From among the works of witchcraft that occurred from 1648 to 1688, we have now presented six cases, which bring into view some phenomena that are very like many which are now called spirit manifestations. The efficient touch of Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, the extraordinary efficacy of her hands and simple medicines, her prophetic powers, the keenness of her hearing, and the materialization of a spirit-child in her arms, brought her to the gallows in 1648. Ann Hibbins, of Boston, seemingly because of the wit-sharpening acuteness of her hearing, was hanged in 1656. Ann Cole, of Hartford, Conn., in 1662, had her vocal organs "improved" by some intelligence not her own for the utterance of thoughts which were never in her mind, and some of the utterances through her contributed to the conviction and consequent execution of the two Greensmiths, husband and wife. At Groton, a spirit controlling the form of Elizabeth Knap, in 1671, made avowal that he was "a pretty black boy, and not Satan." At Newbury, in 1679, the wild dance of pots, kettles, andirons, and things in general, came off on the premises of William Morse. And at Boston, in 1688, inflictions upon the Goodwin children led to the execution of Mrs. Glover, "one of the wild Irish."
Cases thus scattered in both time and space, half of them limited each to a single actor or sufferer, and each differing widely from any other in many of its prominent features, cannot satisfactorily be ascribed to acquired skill in legerdemain, histrionic art, magic, or necromancy, unattended by help from the living dead.
The name of the wild Irish woman, whose harsh language was speedily followed by the distortions and sufferings of the Goodwin children, was Glover. Calef calls her "a despised, crazy, ill-conditioned old woman--an Irish Roman Catholic." The public believed that she put forth criminal action upon that family, arrested her therefor, received at her trial some indications that she had dealings with invisible beings, pronounced her guilty of witchcraft, and hanged her. She doubtless forsensed retention of power to act either directly or through others upon the objects of her resentment, even after the gallows should have done its utmost work upon herself. For it is stated that "at her execution she said the children would not be relieved by her death ... and ... the three children continued in their furnace as before, and it grew rather seven times hotter than it was, and their calamities went on till they barked at one another like dogs, and then purred like so many cats; would complain that they were in a red-hot oven, and sweat and pant as if they had been really so. Anon they would say cold water was thrown on them, at which they would shiver very much. They would complain of being roasted on an invisible spit; and then that their heads were nailed to the floor, and it was beyond an ordinary strength to pull them from it."--_Annals of Witchcraft_, p. 185.