The Devil and Elizabeth Knapp: Demonic Possession and Witchcraft in 1671

Have you ever been to Groton, Massachusetts? It's a really beautiful old town, with historic houses, quaint churches, and some bucolic farmland. And one October night 350 years ago, teenager Elizabeth Knapp met the Devil in Groton. 

Knapp worked as a servant girl for Reverend Samuel Willard. In October 1671, Reverend Willard noticed that Knapp was acting strangely. Sometimes she would shriek loudly for no apparent reason. Sometimes she would laugh hysterically at nothing. When asked why, she just shrugged and continued with her chores. 

Her behavior became stranger as the month wore on. On October 30, Knapp acted as if she were being attacked by an invisible assailant. The following night, October 31, she fearfully told the household that she had seen two strange people lurking in the cellar. Reverend Willard and others searched, but found no intruders. Willard wondered if perhaps she was pulling a prank on him.

Eugene Delacroix, “Mephistopheles Flying over the City” (1828)

It was no prank, however. On November 2, Elizabeth Knapp told the reverend that the Devil had approached her repeatedly, asking her to sign her name in his book with her blood. He said he'd give her fine silk clothes, money, and a life of idleness if she did. In return, all she had to do was kill her parents, her neighbors, and Reverend Willard’s family. The Devil was quite specific in his instructions regarding Willard's family. Knapp was to throw his youngest child into the fire and kill Reverend Willard with a hook as he slept. 

Yikes.

If I were Reverend Willard, I would have removed Knapp from my house ASAP and had her locked up. But Willard was a kinder, braver, and more tolerant person. He was concerned for Elizabeth Knapp's soul and thought there was still hope. After all, Knapp told him she had not yet signed the Devil’s book. She just liked to walk with the Devil at night and listen to his sweet promises. And perhaps she was not really even talking with Satan - a local physician said her behavior was the result of a sour stomach and corrupted blood. 

The physician prescribed lots of bed rest, and at first Knapp's symptoms improved, but then they worsened as November progressed. She barked like a dog, bleated like a calf, and skipped around uncontrollably. Knapp also said she still had not yet signed the Devil’s book, but only because she couldn’t find a knife to draw her blood with. Upon hearing this the physician changed his diagnosis to diabolical possession. 

On December 2, Knapp screamed out in terror. She had seen a dog with a human head entering the house. Other members of the household saw a large, doglike footprint in the fireplace's ashes. Knapp also claimed that a local Groton woman was bewitching her, but Reverend Willard and others ignored this claim. The woman was not arrested or charged with witchcraft. 

By December 8, Elizabeth Knapp confessed that she had indeed signed the Devil’s book but refused to practice witchcraft or kill the reverend’s family. It was for these reasons the Devil tormented her. Several ministers were called in to pray over her, and as they did Knapp shouted obscenities in a voice that was not her own. Reverend Willard said the voice could be heard even though Knapp’s mouth did not move. He believed it was the Devil himself speaking through her. 

And then... it all stopped at some point in January of 1672. Most of what we know about Elizabeth Knapp's possession comes from a letter Samuel Willard wrote to Reverend Cotton Mather in Boston. Unfortunately, he didn't explain why the possession ended, just that it did. Happily, it didn't seem to have any long-term effects on Elizabeth Knapp. She later got married and had several children. She didn't throw them - or anyone else - into the fire. 

A portrait of Samuel Willard (1640 - 1707)

I have a few thoughts on this incident from Groton's past. First of all, it is spooky. Every time I read about the Devil telling her to kill Samuel Willard with a hook and throw his child into the fire I get creeped out. It's like something out of a very gory horror movie. 

The story is true, but was Elizabeth Knapp really possessed by the Devil? I suppose it's possible, if you believe in a literal Devil who possesses people, but it's important to also think about some of the sociological aspects of Puritan society. Most possession cases from 17th century Massachusetts involved young women or girls. Sadly, young women and girls were usually at the bottom of the Puritan social hierarchy because they were female and unmarried. They had little power or influence. 

