Witches and Wolves in Wethersfield

I try to imagine what life looked like through the eyes of my Puritan ancestors in New England. I’m not happy with twenty- first century fears of nuclear war and climate disasters, but not for a minute would I trade places with one of my Puritan forefathers. Although they were highly educated, they lived their lives in fear of going to Hell. There were murderous Indians, witches, and wolves that threatened them, but fear of going to hell was foremost in their minds. They held an Old Testament concept of God, without the New Testament’s message of love and redemption. They believed they were “the elect”, meaning they were predestined before they were born to go to heaven. All they had to do was live a perfect life so that God would not change his mind and send them to hell. This feeling of being the “chosen people” comes up three centuries later in the Latter Day Saint beliefs of my more recent grandfathers. Unfortunately, this belief in one’s own “God given righteousness” has been a recurrent theme that has lead to much intolerance and bigotry.

Education was central to the Puritan culture, with the main intention being the ability to read and understand the Bible. My Sherman forefathers were fervent in their pursuit of learning. We can see it back in England, reflected in the Sherman wills, where they established schools and funding for needy students. You might remember a previous blog on “Roaring John Rogers,” the Puritan preacher back in Dedham, England, who would mimic the screams from hell of those who failed to follow basic bible teachings. The Sherman family not only supported “Roaring John Rogers” financially, but revered his teachings. They loved and cherished their Bible, and its Old Testament fundamental message.

These deep-rooted fundamental beliefs are how my Sherman family viewed witchcraft. Views that originated in England were brought with them to the New England colonies. The Bible has a lot to say about witchcraft. The penalty for practicing witchcraft under the Mosaic Law was death. The book of Exodus 22:18 states, “you shall not permit a sorceress to live.” Leviticus 20:27 says “A man or a woman who is a medium or necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” The Bible is full of scripture on how Satan could inhabit a person, and this could only be extinguished by death. Unfortunately, it became a misguided tool to accuse a neighbor who might simply be odd, old, or an adversary you wanted to settle a score with.





The Salem, Massachusetts witch trials have been made famous through books and movies, but Connecticut had the first witch trials, and many followed, hitting a crescendo of trials coinciding in time with those in Salem. Most of the Connecticut trials occurred between 1647 and 1692. Samuel Sherman, my 10th great grandfather, was one of the early founders of Wethersfield, Connecticut where the very first witch trial occurred. In all, Connecticut heard 43 witchcraft cases, with 16 of these ending in execution. Of these trials, nine documented accusations occurred in Wethersfield, resulting in three executions.

In 1648, Mary Johnson, a resident of Wethersfield, confessed under pressure without a trial, and was the first person executed in Connecticut in 1648. Although it’s likely that all the early witch trial proceedings in Wethersfield were documented, many of those documents no longer exist for one reason or another. I find it amazing that with all that was going on with Indians and religious strife within early Wethersfield that we actually have quite a few court records. As far as I can determine, Samuel Sherman and his family were residing in Wethersfield between 1637 and 1640, prior to the execution of Mary Johnson. If there were trials before that, where they were involved we may never know. There is a fictional children’s book titled “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” that has won several awards in literature. Its setting is in the Wethersfield area.

Decades after these first witch trials, Samuel Sherman was on the Grand Jury of the last witch to be convicted in Connecticut in 1692. It is likely that, because of his age and standing in the community, he was selected as the spokesman for this grand jury. Samuel and the other eleven jury members voted to indict Mercy Disborough and submit her to a jury trial. She had been accused of possessing a teenage girl. Mercy pleaded not guilty. There is no record of any attorney acting in her defense. Shortly after her arrival at the county jail in Fairfield, Mercy requested “to be tryed by being cast into ye watter.” Her plea was granted the next day. The water test consisted of tying Mercy’s right hand to her left foot and her left hand her right foot. After securing Mercy with ropes she was thrown into a pond. If she floated this was looked upon as an indication of guilt. The theory was that water, as a pure element and an important part of Christian baptism, would refuse to accept a witch, thereby causing one to remain buoyant. If she sank this was considered a sign of innocence.



