Elizabeth Garlick

Last updated

Elizabeth "Goody" Garlick was a resident of East Hampton, Long Island, who was accused of witchcraft in 1657. Her case is a significant one in the history of witchcraft accusations in North America, predating the more famous Salem witch trials by several decades. The accusation stemmed from the death of 16-year-old Elizabeth Howell, the daughter of prominent citizen Lion Gardiner and wife of prominent resident Arthur Howell.

In February, 1658, 16-year old Elizabeth Gardiner Howell, who had recently given birth to a child, fell ill. During the illness, Elizabeth reportedly suffered from nightmares and claimed she saw a "black thing at the bed's feet" and that Garlick stood by her bed at night “ready to pull me in pieces.” As friends ministered to her, she was reported to have shrieked in hysteria: "A witch! A witch! Now you are come to torture me because I spoke two or three words against you!” [1]

Following Elizabeth's death, local magistrates launched an investigation. Several of Goody Garlick's other accusers claimed that she employed black magic to harm people and livestock. Garlick was also accused of performing “works above the course of nature to the loss of lives of several persons.” [2] Goodwives Edwards and Davis blamed Garlick for causing their children to fall ill, while additional witnesses attributed the death of two other children to her malignant power. [3]

In the spring of 1658, Elizabeth Garlick traveled from her home on Long Island (which was under Connecticut's jurisdiction at the time), to stand trial in Hartford for witchcraft. The record of the trial—on May 5, 1658, about three months after Elizabeth Gardiner Howell's death—is brief. Goody Davis testified that Garlick was responsible for the death of one of her children. However, during the trial both Jeremiah and Katherine Vaile, servants of Lion Gardiner, challenged her assertion, reporting that they heard the Gardiner say that “Goody Davis had taken an Indian child to nurse & for lucre [profit] of a little wampum [valuable shell beads] had merely starved her own child.” [4] The court was headed by Connecticut Governor John Winthrop the Younger, and the indictment was severe: “Elizabeth Garlick…that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast entertained familiarity with Satan the great enemy of God and mankind, and by his help since the year 1650 have done works above the course of nature to the loss of lives of several persons (with several other sorceries) and in particular the wife of Arthur Howell of East Hampton, for which both according to the laws of God and the established law of this commonwealth thou deserveth to die.” [5]

After hearing testimony, the jury reached a verdict of not guilty, and the court duly released her from custody. Her husband, however, had to enter a bond of thirty pounds to ensure that he and his wife would “carry good behavior to all the members of this jurisdiction” and appear before the next court held at Easthampton, so it could confirm that Garlick had not been a source of disorder. [2] Though her date of death was not recorded in local records, Elizabeth Garlick was buried at the South End Burying Ground in East Hampton.

Related Research Articles

<i>The Crucible</i> 1953 play by Arthur Miller

The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692 to 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists. Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salem witch trials</span> Legal proceedings in Massachusetts, 1692–1693

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in the disease-ridden jails.

Elizabeth "Betty" Parris was one of the young girls who accused other people of being witches during the Salem witch trials. The accusations made by Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams caused the direct death of 20 Salem residents: 19 were hanged, while another, Giles Corey, was pressed to death.

John Proctor was a landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He and his wife Elizabeth were tried and convicted of witchcraft as part of the Salem Witch Trials, whereupon he was hanged.

Ann Putnam was a primary accuser, at age 12, at the Salem Witch Trials of Massachusetts during the later portion of 17th-century Colonial America. Born 1679 in Salem Village, Essex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony, she was the eldest child of Thomas (1652–1699) and Ann Putnam (1661–1699).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hale (minister)</span> American Puritan minister

John Hale was the Puritan pastor of Beverly, Massachusetts, and took part in the Salem witch trials in 1692. He was one of the most prominent and influential ministers associated with the witch trials, being noted as having initially supported the trials and then changing his mind and publishing a critique of them.

Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tituba</span> 17th-century enslaved woman involved in the Salem witch trials

Tituba was an enslaved Native American woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bridget Bishop</span> Woman executed during Salem witch trials

Bridget Bishop was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lion Gardiner</span> English engineer and colonist

Lion Gardiner (1599–1663) was an English engineer and colonist who founded the first English settlement in New York, acquiring land on eastern Long Island. He had been working in the Netherlands and was hired to construct fortifications on the Connecticut River, for the Connecticut Colony. His legacy includes Gardiners Island, which is held by his descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susannah Martin</span> Woman executed for witchcraft in Salem, 1692

Susannah Martin was one of fourteen women executed for the suspicion of practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Nurse</span> Convicted witch in Salem, Massachusetts (1621–1692)

Rebecca Nurse was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.

Mary Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. However, she managed to avoid her sentence until the trials had been discredited, and died in 1700, aged 85.

Elizabeth Howe was one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. She was found guilty and executed on July 19, 1692.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Wardwell</span> Man hanged during the Salem witch trials

Samuel Wardwell was a man accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692. He was executed by hanging on September 22, 1692, along with Alice Parker, Martha Corey, Mary Eastey, Ann Pudeator, Mary Parker, Wilmot Redd, and Margaret Scott.

Sarah Cloys/Cloyce was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloys/Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was held without bail in cramped prisons for many months before her release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Booth</span>

Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony. Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel and Susanna. Booth's death date is unknown.

The witch trials in Connecticut, also sometimes referred to as the Hartford witch trials, occurred from 1647 to 1663. They were the first large-scale witch trials in the American colonies, predating the Salem Witch Trials by nearly thirty years. John M. Taylor lists a total of 37 cases, 11 of which resulted in executions. The execution of Alse Young of Windsor in the spring of 1647 was the beginning of the witch panic in the area, which would not come to an end until 1670 with the release of Katherine Harrison.

During the 17th through 19th centuries, there are at least thirty documented New York Witch Trials, hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in the Province of New York. Several of the witchcraft cases in New York pre-dated the Salem witch trials.

The views of witchcraft in North America have evolved through an interlinking history of cultural beliefs and interactions. These forces contribute to complex and evolving views of witchcraft. Today, North America hosts a diverse array of beliefs about witchcraft.

References

  1. ↑ "Before Salem, There Was the Not-So-Wicked Witch of the Hamptons". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
  2. 1 2 Moyer, Paul Benjamin (2020). Detestable and wicked arts: New England and witchcraft in the early modern Atlantic world. Ithaca [New York]: Cornell University Press. p. 137. ISBN   978-1-5017-5105-9.
  3. ↑ Thompson, Benjamin Franklin (1839). History of Long Island: Containing an Account of the Discovery and Settlement; with Other Important and Interesting Matters to the Present Time. New York: E. French. pp. 151–153.
  4. ↑ Purkiss, Diane (1995). "Women's Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: The House, the Body, the Child". Gender & History. 7 (3): 420–421. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.1995.tb00034.x. ISSN   0953-5233.
  5. ↑ DeWan, George. "In the Matter of Goody Garlick". New York Archives. 5 (2): 7–9.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.