Elizabeth Knapp said the Devil promised her wealth, nice clothes, and free time - all things she didn't have. He also told her to kill the people she spent her days working for. Maybe this wasn't demonic possession, but just Knapp expressing her repressed hopes and anger? If she said these things herself she would have been punished, but when she said the Devil was saying them she got the sympathy and support of her community. Maybe it was a way for her to vent her anger and frustration.

It's also interesting how her symptoms worsened as fall turned into winter. The Puritans didn't celebrate Halloween, but I was definitely struck by the October 31 date. Late fall and early winter was the time during the agricultural cycle when people had the most leisure time and the most fresh food. This is why so many major Western holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) happen during the period, and I also wonder if that's why Knapp experienced her possession then. She had more leisure time to express herself, and her community had more time to pay pay attention to her. I suppose it could also have been some time of seasonal affective disorder? Groton would have been very dark and very cold in 1671.

Lastly, I will point out there were many ways this situation could have been much worse. The people in Groton could have jailed or physically punished Elizabeth Knapp. They could have accused the local woman she named for witchcraft. But they didn't do any of those things. Instead, they took care of Knapp until her possession (whatever it was) ended. The Massachusetts Puritans have a bad reputation, which is perhaps justified, but in this case they responded calmly to a situation that must have been very unsettling. 

Samuel Willard may have remembered his experiences with Elizabeth Knapp when he opposed the Salem witch trials 20 years later, writing that it was hard to prove the existence of the Devil in a courtroom.

*****

I write about Elizabeth Knapp and several other cases of alleged demonic possession in my new book Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts. It's available wherever you buy books online. Happy Halloween!

The Devil and Elizabeth Knapp: Demonic Possession in Groton

"She is a monument of divine severity; and the Lord grant that all that see or hear, may fear and tremble. Amen." (Reverend Samuel Willard, from a 1672 letter titled A Brief Accout of a Strange and Unusual Providence of God Befallen to Elizabeth Knapp of Groton.)

 In October of 1671, a teenage girl named Elizabeth Knapp began to show symptoms of a strange disorder. At first they were minor. Knapp would emit sudden shrieks with no apparent cause, and shrug when anyone asked her about them. At other times she would laugh uncontrollably as if at a private joke, sometimes to the point of falling to the ground in hysterics. She didn't tell anyone what she laughed at.

Her behavior got even stranger as the month continued. On October 30 Knapp was siting by the fireplace when she began to scream that she was being tormented:

In the evening, a little before she went to bed, sitting by the fire, she cried out, oh my legs! and clapped her hands on them, immediately, oh, my breast! and removed her hand thither: and forthwith, oh I am strangled, and put her hands on her throat; those that observed her could see what to make of it; whether she was earnest or dissembled...

Knapp was a maidservant in the home of Groton's minister Samuel Willard, and he scrupulously documented her situation in a long letter sent to Reverend Cotton Mather in Boston. Willard wrote that on the night of October 31 Knapp went into the cellar to fetch something. She screamed and ran back up, claiming she had seen two people down in the cellar. Other members of the household searched but saw nothing and wondered if Knapp had merely played a prank on them.

On November 2nd, Knapp delivered a shocking confession to Reverend Willard and other assembled neighbors: she was being tormented by Satan. Knapp claimed that over the last three years the Devil had frequently visited her, urging her to sign a covenant with him. The Devil promised to give her money, silk clothes, and release from the hard work she had to perform. In return for these things, the Devil simply asked her to sign her name (in blood) in a book. Oh, and also to murder her parents, her neighbors, and Reverend Willard's children. The Devil had even suggested she toss the Willards' youngest child into the oven and kill the reverend with a hook while he slept. Knapp denied signing the Devil's book, but did confess that she had often delayed leaving the Willard household until after sunset so the Devil could walk with her in the dark. She was drawn to the Devil even though she knew it was wrong.

Willard and other local ministers received her confession with concern but also some skepticism. Was her story true?

