Cat Folklore, Part II: Black Cats at Halloween

Despite New England's rich history of witchcraft and ghosts, Halloween has only been celebrated here since the mid-19th century. The first English settlers were Puritan and abstained from celebrating holidays like Christmas and Halloween. The Algonquians who lived here before them of course did not observe Halloween, which is of European origin.

Things changed in the 19th century when large numbers of Irish and Scottish immigrants began arriving in New England. They brought their observance of Halloween with them. Although there were tensions between these newer Gaelic arrivals and the Puritan's Yankee descendants, the Yankees did slowly adopt Halloween as a holiday. By the early 20th century it was widely celebrated among both children and adults in New England and other parts of North America. 

An early 20th century black cat doorstop.

 Now, onto the cats. The black cat was a popular Halloween symbol and appears in many descriptions of the holiday from that time. For example, the November 1, 1912 edition of The Vermont Phoenix describes the following party held by the Brattleboro Baptist Bible school:

... about 200 persons were present. Halloween games were played. The junior department held a party in the chapel, which was decorated with jack o'lanterns and black cats, the children making the decorations. Halloween stunts were performed. 

According to November 4, 1909 issue of The Republican, black cats were also popular in Belfast, Maine:

The Halloween Whist party under the direction of the Universalist Social Aid in Memorial Hall last Friday evening was a social and financial success.... The main hall was decorated with pine trees, Halloween crepe paper, black cats and jack-o-lanterns...

The Belfast socialites were quite busy that Halloween; there were multiple parties to attend:

Last Monday night the young ladies of the Biliken club entertained the young gentlemen at a Halloween supper at Pensobscot cottage on the Allyn shore, with Miss Katherine E. Brier as hostess, assisted by Mrs. Luville J. Pottle.... The table decorations and place cards were in the form of sunflowers. The fortune cards were decorated with cupids, witches, black cats, etc. 

And the October 29, 1910 issue of The Norwich Bulletin gave the following advice to Connecticut Halloween party hostesses:

The candle shades to give the effect of ghosts and witches should be of red and black coloring. Quaint little ones with the heads of black cats on them may be purchased at any store, but clever fingers can easily make them at home.

But why stop at candle shades? Why not have real live black cats in your party?

A pumpkin as centerpiece might hold a bowl of yellow chrysanthemums and if the hostess owns or can borrow a couple of live black cats it would give a most realistic effect to have these in the dining room rubbing against the guests. 

Let's just hope your guests aren't allergic to cats. Newspapers at this time were also filled with ads for Halloween decorations, many of them black cat themed. For example, here is one in the October 29, 1912 issue of The Bridgeport Daily Farmer from Radford's department store in Connecticut:

Using black cats as party decor probably doesn't seem strange to readers of this blog. Witches, ghosts and black cats are all just part of Halloween's festive ambience, right? But for our New England ancestors, Halloween represented a big shift in how they viewed the supernatural. Things that are now just considered spooky fun were once a very serious matter.

Cats, often black in color, appear in the 17th century witch trial accounts, and witch trials were very, very serious matters. For example, in 1692 a Boston serving girl named Mercy Short was tormented by demons after she taunted Sarah Good, who had been jailed for witchcraft. Short's demonic possession drew the attention of Boston's leading ministers, including Cotton Mather, and even of the colony's governor. During one of her fits, Mercy revealed that the Devil's "Book of Death" had been hidden in the attic of a neighbor's house. If someone could retrieve it her torments would stop. The governor commanded a servant to search the attic:

When the Servant was Examining the place directed, a great Black Cat, never before known to bee in the House, jumping over him, threw him into such a Fright and Sweat, that altho' hee were one otherwise of Courage enough, he desisted at that Time from looking any further (from Cotton Mather's A Brand Pluck'd out of the Burning).

Clearly, that black cat was not a laughing matter. Around the same time, Stephen Johnson of Andover, Massachusetts, age 14, confessed to the judges in Salem that the Devil had invited him at midsummer to become a witch. The Devil appeared first as a bird, then a black cat, and finally as a man before Stephen sold his soul to him. Mercy Wardwell, another Andover teenager, confessed that the Devil appeared to her as two cats.

The Devil was not the only one who took feline form. Witches often appeared as cats as well. The Cape Cod witch Liza Tower Hill took the form of a cat to terrorize a family who mistreated her daughter. John Godfrey, a witch from Haverhill, Massachusetts, took the form of a black cat and threatened Isabelle Holdred in her sleep after they argued over money.

