The Morse ‘Talking Poltergeist’ Case of 1679-80 Massachusetts

“The poltergeist house at Newbury, Massachusetts” from Poltergeists by Alan Gauld and A. D. Cornell.

Increase Mather’s An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684) included a report that began with these statements (modern spelling utilized).
 

In the year 1679, the house of William Morse in Newberry [Newbury] in New England, was strangely disquieted by a Daemon.  After those troubles began, he did by the advice of friends write down the particulars of those unusual accidents.

 
This is how Alan Gauld and A. D. Cornell introduced the case in their book Poltergeists (1979).
 

In the afflicted house at Newbury lived an elderly shoemaker, William Morse, esteemed ‘a sincere and understanding Christian,’ his wife, Elizabeth, and their grandson, John Stiles, who was clearly a lively lad.  Elizabeth Morse was, or had been, a midwife.  Midwives, owing to the ready access which they had to certain items of magical import, were frequently suspected of witchcraft; and it is clear that such suspicions had been directed at Goodwife Morse long before the events of which I shall speak.

 
Chronicles of ‘Talking Poltergeist’ cases often have detailed a bizarre variety of unexplained phenomena, such as those found in the testimonial of the Morse case presented in Increase Mather’s book.  Here are some excerpts.
 

On December 8, in the morning, there were five great stones and bricks by an invisible hand and thrown in at the west end of the house while the man’s wife was making the bed . . .


At another time an Iron Crook that was hanged on a nail violently flew up and down, also a chair flew about, and at last lighted on the table where victuals stood ready for them to eat, and was likely to spoil all, only by a nimble catching they saved some of their meal with the loss of the rest, and the overturning of their table.


Their keys being tied together, one was taken from the rest, and the remaining two would fly about making a loud noise by knocking against each other.


On January 23 (in particular) the man had an iron pin twice thrown at him, and his inkhorn was taken away from him while he was writing, and when by all his seeking it he could not find it, at last he saw it drop out of the air, down by the fire . . .


All this while the Devil did not use to appear in any visible shape, only they would think they had hold of the hand that sometimes scratched them; but it would give them the slip.  And once the man was discernibly beaten by a fist, and an hand got hold of his wrist which he saw, but could not catch; and the likeness of a Blackmore [Blackamoor, negro] child did appear from under the rug and blanket, where the man lay, and it would rise up, fall down, nod and slip under the clothes when they endeavored to clasp it, never speaking any thing.

 
A paragraph of Increase Mather’s report of William Morse’s testimonial presented allegations about an acquaintance named Powell.  The described events involving the boy correlate with beliefs about witchcraft at the time.
 

Particularly, on December 26.  He barked like a dog, and clucked like a hen, and after long straining to speak, said, there’s Powel, I am pinched; his tongue likewise hung out of his mouth, so as that it could by no means be forced in till his fit was over, and then he said ‘twas forced out by Powel . . . His grandmother at last saw him creeping on one side, and dragged him in, where he lay miserable lame, but recovering his speech, he said, that he was carried above the doctor’s house, and that Powel carried him, and that the said Powel had him into the barn, throwing him against the cart-wheel there, and then thrusting him out at an hole; and accordingly they found some of the remainders of the thrashed barley which was on the barn-floor hanging to his clothes.

 
In the early 1990s, I took notice of the case due to the fact that the report mentioned an otherwise unattributable talking phenomenon incident.  This is the paragraph recounting the family hearing a mysterious voice. 
 

Neither were there many words spoken by Satan all this time, only once having put out their light, they heard a scraping on the boards, and then a piping and drumming on them, which was followed with a voice, singing, Revenge!  Revenge!  Sweet is revenge!  And they being well terrified with it, called upon God; the issue of which was, that suddenly with a mournful note, there were six times over uttered such expressions as, Alas!  Alas!  me knock no more!  Me knock no more!  And now all ceased.

 
Following this paragraph, Increase Mather cited conjectures that were made.
 

The man does moreover affirm, that a seaman (being a mate of a ship) coming often to visit him, told him that they wronged his wife who suspected her to be guilty of witchcraft; and that the boy (his grandchild) was the cause of this trouble; and that if he would let him have the boy one day, he would warrant him his house should be no more troubled as it had been; to which motion he consented.  The mate came the next day betimes [early], and the boy was with him until night; after which his house he saith was not for some time molested with evil spirits.

