January 17, 2025 • 48 mins
"Witch Hunt" explores Maryland's forgotten witch trial history through a revealing conversation with attorney Elizabeth Pugliese-Shaw, who's spearheading efforts to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in colonial Maryland. While the colony saw fewer witch trials than its Puritan neighbors, these cases still resulted in tragedy – including the 1685 execution of Rebecca Fowler and the death of Moll Dyer, who froze to death after townspeople drove her from her home.
Pugliese-Shaw discusses how Maryland's unique status as a Catholic colony with religious tolerance laws may have influenced its handling of witch accusations. She shares promising developments in her exoneration campaign, including a pre-filed legislative resolution to posthumously clear the names of Maryland's accused witches.
Through historical records and enduring local legends – including Moll Dyer's story, which later inspired "The Blair Witch Project" – this episode illuminates a lesser-known chapter of colonial American history while examining modern efforts to address historical injustices.
Maryland House Joint Resolution 2
MD Witch Exoneration Project Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Witch Hunt Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
And I'm Sarah Jack. Today, we're exploring
Maryland's unique witch trial history and current efforts to
exonerate those accused of witchcraft in the colony.
While Maryland had fewer witch trials than its northern
neighbors, these cases still resulted in tragedy, including
the colonies only execution for witchcraft, that of Rebecca
(00:23):
Fowler in 1685. Today we're joined by Elizabeth
Polyeze Shaw, a Maryland attorney who's leading the
charge to bring justice to Maryland's accused witches.
She shares exciting news about arecently pre filed legislative
resolution that can finally clear their names.
Elizabeth also tells us about Maul Dyer, whose tragic story
(00:43):
became a local legend and later inspired The Blair Witch
Project. And she explains how Maryland
status as a Catholic colony may have influenced its witch trial
history. Through our conversation, we
explore how modern legal systemscan address historical
injustices even centuries later.Let's welcome.
Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw to witch hunt.
(01:08):
Welcome to Witch Hunt Podcast Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw.
Please introduce yourself and tell us what you were doing for
justice for accused witches. My name is Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw
and I'm an attorney in Maryland,mostly doing family law.
But I decided to get involved with the Exonerating Witches
(01:29):
Project when I happened to catchan article about the Connecticut
project. And I thought, well, that's
really cool. Did Maryland ever exonerated
witches? Did Maryland even have anybody
accused witchcraft? I did some Googling and found
out that there were people accused and that nobody has been
(01:49):
ever exonerated. Reached out to y'all at the
Connecticut Project and you've helped me get started on it.
So that's kind of how I got involved is fell down a rabbit
hole. This is our first time visiting
Maryland on the podcast. What would you like the viewers
and listeners to know about yourstate?
(02:12):
Maryland was the first state to have religious toleration and
that was passed in 16. Let's see, 1649 was the
Toleration Act and that's mostlybecause Maryland was founded by
Catholics and English Catholics at a time when England was
Protestant. So to be able to freely worship,
(02:34):
they had to tolerate Protestants.
But it's a lovely state. There's a lot of history here.
That's the thing, of course, theStar Spangled Banner was written
in Baltimore Harbor. We have Fort McHenry that was
being shelled there, Antietam from the Civil War, and and of
course, the close proximity to Washington means we get all of
(02:55):
that spillover too. But it's a lovely state.
It's small, but it has everything.
It's got oceans, it's got mountains, it's got forests,
it's got rural areas, it's got very large cities.
And it's a great place to visit and I do enjoy.
I figured it out yesterday. I've been here over 20 years.
(03:16):
That's about the amount of time that I've spent in Colorado.
It flies. It does.
Fly. It does.
So you asked yourself, what is the witch trial history here in
Maryland? What got your attention when you
started looking? That we actually didn't have a
(03:37):
witch trial hysteria like some everybody knows about Salem, but
we didn't really have that hysteria.
You can pretty much count how many known people were accused
on your hands. It's barely, I don't even think
it's into double digits. So we didn't really have here in
(03:57):
Maryland that, but we did have people accused and one person
was hung. So there were the miscarriages
of justice. It just didn't blow up into this
whole thing, which is probably why other than mall Dyer, and
I'll get into her later, becausethat's a whole industry
practically. Other than Mall Dyer, it's not
(04:20):
really known about the people accused of witchcraft in
Maryland because it just didn't make that big of an impression
in the history of Maryland. Is there any information on the
one person who was hanged? We are very lucky the records
were preserved of her trial. We actually have the records of
(04:44):
the trials still here in the Maryland State Archives.
We have it from all the known ones that actually went to
trial, their records, even though the Saint Mary's County
records burned because Annapolisbecame the capital, all those
records were transferred. And so many of those records are
still here in our capital. And you can actually go back and
(05:07):
see the transcribed, Thank God they've transcribed them so that
you can read them. You can actually see the records
of what happened. I mean, it's not like a trial
transcript like we think of today where they record
everything, but you can see whatdate she was indicted and who
(05:28):
the prosecutor was and who the people on the jury were and the
judges. And you can see that now because
of all that got preserved. And her name was.
Rebecca Fowler. Yes, that was Rebecca Fowler.
She was hanged in in, convict, indicted, convicted and hanged
(05:49):
all in 1685. They moved rather quickly on
that one. They move quickly on all the
trials because that's just how trials were back then.
There was none of this pretrial discovery and handing over
information and months and months of preparation with
depositions and everything. It was just pretty much accused,
indicted trial, boom, it was over.
(06:12):
And that was considered due process because you actually got
a trial with 12 jurors. I was looking, I've started to
dig a little deeper into the history and I did notice, oh,
that these records are naming the men that were in the court,
the ones making the decision, which you do see that in
Connecticut on some of those trials too.
(06:35):
And I thought, wow, there's a lot of names to look into and to
learn about these men in the community.
Well, the main thing you have toremember about Maryland is it
was what's called a royal proprietorship.
It was founded by the Earls of Arundel.
Hence we have Anne Arundel and Lord Baltimore.
That's where we get Baltimore. The family name was Calvert.
(06:58):
Calvert County, Saint Mary's down there, it was pretty much a
dictatorship. It was called the governor, but
the Calverts pick the governor. Everybody was connected in some
way to Calvert or the governor, who I think they were actually
related by marriage anyway. So when you start getting into
(07:20):
these people, it's really just basically the Calvert family or
their business partners or something like that.
So that's really what it is, is it's just this little clique was
running everything. And so that's what you need to
know about these men who were the commissioners and stuff, is
they were really just the Calvert henchman.
(07:42):
That's really insightful. I was looking at the other
convicted person who did not hang John Kalman and he worked
it off with the governor. So that kind of explains maybe
how that. Yeah, I don't know.
He was. We have the records, but we
(08:04):
don't have the background, so wedon't know anything.
But my best guess is John Commonwas still an indentured servant
at the time he was accused. And rather than lose the
property of him by hanging him, they just made him work it off
as what I call community service.
Although you're basically at thepleasure of the governor, so
(08:26):
you're probably not doing real fun things.
You know, it would be more like convicted to hard labor.
You got to live, but you were doing digging ditches and
breaking rocks and that sort of thing.
But I think that was it is because he was an indentured
servant. They just basically extended his
(08:46):
indenture indefinitely. Doing my research, I realized I
need to learn more about the indentured servant history.
There was a lot of that in Maryland.
Well, that's, yeah, it was. The only way people could afford
to come over is, you know, Rebecca Fowler, the one who was
hanged. She was an indentured servant.
(09:08):
She'd done her indenture, then when she was done with it, she
and her husband basically got hired out and they got married.
But they still continue to work for others as servants.
But now they got wages and it was 20 years later before they
could afford to buy their own land.
So you're an indentured servant and your indenture is over.
(09:31):
You're still poor and in the dissertation, which is in
Poisoners, there's a good background on it, what it meant
to be an indentured servant and how long it really took to
establish yourself in the community.
Maryland was also a slave state there.
There's so there was the free people, the indentured people,
and the slaves. That was Maryland.
(09:53):
It stayed a slave state right upuntil 1863.
You mentioned in part of the indentured servitude, part of
that was just to pay for your passage to get across the ocean
because I was an expensive journey to make.
But not everybody who started that journey made it over here.
(10:17):
I understand there were at leasta couple of women on their way
to Maryland that were accused ofwitchcraft on their ships.
What could you tell us about those women?
OK, the one I know best is Mary Lee.
She was on a ship called the Charity of London, and it was
coming, you know, to Maryland. So I include her, even though
(10:41):
she never set foot in Maryland. The ship hit bad weather.
And sailors are among the most superstitious lot you have ever
met. They still are.
Trust me. You go on any U.S.
