The Philadelphia Inquirer du lieu suivant : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 328

itch of I he "lidley Greek By SHEILA W. MARTIN husband was boiling the heart of one of his calves that had died as a result of witchcraft when suddenly Margaret Mattson appeared and asked what he was doing. When he replied that they were boiling flesh, she said, "They would be better off boiling the bones, and other unseemly remarks." The transcript of the trial does not tell what it was that might have been unseemly. At last the witnesses for the prosecution were done, and in an unprecedented action for the time. Governor Penn let the accused witch take the stand in her own defense.

(Not until the 19th Century did an American allow the accused in a criminal case to testify in his own defense.) With crisp economy of words and crystal logic, Margaret Mattson disposed of the witnesses against her. She didn't value Drystreet's evidence at all; she denied Ashcom's accusations; and said she had never said anything to Van Culins about their calFs heart. She did lose her cool for a moment when she responded to the iecid-hand charges of her daughter. "Where is my daughter?" she cried out. "Let her come and say so!" In sum, she denied all and pointed out that the witnesses had spoken only hearsay.

Penn then charged the jury and they left the courtroom. The tension must have been high. Was Philadelphia to start rivaling Salem in the trial of witches? The thoughts going through the mind of the old woman on trial can only be imagined. She had come to this wild country 40 years before, built a home and reared a family, seen her husband off to fight the Dutch and be taken prisoner and had her home invaded by the Dutch in his absence and all her possessions taken away. To survive all this only to be accused by her friends and neighbors and even her own flesh and blood of being a witch! Finally the jury returned and the foreman, John Hastings, read the verdict to the hushed courtroom: "We find Margaret Mattson guilty of having the common fame of a witch, but not guilty in the manner and form as she stands indicted." Thus, with adroit words that judges and juries of today might envy, it was decided that Margaret Mattson, as a witch, had the name but not the game.

Her husband and son-in-law each put up 50 pounds as guarantee of her good behavior for six months, and Mrs. Mattson, the accused Witch of Ridley Creek, was freed to go to her home. i I ANY a man has said, "My mother-in-law is a real witch," but few have had the satisfaction of seeing her actually tried for witchcraft. Such a lucky man was Anthony Nealson of Chester. Pa.

whose mother-in-law, pointments and building his country home, Pennsbury Manor. But a witch flying around the colony had to take precedence over affairs of state, and so the trial was held on February 27 in Philadelphia. The court's first act was to appoint an interpreter for Margaret Mattson, who though she lived in Upland (now Chester) had been born in Sweden and still spoke little English. Witnesses then began to testify to the supernatural powers supposedly possessed by this old woman, called by many the Witch of Ridley Creek. First on the stand was a neighbor, Henry Drystreet, who told the jury that be had been told, some 20 years before, that Margaret Mattson was indeed a witch and had cast a spell on some cows.

He was confused as to just whose cows were bewitched but that, he clearly believed, was a minor detail. Another neighbor, Charles Ashcom, spoke of conversations he had with Margaret Mattson's own daughter, who lived on a farm adjoining her par ents. Perhaps her mother had criticized the way she brought up the children, or didn't like her son-in-law. Whatever the reason, the daughter told Ashcom, or so he testified, that she had to sell her cattle because her mother had bewitched them. The daughter also came to Ashcom in great excitement one night, he said, and described an apparition that she had just seen: There was a great light shining at the foot of her bed and an old woman standing there with a knife in her hand.

The woman cried out loudly that John Simcock, one of the neighbors, had better take his calves away or she would send them to Hell! Why this startling piece of information was given to Margaret Mattson 's daughter instead of to Simcock himself wasn't explained. At this point in the trial, perhaps in hope of getting a clearer translation, another interpreter was appointed. Then a neighbor woman, a Mrs. Van Culins, took the stand and with great relish told her story. It seems that her Margaret Mattson, starred in Pennsylvania's only witchcraft trial, back in 1C84.

The trial was presided over by no less a personage than William Penn himself. No doubt he would have preferred to have been anywhere else. It must have been annoying to have this touchy situation arise in his new colony. The defendant, as a Swede, was a member of a minority group, and many of the witnesses for the prosecution were prominent members of the community large land owners, members of Penn's Provincial Council and the surveyor for Chester County among them. Furthermore, he was busy getting laws passed, making political ap 34 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER MAGAZINE.