The Witches of Maryland

Richard D. L. Fulton

My wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.

~Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat,” 1845.

The 17th and 18th centuries were not a very good time to be a witch in Maryland—whether by being one “in fact” or by being accused of being one.

This period also embraced the so-called “Maryland witch trials,” which, among the many who were accused, actually resulted in only three executions and one “near execution,” in which the individual was breathtakingly acquitted when the noose had already been placed around their neck.

In 1604, the colony of Maryland adopted the British anti-witchcraft law entitled, “An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits.” Although it was Maryland who had merely adopted the British act as its own, the Maryland adoption of the British act is sometimes referred to as the Maryland Witch Act of 1604.

Due to the necessity of brevity, only a few of the more remarkable or unusual instances can be covered.

Mary Lee

In 1654, Mary Lee was aboard the Charity of London, en route to Saint Mary’s City in Maryland, when the ship was constantly besieged by stormy weather, which somehow led the crew to believe that Lee was a witch and was causing the unwanted tempests.

The crew implored the ship’s captain, John Bosworth, to put Lee on trial for engaging in witchcraft, but he declined and retired to his cabin.  In his absence, members of the crew conducted their own “trial,” stripping her first to find any “marks of the devil.”

She was subsequently determined to be “guilty” and was hanged. “The corpse and whatever had belonged to her they cast into the sea,” according to a letter written by Father Francis Fitzherbert in 1654, and quoted in William Thomas Russell’s 1907 book, Maryland: The Land of Sanctuary.

Complaints were subsequently filed with the colonial government in Maryland, but no one was ever brought to trial or held accountable.

Elizabeth Richardson

Elizabeth Richardson suffered a fate much like that suffered by Mary Lee.

Like Lee, Richardson was “tried” aboard a ship, specifically the Sarah Artch, in 1658, that was also bound for Maryland. The ship was owned by Edward Prescott, who was also on board. Although he was not referred to as being the captain, he was apparently considered to be the individual in control of the ship.

As per the incident involving Mary Lee, the ship was struck by a strong storm, and Richardson was accused of being a witch that had caused it.  Prescott apparently went along with the crew, holding an impromptu trial, during which, she was found guilty and was then hanged.

On board, there was a witness who brought charges in Maryland against Prescott—that witness having been John Washington, the great-grandfather of future president, George Washington, according to “Witch Persecutions in Maryland,” published on the Wicca Magazine website.

However, Washington was unavailable to attend the trial, and without the key witness, Prescott was acquitted. As a result, no one was held accountable for Richardson’s death.

Rebecca Fowler

According to the website, “Women of Essex” (Rebecca Fowler, The Only Executed Witch in Maryland), Rebecca Fowler “…came to Maryland (probably in 1656) as an indentured servant, as punishment for a crime she had committed in England.”

Maryland was not subject to witch hysteria, as were other parts of the colonies during the same period. Maryland implemented strict criteria that had to be satisfied in order to gain a guilty verdict. The vast majority of those accused of witchcraft were acquitted.

Although an indentured servant, Fowler and her husband (also indentured) worked and saved their way out of indentured hardship, eventually becoming landowners, even employing their own indentured servant, Francis Sandsbury, who in 1685, had accused Fowler of engaging in witchcraft.

Fowler was tried and found guilty on September 29, 1685, in Saint Mary’s City and was then hanged.  Interestingly, there is apparently no surviving record of the evidence that had been presented in her case, upon which a finding of guilt had been determined.

John Cowman

John Cowman came precariously close to becoming the first person to be found guilty of practicing witchcraft and being hanged for it on Maryland soil.

In 1674, John Cowman, an indentured servant, reportedly of Saint Mary’s County, was convicted of inflicting harm upon alleged victim, Elizabeth Goodale, another indentured servant, for which he was found guilty of engaging in witchcraft and sorcery.” He was sentenced to be hanged.

In an inexplicable change of events, he was subsequently, and without his knowledge, pardoned by Maryland’s colonial Governor Charles Calvert, as the result of some behind-the-scenes negotiations, engaged in by members of the Maryland legislature.

However, as part of this pardon, it was ordered that Cowman would not be informed of his pardon until he was standing on the gallows with the rope around his neck, according to the Maryland State Archives.  Additionally, he was required to engage in public service.

Moll Dyer

Moll Dyer of Saint Mary’s County was never officially accused of engaging in witchcraft, but she was accused and harassed by members of her community. 

According to Chesapeake Bay Magazine (“I Put a Spell on You” By Molly Weeks Crumbley, February 22, 2023), Dyer had moved from the West Indies in 1677 to what subsequently became Leonardtown. He was an indentured servant. 

During February 1697, according to the Maryland Center for History and Culture, the accusations reached a peak when “she was chased from her home by torch-bearing townsfolk… (and) fled into the woods.”

Visit St. Mary’s MD stated on its website, that “Days later (after Dyer fled her home), a young boy looking for lost livestock found her body with one hand frozen to a large rock and the other outstretched to the sky.”

The rock bearing Dyer’s alleged handprint has been preserved to this day at the St. Mary’s County Historical Society headquarters at Tudor Hall Manor.

Dyer’s story, or legend, has been reportedly stated as having been the inspiration for the fictional documentary The Blair Witch Project, which was filmed employing Burkittsville in Frederick County as its setting. 

While Burkittsville certainly exists. The Blair Witch herself never did.

The witch that got away

In closing, here is an account of a witch-related incident that occurred in Frederick County.

The account comes from William H. Crooke’s Witch Trials, Legends, & Lore of Maryland, in which he described an incident recorded by Tome Peete Cross in his 1919 book, Studies in Philogy.

According to Cross, a man, identified only as a miller in Frederick County, kept having nightmares, which the man attributed to a witch that must have been gaining access to his residence at night. 

The man decided to trap the witch by plugging up the keyhole (which somehow became the suspected means by which the witch was gaining entry), and the next morning discovered a beautiful woman hiding in a cupboard. 

Initially, he forced the woman to be his servant, but then actually married her for several years. As a precaution, however, he kept the keyhole plugged.

One day, she vanished—forever.  In trying to ascertain how this could have occurred, he discovered that the keyhole had become unplugged.

Burkettsville Cemetery appeared in the movie B lair Witch Project, reportedly inspired by Moll Dyer.Source: Uploader Acroterion, Wikimedia Commons

Accused witch Mary Lee was executed in 1654 aborad the Charity of London.