Navy ship. They got their superstitions and
they decided that the bad weather was the result of having
a witch on board. And there was Mary Lee, who was
(11:03):
not well liked, little older, little cranky.
And so they decided she was the witch and the crew seized her
and they were going to kill her right away.
And the captain said no, you can't do that.
I'm not going to be a part to murder.
And I said, we'll put her off inthe Bahamas and it'll all be
good. But the bad weather continued
and they couldn't put in at Bahamas.
(11:24):
So they've still got this woman on board that the crew does not
want on board. Cameron says I am not going to
be a part of this. And he goes into his cabin.
The next thing you know, somebody rushes in and says
they've killed her and they hungher at sea.
Now the captain's like, now my fault.
I told him not to do it, and I told him I didn't want any part
of it. But honestly, he's the captain.
(11:47):
He really should have done something.
One book exonerates him as the crew was ready to mutiny.
What was he supposed to do? I don't know.
Be a captain? So that was her.
And the other one was, I want tosay I can't remember her name,
but she comes up as another one who was hung at sea.
(12:09):
And a relative of George Washington's lodged a complaint
against the ship too, but then he didn't show up for the
hearing. And so everything got dismissed.
But it was just, it was pretty much the same thing as what
happened to Mary Lee, accused atsea, hung at sea.
(12:30):
And then people wanted to look into what happened, and it was
not really whether Mary Lee and this other woman were witches,
but had murder been committed onboard the ship.
So that's kind of a positive thing that they were actually
looking at. They weren't presuming these
(12:50):
women were witches. They were presuming murder had
occurred on board. And I kind of like that.
But she was still accused and she was still killed for being a
witch, for being accused of being a witch.
Yeah, I, I know. And some of the other, a lot of
the other circumstances when a witness isn't able to be there
that that stopped a lot of witchtrials from moving forward.
(13:14):
But unfortunately with Washington, it was then the
accountability for her death wasdropped.
But I think he might have been out of the country even.
I don't know. He was in Virginia, so he would
have had to travel to Maryland and Maryland and Virginia were
spatting a lot during time. I don't think it was so much a
(13:36):
border. Well, it was kind of a border
dispute and it was also religious dispute.
So there was a lot of arguing back that back and forth then,
which during one of those times was during Rebecca Fowler's
trial. So the commissioners who also
sat, the commissioners who were overseeing her trial also sat on
(13:57):
the Colony Council advising LordBaltimore.
So they were a little distractedat the time trying to deal with
whatever Virginia was doing at that time.
And so they didn't really give alot of thought to what was going
on with the trial. They were just like, she's
accused, whatever, OK, We got togo deal with this big thing with
(14:17):
Virginia trying to make us be Protestant.
And that's where you get back into the problem with this was
really all this little click is they had their own concerns.
Yeah. You had mentioned Mary Dyer,
Mold Dyer earlier. Who was she?
(14:38):
Mold Dyer was a little old lady who lived down in Saint Mary's
County and not a lot is known about her.
And in fact, for a while it was wondered if she really even
existed. But there's one great line that
somebody found a newspaper that she lived at the time that
Cotton Mather was preaching. So we know we can, you know, put
(15:03):
her in a timeline there. And of course, Cotton Mather is
all connected up to the Salem witch trials.
So I always found that a great connection there.
But Mall Dyer never made it to atrial.
She was one cold night in the middle of winter, bunch of men
came to her little isolated cabin.
She's a little old lady, a widowcame to her isolated cabin,
(15:26):
drove her out to the middle of the night, set fire to the cabin
so she couldn't come back and just drove her out saying you're
a witch, we don't want you in our community.
Burned her home so she couldn't come back.
She froze to death and the legend is that she was gripping
the rock on which she took shelter that night so hard that
she left either her handprints or her knee prints, which tells
(15:48):
you how accurate this is. They don't even know which body
part it is. But she left her handprints or
her knee prints in the rock. She was gripping it so hard.
This rock is has been moved to protect it to the Saint Mary's
Historical Society building. It's still outside, but it's got
a gate around it so people don'ttouch it and ruin it.
(16:08):
So that's how the legend of MallDyer began, is that she was
clutching this and then of course, that she came back to
take her revenge on those who drove her out to freeze to
death. I'm kind of on her side here,
kind of on her side here becauseI wouldn't be thrilled if that
happened to me either. She is the very loose basis for
(16:30):
The Blair Witch Project, for TheBlair Witch, except they took
the story from Southern Maryland, where there are no
mountains, and moved her up intothe mountains in western
Maryland and made her, you know,kill children and stuff.
And so it's very, very loosely based, but that's where the
story comes from. Is that Maldyer?
(16:50):
And apparently there are still descendants of Maldyer living in
Southern Maryland. The Saint Mary's Historical
Society has all kinds of information on her, including,
of course, who her relatives areand everything.
What I would like to do is if this exoneration gets through,
is add to that plaque of and shewas exonerated in X year, add to
(17:16):
the marker of the stone. I think that would be the
fitting tribute to her. That would be wonderful.
Her story, even though it it's this inspiration for some really
wild stories. Her memory is so strong.
I was when I was just listening to you talk about her that
(17:38):
horrible night that that is likean experience that accused
witches today are experiencing where they're banished out of
their home into the elements without any person or
protection. So it really as much of A legend
as she is, she her story is alsosomething that can really help
(18:00):
us understand these accusations that persist today,
unfortunately. And that's also why the
resolution says known and unknown because we don't know
how many other mall dyers she made it because somebody decided
this rock looked like a dad handprints or knee prints on it.
And so she persisted in legend. But we don't know how many other
(18:21):
people the same thing happened to because nobody was recording.
Oh, yeah, we drove the local witch out today and burned her
house or burned his house. Nobody's writing that down in
the diary because you get all head up and you do it.
And then the next day you go, what did we just do?
And you kind of keep it secret. So that's why it's known and
(18:44):
unknown, because we don't know how many other mall dyers there
were in Maryland. Yeah, a lot of times the legend
is as important to an area as the real history behind the
person. And it reminds me of cases we've
(19:05):
heard in New Hampshire with Goody Cole and Virginia with
Grace Sherwood, the so-called Witch of Pungo, where the lore
has become one thing because there's little information about
the real people. So all the blanks get filled in
(19:26):
and the stories get elaborated. And that in itself somehow
becomes important to the community that may have had in
those cases, New Hampshire, Virginia and Maryland, not so
many witch trials that we're aware of.
What do you think she means today?
(19:46):
Mall Dyer to the community, to people in Maryland.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
I mean, she's obviously Saint Mary's County is quite proud of
her. I said they've they actually
moved and preserved the rock. They have a lot of stuff about
her. She winds up in all the books
about legends of Maryland and such, which I don't want to mess
(20:07):
with that lore and stuff, but I want it to be.
This was a real person. This was a real little old lady
who had something horrible happened to her.
But it is very much right up there with Grace Sherwood.
There's books written about MallDyer and all that thing.
Heck, they took her story and made it into a blockbuster
movie. I remember when everybody was
(20:30):
talking about The Blair Witch Project.
It's very important to the lore,and I'm sure it gets people into
the Historical Society, which isprobably underfunded and can
only do so much. So I'm all for anything to get
people to support a Historical Society.
And I don't think this legend hurts anybody because it really
(20:52):
does tell the story of what happened to her that they don't
make it sound like it was a goodthing she was driven out.
OK. They very much emphasize the
fact that she froze to death. They very much so.
I think that really helps. It's not this big myth that
makes it out like this was a good thing done, but just points
(21:15):
out you know what can happen with group hysteria?
It leads to a little old lady dying.
It's so meaningful that the Saint Mary's Historical Society
brought her to life by identifying her in the record
and who are her possible descendants.
I think that is was really a wonderful effort.
(21:39):
Speaking of descendants, have you met anyone yet in your work
on this project who's come to you saying they're descended
from one of the accused? I have found I haven't met them
and I've only exchanged a coupleemails with people who are
(22:00):
descendant who are distant cousins of Rebecca Fowler.
Of all the ones who have been accused because many of them,
some of them didn't have kids, that's it would be hard to find
descendants of them. But to find Rebecca Fowler
distant cousins is interesting. I they haven't really gotten
(22:22):
back to me on it. They haven't said they're
against her being exonerated. They haven't said they're for
but I have found that they are distant cousins of Rebecca
Fowler. But that's the only ones I've
come across. I said there's descendants of
Maldai, or maybe if there's getting more information out
there, they might reach out to me.
I haven't made it down to the Historical Society yet to let
(22:46):
these folks know about the project to say hey, if any dyers
want to get in touch with me, here's how.
Just because they have weird open hours that don't really
align with my work schedule. And you have a website that
you've created talks a little bit about the victims, and the
public can contact you about theproject.
