Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II: With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred SubjectsUpham, Charles Wentworth
History
Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II: With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects
Upham, Charles Wentworth
Salem (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Witchcraft -- Massachusetts -- Salem -- History -- 17th century
"5. After this, I bid the boy put the same awl into the cupboard, which
we saw done, and the door shut to: this same awl came presently down
the chimney again in our sight, and I took it up myself. Again, the
same night, we saw a little Indian basket, that was in the loft before,
come down the chimney again. And I took the same basket, and put a
piece of brick into it, and the basket with the brick was gone, and
came down again the third time with the brick in it, and went up again
the fourth time, and came down again without the brick; and the brick
came down again a little after.
"6. The next day, being Saturday, stones, sticks, and pieces of bricks
came down, so that we could not quietly dress our breakfast; and sticks
of fire also came down at the same time.
"7. That day in the afternoon, my thread four times taken away, and
came down the chimney; again, my awl and gimlet, wanting, came down the
chimney; again, my leather, taken away, came down the chimney; again,
my nails, being in the cover of a firkin, taken away, came down the
chimney. Again, the same night, the door being locked, a little before
day, hearing a hog in the house, I rose, and saw the hog to be mine: I
let him out.
"8. The next day being sabbath-day, many stones and sticks and pieces
of bricks came down the chimney: on the Monday, Mr. Richardson and my
brother being there, the frame of my cowhouse they saw very firm. I
sent my boy[i.443] out to scare the fowls from my hog's meat: he went
to the cowhouse, and it fell down, my boy crying with the hurt of the
fall. In the afternoon, the pots hanging over the fire did dash so
vehemently one against the other, we set down one that they might not
dash to pieces. I saw the andiron leap into the pot, and dance and leap
out, and again leap in and dance and leap out again, and leap on a
table and there abide, and my wife saw the andiron on the table: also I
saw the pot turn itself over, and throw down all the water. Again, we
saw a tray with wool leap up and down, and throw the wool out, and so
many times, and saw nobody meddle with it. Again, a tub his hoop fly
off of itself and the tub turn over, and nobody near it. Again, the
woollen wheel turned upside down, and stood up on its end, and a spade
set on it; Steph. Greenleafe saw it, and myself and my wife. Again, my
rope-tools fell down upon the ground before my boy could take them,
being sent for them; and the same thing of nails tumbled down from the
loft into the ground, and nobody near. Again, my wife and boy making
the bed, the chest did open and shut: the bed-clothes could not be made
to lie on the bed, but fly off again.
"Again, Caleb Powell came in, and, being affected to see our trouble,
did promise me and my wife, that, if we would be willing to let him
keep the boy, we should see ourselves that we should be never disturbed
while he was gone with him: he had the boy, and had been quiet ever
since.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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