fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

Carol F. Karlsen: Excerpts – Devil in theShape of a WomanEunice Cole was first tried for witchcraft crimes in Boston inthe fall of 1656. It was not her first court appearance; she hadbeen brought before local magistrates in Essex and Norfolkcounties on several occasions for lesser crimes, the first timein 1645, when she was charged with making “slanderousspeeches.” Her reckless speech also figured strongly in theevidence presented in her witchcraft trial. Goodwife Marstonand Susanna Palmer testified “that goodwife Cole said sheewas sure there was a witche in the towne, and she knew wherehee dwelt” and that Cole had also said that she had knownsomebody years before who was “bewitched as good-wifemarston’s childe was.” Thomas Philbrick, who had lost twocalves, deposed that Goody Cole had let him know that if hiscalves ate “any of hir grass she wished it might poyson them orchoke them.” Richard Ormsby, constable of Salisbury, said thatwhen he had stripped Cole for whipping he saw “under one ofhir brests... a bleu thing like unto a teate hanging downewardabout thre quarters of an inche longe ... [with] some blood withother moystness [which she said] was a sore.”On this and other like testimony, Cole was apparently convicted.The magistrates were reluctant to execute her, however. Instead,they sentenced her to what she afterwards called a “duble”punishment: both to be whipped and to be imprisoned “during[her] life or the pleasure of the court.” She spent most of thenext twelve to fifteen years incarcerated in the Boston jail.Probably within the first year of her imprisonment, EuniceCole petitioned the General Court for her release, pleadingher own “aged and weake ...condition” and the infirmities ofher husband, William Cole, who, “being 88 yeeres of Age,”needed the kind of care that “none but a wife would” provide.She also asked the magistrates to consider the conditionof “that little estate” she and her husband had accumulatedin Hampton, which, she averred, she had been “the greatestinstrument under God to get us” but which “all goes to ruine”in her absence. Alluding to the criminal behavior that hadbrought her to her present straits, she promised “for the future... to behave [herself] both in word and deed towards thoseamongst whom” she dwelt. Although the magistrates’ responseto Cole’s plea has not survived, they were evidently unwillingto release her at this time.In 1659, William Cole sent a petition of his own to theGeneral Court, describing the predicament both he and thetown of Hampton were in because of his wife’s imprisonment,and asking the magistrates for “some relief in the case.” Hecould not farm the land alone, he said, and could not affordto hire someone to assist him because he had signed his estateover to his wife sometime previously, “to keep her from goingaway from him.” Unable to eke out a subsistence and on theverge of perishing, he had had to call upon the town for relief,which had been supplied. But, he added, “without recourse toa lawsuit..., the town could recover nothing for the assistancerendered.”Goodman Cole does not seem to have been disingenuous abouthis or the town’s plight. He and his wife had no children toassist them with the farm labor, and in 1658, at least the townapparently provided him with some aid. In 1656, moreover,the same year that Goodwife Cole was tried for witchcraft, hehad signed a deed of gift, transferring “all his estate” to hiswife -- though years later witnesses testified that the transferwas to occur “at his death.” Whatever significance this 1656deed had for William Cole or his community, the GeneralCourt invalidated it in 1659. In response to William Cole’spetition, they ordered “that the town of Hampton should takeinto their possession all the estate belonging to the said Cole,or his wife -- as was pretended -- and out of said estate, orotherwise, as they should see cause, supply the said Cole’s andhis wife’s necessities during their lives.”If William Cole specifically requested his wife’s liberty inhis 1659 petition, his words went unrecorded. But within ayear, Eunice Cole was back in Hampton. Despite her earlierpromise to watch her tongue, she was soon presented at thecounty court for “unseemly speeches.” By 1662 , whether forthis reason or some other, she had been returned to the Bostonprison. In that year, her husband died and she petitioned againfor her freedom.Shortly before his death, William Cole had written a will thatvoided his earlier transfer of his property to his wife and left his£59 estate [minus debts] to his neighbor Thomas Webster, withthe stipulation that Webster provide for him “Comfortably”for the duration of his life. The Hampton selectmen, whoofficially controlled the Cole estate, were not happy with thiswill; nor were they pleased with the possibility that EuniceCole might be allowed to return again to their town. Bostonjailer William Salter, who had not been paid, at least not infull, by the selectmen for Eunice Cole’s prison maintenance,was also upset. When the General Court met on 8 October1662, they had to consider not only Eunice Cole’s petition butone from Salter and one from the town of Hampton. In answerto all three, the magistrates ordered “that the said Unice Colepay what is due on arreares to the keeper, and be released theprison, on condition that she depart, within one month afterher release, out of this jurisdiction, and not to returne againeon poenalty of hir former sentence being executed against hir.”Cole was released at this time, but she did not leave the colonywithin the month. Almost immediately upon her return toHampton, witchcraft suspicions resurfaced and before long90 fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007