Her symptoms increased in the early days of November. A physician was called in, "who judged a main part of her distemper to be natural, arising from the foulness of her stomach and corruptness of her blood, occasioning fumes in her brain, and strange fantasies." You have to love that seventeenth century medicine! Knapp was briefly relieved from her duties at Reverend Willard's home and sent to rest at her parents' house.

Her fits lessened and she returned to the Willards, but as the month went on and the days grew darker her symptoms became worse. At times her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, at other times she barked like a dog or bleated like a calf. She ran around the house yelling and skipping and no one was able to restrain her. Reverend Willard wrote that the physician changed his diagnosis and "consented that the distemper was diabolical, refused further to administer, and advised to extraordinary fasting." Multiple ministers were called in to pray for her. Knapp still claimed she had not signed the Devil's book, but did say she had been sorely tempted to but was foiled because she couldn't find a knife to cut her finger.

On December 2, Knapp became highly agitated and said she saw a dog with a woman's head outside the house. It was a witch and was trying to get in. The Willards did not see the creature, but did see a strange canine paw-print in their fireplace. Knapp claimed that if the witch were apprehended her fits would stop. She identified the witch as a local woman, but after investigating the authorities dismissed her claim.

On December 8, Knapp finally confessed to what the Reverend Willard had secretly suspected: she had signed her name in the Devil's book. She said that one day shortly after coming to work for the Willards she had looked out the window and seen the Devil in the shape of an old man walking across  a meadow towards her. He carried a large book in his hands. She heard his terms and then...

...with a knife cut her finger, he caught the blood in his hand, and then told her she must write her name in his book, she answered that she could not write, but he told her that he would direct her hand, and then took a little sharpened stick and dipped in the blood and put it into her hand, and guided it, and she wrote her name with his help.

She agreed to serve the Devil for seven years, but balked at working witchcraft for him. This was why the Devil tormented her so violently with fits.

On December 17th the Devil took complete control of her body. He began to speak through her, insulting her family and the ministers who gathered around her. He insulted God and threatened violence agains the people who were praying over Knapp. Willard believed that it was truly the Devil speaking through her, claiming that Knapp's mouth and lips were immobilized even though words came out.

During January Knapp was silent for long periods of time, although she now claimed that her confession of signing the Devil's book was false and that she had never been tempted to murder the Willard family. She said that although the Devil controlled her body she prayed that he would not take her soul.

And then...

Willard's letter ends there, at mid-January, 1672. He closes his letter with some arguments why, despite the claims of skeptics, he thinks Knapp's possession was authentic. His key arguments are that he thought the strength she displayed during her fits was beyond what was natural, and that her mouth did not move when the Devil spoke. She also used words and phrases while possessed that she had never used before.

Still, Willard writes that he found her multiple contradictory stories about signing the Devil's book puzzling, and admits that other explanations for her behavior may be possible.

Although this information is not included in his letter, it seems that Knapp was eventually cured of her demonic possession (whatever it may have been). Historian David Hall notes that Knapp married in 1674 and had at least six children. Let's hope she wasn't tempted to throw any of them in the oven.

It's interesting that Knapp's symptoms appeared in the dark months of the year. In England, the months of October through mid-January would have been celebrated with harvest festivals, dances and the lavish feasting and misrule of Christmas. Those holidays were suppressed in Puritan New England but it seems like the Devil still wanted to have a little fun.

It's also fascinating to compare this case with the Salem witch trials. Groton's leaders dismissed Elizabeth Knapp's claim that another member of the community had bewitched her. The town might have had a full-blown witch hunt, like Salem, if they hadn't.

Samuel Willard's letter is a fascinating document. I found a copy of it in David Hall's fantastic book Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England. The letter is about fifteen pages long and really goes into detail about the case and what Willard and others thought of it. It's a window into the lives and minds of people who lived here over three centuries ago.

Gibbet Hill: Ghosts, A Ruined Castle and A Forgotten Execution?