In sworn testimony presented to the Court it was stated that Mercy, after she was put into the water, swam upon it. It’s hard to imagine this kind of proof being used in colonial America by educated citizens. She was then sentenced to death by hanging. It’s a good turn of luck for Mercy that she did not sink in the pond since the Connecticut General Assembly granted her a reprieve. Today, the pond has been filled, but at the turn of the 19th Century it was used by the students of Fairfield Academy for ice skating in the winter and boating in the summer. There was a persistent rumor in Fairfield that the pond was haunted and that the official records of the trial, conviction, and reprieve of Mercy Disborough were inaccurate. The local scuttlebutt is that Mercy actually drowned while undergoing the “witch test.” Was her reprieve posthumous?



Wolves, as well as witches, were a ghost-like presence in colonial Connecticut. There were stories of wolves closing in on lone travelers. In reality, wolves steered clear of the Puritans and the Puritans steered clear of the wolves. I don’t think there is even one substantiated account of wolves killing a person in Connecticut. One Puritan in 1637 described wolves as “fearfull curres” who would run from a person just as would a “fearfull dogge.” Their baleful howling may have been frightening, but the only real problem with wolves was when they killed poultry and livestock. There may have been a biblical element to the Puritan hatred of wolves which led to the view that they were “skulking criminals” characterized by greed and theft. Killing a wolf was also a sign of domination over nature. Scripture entitled man to have dominion over all the earth, and “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” It was not uncommon to see the head of a wolf nailed to the door of the Puritan meeting-house.



It’s not surprising that my Sherman ancestors, Puritans to their core, were involved with the killing of wolves in colonial Connecticut. The circle hunt became popular in Stratford, Connecticut, where community members would surround large sections of forest and, at the designated time, gradually walk towards the center while making great noises and killing all the wild animals enclosed in the circle. It was a popular event, and after the hunt there would be feasting and bounty payments paid to those who had killed a wolf or a bobcat.

In Stratford, on April 17, 1693 a monster wolf hunt was organized since the wolf population had increased significantly. The bounty for a wolf was 12 shillings. These hunts extended several days, and every participant was given 3 shillings a day out of the town treasury. Two of Samuel Sherman’s eight sons, Samuel Sherman Jr. and Nathaniel Sherman, were voted on by the town’s people to help oversee the hunt. All persons participating were “to be ready by seven of the clock in the morning, and meet upon the hill at the meeting- house, by the beating of the drum.” How much this circle hunt cost the town, or how many wolves were killed is not known. A later hunt in 1696 cost the town fourteen pounds, nineteen shillings, and six pence, which would have put a significant dent in the town treasury.



What would become a 300 year animal extermination campaign in Connecticut, along with deforestation, led to the disappearance of wolves, bears, moose, and turkeys by the year 1880. Improved forestry policies have remedied some of these problems in modern-day Connecticut, and a wolf-like canine has returned. Known as the Eastern Coyote, it has a wolf-like appearance, but is smaller than the colonial wolf. A DNA study shows them to be 62% western coyote, 14% western wolf, 13% eastern wolf, and 11% domestic dog.

Meanwhile, here in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, I often see coyotes or hear their singing. On multiple occasions I have seen broad shouldered domestic dog-coyote hybrids that resemble wolves. There are no murderous Indians or witches that I know of, so life is good. I am spending more time watching the birds on the feeder and less time watching the news.

My 10th Great Grandfather in the New England Wilderness

Tracking Samuel Sherman, my 10th great grandfather, through the New England wilderness has been difficult. Fortunately, he was prominent enough to leave evidence of his travels in the history books. Huntington’s History of Stamford and Cothren’s History of Woodbury have been particularly helpful in following Samuel Sherman’s whereabouts in this unsettled country.

In a previous blog, I wrote that Samuel Sherman and his family set out for the relative safety of Stratford, Connecticut immediately following the Pequot attack on their small vulnerable settlement in Weathersfield, Connecticut. Wrong, me was! Two revisions are necessary. First, it seems the Sherman’s were not as afraid of Indians as I assumed. They remained in Weathersfield for several years following the Indian massacre. Second, Samuel and his family first moved to Stamford, not Stratford. They settled in Stamford for four or five years before they moved to Stratford, Connecticut.

It appears that religious differences may have been the foremost reason for the Shermans move from Weathersfield. Starting with their break with the Church back in England, the Sherman family seemed frequently to be in the middle of some controversy when it came to their Puritan beliefs. At Weathersfield, there was evidently an ongoing bitter quarrel within the Puritan church hierarchy. That, not the murderous Pequot Indians, was the major factor that compelled them to leave Weathersfield. If Huntington’s history of Stamford is correct, Samuel, his family, and other disillusioned members of the church left Weathersfield and arrived in Stamford, Connecticut in 1640. This indicates that they remained in Weathersfield nearly three years following the Indian massacre in 1637.

