This guest post is by Manuscript Division reference librarian Loretta Deaver.
Prepare for Halloween this weekend with some items from collections held in the Manuscript Division that are likely to raise a few hairs.
Petition for Bail from Accused Witches, ca. 1692
Hysteria over suspected witchcraft boiled over in New England in 1692. More than 150 people were accused of being witches, 19 were executed, one was crushed to death, and some died while imprisoned due to harsh conditions. The desperate plea shown above comes from a group of 10 women and “thre or foure men” accused of witchcraft and imprisoned at the Ipswich jail, not far from Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. The accused begged to be tried in the spring as they were “like to perish with cold” during the winter months. According to the petition, among those imprisoned some were nearly 80 years old, some were pregnant, and one was breastfeeding.
James A. Garfield
According to this June 4, 1851, diary entry, a 19-year-old James A. Garfield attended a séance conducted by “Miss Fish of Rochester” and two other women. With sixteen people in attendance, Garfield excitedly reported, the “spirit knocking” began immediately. Many questions were asked of the spirits present—one being Garfield’s own father—and correct answers “infallibly” given, communicated by the spirits “rapping” on the sofa, wall or table. Of the proceedings that evening Garfield concluded, “Tis a mystery however, and I’ll not speculate upon it.”
Garfield would go on to serve nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and become the twentieth president of the United States. Sadly, on July 2, 1881, the much-troubled Charles Guiteau shot the president as he was arriving at a Washington train station. Garfield would later die on September 19. The strange and tragic happenings