Stories like these persisted in New England long after the witch trials ended. Sallie Somers, the alleged witch of Southwest Harbor, Maine, would spy on her neighbors in the shape of black cat. She died in 1832 when someone shot her in feline form with a silver bullet. In 1892, Clifton Johnson recorded a story in Western Massachusetts about a black cat whose paw got caught under a millstone. When the miller got home he found his wife with a damaged hand and knew she was a witch.

In the 1930s, people in New Hampshire also told a story about a witch in the shape of a black cat to Eva Speare for her book New Hampshire Folk Tales. And even in the 2000s, Christopher Balzano was told a story about a witch's ghost appearing as a black cat that walked on its hind legs for his book Dark Woods: Cults, Crime, and the Paranormal in the Freetown State Forest.

I don't cite all those stories to scare you, but just to show there is a very persistent tradition linking black cats with witchcraft and the Devil in New England. Given that tradition, it is amazing New Englanders were willing to abandon their superstitions and embrace the witches and black cats of Halloween. Clearly, cultural events like the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution played a big role in changing their minds, but it's still inspiring to read about New Englanders celebrating witches and black cats rather than hanging and shooting them. Things that once were frightening have become fun. Sometimes there is such a thing as progress. 

Aunt Jinny, the Witch of Hillsborough, New Hampshire

When some people think about New England witchcraft, they think "Oh yeah, that terrible stuff that happened in Salem in 1692."

Other people, and this probably includes you gentle reader, know that witchcraft beliefs in New England started before the Salem trials and continued well after them. Interesting witch stories can be found all across New England and well into the 20th century. I even read one recently from the 21st century!

One good source for witch stories is Eva Speare's book New Hampshire Folk Tales (1932). Speare's book has a wide variety of folk stories but includes twelve specifically about witches from different towns in the the Granite State.

I like this one about a woman named Jenny Gilchrist who lived in Hillsborough, New Hampshire on Barden Hill Road. Gilchrist was known in town as Aunt Jinny, but she doesn't seem very lovable:

Aunt Jinny, as she was commonly called, has been described as a little, sallow, weazened (sic), old woman with a fiery temper and vitriolic tongue, whose unhappy experiences in early life had so embittered her nature that she distrusted and shunned her neighbors...

Several stories tell how she terrorized the local miller and scared small children into doing chores for her, but the witchiest stories relate to how she died.

Aunt Jinny was never wealthy, but as she became older she grew ever more destitute. The town officials eventually decided that she should be removed from her home and taken to the poorhouse where she could be taken care of.

The Franklin Pierce homestead in Hillsborough.

When the town constable came to Jinny's house he was prepared for an argument, but she obediently and silently climbed onto his horse behind him. Then they set off for the poorhouse, which was many miles away.

They rode all night but when the sun rose the constable nearly fell off his horse in surprise. Instead of arriving at the poorhouse he realized they were riding back into Aunt Jinny's yard! Jinny had bewitched the horse so she wouldn't have to leave her home.

Jinny ended up dying at home soon after in the following way. One day one of her neighbors noticed one of his sheep was acting strangely. Fearing it was sick and would infect the other sheep he killed it with a club. At that very instant Jinny collapsed in her house. She had of course been bewitching the sheep, and the damage inflicted on the animal was also inflicted on her.

A kind woman who lived nearby came to watch over Jinny as she lay stricken. Wise old people in town warned that woman that if she wanted Jinny to live she should never avert her gaze from her. Witches didn't like to die when people were watching, they said. As long as she kept watch Jinny would refuse to die.

For many hours the woman kept close watch over Jinny, determine that she should live. But eventually she looked away, just for one second. That was all it took. When she looked back Jinny was dead.

There are a couple things I find very interesting about these stories. Aunt Jinny is an archetypal post-Puritan New England witch: a cantankerous and hated old woman who wants to live independently. But it's interesting that the community does try to care for her, even though she doesn't want their help.

I am also intrigued by the idea that a witch won't die while someone watches, which I haven't encountered before. It make sense though in the context of other New England witch lore. While they are alive witches are alleged to work much of their mischief by sending their souls out of their bodies. They do this secretly while no one is watching, often during the night when their families and spouses are sleeping.

When a witch dies, they send their soul out one last final time. They would want to die they way they lived, privately and secretly, unseen by the prying eyes of their neighbors.

One last note: stories about Aunt Jinny also appear in George Waldo Browne's 1921 book The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, so she must have been an important part of town folklore.