In October of 1640, Samuel Sherman, along with an unknown number of his family members and other dissenters from Weathersfield, organized the Weathersfield Company, and bought land in the southwest corner of Connecticut along the banks of the Rippowam River. They purchased it from Nathaniel Turner, an agent of the New Haven Colony, who was eager to sell it to fellow Puritans. The town of Stamford is on the Long Island Sound only 35 miles from Manhattan, New York.

Samuel Sherman is listed as one of the first freeholders of the town of Stamford.  In 1640, each of the new settlers contributed to the purchase of the Rippowam plantation, which was eventually re-named Stamford. Samuel Sherman contributed five colonial pounds, and “3.1 bushells of corn.” Evidently we’ve dropped the extra “L” in bushel somewhere in the last 378 years. Some of the funds Samuel used to buy into the “Rippowam Plantation,” may have come from the sale of a lot he co-owned with Richard Guildenslieve in Weathersfield, which they sold to a Captain John Talcott.

In the summer of 1641, Samuel Sherman, along with 27 other would-be planters and at least two “Negro servants” began building a meeting-house and their own homes on high land above the harbor in Stamford. In addition to the 28 men, we need to add all of their wives and children. The total number of members in Samuel Sherman’s household is unknown. Samuel’s wife Sarah Mitchell, and possibly Samuel’s father Edmund were in Stamford with him.

Their first son, Samuel Jr. was born in Stamford in January of 1641. I added the Jr. to Samuel’s name to avoid confusion. There are three Samuels in my direct lineage, but this Samuel, the son of Samuel senior is not one of them. Samuel Sherman’s fifth son, John Sherman, is my 9th great grandfather. It is John Sherman’s son, Samuel, who becomes my 8th great grandfather. All these Samuel’s make me want to repeat the only real expletive I heard my grandfather P.A. Sherman blurt out after hitting his thumb with a tack hammer. “Sam Hill!” I’ll revise that curse to “Samuel H. Hill!” Several of the books I’m reading fail to distinguish which Samuel they’re referring to, so I may have scorched the edges of this blog with my own expletives. Serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as Son of Sam, is not related.

Samuel Sherman, the senior, sold his house in Stamford in 1654, but he had previously moved to Stratford, Connecticut before that date. It appears that Samuel took every member of his family with him. After 1654, there is no trace of any Sherman living in Stamford. The dates above throw doubt on historians who claim Samuel Sherman lived in Stratford for fifty continuous years.

Puritan life in the 1600's.

When the town of Stamford was set up initially, it’s interesting how the land was allotted to each of the original 28 settlers. It’s useful to remember that in the Puritan villages government and church were completely connected. One by one, each man to receive property was sent out of the meeting room while the other 27 voted on how much land he was to receive – then called back in to see if that gave him “content?” Samuel Sherman received 10 acres. Eight men received more land than Samuel, based on their age and their standing in the church. Samuel was still a young man of 21, yet he received more acreage than many of the older men.

To follow the path of Samuel Sherman from the time he first arrived from England in 1634, it seems he stayed several years in Watertown, Massachusetts with his father, Edmund. Then he moved, first to Weathersfield, Connecticut, then Stamford, Connecticut. He then finally moved to Stratford, Connecticut, where he played a prominent role in the church and the town’s business. He was instrumental in setting up the town of Woodbury, Connecticut, and even owned property there, but never actually lived there. He sent his son, John Sherman, to Woodbury as his proxy. It is in the history of Woodbury, Connecticut that I find some information on this John Sherman, my 9th great grandfather.

Just shrug the following off if you want. I need a little break from the two digital books I’ve been scanning through like a not so clever gumshoe trying to find breadcrumbs a Sherman might have left in New England. Combined, the books have over 1500 pages of information on Puritan towns where my ancestors were living. Adding to my woes or joy, depending on how bad my neck or eyes hurt, I found another 700 page book authored by our more recent relative, John Sherman, in 1895. It is full of Sherman history and interesting little anecdotes.

