never lay down to sleep in anger,” he declared. “How can that be when you’re still angry with me? Are you still angry with me?”
    “What do you think?” Goody Clawson replied. That evening Kate’s fits became more violent than they had been of late. Mistress Wescot, hearing her youngest daughter cry out, went into the room where she had been put to bed. The infant was lying on the floor near the hearth, at some distance from the bed. A large chair and chest placed beside the bed would have made it impossible for the infant girl to fall of her own accord. Daniel Wescot followed his wife into the room and found her sitting on the chair by the bed, her face contorted in anger and fear.
    Having returned his daughter to her bed, Daniel Wescot went to lie with Kate to prevent her falling off the bed or being thrown to the floor. Kate took hold of his hair and pulled it hard. Daniel grabbed Kate’s hands and held them firmly in his own. At that moment something whipped across his face like a cord; it smarted for some time after.

    A petition on behalf of Elizabeth Clawson, signed by seventy-six Stamford residents (forty-eight men and twenty-eight women), dated 4 June 1692 A majority of the women signed with a “mark” because they could not write their names; some of those who could not write may have been able to read, which New Englanders saw as a higher priority because that enabled people to read holy scripture. (Source: Reproduced by kind permission of the Stamford Historical Society. )

    The Wescots did not believe it a coincidence that these new afflictions struck within a few hours of Daniel’s conversation with Goody Clawson. The witches were evidently now coming after their own children. The next morning Daniel related this latest turn of events to Jonathan Selleck, so that it could be entered as evidence against Elizabeth Clawson once her trial began.
    Mercy Disborough also made intemperate remarks following her arrest that deepened suspicions against her. Joseph Stirg and Benjamin Dunning visited Goody Disborough in the county jail. Benjamin asked if she was going to cooperate with the court and name the other witches working with her.
    “Do you think,” Mercy replied, laughing bitterly,