[28] Cotton Mather’s. On the 4th of October, 1688, Joshua Moody wrote
a letter to Increase Mather, then in London, in which he spoke of the
Goodwin case. (_Mather Papers_, pp. 367-8.) He says “We have a very
strange thing among us, which we know not what to make of, except it be
witchcraft, as we think it must needs be. Three or four children of one
Goodwin, a mason, that have been for some weeks grievously tormented,
crying out of head, eyes, tongue, teeth; breaking their neck, back,
thighs, knees, legs, feet, toes, &c.; and then they roar out, _Oh my
head! Oh my neck!_ and from one part to another the pain runs almost
as fast as I write it. The pain is doubtless very exquisite, and the
cries most dolorous and affecting; and this is noteable, that two or
more of them cry out of the same pain in the same part, at the same
time, and as the pain shifts to another place in one, so in the other,
and thus it holds them for an hour together and more; and when the
pain is over they eat, drink, walk, play, laugh, as at other times.
They are generally well a nights. A great many good Christians spent
a day of prayer there. Mr. Morton came over, and we each spent an
hour in prayer; since which, the parents suspecting an old woman and
her daughter living hard by, complaint was made to the justices, and
compassion had so far, that the women were committed to prison and are
there now. Yesterday I called in at the house, and was informed by the
parent that since the women were confined the children have been well
while out of the house; but as soon as any of them come into the house,
then taken as formerly; so that now all their children keep at their
neighbors’ houses. If any step home they are immediately afflicted,
and while they keep out are well. I have been a little larger in this
narrative because I know you have studied these things. We cannot but
think the Devil has a hand in it by some instrument. It is an example,
in all the parts of it, not to be parallelled. You may inquire further
of Mr. Oakes [Edward, Jr., the bearer of the letter], whose uncle
[Dr. Thomas Oakes] administered physic to them at first, and he will
probably inform you more fully.”
We have here a motive other than curiosity or credulity, which led Mr.
Mather to take one of the Goodwin children to his own house, where
he kept her till spring and till she fully recovered. This letter of
Mr. Moody’s was prior to any writing on the subject by Mr. Mather. An
account of this case is in the _Magnalia_, vol. ii. pp. 456-465. See
also _North American Review_, vol. cviii. pp. 350-359.