It is the Maryland which if you look for and I use MD instead of
(23:10):
having to write out Maryland allthe time.
So if you just search for Maryland which exoneration
project, it will probably come up.
It's a WordPress site. It's got quick biographies on
each of them with basically what's known, some surmises,
which I say I think this is or she, he or she was probably
(23:33):
this. And it gives a little of the
background and what was going onin Maryland at the time of the
accusations. And then it's a biography on
each of them. And then there's a contact page
where people can just e-mail me if they want to know more or get
in touch with the project. So what's the status of the
(23:55):
project right now? Where do things stand and what
still needs to be done? I'm very excited is I luckily
ran in got to see a state delegate.
She and I start talking to her about the project and she has
pre filed a bill or a resolutionend for this upcoming session
(24:19):
that starts on Wednesday, January 8th to just exonerate
the witches of Maryland. And it's just a pretty simple
bill. It mostly follows the wording of
the Connecticut bill, but that has been introduced.
We will see. It's got to go through
committees and all of that through committees and then got
(24:40):
to go up to vote. We're hoping it's not too much
of a fight, but you'd be amazed at what legislators can find to
argue over. And you can go find that on the
state legislature website. I do have to get it up on my
website about it and put it on the Facebook page, too.
That is HJ Two. Yeah, Criminal law is what it
(25:05):
is, and it's up there and anybody can go read it.
Thank you. And by the way, we'll have all
these links in the show notes, so when people read the
description of the episode, they'll be able to to click on
that. Oh good, because I can't
remember where. My website is.
It's hard to remember URLs, especially the ones that those
(25:28):
legislator sites have, because when you actually look at it,
there's a lot of special characters and.
Yeah. But if you just go to the
Maryland legislature page, it does have a bill search, and so
that's really great to find. It's J0002.
It's 3 zeros and A2. I want to say that's a 2, but I
(25:49):
can't read my handwriting right now, and if I can't read it,
nobody else can. And also, if people are on
Facebook and they want to come learn or chat about this effort,
you have a Facebook group. Think.
Enjoy. Yes, it's a public group so you
can find it by searching again. It's MD, Witches Exoneration
(26:10):
Project. I just had to look for it myself
today. The main thing to remember is
always it's MDI, just shortened Maryland to MD to save space and
typing so that makes it a littleeasier to find everything.
How much would it cost to get this legislation passed?
I don't think there's going to be other than travel because
(26:30):
it's a resolution. It's not a bill.
It's not going to cost anything in the budget or anything.
It's just basically unless you have travel costs getting to
Annapolis to testify, it's goingto be it.
To me, it's a budget neutral bill.
It's no cost because the delegate is presenting it and
they're it's going to go throughall the process and everything
(26:52):
and it passes and it gets published.
What's one more bill, more or less, that gets published?
Yeah. It costs nothing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Why does justice matter for these persons today?
Because it was wrong. We have to correct wrongs and
(27:15):
not to put it on the same level as the more known death penalty
exoneration cases, but you know,we release people from death row
after 20-30 years on death row because DNA clears them.
This is not at the same level. Most it's historic and nothing's
bringing back Rebecca Fowler. But it has to do with just
(27:38):
honesty. We have to be truthful.
We have to be fair. We have to be just.
Otherwise, what's the point of having a country?
You have to do it for the welfare of everyone, not just
rich people. You have to do it for the poor
people, the powerless people whodidn't have anybody to speak for
(28:00):
them at the time. Do you think a monument or a
memorial for all of them would be something that would interest
the community down the road? Probably Maryland loves their
memorials and things. Goodness knows there's anywhere
you turn, there's a historic sign or there's a statue of
(28:24):
something or other there. I know in Saint Mary's they
still have the courthouse. It's probably rebuilt and brief,
you know, but the historic courthouse, they've restored it
to what it would have looked like then.
And I think something there thattalks about what happened to the
(28:45):
miscarriages of justice might not be a bad idea, even if it's
just a plaque on the wall that says, yes, we had witch trials
here, they were wrong or something.
In Annapolis. Goodness knows, Annapolis is
very special because it has not only is it the state capitol,
but the Kunta Kinte statues are there.
(29:06):
OK, They have right there on thewaterfront because Alex Haley
reading to little children because it's believed that it
was that Kunta Kuntai, Alex Haley's ancestor, came through
Annapolis when he was brought over.
So I think having the witch exoneration, again, not on the
same level of slavery. I'm not trying to say these are
(29:29):
equivalent or anything, but justif we can acknowledge that
wrong, let's acknowledge this other wrong there.
Plus, it's a state capital. People are always wandering
around. We've got the Naval Academy
there. Let's have some positive values
that the midshipmen can see. I would think just with the
renown of Maldire alone, there would be some demand or interest
(29:58):
in doing something like that. There, there probably will be.
We just right now the project ispretty much me and I haven't
done a lot of the publicity and stuff.
The fact that I had the courage to even speak to the delegate
and go, hey, could you consider this?
And then she took it and ran with it just still amazes me
because I'm terrible at self promotion.
(30:18):
But I think once this is over, yeah, I can see Saint Mary's
maybe again at the Historical Society putting something up.
Like I said, my dream is to haveon the Malda Rock a an
additional plaque that says, yeah, this terrible thing
happened, but she was exoneratedin X year.
(30:39):
And if it could include all of something to everybody, because
it was mostly Saint Mary's County, simply because that's
where everybody was at the time,they were still kind of moving,
moving, moving, moving. Where Rebecca Fowler lived at
the time actually became Prince George's County.
But Saint Mary's County was pretty much everything, so
(31:01):
everything at the time. So I think Saint Mary's County
might be an appropriate place. I'm sure the Historical Society
would love the attention. Again, support your local
Historical Society. Absolutely.
And I'm for your courage it it'sa really admirable example to
(31:22):
those who have they have a. Voice.
To and they may not feel like. Amplifying something?
Because it's so scary, or they're alone and they don't
have collaborators yet, but you just put yourself out there and
it's delegates like yours that are making these bills
(31:43):
successful. I'm so grateful to their work in
Connecticut, Jane Garabe. And so Anwar, they prioritized
that. They had a lot of other very
important bills during the same session, healthcare bills, elder
care bills. But they also recognize that
historical justice matters today, that it matters for their
(32:07):
community today and globally that this is a big deal.
And when we take a stand on this, we're helping the rest of
the world that has people suffering for the same reason.
So I'm really grateful for your bold move and for just.
And it is just one step at a time.
And it doesn't have to be this fireworks and crazy campaign.
(32:33):
It's just moving towards justice.
Taking action like this is significant and it matters to
many people. So thank you well, your support.
The Connecticut people support y'all support regular check ins
have really helped keep me on track and keep it going.
And Delegate Bagnell, who is theone who introduced it, she loves
(32:55):
to apparently introduced and support some of the more
politically risky things becausethat's just who she is.
And she does have a lot going onhere in Maryland.
The Key Bridge being rebuilt is huge and that is sucking all the
air out of everything. So the fact that she found time
(33:15):
to prioritize this and not just prioritize it, but get the
wording in and get it pre filed.So it has a much better chance
of getting through this session.Because in Maryland, our
sessions are really short. It's like January 8th, something
like May and that's it. And there's a crossover day
where if a bill doesn't get sentto the other house by this date,
(33:37):
it's dead this session. So by pre filing it, she has a
better chance of getting it through this session than if she
were to introduce it later. So it's really, I'm really
grateful to her that even with all her other priorities, she
decided that what the heck, go for broke this year and see what
(33:58):
we get. Yeah, it's one.
Of those things that even thoughvoting on party lines is typical
and expected, it's one of those bills that anyone can and should
stand behind. And that did happen in
Connecticut at the beginning it.We didn't know if.
(34:18):
It was going to get out of the first committee, but as it moved
through the steps, more and moresupport came.
And I hope and expect, I think we'll see that in Maryland, too.
It's really. Amazing to watch the progress of
this effort. It wasn't that long ago that you
first initiated this. No, I can't remember.
(34:40):
It was right about the time Connecticut was passing their
bill. Like I said, I saw the article
and reached out to y'all and then I just kind of did some
work and stuff and was thinking about creating the website and
all this stuff and was mostly just doing the research.
But I ran into delegate bag now last April and that really kick
started it. That was when I said, hey, by
(35:02):
the way, can I talk to you aboutthis?
And she was so excited that I just went fantastic.
You know, this is somebody who can actually get it, do
something about this. And then it's just, it's been
moving along since then. I checked in.
Do you need anything from me? Do you want to do this without
bugging her? Because again, she's got a lot
(35:22):
of other priorities. And I was really amazed when
they sent me the resolution. I'm like, holy cow, this is
happening. This was so great.
