She’s a Witch! … Or Is She?

The recent October full moon was a spectacular one in these parts. In fact, today, we love witnessing things like dramatic moons and eclipses of all sorts on the East End.

But had we been residents of 17th century colonial America, such occurrences would not be welcomed with joy but rather fear — because they provided evidence of a witch among us.

And, according to local history, at one point there was, indeed, a suspected witch among us.

The place was East Hampton, and the year was 1658 — almost 40 years before the Salem witch trials. The accused was an older woman named Goody Elizabeth Garlick, “Goody” being short for “Goodwife,” and the accuser was 16-year-old Elizabeth Howell, daughter of the town’s most prominent resident, Lion Gardiner.

Shortly after giving birth, Elizabeth developed a fever and within days became delirious. She reported seeing a black thing at the foot of her bed and said it felt as if she were being stuck with pins. A neighbor purportedly retrieved a pin from her mouth.

Before she died, Elizabeth Howell named as her tormentor Goody Garlick, a woman who had a reputation for being close at hand when bad things happened.

The evidence was sufficient to charge Goody Garlick with witchcraft.

But, unlike those poor souls that stood accused in Salem and were put to death, Goody Garlick was tried in Hartford, Connecticut, where she had the good fortune to appear before Governor John Winthrop Jr., an alchemist and scientist whose views on witchcraft were decidedly more enlightened for the time.

On Friday, October 25, at 7 p.m., celebrate Halloween at the Montauk Library with a discussion about “It Were As Well to Please the Devil as Anger Him: Witchcraft in the Founding Days of East Hampton,” a recently published book by Loretta Orion, Ph.D., her husband, Hugh R. King, East Hampton’s town crier, and researcher Aimeé Webb. Orion and King will be on hand to talk about the Goody Garlick case and to sign copies of their book.

Five years ago, as they were working on the book, Webb and King took part in a conference on the case hosted by the East Hampton Historical Society, as did Walter Woodward, the Connecticut state historian, who offered a wider perspective of witchcraft across New England and Europe at the time.

“The court didn’t find sufficient evidence to take Goody Garlick’s life,” said Webb at the time. “But they didn’t acquit her either. Winthrop commended the people for bringing these suspicions. [Her husband] Joshua Garlick had to post a bond, and Goody Garlick had to appear regularly, like a parole board.”

The first question that comes to mind is: Why was Goody Garlick accused in the first place? The simple answer is gossip run amok. King explained at the conference that suspicion had already been cast on her by other women in town, including the woman who was said to have retrieved the pin from Elizabeth Howell’s mouth prior to her death.

“Goody Garlick knew about healing, she gave people herbs, and many healers were accused if their cures failed,” said King. “Goody Garlick also may have been a French Huguenot — that would have made her different from others in the town.”

Because belief in witchcraft was compulsory in the 1600s, it was often easier (and safer) to accuse a neighbor when things went wrong rather than take responsibility for one’s failings.

“When you believe that some have supernatural capacity to harm others, it absolves the accuser and explains bad things,” Webb noted during the conference. “In the 16th and 17th century, it was heretical to doubt the reality of satanic witchcraft — it was actually punishable.”

The colonial settlers’ propensity for witch hunting came with them from England and likely was inspired by Matthew Hopkins, an English witch finder who, between 1644 and 1647, was responsible for hanging more people than in the previous 100 years.

“He sent 300 women to their deaths,” King said. “He had the swimming test. Water rejected witches, so all those who floated were witches, while those who sank and died were innocent, thank you very much.”

Though, today, we can’t imagine believing these sorts of things, it’s important to understand puritanical society at the time. These were people struggling to survive far from a central power in the midst of a wilderness full of fearful things. Death was rampant and religious fervor strong.

“In our world, we have mental firewalls between religion, science and magic — which are discreet and separate,” explained Woodward. “In their world, the three were twined around one another and could not be separated.”

That meant witches were capable of harnessing the forces of nature and focusing them in order to do harm.

“They were afraid witches possessed a battery of magic powers like love magic or weather magic,” Woodward said. “When it didn’t rain and crops died, they didn’t ask ‘why,’ they asked ‘who.’”

And when it comes to “who,” accused witches tended to be older, poor and often female, without spouses or family support. They represented the “other” in colonial society.

We may not believe in witchcraft today, but there are still plenty of groups who are feared and marginalized — immigrants, minorities, those of different faiths. It seems that stripping people of their humanity allows them to be persecuted more easily, both then and now.

Which also explains why Goody Garlick didn’t hang as a witch. Among those accompanying her to Connecticut were several men, including her husband, who knew the governor, John Winthrop, and even Lion Gardiner, the victim’s father, went along — not to testify but to ensure that East Hampton was still under Connecticut’s jurisdiction.

“Powerful men showed up with Goody Garlick and made her humanity recognizable,” explained King.

But we still have the question of Elizabeth Howell’s bizarre death. What do we think caused it?

“Childbed fever — or puerperal fever — is an infection of the uterus following childbirth, causing septicemia,” explained Webb. “It started with a headache, and feeling pricks of pins, or like you’re being pulled to pieces. That’s what it felt like to have this fever.”

She noted that because 17th century midwives and doctors were also farmers with no knowledge of germs, they went directly from handling livestock to delivering babies, thereby infecting their patients.

As for Goody Garlick, after the trial, she and her husband lived long and prospered. But the true hero of the story was John Winthrop Jr., who, as governor of Connecticut from 1655 to 1661, convicted no witches.

“He saw witchcraft cases as a case of social pathology and the community needed to be reintegrated,” said Woodward. “In other words, learn to live together.”

Words to live by, indeed — both then and now.

The talk on “It Were As Well to Please the Devil as Anger Him: Witchcraft in the Founding Days of East Hampton,” at Montauk Library on Friday, October 25, at 7 p.m. will be followed by a Q&A and book signing facilitated by The Friends of the Montauk Library. This event is free. Montauk Library is located at 871 Montauk Highway. For more information call 631-668-3377 or visit montauklibrary.org.