The other day Tony and I took a road trip out to Groton, Massachusetts. Groton is an old town that was founded in 1655. It's really a beautiful place, with lots of old Colonial homes, charming white churches, and large farms. Looming just outside the town center is a big hill called Gibbet Hill.

A view up Gibbet Hill

As we all know from watching horror movies, every small town has to have at least one spooky location, and in Groton that location is Gibbet Hill. The word "gibbet" can mean a few things but none of them are pleasant. It can mean a gallows (for executions) or it can mean a metal cage used to publicly display dead bodies after execution. The "g" in gibbet is soft, so it is pronounced "jibbet."

The excursion was not without its dangers.

Gibbet Hill was quite pretty to visit on a sunny spring day, but with a name like that you know there must be some strange phenomena attached to it. According to local legends, ghosts have been seen lurking on the hill. Most of them wear Colonial attire, and some of them are missing limbs. Someone reported just seeing a dismembered foot wearing a green sock. That's it, just a foot. Stories like this are why I only visit haunted places during the day.

On top of Gibbet Hill are the ruins of a stone castle, which just adds to the spooky vibe. According to one local legend the castle dates from the 19th century. A wealthy man built it for his new wife, but unfortunately she died before it could be completed. He abandoned the project in sorrow and it was never finished.

I like that story, but it's not true. Historical records indicate the castle was constructed in 1906 by William Bancroft, a retired general and a politician, as his retirement home. Unfortunately Bancroft ran out of money and couldn't complete it. He sold the castle to a local physician and in time it became a tuberculosis sanitarium. Patients hoped that Groton's fresh air would help cure their ills.

In the 1920s the castle became a private hunting club until it finally burned down in the 1930s in a Fourth of July fireworks mishap. The property was owned for many years after that by the owners of the nearby Gibbet Hill Grill but became town conservation land in 2002. There is a spot on Route 40 where you can park and then hike up a short trail to the castle.

Kate Webber, co-owner of the Gibbet Hill Grill claimed in a 2006 Lowell Sun article that there no ghosts at the castle:

A lot of people are determined that the whole hill is haunted. Before the castle was public property, someone had snuck in and said when they looked through a window, (they) saw a severed foot with a green sock on it. People have reported seeing old colonial couples walking up and down the hills, a man in an old soldier's uniform who walks the property, and a Native American who was rumored to be chased down and killed. I'm convinced there aren't any ghosts roaming. But people look at the stone tower and think there has to be some wonderful and terrible Gothic stories that go with it.

So do ghosts haunt Gibbet Hill? I didn't see any, but I may not be the most psychically sensitive person around. We also visited during the day, and during the day I am always skeptical about all paranormal phenomena. If I had visited at night it would be a completely different matter. I would be convinced each creaking branch was a ghost and I'd be terrified of seeing that severed foot. The castle wasn't too spooky when we went, although there were some really large crows croaking in the trees.

The story behind the hill's name is a little murky. Samuel Green's 1894 book An Historical Sketch of Groton Massachusetts, 1655 - 1890 tells us the following about Gibbet Hill:

It is mentioned in the land-grant of Sergeant Jame Parker, which was entered in the town records of Richard Sawtell, the first town clerk who filled the office from June 1662 to January 1664-65. The tradition is that the hill was so called from the fact that once an Indian was gibbeted on its top. If this ever occurred, it must have happened before Sawtell's term of office.

Various sources on the web, including the Lowell Sun interview with Kate Webber, argue that since there is no proof of an execution the hill was probably named after a hill back in England. I guess that is possible, but we also know that the English settlers were not kind to local Indians, and that Groton was attacked and burned by local tribes during King Philip's War in 1676 and again in 1694 during King William's War. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an unrecorded Indian execution somewhere in the town's past.

While the ghosts at Gibbet Hill are open to debate, there is at least one well-documented weird story in Groton's history. In the 1600s a young serving girl who worked for the town's minister was possessed by Satan. It's an interesting story and I'll write about it next week.