tion, a self-constituted committee of
women, with one man on it,--Mistress Thomas Sherwood, Goodwife Odell,
Mistress Pell, and her two daughters, Goody Lockwood, and Goodwife
Purdy,--visited the prison, and pressed her to name any other witch in
town, and so receive such consolation from the minister as would be for
her soul's welfare.

Mistress Pell seems to have been the chief spokeswoman, and each member
of the committee served in some degree as an inquisitor, or exhorter,
not to repentance, but to disclosures. Baited and badgered, warned and
threatened, the hapless prisoner protested she was innocent, denied the
charges made against her, told one of the committee to "take heed the
devile have not you," and also said, "I must not render evil for
evil.... I have sins enough allready, and I will not add this [accusing
another] to my condemnation." And at last in agony of soul she made that
pathetic appeal to one of her relentless tormentors, "neuer, neuer poore
creature was tempted as I am tempted, pray, pray for me."

But even after death on the scaffold, the witch-hunters of the day did
not refrain from their ghoulish work, but desecrated the remains of
Goodwife Knapp at the grave side in their search for witch marks.

All the facts during the imprisonment, execution and burial are set
forth in some of the testimonies herewith given, in a chapter of related
history (the evidence at the trial not being disclosed in any present
record), and all of them marked by a total unconsciousness of their
sinister and revolting character.

No case in the history of the delusion in New England is more replete
in incidents and apt illustrations, due to their fortunate preservation
in the records of a lawsuit involving some of the prominent characters
in that drama of religious insanity.

At a magistrate's court held at New Haven the 29th of May, 1654.

Present.
Theophilus Eaton Esqr, Gouernor.
Mr. Stephen Goodyeare, Dept, Gouernor.
Francis Newman \
Mr. William Fowler } Magistrats
Mr. William Leete /

a suit was heard entitled--

Thomas Staplies of Fairfield, plant'.

Mr Rogger Ludlow late of Fairfield, defendt.

It was brought by an aggrieved husband to recover damages for defamation
of the character of his wife. It centered in one of the dramatic
incidents at Knapp's execution. In the last extremity, and in the
presence of immediate death, the prisoner came down from the ladder, and
asking to speak wit