[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.