Elizabeth, is there anything else you would like to mention
or discuss? What is it?
We talked about those who were convicted.
(35:43):
But one thing that I that was interesting about Maryland is
there were people who had trial.One woman was accused and she
wasn't even indicted. It just went nowhere.
And that really surprised me that they presented this.
And back then, what's not like you could put on a defense or
anything. It's like grand juries today.
(36:05):
Hey, we can indict a ham sandwich.
So the fact that she wasn't evenindicted, that was Elizabeth
Bennett in 1665. She wasn't even indicted, they
just cleared her name. Technically she's been cleared,
but I still include her on the list because she shouldn't have
been accused in the 1st place. And then two others, Hannah
(36:29):
Edwards in 1686, which was the year, just a few months
actually, she was accused after Rebecca Fowler was hung.
She was actually tried but foundnot guilty.
And the big difference there is she had been married.
Her first husband had been a very prominent member of the
(36:49):
community. Her second husband not as
prominent. But I and the person who accused
her was, I'm surprised, not accused herself because she was
the cranky little old lady that nobody liked and went around
making everybody miserable. So I'm really surprised at who
was accused versus who was in that one.
(37:10):
And so I'm sure Hannah Edwards had people who testified on her
behalf that no, no, she's this good, righteous woman who goes
to church every Sunday. The last one was virtual vile in
17 all the way in 1712. She is, as far as we know, the
last person indicted for witchcraft in the state of
(37:31):
Maryland, most because the statute was repealed about eight
years later. And I said we didn't have the
whole hysteria, so people weren't getting accused every
year sort of thing. There were big breaks where
people weren't getting accused. But she was also sent to trial
and found not guilty. So that's pretty much it for the
(37:52):
state of Maryland is, like I said, you can count on two
hands. It's not even double digits,
those who were accused, but it shouldn't have been accused
anyway. They should not have, you know,
been faced with even being indicted.
They shouldn't have been driven out of their homes.
I'm sure even for those who werefound not guilty or cleared and
(38:16):
not indicted, going back to their communities was probably
tough. It's not known anything about
their lives afterwards. But I'm sure it wasn't real
easy. I'm sure there were whisper
campaigns and that sort of thing.
Nobody should have been accused because witchcraft as claimed of
(38:37):
what they did does not exist. Thank you.
Thank you. So much this has really been
quite wonderful. I've really enjoy.
One of the things I love about doing the show is learning the
local histories of different places.
And my mother's family was originally from Maryland, had
(39:00):
lived there for a couple 100 years before starting to move
West, so interesting to learn about the colonial history there
as well. Yeah, I hadn't known so much
about things until I got really into this.
Like in Annapolis, I told you there's things all over the
(39:21):
place. And everything near the World
War 2 memorial is a sign about the Battle of Saverne.
And I'm like, Battle of Saverne,this is a colonial one.
Apparently at one point the Protestants had taken over the
government of Maryland. And this was at the time they
had the Commonwealth in England,Lord Baltimore, the Calverts,
(39:43):
they were royalists. They said you can't really be
royalists anymore. We've got the Commonwealth.
We're running things now. And the interesting thing about
that was it was 1654. The Battle of Severne was 1655.
Mary Lee was hung at sea in 1654.
(40:04):
So when you realize that this was really a clash between the
Protestants and the Catholics, is it because we were really a
Catholic dominated colony that we didn't really have the witch
hunts? Don't know.
Because certainly knows in Europe what before Martin Luther
and the Protestants, there were plenty of witch hunts.
(40:24):
So it's not like the Catholics didn't do that.
And I believe. Marilyn was following English
witchcraft law. There was no additional laws,
correct? It was the.
Statute of King James that they were following.
And with the whole thing about spectral evidence, I can just
imagine trying to get that through court now.
(40:47):
Oh, you can't really see what's happening, but trust me, it is.
The judges won't even let us usea video unless it can be
preserved in the final record somehow.
And it's a written record. So we have to give the court a
flash drive that they can clip in the file.
So I just can't imagine trying to get spectral evidence through
(41:08):
today. I just can't, thank goodness.
So yeah, but again, Marilyn justdidn't have what some some of
the more northern colonies had. And pure luck is that I'm going
to put it down to. You can look at it as, OK, maybe
(41:29):
it was because how the colony was run.
Maybe it's because it was Catholic.
Pure luck. That's all I'm going to say.
It was. It's just there.
But for the grace of God, it's what it was that nobody decided
that there was a whole bunch of witches hanging out somewhere.
We just got lucky. Yeah.
(41:50):
Out. Of the colonies, it was
basically Massachusetts and Connecticut that had the
overwhelming majority of all thecases were in just those two
colonies alone. And even the ones that happened
in mainland New Hampshire, thosecolonies were under
Massachusetts control at the time of most of the witch
(42:12):
charges. So Eunice Kohl of Hampton, NH
was tried in Boston because Massachusetts was running it.
So it's really those two colonies and then you look at
the others, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, not so
much. And when you look at the.
(42:34):
Timeline Most of Maryland's occurred before Salem.
The only ones that occurred after Salem were Mall, Dyer and
Virtual Vile. Everything else was before that.
So if there was going to be an outbreak, it would have happened
(42:56):
before then because I think after Salem, everybody was like,
we need to rethink this thing a little bit.
This is a little crazy. The fact that when you look at
it, that we could have been justas bad.
It could have had this outbreak because there was a lot of
hysteria about it and people just you have a bad season and
(43:18):
you want to blame somebody. You can't just blame climate
change or the weather. Do you want to blame something
that was in your control? This lady cursed my cows.
That's why they're not giving good milk.
Not I fed them bad grain becauseI wasn't paying attention when I
bought it. Or that's all I could afford.
(43:39):
Because that's in your control. You can go to the sheriff and
say this lady's a witch and the sheriff will arrest her.
You can do that. You don't have any control over.
Just as my crops were in, we gota big storm in that knocked.
Just as the crops were just coming up perfectly, we got a
big storm in that knocked them all to the ground and destroyed
(44:00):
them. You can't control the weather.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you for having me and thank you again for all your
support throughout this project and look forward to seeing where
it goes. I'm excited Mary Bingham is back
with a minute with Mary. You've just heard that women
(44:21):
accused of witchcraft were banished from their communities,
thrown out not knowing how they were going to survive.
This is still true for women accused today.
Women in Ghana are banished to witch can't because their own
families sometimes accuse them of using witchcraft to cause
(44:41):
fires, sickness and crop failures, among many other
things. I encourage you to listen to the
Witch hunt show episode titled Witchcraft Accusations in Ghana
with John Azuma. The link is in the show notes.
Thank you. Thank you, Mary.
(45:04):
And now Sarah has. End witch hunts news.
Historical injustices mirror ongoing witchcraft accusation
persecution worldwide. Our mission to end witch hunts
rightly connects colonial American victims to those
suffering from witchcraft accusations today.
By breaking the silence around these cases, we forge a path
(45:25):
toward justice for all victims, past and present.
Our campaign for colonial witch trial exonerations continues to
gain momentum following Connecticut's landmark 2023
passage of HJ 34A resolution concerning certain witchcraft
convictions in colonial Connecticut.
This success is now followed by similar legislative efforts
(45:48):
across former colonies, with twocritical initiatives currently
needing public support and community advocacy.
Massachusetts HD 3054, an act exonerating certain individuals
accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, seeks
historic justice for eight pre Salem victims, including five
(46:09):
who were executed in Boston. Maryland's HJ 2 exonerating
those accused, tried or convicted of witchcraft in the
province of Maryland prior to the American Revolution, aims to
address their colonial era witchtrial convictions.
Both bills are currently in committee and will require
community advocacy of public testimony for advancement.
(46:31):
These victims can no longer speak to their own innocence.
We can do that, You can do that.These efforts build on decades
of progress, from the initial Massachusetts 1957 Act to the
recent Elizabeth Johnson Junior exoneration in 2022 and the 2023
passage of absolution in Connecticut.
(46:52):
However, many colonial witch trial victims remain without
recognition or justice. The current initiatives
acknowledge that witch hunts extended beyond Salem, affecting
innocent men, women, and children across multiple
colonies. Your voice is crucial.
There are two important petitions for you to sign now.
Please sign to support.massachusetts@change.org.
(47:15):
Forward slash witch trials and also please sign to
support.maryland@change.org/MD Witch trials.
Whether you're a descendant or concerned citizen, you can
support these bills by emailing words of support to the
legislators, voting, submitting written testimony of support, or
(47:36):
speaking in support at the approaching committee hearings.
Connecticut's successful testimonies provided excellent
template for effective advocacy.This work connects directly to
our mission of ending witch hunts globally, recognizing that
historical injustices mirror ongoing persecution.