 
This account in the fifth chapter of An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences is included in Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648-1706 edited by George Lincoln Burr and published in 1914.  A footnote provides more information — 
 

This “relation” was undoubtedly received from the Rev. Joshua Moodey, then minister at Portsmouth, in a letter of August 23, 1683 (Mather Papers, pp. 361-362); for a postscript speaks of its enclosure and says that he had it from William Morse himself.  That Morse was its author we know only from Mather.  Happily, there exist also many documents of the two witch-trials arising from the affair—those of Caleb Powell [the seaman] and Mrs. Morse.  Some of these, preserved in the court records at Salem, were printed by Joshua Coffin in his History of Newbury (Boston, 1845), at pp. 122-134; and again, more carefully, with others, by W. E. Woodward in his Records of Salem Witchcraft (Boston, 1864), II. 251-261.  Others, which had strayed from public keeping, were published by S. G. Drake, then their owner, in an appendix (pp. 258-296) to his Annals of Witchcraft (Boston, 1869), in which he summarizes the story (pp. 141-150).  Two (her conviction at Boston and her release) have been printed in the Records of the Court of Assistants, I. (Boston, 1901), pp. 159, 189-190.  Others still are in the Massachusetts archives (vol. CXXXV., fol. 11-19), where they have been used by Mr. W. F. Poole (see, in the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XXIV., his note. P. 386, to an unpublished draft of Governor Hutchinson’s account).  These documents supplement, and sometimes correct, the  relation of Morse.  Thus, from sworn statements of December, 1679 (Coffin, Newbury, pp. 124, 131-133), it is clear that the events above ascribed to December 3 belong to November 27, that the grandson’s name was John Stiles, that the “seaman” who charged him with the mischief was Caleb Powell, that the day the boy was in his keeping was December 2, 1679, and that on the very next day Morse instituted proceedings against Powell, who was indicted for witchcraft on December 8 (the day on which the disturbances were resumed) and was tried in Ipswich in March.  He succeeded in clearing himself, but at the cost of Goodwife Morse.  She was a midwife, and had long been suspected of witchcraft by some of her neighbors.  Indicted in March, she was tried at Boston in May before the magistrates of the colony, was found guilty and sentenced to death, but was reprieved by the magistrates, and in June, 1681, after more than a year’s imprisonment, permitted, though without acquittal, to return to her home, “provided she go not above sixteen rods from her own house and land at any time except to the meeting house.”  For the end of her pitiful story see p. 412, below.

 
The “end of her pitiful story” is recounted in A Modest Inquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft (1702) by John Hale (another book featured in Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648-1706), as follows.
 

Sect. 10.  About 16 or 17 years since was accused a woman of Newbury [Mrs. Morse], and upon her trial the jury brought her in guilty.  Yet the Governor Simon Bradstreet Esq. and some of the magistrates reprieved her, being unsatisfied in the verdict upon these grounds.

1.  They were not satisfied that a specter doing mischief in her likeness, should be imputed to her person, as a ground of guilt.

2.  They did not esteem one single witness to one fact, and another single witness to another fact, for two witnesses, against the person in a matter capital.  She being reprieved, was carried to her own home, and her husband (who was esteemed a sincere and understanding Christian by those that knew him) desired some neighbor ministers, of whom I was one, to meet together and discourse his wife; the which we did: and her discourse was very Christian among us, and still pleaded her innocence as to that which was laid to her charge.  We did not esteem it prudence for us to pass any definitive sentence upon one under her circumstances, yet we inclined to the more charitable side.

In her last sickness she was in much darkness and trouble of spirit, which occasioned a judicious friend to examine her strictly, whether she had been guilty of witchcraft, but she said no: but the ground of her trouble was some impatient and passionate speeches and actions of hers while in prison, upon the account of her suffering wrongfully; whereby she had provoked the Lord, by putting some contempt upon his word.  And in fine, she sought her pardon and comfort from God in Christ, and died so far as I understood, praying to and resting upon God in Christ for salvation.

Something I found inconsistent about the presentation of the Morse case in Increase Mather’s book is the ferocity expressed in the descriptions of the uncanny travails of the Morse family without mention of any lasting injuries.  Most accounts of past centuries may be questionable to some extent as there were no ways of recording the events with total accuracy as video and audio technology may perhaps allow in our own time.  Where annals of unexplained phenomena are concerned, the reader is sometimes left wondering about the extent of witness testimonials being influenced by their beliefs, emotions and objectives. 

Regarding the nineteenth century Bell Witch talking poltergeist case of Tennessee, it seems obvious to me now that the account written by Richard Williams Bell shows a foremost objective of convincing readers to find the haunting presence responsible for the death of his father.  Concerning what is known about the Morse case, it would seem that one can do little more than wonder.  The question of accuracy in the reporting of a ‘talking poltergeist’ case is answered by my account of my investigation of the Centrahoma ‘talking poltergeist’ case found at the beginning of my book Testament, which may be read in a free Internet edition.  I still have the audio cassettes that are the source of the verbatim transcripts presented in the book.