Burning
a Witch
This
is a tale told by my Great Grandfather (James Martin Barter, 1809-1898).
It truly happened in New Brunswick (sometime between 1816 and 1820),
and any reader may decide on what killed the poor old lady. Was it fright?
Was it self-hypnotism? Or, as people at that time firmly believed, was
the trial a just one and was she therefore punished of God?
At, or near Tennant's Cove in
King's County NB, the Widow Barter (Abigail Austin Barter) lived
with her small children. Her husband had been dead a few years, and she
was taking care of an old lady (a Mrs Tennant) about 90 years of
age -- a queer old body of mutterings and strange actions. And, in the
neighbourhood, even to Kingston and Belleisle and across the Saint John
River, strange things were happening. Fences let down so cattle got into
grain fields, apples withering on the trees, cattle and sheep dying from
no noticeable cause, even dinners burning up on the stoves. A neighbour's
house went up in flames when no one had been near it for days, and the
countryside was in alarm and "witchcraft" was loudly talked.
The country was carefully gone
over by the leading people to decide who was the witch and why her baneful
spell was over the land. Mr Mills was made the leading man to hunt out
the witch and stop her work or call her to justice.
First, the old way for laying
a witch was tried: silver was made into a bullet and placed in an old musket.
After asking God's help and blessing -- and for Him to cause the silver
bullet to fall where it would kill the witch or stop her troubling -- Mr
Mills fired the musket in the air. The crowd of people who had gathered
to see the ceremony listened in awe as the heavy report of the musket sounded
and echoed, and re-echoed, from the hills and rolled across the river.
All went home, certain that the work of the witch was over and the "Devil"
sent away.
But what was the consternation
of the countryside the next Sunday morning when Mr Mills went out to feed
his stock to find his valuable oxen crowded into their mangers with their
heads and their broad spreading horns looking out towards the back of the
stable. It would be impossible for human hands to crowd an ox backward
into its manger and get its head into the stanchion, and put in the pin
to hold it. And to turn an ox with its head already in the stanchion so
as to make it look out would plainly twist the stanchions completely cut.
They had to tear down the stanchions and side wall to get the oxen out.
Trial
by Fire
The excitement was tremendous.
Mr Mills called a meeting of all the people and after due consultation,
it was decided that Mrs Tennant, the old lady at Mrs Barter's, was the
guilty woman and so must be punished. Some were for doing as they had done
at Salem, Massachusetts, in earlier years -- burn her at the stake. But
more human, Christian counsel prevailed and they decided on a trial by
fire to determine if she was really a witch.
Mrs Barter tried hard to keep
them from annoying the old woman, saying she knew she was not guilty, but
the people -- both men and women -- were so worked up over the matter that
they were determined to try Mrs Tennant by fire, assuring Mrs Barter that
if the old woman was innocent, no harm would come to her. So it was arranged
that the trial would be carried out at Mrs Barter's home.
The old lady was put in the
middle of the floor in her chair, a line was drawn around it with red chalk,
and every three inches a brad awl was stuck in the line all around the
circle. The people who were trying her sat in a half-circle from the left
side of the old-fashioned fireplace, out around the old lady and into the
right side of the fireplace. Each crossed their arms and took hold of the
hands of the ones on each side of them. The leader, Mr Mills, slowly read
a passage of scripture, calling on God to help them try the woman. If she
was innocent, no harm to come to her. But if she was possessed of the devil
and was bewitching the countryside, she might become as hot as the horseshoe
they were about to place in the fireplace.
All the people followed the
words in a kind of chant and the horseshoe was placed in the fire. At once
the old woman began to twist in her chair, then began to scream: "Oh! You
are burning me up! Oh, my God, I'm burning!" Her screeches were so heart-rending
that it was hard to keep the people sitting but Mr Mills counselled all
to keep quiet and see the result of the trial by fire.
As the old lady screamed and
tried to get up and called for help, Mrs Barter could stand no more, broke
through the ring of people and knocked the horseshoe out of the coals with
a broomstick.
A Lingering
Death
The old lady collapsed on the
floor and kindly hands put her to bed, but her sufferings were terrible.
She only moaned and lamented her poor burned and scorched body. Nothing
could be done for her and she lay suffering untold agony for three days
over burns even though there were no signs of any.
During the morning of the third
day, she suddenly began to scream and beat her body and could not be comforted.
She kept wailing "Oh, they are burning me again!" and her screams grew
terrible. Her writhing in bed and moaning was so unnerving that Mrs Barter
sent for her neighbours, and suddenly thinking of the horseshoe, she ran
to the fireplace and discovered that the horseshoe had been accidentally
knocked into the coals. She quickly drew it out with a poker and threw
it out of doors. The shrill shrieking of the old lady stopped but she continued
to moan, and that night she died.
Strange to say, there
were no more unusual happenings and only the memory of the most mysterious
mystery lingered in the minds of the people. Mrs Tennant now lies by the
side of her husband, who died years before this happened, on the old farm
at Tennant's Cove, New Brunswick.
This
story is quite well known, having been published in a collection of New
Brunswick stories some years ago.
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