Join us in breaking the silence and securing long overdue
(47:57):
justice for these victims. For guidance on submitting
testimony or getting involved, visit our website or reference
Connecticut's public testimony records from HJ 34.
Links are in the show notes. Thank you.
Sarah, you're welcome. And thank you.
For joining us in this episode of Witch Hunt, spend time with
us again. Next week, have a great today.
(48:19):
And a beautiful tomorrow.
Welcome to Witch Hunt Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
And I'm Sarah Jack. Today, we're exploring
Maryland's unique witch trial history and current efforts to
exonerate those accused of witchcraft in the colony.
While Maryland had fewer witch trials than its northern
neighbors, these cases still resulted in tragedy, including
the colonies only execution for witchcraft, that of Rebecca
(00:23):
Fowler in 1685. Today we're joined by Elizabeth
Polyeze Shaw, a Maryland attorney who's leading the
charge to bring justice to Maryland's accused witches.
She shares exciting news about arecently pre filed legislative
resolution that can finally clear their names.
Elizabeth also tells us about Maul Dyer, whose tragic story
(00:43):
became a local legend and later inspired The Blair Witch
Project. And she explains how Maryland
status as a Catholic colony may have influenced its witch trial
history. Through our conversation, we
explore how modern legal systemscan address historical
injustices even centuries later.Let's welcome.
Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw to witch hunt.
(01:08):
Welcome to Witch Hunt Podcast Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw.
Please introduce yourself and tell us what you were doing for
justice for accused witches. My name is Elizabeth Poyeze Shaw
and I'm an attorney in Maryland,mostly doing family law.
But I decided to get involved with the Exonerating Witches
(01:29):
Project when I happened to catchan article about the Connecticut
project. And I thought, well, that's
really cool. Did Maryland ever exonerated
witches? Did Maryland even have anybody
accused witchcraft? I did some Googling and found
out that there were people accused and that nobody has been
(01:49):
ever exonerated. Reached out to y'all at the
Connecticut Project and you've helped me get started on it.
So that's kind of how I got involved is fell down a rabbit
hole. This is our first time visiting
Maryland on the podcast. What would you like the viewers
and listeners to know about yourstate?
(02:12):
Maryland was the first state to have religious toleration and
that was passed in 16. Let's see, 1649 was the
Toleration Act and that's mostlybecause Maryland was founded by
Catholics and English Catholics at a time when England was
Protestant. So to be able to freely worship,
(02:34):
they had to tolerate Protestants.
But it's a lovely state. There's a lot of history here.
That's the thing, of course, theStar Spangled Banner was written
in Baltimore Harbor. We have Fort McHenry that was
being shelled there, Antietam from the Civil War, and and of
course, the close proximity to Washington means we get all of
(02:55):
that spillover too. But it's a lovely state.
It's small, but it has everything.
It's got oceans, it's got mountains, it's got forests,
it's got rural areas, it's got very large cities.
And it's a great place to visit and I do enjoy.
I figured it out yesterday. I've been here over 20 years.
(03:16):
That's about the amount of time that I've spent in Colorado.
It flies. It does.
Fly. It does.
So you asked yourself, what is the witch trial history here in
Maryland? What got your attention when you
started looking? That we actually didn't have a
(03:37):
witch trial hysteria like some everybody knows about Salem, but
we didn't really have that hysteria.
You can pretty much count how many known people were accused
on your hands. It's barely, I don't even think
it's into double digits. So we didn't really have here in
(03:57):
Maryland that, but we did have people accused and one person
was hung. So there were the miscarriages
of justice. It just didn't blow up into this
whole thing, which is probably why other than mall Dyer, and
I'll get into her later, becausethat's a whole industry
practically. Other than Mall Dyer, it's not
(04:20):
really known about the people accused of witchcraft in
Maryland because it just didn't make that big of an impression
in the history of Maryland. Is there any information on the
one person who was hanged? We are very lucky the records
were preserved of her trial. We actually have the records of
(04:44):
the trials still here in the Maryland State Archives.
We have it from all the known ones that actually went to
trial, their records, even though the Saint Mary's County
records burned because Annapolisbecame the capital, all those
records were transferred. And so many of those records are
still here in our capital. And you can actually go back and
(05:07):
see the transcribed, Thank God they've transcribed them so that
you can read them. You can actually see the records
of what happened. I mean, it's not like a trial
transcript like we think of today where they record
everything, but you can see whatdate she was indicted and who
(05:28):
the prosecutor was and who the people on the jury were and the
judges. And you can see that now because
of all that got preserved. And her name was.
Rebecca Fowler. Yes, that was Rebecca Fowler.
She was hanged in in, convict, indicted, convicted and hanged
(05:49):
all in 1685. They moved rather quickly on
that one. They move quickly on all the
trials because that's just how trials were back then.
There was none of this pretrial discovery and handing over
information and months and months of preparation with
depositions and everything. It was just pretty much accused,
indicted trial, boom, it was over.
(06:12):
And that was considered due process because you actually got
a trial with 12 jurors. I was looking, I've started to
dig a little deeper into the history and I did notice, oh,
that these records are naming the men that were in the court,
the ones making the decision, which you do see that in
Connecticut on some of those trials too.
(06:35):
And I thought, wow, there's a lot of names to look into and to
learn about these men in the community.
Well, the main thing you have toremember about Maryland is it
was what's called a royal proprietorship.
It was founded by the Earls of Arundel.
Hence we have Anne Arundel and Lord Baltimore.
That's where we get Baltimore. The family name was Calvert.
(06:58):
Calvert County, Saint Mary's down there, it was pretty much a
dictatorship. It was called the governor, but
the Calverts pick the governor. Everybody was connected in some
way to Calvert or the governor, who I think they were actually
related by marriage anyway. So when you start getting into
(07:20):
these people, it's really just basically the Calvert family or
their business partners or something like that.
So that's really what it is, is it's just this little clique was
running everything. And so that's what you need to
know about these men who were the commissioners and stuff, is
they were really just the Calvert henchman.
(07:42):
That's really insightful. I was looking at the other
convicted person who did not hang John Kalman and he worked
it off with the governor. So that kind of explains maybe
how that. Yeah, I don't know.
He was. We have the records, but we
(08:04):
don't have the background, so wedon't know anything.
But my best guess is John Commonwas still an indentured servant
at the time he was accused. And rather than lose the
property of him by hanging him, they just made him work it off
as what I call community service.
Although you're basically at thepleasure of the governor, so
(08:26):
you're probably not doing real fun things.
You know, it would be more like convicted to hard labor.
You got to live, but you were doing digging ditches and
breaking rocks and that sort of thing.
But I think that was it is because he was an indentured
servant. They just basically extended his
(08:46):
indenture indefinitely. Doing my research, I realized I
need to learn more about the indentured servant history.
There was a lot of that in Maryland.
Well, that's, yeah, it was. The only way people could afford
to come over is, you know, Rebecca Fowler, the one who was
hanged. She was an indentured servant.
(09:08):
She'd done her indenture, then when she was done with it, she
and her husband basically got hired out and they got married.
But they still continue to work for others as servants.
But now they got wages and it was 20 years later before they
could afford to buy their own land.
So you're an indentured servant and your indenture is over.
(09:31):
You're still poor and in the dissertation, which is in
Poisoners, there's a good background on it, what it meant
to be an indentured servant and how long it really took to
establish yourself in the community.
Maryland was also a slave state there.
There's so there was the free people, the indentured people,
and the slaves. That was Maryland.
(09:53):
It stayed a slave state right upuntil 1863.
You mentioned in part of the indentured servitude, part of
that was just to pay for your passage to get across the ocean
because I was an expensive journey to make.
But not everybody who started that journey made it over here.
(10:17):
I understand there were at leasta couple of women on their way
to Maryland that were accused ofwitchcraft on their ships.
What could you tell us about those women?
OK, the one I know best is Mary Lee.
She was on a ship called the Charity of London, and it was
coming, you know, to Maryland. So I include her, even though
(10:41):
she never set foot in Maryland. The ship hit bad weather.
And sailors are among the most superstitious lot you have ever
met. They still are.
Trust me. You go on any U.S.
Navy ship. They got their superstitions and
they decided that the bad weather was the result of having
a witch on board. And there was Mary Lee, who was
(11:03):
not well liked, little older, little cranky.
And so they decided she was the witch and the crew seized her
and they were going to kill her right away.
And the captain said no, you can't do that.
I'm not going to be a part to murder.
And I said, we'll put her off inthe Bahamas and it'll all be
good. But the bad weather continued
and they couldn't put in at Bahamas.
(11:24):
So they've still got this woman on board that the crew does not
want on board. Cameron says I am not going to
be a part of this. And he goes into his cabin.
