Witchcraft in Early New England, would she survive?

                 Massachusetts Pond, by Walter Rock, https://www.freeimages.com/photospot-pond-1547645

Though Salem, Massachusetts, is best known for its witchcraft trials, the threat of witchcraft accusations often happened much earlier and well outside of the boundaries of Salem.  Many events led to these accusations, including superstition, poverty, jealousy, fear, societal discord and control, and religious beliefs.  Residents used witchcraft to explain the deaths of family members, mystery lights, animals, and humans behaving unusually, as well as financial difficulties.  Many small communities on the edges of wilderness in the middle 1600s heard the whispers of witchcraft.    Into this equation came two women, both originally from the English mainland.  Their paths collided in Springfield, Massachusetts, in about 1649. 

                                     Witch, Public Domain

The first woman, the widow Marshfield, was Thomas Marshfield’s wife.  He was a founding father of Windsor, Connecticut.  He was a bricklayer and became wealthy, involved in many investment dealings in England and Windsor.  His finances began to unravel as community members brought numerous court charges against him.  During this time, rumors of his wife being involved in witchcraft began to be circulated by townsfolk.   Thomas disappeared, and the town of Windsor seized his assets, leaving his wife and three children destitute.  The widow and children left Windsor for Springfield shortly after Thomas disappeared.

                                                                    The Witches of Springfield, Public Domain

 

Mary Lewis was the second woman and the wife of Hugh Parsons.  He was a brickmaker and a sawyer, felling trees and making timber.  He was not known for being particularly well-behaved and was certainly not considered genteel.  He often insulted and argued publicly with community members, including the town’s new Reverend, George Moxonand, and William Pynchon, the town’s founding father.   A resident, Blanche Bedortha, complained of strange lights and difficult labor, pointing to Hugh as the culprit. Soon, Hugh’s wife Mary made what might have been her first witchcraft accusation against Bedortha’s laying-in maid.  The court forced Hugh Parson to pay a fine for his wife’s false claim.  She soon lost two children, which might have been responsible for her descent into madness, though child mortality was certainly not uncommon at that time.  This appeared to be the start of Mary’s troubles in the community.  Hugh and Mary’s fortune begins to fail as they are forced to take in borders to survive.  

 

By 1649, Mary’s third child died, and in a time of visions of lights on the meadow and clothing reflecting flashing lights, Mary accused the widow Marshfield of witchcraft.  The widow was a midwife in the town, which may have, in Mary’s mind, connected her to the loss of her own two children.  Two of Marshfield’s children were grown and perhaps offered her support during this period.  The Widow Marshfield counter-sued and was vindicated in court when Mary was found guilty of slander.  Mary would be given twenty lashes, or her husband would have to pay 3 pounds, which he did when he paid the fine to the widow Marshfield in Indian corn.  

 

                                                                            Witchcraft Trial, Public Domain

The lives of the Parsons unraveled at this point.  Mary now accused her husband of witchcraft.  Several members of the community accused his wife, Mary, of witchcraft, which she admitted to.  They were both arrested and taken to trial in Boston.  The court wanted to complete her trial quickly because she was in poor health.  The courts found Mary innocent of witchcraft but convicted her of infanticide.  She appears to have died in jail shortly after that.  Hugh was released because his main accuser, his wife, was dead and could not testify against him.  He disappeared from community records.

 

The widow Marshfield, was my 9th great-grandmother.

A Family Heirloom, the Keller Coverlet

 I wondered which project I would write about in my president's letter in a 2021 genealogy newsletter. While deliberating, a mysterious package from my husband’s brother and sister-in-law arrived. We opened it excitedly, wondering what this large box might contain. What we found has led me on a new genealogical journey.  

 

They sent us a beautiful 169-year-old, elaborately designed, handmade cotton or linen and wool coverlet.  It was woven in North Liberty, Knox County, Ohio. My husband’s mother, Ruth, called it the “Keller coverlet. ” A photograph of his mother with the coverlet is labeled as such. 

Ruth Workman Studebaker with the Keller coverlet, collection of Stephen Studebaker

The coverlet was kept in a cherrywood cupboard in my husband’s great-grandfather Daniel’s home. Daniel Keller built this house in about 1874. Due to the coverlet's 1852 date, likely, it was also in Daniel’s father, Henry's home.  Daniel wasn't born until December 1851.  Whether it belonged to Henry's father, Benjamin, is unknown.  Daniel and Henry lived in North Liberty, Pike Township, Knox County, Ohio.  Benjamin lived in Fairfield County. 

                                                            Daniel Keller, collection of Stephen Studebaker

A corner of the coverlet on the coverlet has the name Jacob and what I believed was Aylor or Saylor. I thought these were two first names, and the Keller last name was not on the coverlet. I researched all of the Kellers. While there were many Jacob Kellers, none lived in this part of Ohio, let alone in Knox County. This made me rethink my assumption.  It soon became evident that this was the name of the weaver.  Research on coverlets substantiated this.

                                            Close-up of the Keller coverlet, collection of the author

Coverlets started being used in the late 1700s in America.   They became prevalent in the mid-1800s. Initially, women probably made them at home using smaller looms.  Later, men and women were weaving coverlets.  Sometimes, traveling weavers would come to town, set up temporary shops, and weave to order.  Coverlets would be made in two pieces and then sewn together.  Patterns were generally geometric.  Later, figured and fancy designs became popular and were almost always made by professional weavers, who were men.  These were made in factories or by individuals.  Many figured and fancy weavings, such as the Keller coverlet, would include inscriptions with the weaver’s name and his location.

