An earlier post included information about allegations of witchery made against Sarah Spencer by her brother James Ackley and his wife Elizabeth. The story is not quite as presented there, or as told by most of those who have written about this incident in Ackley family history. This post is an excerpt from a draft of a chapter on James and tells the story based on the court records which I now have read in the original longhand.

James’s sister Sarah, older by about 17 years, married William Spencer in 1687.[1] He died in East Haddam in February 1713,[2] leaving Sarah with four children at home, ages about 6 to 18.[3] The oldest child, Mary, then 26, had married Jonathan Dunham about 1708.[4] For reasons lost to history, Dunham attempted to have a will he claimed was written by William Spencer accepted as the true will; the court denied the motion and appointed Sarah administratrix.[5] She and Dunham jointly posted the £200 bond.[6] It is not clear why the issue of the will arose, but it certainly was unusual.[7]

The inventory of the estate was compiled and signed by three men, one of whom was Sarah’s brother James Ackley, also of East Haddam. As was typical of those days, however, William Spencer’s estate was not fully probated and distributed until two years later, in February 1715.[8] (Avoiding the delay could have been the plan behind the purported will noted above.) The final probate is somewhat unclear, but it appears that the homestead already had been sold. The probate officially allotted the proceeds to Sarah and the oldest son, Alexander, for whom Sarah served as legal guardian.[9] Eldest sons always were granted a double share and Alexander and Sarah’s shares together amounted to about two-thirds of the £112 estate.[10]

Sarah did not remarry and was working to support herself and the children still at home. Alexander would have been able to work, but probably not enough to support the family alone. Sarah, then, likely struggled. She may have done laundry, sewed, cooked and performed similar domestic services to make a living. It may be that she asked her prosperous brother James for assistance, which would have been very proper and, indeed, expected.

Family histories sometimes misrepresent what happened next, and I misunderstood it until I read the actual court documents.[11] Sarah was never tried as a witch, but she was accused by Elizabeth of being one and the charge was discussed at court.

As background, note that by 1723 the witch hysteria that had waxed and waned in New England since the 1630s had subsided to almost nothing. Laws had been put in place to ensure that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated. It thus was very unlikely that any serious harm to Sarah would result even if a court case for witchery was brought; but the legally the penalty still was death.

The story is as follows.

In 1723, Elizabeth Ackley reportedly publicly accused Sarah Spencer of being a witch and harassing and tormenting her. She evidently described Sarah’s alleged attacks on her in vivid detail at a public gathering at the home of Captain Thomas Gates.

By 1724, Sarah had moved from East Haddam to Colchester. But her reputation as a witch, she claimed, followed her. Early that year, she sued Elizabeth and James for slander, requesting substantial damages to support an “aging widow”[12] whose reputation and ability to earn a living, receive credit, and live “comfortably” among her neighbors had been seriously damaged by the allegations. She even had her pastor write a note attesting her to be a person of “good religion and virtue,” which she claimed she kept with her and had to use. It undoubtedly was true that a charge of witchcraft, complete with a dramatic telling of its effects in public, could have a deleterious effect and may have discouraged Sarah’s customers. One telling would set off rumors that would reverberate around a small town, probably embellished a little more with each telling.

In the court proceedings, testimony by Captain Gates corroborated Sarah’s allegations about Elizabeth’s public charges. Testimony also verified that James had threatened Sarah, saying, in effect, that she had no reason to fear him but that he would give her a reason to fear him if she came near him again. For her part, Elizabeth claimed temporary insanity, alleging that she had not realized what she was saying. That is probably the only part of this story that is wholly false, and the court agreed.

Initially Sarah won the case with a huge award of £500. On appeal, the award was reduced more than once until it was just a few pennies and court costs.

The whole incident, then, was nothing more than a nasty family feud. Unfortunately, it was one played out on the stage of history where it will forever be remembered as the last witchcraft accusation to be part of a court case in Connecticut.[13] But it was a slander accusation, not a “witch trial.”

What happened to Sarah later is not clear, but she may have moved again. In 1726, which would have been just after the close of the slander proceedings, a Sarah Spencer appears as a communicant in the Congregational Church in Windham, CT.[14] In 1733, a Sarah Spencer dies in Windham at age “abt 73 y.”, which would have made her birth year about 1660 or 1661.[15] Windham is about 25 miles from Colchester, far enough to be away from the James Ackleys, but close enough to be a manageable move for an aging woman. The age at death fits with the likely birth year of Nicholas’s daughter Sarah, and 1726 is shortly after the conclusion of the slander trial. This may have been our Sarah.

Sarah’s family’s involvement with James’s family, however, does not end here. The next interaction is a happier one. It takes place in the newly founded town of Sharon, CT and involves Jonathan and Mary Dunham, Alexander Spencer, and the son and daughter of James’s son Nicholas. The son’s name is Abel and his sister’s is—Sarah.

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Footnotes are as they will appear in the publication. If you wish to have a full reference for any or all of them, please contact me or download the draft chapter here.

[1] Torrey, 1985, p. 696.

[2] Spencer’s probate: Colchester Probate District, 1713, no. 5103

[3] White, 1997, East Haddam vital records, passim.

[4] 1708 is based in their first child being born in 1709.

[5] Manwaring, 1904, vol II, p. 302

[6] This was required for all wills by the early 1700s and was intended to prevent the administrators from disposing of the estate before it was legally distributed and so denying the heirs of their just inheritance.

[7] I have not found a copy of the purported will so who it most benefited remains a mystery.

[8] Colchester Probate District, 1713, no. 5103

[9] The probate granted legal guardianship of Alexander to Sarah at his request, a common practice. He was 18 at the time of his father’s death but only 5 months short of 21 on the date of the granting of guardianship in the final probate.

[10] The youngest son William received land; daughters Mary, Sarah and Hannah received about £15 each.

[11] These are available via microfiche from the archives at the Connecticut State Library. The handwriting makes it impossible to decipher every word, but it is clear enough to develop an accurate understanding. See CLS, 1913.

[12] She would have been about 64.

[13] See Taylor, 1908, p, 155; Karlsen, 1998, p.45; Tomlinson, 1978, p. 66; and Morgan, 1906, p. 237..

[14] CSL, 1939, p. 105

[15] White, 2002, p. 338