The next thing you know, somebody rushes in and says
they've killed her and they hungher at sea.
Now the captain's like, now my fault.
I told him not to do it, and I told him I didn't want any part
of it. But honestly, he's the captain.
(11:47):
He really should have done something.
One book exonerates him as the crew was ready to mutiny.
What was he supposed to do? I don't know.
Be a captain? So that was her.
And the other one was, I want tosay I can't remember her name,
but she comes up as another one who was hung at sea.
(12:09):
And a relative of George Washington's lodged a complaint
against the ship too, but then he didn't show up for the
hearing. And so everything got dismissed.
But it was just, it was pretty much the same thing as what
happened to Mary Lee, accused atsea, hung at sea.
(12:30):
And then people wanted to look into what happened, and it was
not really whether Mary Lee and this other woman were witches,
but had murder been committed onboard the ship.
So that's kind of a positive thing that they were actually
looking at. They weren't presuming these
(12:50):
women were witches. They were presuming murder had
occurred on board. And I kind of like that.
But she was still accused and she was still killed for being a
witch, for being accused of being a witch.
Yeah, I, I know. And some of the other, a lot of
the other circumstances when a witness isn't able to be there
that that stopped a lot of witchtrials from moving forward.
(13:14):
But unfortunately with Washington, it was then the
accountability for her death wasdropped.
But I think he might have been out of the country even.
I don't know. He was in Virginia, so he would
have had to travel to Maryland and Maryland and Virginia were
spatting a lot during time. I don't think it was so much a
(13:36):
border. Well, it was kind of a border
dispute and it was also religious dispute.
So there was a lot of arguing back that back and forth then,
which during one of those times was during Rebecca Fowler's
trial. So the commissioners who also
sat, the commissioners who were overseeing her trial also sat on
(13:57):
the Colony Council advising LordBaltimore.
So they were a little distractedat the time trying to deal with
whatever Virginia was doing at that time.
And so they didn't really give alot of thought to what was going
on with the trial. They were just like, she's
accused, whatever, OK, We got togo deal with this big thing with
(14:17):
Virginia trying to make us be Protestant.
And that's where you get back into the problem with this was
really all this little click is they had their own concerns.
Yeah. You had mentioned Mary Dyer,
Mold Dyer earlier. Who was she?
(14:38):
Mold Dyer was a little old lady who lived down in Saint Mary's
County and not a lot is known about her.
And in fact, for a while it was wondered if she really even
existed. But there's one great line that
somebody found a newspaper that she lived at the time that
Cotton Mather was preaching. So we know we can, you know, put
(15:03):
her in a timeline there. And of course, Cotton Mather is
all connected up to the Salem witch trials.
So I always found that a great connection there.
But Mall Dyer never made it to atrial.
She was one cold night in the middle of winter, bunch of men
came to her little isolated cabin.
She's a little old lady, a widowcame to her isolated cabin,
(15:26):
drove her out to the middle of the night, set fire to the cabin
so she couldn't come back and just drove her out saying you're
a witch, we don't want you in our community.
Burned her home so she couldn't come back.
She froze to death and the legend is that she was gripping
the rock on which she took shelter that night so hard that
she left either her handprints or her knee prints, which tells
(15:48):
you how accurate this is. They don't even know which body
part it is. But she left her handprints or
her knee prints in the rock. She was gripping it so hard.
This rock is has been moved to protect it to the Saint Mary's
Historical Society building. It's still outside, but it's got
a gate around it so people don'ttouch it and ruin it.
(16:08):
So that's how the legend of MallDyer began, is that she was
clutching this and then of course, that she came back to
take her revenge on those who drove her out to freeze to
death. I'm kind of on her side here,
kind of on her side here becauseI wouldn't be thrilled if that
happened to me either. She is the very loose basis for
(16:30):
The Blair Witch Project, for TheBlair Witch, except they took
the story from Southern Maryland, where there are no
mountains, and moved her up intothe mountains in western
Maryland and made her, you know,kill children and stuff.
And so it's very, very loosely based, but that's where the
story comes from. Is that Maldyer?
(16:50):
And apparently there are still descendants of Maldyer living in
Southern Maryland. The Saint Mary's Historical
Society has all kinds of information on her, including,
of course, who her relatives areand everything.
What I would like to do is if this exoneration gets through,
is add to that plaque of and shewas exonerated in X year, add to
(17:16):
the marker of the stone. I think that would be the
fitting tribute to her. That would be wonderful.
Her story, even though it it's this inspiration for some really
wild stories. Her memory is so strong.
I was when I was just listening to you talk about her that
(17:38):
horrible night that that is likean experience that accused
witches today are experiencing where they're banished out of
their home into the elements without any person or
protection. So it really as much of A legend
as she is, she her story is alsosomething that can really help
(18:00):
us understand these accusations that persist today,
unfortunately. And that's also why the
resolution says known and unknown because we don't know
how many other mall dyers she made it because somebody decided
this rock looked like a dad handprints or knee prints on it.
And so she persisted in legend. But we don't know how many other
(18:21):
people the same thing happened to because nobody was recording.
Oh, yeah, we drove the local witch out today and burned her
house or burned his house. Nobody's writing that down in
the diary because you get all head up and you do it.
And then the next day you go, what did we just do?
And you kind of keep it secret. So that's why it's known and
(18:44):
unknown, because we don't know how many other mall dyers there
were in Maryland. Yeah, a lot of times the legend
is as important to an area as the real history behind the
person. And it reminds me of cases we've
(19:05):
heard in New Hampshire with Goody Cole and Virginia with
Grace Sherwood, the so-called Witch of Pungo, where the lore
has become one thing because there's little information about
the real people. So all the blanks get filled in
(19:26):
and the stories get elaborated. And that in itself somehow
becomes important to the community that may have had in
those cases, New Hampshire, Virginia and Maryland, not so
many witch trials that we're aware of.
What do you think she means today?
(19:46):
Mall Dyer to the community, to people in Maryland.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
I mean, she's obviously Saint Mary's County is quite proud of
her. I said they've they actually
moved and preserved the rock. They have a lot of stuff about
her. She winds up in all the books
about legends of Maryland and such, which I don't want to mess
(20:07):
with that lore and stuff, but I want it to be.
This was a real person. This was a real little old lady
who had something horrible happened to her.
But it is very much right up there with Grace Sherwood.
There's books written about MallDyer and all that thing.
Heck, they took her story and made it into a blockbuster
movie. I remember when everybody was
(20:30):
talking about The Blair Witch Project.
It's very important to the lore,and I'm sure it gets people into
the Historical Society, which isprobably underfunded and can
only do so much. So I'm all for anything to get
people to support a Historical Society.
And I don't think this legend hurts anybody because it really
(20:52):
does tell the story of what happened to her that they don't
make it sound like it was a goodthing she was driven out.
OK. They very much emphasize the
fact that she froze to death. They very much so.
I think that really helps. It's not this big myth that
makes it out like this was a good thing done, but just points
(21:15):
out you know what can happen with group hysteria?
It leads to a little old lady dying.
It's so meaningful that the Saint Mary's Historical Society
brought her to life by identifying her in the record
and who are her possible descendants.
I think that is was really a wonderful effort.
(21:39):
Speaking of descendants, have you met anyone yet in your work
on this project who's come to you saying they're descended
from one of the accused? I have found I haven't met them
and I've only exchanged a coupleemails with people who are
(22:00):
descendant who are distant cousins of Rebecca Fowler.
Of all the ones who have been accused because many of them,
some of them didn't have kids, that's it would be hard to find
descendants of them. But to find Rebecca Fowler
distant cousins is interesting. I they haven't really gotten
(22:22):
back to me on it. They haven't said they're
against her being exonerated. They haven't said they're for
but I have found that they are distant cousins of Rebecca
Fowler. But that's the only ones I've
come across. I said there's descendants of
Maldai, or maybe if there's getting more information out
there, they might reach out to me.
I haven't made it down to the Historical Society yet to let
(22:46):
these folks know about the project to say hey, if any dyers
want to get in touch with me, here's how.
Just because they have weird open hours that don't really
align with my work schedule. And you have a website that
you've created talks a little bit about the victims, and the
public can contact you about theproject.
It is the Maryland which if you look for and I use MD instead of
(23:10):
having to write out Maryland allthe time.
So if you just search for Maryland which exoneration
project, it will probably come up.
It's a WordPress site. It's got quick biographies on
each of them with basically what's known, some surmises,
which I say I think this is or she, he or she was probably
(23:33):
this. And it gives a little of the
background and what was going onin Maryland at the time of the
accusations. And then it's a biography on
each of them. And then there's a contact page
where people can just e-mail me if they want to know more or get
in touch with the project. So what's the status of the
(23:55):
project right now? Where do things stand and what
still needs to be done? I'm very excited is I luckily
ran in got to see a state delegate.
