Note 8 — Introduction.

This was the case of Mrs. Kendal, of Cambridge, who was executed for bewitching to death a child of Goodman Genings, of Watertown. The principal evidence was that of a Watertown nurse, who testified that the said Kendal did make much of the child, and then the child was well, but quickly changed in color and died a few hours after. The court took this evidence without calling the parents of the child. After the execution the parents denied that their child was bewitched, and stated that it died from imprudent exposure to cold by the nurse the night before. The nurse soon after was put in prison for adultery, and there died, and so the matter was not further inquired into. Hale’s Modest Inquiry, p. 18.

Rev. Lucius R. Paige, of Cambridgeport, has recently found in the Middlesex court records, 1660, another alleged case of witchcraft in Cambridge, which was tried that year. Winifred Holman, an aged widow, was accused by her neighbors, John Gibson and wife, their son John Gibson, Jr., and their daughter Rebecca, wife of Charles Stearns. Actions of defamation were commenced against these parties, and on the trial, they, by way of justification, presented their supposed proofs of witchcraft, some details of which may be seen in Hist. and Geneal. Register, vol. xxiv. p. 59. Probably other cases were tried in the courts of that period, of which nothing is now known. John Dunton, in 1683, said there had been twenty cases of witchcraft recently tried in the colony. (Letters, p. 72.)

P.