                        The Kalida Venture, Kalida, Ohio, Fri, Feb15,1850, Page 3, Col 5.

If the coverlet had come into the Keller family when it was new, Henry may have given it to his wife, Elizabeth, to commemorate the birth of his first child, Daniel.   Or possibly Benjamin, Henry's father, gave it to them.  Daniel may have been gifted the coverlet upon the date of his first marriage or even the birth of his first child with his wife.  We will never be able to prove any of these theories.  

Elizabeth Grubb Keller, collection of Stephen Studebaker

                                                  Henry Keller, collection of Stephen Studebaker

Coverlets like the Keller one kept people warm on cold winter nights and made the beds look special during the day.  Depending on which Keller was the original owner, this coverlet has been in the Keller / Studebaker family for four to six generations. It will be passed on through the family for many generations to come.  See http://www.coverletmuseum.org/coverlet.htm for more information.

Originally published in Generations, the newsletter of the Southwest Colorado Genealogical Society.  Updated and edited.

 

Hardship in an Appalachian Family

Cumberland River, collection of the author

Southeastern Kentucky was not an easy place to live in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Much of the land was still wild; many residents lived along water courses called branches or creeks.  People were poor, living as subsistence farmers on plots of rocky ground.  If their crops produced well, they might sell the extras in town.  Many men had hazardous jobs in coal mines.  This part of the country was a dangerous place to live.  Violence was well known in the area, and newspapers as far away as Lexington and Louisville would often report on the deadly feuds. People had little or no medical care and often died of disease or injuries.  

 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

  

Charlotte "Lottie" Allen was born to William Allen and Mary Miller in 1886 in Whitley County, Kentucky.  She had three older brothers, including my grandfather, Richard O. Allen.  Her mother was pregnant with her younger brother when one-year-old Lottie's father died.  Very little is known of the family, except for my grandfather, between 1880 and 1900.  Lottie's mother, Mary, marries her fourth husband, Frank Letcher, a newspaperman.  Lottie shows up for the first time on the 1900 census.  She, her mother Mary, grandmother Crusie, and her three brothers are living in Frank Letcher's home.  She is 13 years old.

              

McVey Marriage Document, collection of author

That same year, Lottie married Daniel McVey, a thirty-five-year-old neighbor.  He lives a few houses down from her family.  She was fourteen, though the marriage license claims she was 16.  She had a daughter, Pearl, in 1904.  She divorced Daniel sometime before February 1908, when a newspaper article speaks of the burial of Lottie's "little son," who died of cholera that February.  

                                     

                                              Death Notice of Child, Mountain Advocate, collection of author

The next we know of Lottie is her marriage in 1908 to a widower with three young children, William Sherman Bailey.  She was 22 years old.  Bailey was one year younger than Lottie.  She and William married in Knox County, Kentucky, where they remained through the 1910 census.  Her daughter, Pearl, was living with Lottie and William in 1910.  By 1920, the family was living nearby in Harlan County.  They had six children between 1910 and 1922.  The family moved quite often following William's work.  William was an educated man for his time and place.  He even taught school when he was a very young man.  He worked farming and building train and road bridges.

                                                                 Bailey Marriage Document, collection of author             

                                           William Sherman Bailey, Lottie Allen, and child, courtesy of the Bailey family

Their youngest daughter, Alena, was born in Rockcastle County the same month her father William died, September 1922.  When William died, Lottie was left alone with at least seven children in the home.  All of Lottie's children were living with neighbors by 1930.  The oldest of her children lived with a half-brother.  The other children were listed in the 1930 census as adopted or as a boarder in neighbors' homes.  One of Lottie's grandsons told me Lottie had been very ill with tuberculosis.  Because of this, the authorities took all of her children and gave them away on the steps of the courthouse.  Family stories tell us she fought this with everything she had.

                                                         

                                               Lottie Allen, courtesy of the Bailey family

Further examination of the existing records showed that William died of tuberculosis at age 43.  His first wife died at age 30.  Her death did not appear to be childbirth-related; perhaps instead, she also died of tuberculosis.  Her two oldest children, Mary and Richard, died of tuberculosis at ages 29 and 43, respectively, and Lottie's oldest son, Leslie, died of tuberculosis at age 40.  Because Lottie was so ill, Richard took her in and took care of her for the rest of her life.  She died in her 30s of tuberculosis.  One of her grandsons remembers visiting an abandoned cemetery in Harlan County.  His dad told him Lottie was buried there.  He thought a simple fieldstone may have marked her grave.  There is no record of the burial.

William Sherman Bailey, Lottie Allen, and children, courtesy of the Bailey family

The poor-quality photograph of a smiling Lottie standing in a field seems symbolic of a woman, somewhat shaded in the mist of time, a woman we know only through a few records, photographs, and family stories.  We know she suffered hardship with the loss of her baby boy and her husband.  We know she lost her children.  We know she died relatively young.  We don't know whether she was happy, though she appeared to be, at least for the one day when her photograph was taken in that field in Indiana.

                                     

                          Lottie Allen in a field in Indiana, courtesy of Raymond Bailey