She and I start talking to her about the project and she has
pre filed a bill or a resolutionend for this upcoming session
(24:19):
that starts on Wednesday, January 8th to just exonerate
the witches of Maryland. And it's just a pretty simple
bill. It mostly follows the wording of
the Connecticut bill, but that has been introduced.
We will see. It's got to go through
committees and all of that through committees and then got
(24:40):
to go up to vote. We're hoping it's not too much
of a fight, but you'd be amazed at what legislators can find to
argue over. And you can go find that on the
state legislature website. I do have to get it up on my
website about it and put it on the Facebook page, too.
That is HJ Two. Yeah, Criminal law is what it
(25:05):
is, and it's up there and anybody can go read it.
Thank you. And by the way, we'll have all
these links in the show notes, so when people read the
description of the episode, they'll be able to to click on
that. Oh good, because I can't
remember where. My website is.
It's hard to remember URLs, especially the ones that those
(25:28):
legislator sites have, because when you actually look at it,
there's a lot of special characters and.
Yeah. But if you just go to the
Maryland legislature page, it does have a bill search, and so
that's really great to find. It's J0002.
It's 3 zeros and A2. I want to say that's a 2, but I
(25:49):
can't read my handwriting right now, and if I can't read it,
nobody else can. And also, if people are on
Facebook and they want to come learn or chat about this effort,
you have a Facebook group. Think.
Enjoy. Yes, it's a public group so you
can find it by searching again. It's MD, Witches Exoneration
(26:10):
Project. I just had to look for it myself
today. The main thing to remember is
always it's MDI, just shortened Maryland to MD to save space and
typing so that makes it a littleeasier to find everything.
How much would it cost to get this legislation passed?
I don't think there's going to be other than travel because
(26:30):
it's a resolution. It's not a bill.
It's not going to cost anything in the budget or anything.
It's just basically unless you have travel costs getting to
Annapolis to testify, it's goingto be it.
To me, it's a budget neutral bill.
It's no cost because the delegate is presenting it and
they're it's going to go throughall the process and everything
(26:52):
and it passes and it gets published.
What's one more bill, more or less, that gets published?
Yeah. It costs nothing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Why does justice matter for these persons today?
Because it was wrong. We have to correct wrongs and
(27:15):
not to put it on the same level as the more known death penalty
exoneration cases, but you know,we release people from death row
after 20-30 years on death row because DNA clears them.
This is not at the same level. Most it's historic and nothing's
bringing back Rebecca Fowler. But it has to do with just
(27:38):
honesty. We have to be truthful.
We have to be fair. We have to be just.
Otherwise, what's the point of having a country?
You have to do it for the welfare of everyone, not just
rich people. You have to do it for the poor
people, the powerless people whodidn't have anybody to speak for
(28:00):
them at the time. Do you think a monument or a
memorial for all of them would be something that would interest
the community down the road? Probably Maryland loves their
memorials and things. Goodness knows there's anywhere
you turn, there's a historic sign or there's a statue of
(28:24):
something or other there. I know in Saint Mary's they
still have the courthouse. It's probably rebuilt and brief,
you know, but the historic courthouse, they've restored it
to what it would have looked like then.
And I think something there thattalks about what happened to the
(28:45):
miscarriages of justice might not be a bad idea, even if it's
just a plaque on the wall that says, yes, we had witch trials
here, they were wrong or something.
In Annapolis. Goodness knows, Annapolis is
very special because it has not only is it the state capitol,
but the Kunta Kinte statues are there.
(29:06):
OK, They have right there on thewaterfront because Alex Haley
reading to little children because it's believed that it
was that Kunta Kuntai, Alex Haley's ancestor, came through
Annapolis when he was brought over.
So I think having the witch exoneration, again, not on the
same level of slavery. I'm not trying to say these are
(29:29):
equivalent or anything, but justif we can acknowledge that
wrong, let's acknowledge this other wrong there.
Plus, it's a state capital. People are always wandering
around. We've got the Naval Academy
there. Let's have some positive values
that the midshipmen can see. I would think just with the
renown of Maldire alone, there would be some demand or interest
(29:58):
in doing something like that. There, there probably will be.
We just right now the project ispretty much me and I haven't
done a lot of the publicity and stuff.
The fact that I had the courage to even speak to the delegate
and go, hey, could you consider this?
And then she took it and ran with it just still amazes me
because I'm terrible at self promotion.
(30:18):
But I think once this is over, yeah, I can see Saint Mary's
maybe again at the Historical Society putting something up.
Like I said, my dream is to haveon the Malda Rock a an
additional plaque that says, yeah, this terrible thing
happened, but she was exoneratedin X year.
(30:39):
And if it could include all of something to everybody, because
it was mostly Saint Mary's County, simply because that's
where everybody was at the time,they were still kind of moving,
moving, moving, moving. Where Rebecca Fowler lived at
the time actually became Prince George's County.
But Saint Mary's County was pretty much everything, so
(31:01):
everything at the time. So I think Saint Mary's County
might be an appropriate place. I'm sure the Historical Society
would love the attention. Again, support your local
Historical Society. Absolutely.
And I'm for your courage it it'sa really admirable example to
(31:22):
those who have they have a. Voice.
To and they may not feel like. Amplifying something?
Because it's so scary, or they're alone and they don't
have collaborators yet, but you just put yourself out there and
it's delegates like yours that are making these bills
(31:43):
successful. I'm so grateful to their work in
Connecticut, Jane Garabe. And so Anwar, they prioritized
that. They had a lot of other very
important bills during the same session, healthcare bills, elder
care bills. But they also recognize that
historical justice matters today, that it matters for their
(32:07):
community today and globally that this is a big deal.
And when we take a stand on this, we're helping the rest of
the world that has people suffering for the same reason.
So I'm really grateful for your bold move and for just.
And it is just one step at a time.
And it doesn't have to be this fireworks and crazy campaign.
(32:33):
It's just moving towards justice.
Taking action like this is significant and it matters to
many people. So thank you well, your support.
The Connecticut people support y'all support regular check ins
have really helped keep me on track and keep it going.
And Delegate Bagnell, who is theone who introduced it, she loves
(32:55):
to apparently introduced and support some of the more
politically risky things becausethat's just who she is.
And she does have a lot going onhere in Maryland.
The Key Bridge being rebuilt is huge and that is sucking all the
air out of everything. So the fact that she found time
(33:15):
to prioritize this and not just prioritize it, but get the
wording in and get it pre filed.So it has a much better chance
of getting through this session.Because in Maryland, our
sessions are really short. It's like January 8th, something
like May and that's it. And there's a crossover day
where if a bill doesn't get sentto the other house by this date,
(33:37):
it's dead this session. So by pre filing it, she has a
better chance of getting it through this session than if she
were to introduce it later. So it's really, I'm really
grateful to her that even with all her other priorities, she
decided that what the heck, go for broke this year and see what
(33:58):
we get. Yeah, it's one.
Of those things that even thoughvoting on party lines is typical
and expected, it's one of those bills that anyone can and should
stand behind. And that did happen in
Connecticut at the beginning it.We didn't know if.
(34:18):
It was going to get out of the first committee, but as it moved
through the steps, more and moresupport came.
And I hope and expect, I think we'll see that in Maryland, too.
It's really. Amazing to watch the progress of
this effort. It wasn't that long ago that you
first initiated this. No, I can't remember.
(34:40):
It was right about the time Connecticut was passing their
bill. Like I said, I saw the article
and reached out to y'all and then I just kind of did some
work and stuff and was thinking about creating the website and
all this stuff and was mostly just doing the research.
But I ran into delegate bag now last April and that really kick
started it. That was when I said, hey, by
(35:02):
the way, can I talk to you aboutthis?
And she was so excited that I just went fantastic.
You know, this is somebody who can actually get it, do
something about this. And then it's just, it's been
moving along since then. I checked in.
Do you need anything from me? Do you want to do this without
bugging her? Because again, she's got a lot
(35:22):
of other priorities. And I was really amazed when
they sent me the resolution. I'm like, holy cow, this is
happening. This was so great.
Elizabeth, is there anything else you would like to mention
or discuss? What is it?
We talked about those who were convicted.
(35:43):
But one thing that I that was interesting about Maryland is
there were people who had trial.One woman was accused and she
wasn't even indicted. It just went nowhere.
And that really surprised me that they presented this.
And back then, what's not like you could put on a defense or
anything. It's like grand juries today.
(36:05):
Hey, we can indict a ham sandwich.
So the fact that she wasn't evenindicted, that was Elizabeth
Bennett in 1665. She wasn't even indicted, they
just cleared her name. Technically she's been cleared,
but I still include her on the list because she shouldn't have
been accused in the 1st place. And then two others, Hannah
(36:29):
Edwards in 1686, which was the year, just a few months
actually, she was accused after Rebecca Fowler was hung.
She was actually tried but foundnot guilty.
And the big difference there is she had been married.
Her first husband had been a very prominent member of the
(36:49):
community. Her second husband not as
prominent. But I and the person who accused
her was, I'm surprised, not accused herself because she was
the cranky little old lady that nobody liked and went around
making everybody miserable. So I'm really surprised at who
was accused versus who was in that one.
(37:10):
And so I'm sure Hannah Edwards had people who testified on her
behalf that no, no, she's this good, righteous woman who goes
to church every Sunday. The last one was virtual vile in
17 all the way in 1712. She is, as far as we know, the
last person indicted for witchcraft in the state of
(37:31):
Maryland, most because the statute was repealed about eight
years later. And I said we didn't have the
whole hysteria, so people weren't getting accused every
year sort of thing. There were big breaks where
people weren't getting accused. But she was also sent to trial
and found not guilty. So that's pretty much it for the
(37:52):
state of Maryland is, like I said, you can count on two
hands. It's not even double digits,
those who were accused, but it shouldn't have been accused
anyway. They should not have, you know,
been faced with even being indicted.
They shouldn't have been driven out of their homes.
I'm sure even for those who werefound not guilty or cleared and
(38:16):
not indicted, going back to their communities was probably
tough. It's not known anything about
their lives afterwards. But I'm sure it wasn't real
easy. I'm sure there were whisper
campaigns and that sort of thing.
Nobody should have been accused because witchcraft as claimed of
(38:37):
what they did does not exist. Thank you.
Thank you. So much this has really been
quite wonderful. I've really enjoy.
One of the things I love about doing the show is learning the
local histories of different places.
And my mother's family was originally from Maryland, had
(39:00):
lived there for a couple 100 years before starting to move
West, so interesting to learn about the colonial history there
as well. Yeah, I hadn't known so much
about things until I got really into this.
Like in Annapolis, I told you there's things all over the
(39:21):
place. And everything near the World
War 2 memorial is a sign about the Battle of Saverne.
And I'm like, Battle of Saverne,this is a colonial one.
Apparently at one point the Protestants had taken over the
government of Maryland. And this was at the time they
had the Commonwealth in England,Lord Baltimore, the Calverts,
(39:43):
they were royalists. They said you can't really be
royalists anymore. We've got the Commonwealth.
We're running things now. And the interesting thing about
that was it was 1654. The Battle of Severne was 1655.
Mary Lee was hung at sea in 1654.
(40:04):
So when you realize that this was really a clash between the
Protestants and the Catholics, is it because we were really a
Catholic dominated colony that we didn't really have the witch
hunts? Don't know.
Because certainly knows in Europe what before Martin Luther
and the Protestants, there were plenty of witch hunts.
(40:24):
So it's not like the Catholics didn't do that.
And I believe. Marilyn was following English
witchcraft law. There was no additional laws,
correct? It was the.
Statute of King James that they were following.
And with the whole thing about spectral evidence, I can just
imagine trying to get that through court now.
(40:47):
Oh, you can't really see what's happening, but trust me, it is.
The judges won't even let us usea video unless it can be
preserved in the final record somehow.
And it's a written record. So we have to give the court a
flash drive that they can clip in the file.
So I just can't imagine trying to get spectral evidence through
(41:08):
today. I just can't, thank goodness.
So yeah, but again, Marilyn justdidn't have what some some of
the more northern colonies had. And pure luck is that I'm going
to put it down to. You can look at it as, OK, maybe
(41:29):
it was because how the colony was run.
Maybe it's because it was Catholic.
Pure luck. That's all I'm going to say.
It was. It's just there.
But for the grace of God, it's what it was that nobody decided
that there was a whole bunch of witches hanging out somewhere.
We just got lucky. Yeah.
(41:50):
Out. Of the colonies, it was
basically Massachusetts and Connecticut that had the
overwhelming majority of all thecases were in just those two
colonies alone. And even the ones that happened
in mainland New Hampshire, thosecolonies were under
Massachusetts control at the time of most of the witch
(42:12):
charges. So Eunice Kohl of Hampton, NH
was tried in Boston because Massachusetts was running it.
So it's really those two colonies and then you look at
the others, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, not so
much. And when you look at the.
(42:34):
Timeline Most of Maryland's occurred before Salem.
The only ones that occurred after Salem were Mall, Dyer and
Virtual Vile. Everything else was before that.
So if there was going to be an outbreak, it would have happened
(42:56):
before then because I think after Salem, everybody was like,
we need to rethink this thing a little bit.
This is a little crazy. The fact that when you look at
it, that we could have been justas bad.
It could have had this outbreak because there was a lot of
hysteria about it and people just you have a bad season and
(43:18):
you want to blame somebody. You can't just blame climate
change or the weather. Do you want to blame something
that was in your control? This lady cursed my cows.
That's why they're not giving good milk.
Not I fed them bad grain becauseI wasn't paying attention when I
bought it. Or that's all I could afford.
(43:39):
Because that's in your control. You can go to the sheriff and
say this lady's a witch and the sheriff will arrest her.
You can do that. You don't have any control over.
Just as my crops were in, we gota big storm in that knocked.
Just as the crops were just coming up perfectly, we got a
big storm in that knocked them all to the ground and destroyed
(44:00):
them. You can't control the weather.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you for having me and thank you again for all your
support throughout this project and look forward to seeing where
it goes. I'm excited Mary Bingham is back
with a minute with Mary. You've just heard that women
(44:21):
accused of witchcraft were banished from their communities,
thrown out not knowing how they were going to survive.
This is still true for women accused today.
Women in Ghana are banished to witch can't because their own
families sometimes accuse them of using witchcraft to cause
(44:41):
fires, sickness and crop failures, among many other
things. I encourage you to listen to the
Witch hunt show episode titled Witchcraft Accusations in Ghana
with John Azuma. The link is in the show notes.
Thank you. Thank you, Mary.
(45:04):
And now Sarah has. End witch hunts news.
Historical injustices mirror ongoing witchcraft accusation
persecution worldwide. Our mission to end witch hunts
rightly connects colonial American victims to those
suffering from witchcraft accusations today.
By breaking the silence around these cases, we forge a path
(45:25):
toward justice for all victims, past and present.
Our campaign for colonial witch trial exonerations continues to
gain momentum following Connecticut's landmark 2023
passage of HJ 34A resolution concerning certain witchcraft
convictions in colonial Connecticut.
This success is now followed by similar legislative efforts
(45:48):
across former colonies, with twocritical initiatives currently
needing public support and community advocacy.
Massachusetts HD 3054, an act exonerating certain individuals
accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, seeks
historic justice for eight pre Salem victims, including five
(46:09):
who were executed in Boston. Maryland's HJ 2 exonerating
those accused, tried or convicted of witchcraft in the
province of Maryland prior to the American Revolution, aims to
address their colonial era witchtrial convictions.
Both bills are currently in committee and will require
community advocacy of public testimony for advancement.
(46:31):
These victims can no longer speak to their own innocence.
We can do that, You can do that.These efforts build on decades
of progress, from the initial Massachusetts 1957 Act to the
recent Elizabeth Johnson Junior exoneration in 2022 and the 2023
passage of absolution in Connecticut.
(46:52):
However, many colonial witch trial victims remain without
recognition or justice. The current initiatives
acknowledge that witch hunts extended beyond Salem, affecting
innocent men, women, and children across multiple
colonies. Your voice is crucial.
There are two important petitions for you to sign now.
Please sign to support.massachusetts@change.org.
(47:15):
Forward slash witch trials and also please sign to
support.maryland@change.org/MD Witch trials.
Whether you're a descendant or concerned citizen, you can
support these bills by emailing words of support to the
legislators, voting, submitting written testimony of support, or
(47:36):
speaking in support at the approaching committee hearings.
Connecticut's successful testimonies provided excellent
template for effective advocacy.This work connects directly to
our mission of ending witch hunts globally, recognizing that
historical injustices mirror ongoing persecution.
Join us in breaking the silence and securing long overdue
(47:57):
justice for these victims. For guidance on submitting
testimony or getting involved, visit our website or reference
Connecticut's public testimony records from HJ 34.
Links are in the show notes. Thank you.
Sarah, you're welcome. And thank you.
For joining us in this episode of Witch Hunt, spend time with
us again. Next week, have a great today.
(48:19):
And a beautiful tomorrow.
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