I ran across this little story about “Uncle Dan” that caught my attention. I am not sure yet how this Daniel is related to me. By the nineteenth century the New England coast is full of Shermans, due to their tendency to produce many offspring. This “Uncle Dan” is the son of Taylor Sherman.

Taylor Sherman was appointed to survey the region which is now Ohio, which is how his son Daniel got into this little incident. The whole Western Reserve was being gifted to those who suffered from the Revolutionary War. However, it was a wilderness, “with not a single white inhabitant.”

Imagine: 75 miles of this, on foot, with the distinct
possibility of hostile Indians hiding behind each tree.

‘Uncle Dan’, in the spring of 1812, when twenty one years of age, was sent by his father to survey and make improvements on land in Huron county, by building a log cabin and opening a clearing. “He had with him a hired man of the name of John Chapman, who was sent to Milan, twelve miles away, to get some corn ground, it being the nearest and only mill in the county. Either on the way there, or on returning, Chapman was killed by Indians. “Uncle Dan” did not hear of this until the next day. When he heard, he started for Mansfield, forty miles away. For thirty miles there was a dense and unbroken forest without a settler. He arrived at a blockhouse, six miles from Mansfield, but concluded that was not strong enough to protect him. He then went to Mansfield, where they had a better blockhouse, but he heard so many stories of Indians that he did not feel safe there, and walked thence to his brother’s home in Lancaster, about seventy five miles away, through an almost continuous forest.”

This anecdote caught my attention not only for the name, but for the realization that if I had been the link to you, you would be as non-existent as an honest politician. I have no sense of direction. If I take the road less traveled I am in trouble. The 700 miles in our village of Bella Vista, AR are a maze that has left me lost within a few miles of my home. A recent study of rats, bats, and monkeys reveals there are problems in the hippocampus region of the brain for directionally challenged people like me.

How “Uncle Dan” found his way through continuous forest to his brother’s house seventy five miles away is a super power I don’t possess. Back in the seventies, I took a group of my Ecology students for a weekend camping trip to a 1600 acre ranch deep in the Ozarks bounded by the National Forest. My brother was caretaking the ranch for a group of Kansas City investors, and he and his family were living in a two story colonial styled house in need of repair. One of the environmental exercises I had dreamed up was for each student to separate themselves and commune with nature silently. The further they could distance themselves into this reverie of the surrounding forest the better. I arbitrarily set one hour as sufficient.

Setting myself to the same task, I enjoyed the quiet birdsong and rustling squirrel sounds, and at the end of the hour realized I had no idea from which direction I had come. With no compass I thought I might orient myself from the moss on one side of a tree, then realizing I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Had it not been for one of my students calling “Mr. Sherman! Mr. Sherman!” I might still have been lost in the woods to this day. I marvel now at those family members like Captain John Sherman, who set sail from England using a compass and the stars to arrive at exactly where he was headed. If I had been the Captain we would have bounced around on the Atlantic waves until our food supply was exhausted and the passengers had tied me to the mainmast.

I understand the fear that “Uncle Dan” must have felt when his hired hand was murdered, and fearing that every step of that seventy five mile journey could be his last, with hostile Indians behind every upcoming tree. I still think there’s something to that recurrent dream I had as a child where some of that fear of Indians was telegraphed forward in time to my sleeping head. The only close facsimile to an Indian I ever actually encountered was my younger sister, Ruth, nicknamed Shooting Star. Wearing a head band with a feather, she would sometimes sub as one of the murderous Indians that constantly threatened our backyard chicken-house/fort. Other than “Ruthie,” I had no reason to fear Indians, since my Puritan ancestors had diminished the Indian population. There was a full sized Indian carving sitting outside the barbershop in Independence, and there was that great three dimensional movie in Byam Theatre, where Indians threw spears at Lash Larue and me. I remember ducking behind the theater seat.

I’m just saying that, left to me, with my damaged hippocampus, the Shermans would have been lost at sea, or irretrievably lost in the American Wilderness. Thankfully, we had some forest savvy pioneers like “Uncle Dan” who, propelled by the fear of being killed by the Mohicans, was able to get to his brother’s house safe and sound.

Surprising New Insights on Sherman History in Connecticut

Sherman descendant travels the same coastal rivers as Pequot Indians and colonial ancestors.

Looking into my family history was never intended to reach beyond my great grand parents. In the box that my three sisters delivered to me here in the Ozark Hills years ago were childhood pictures taken with our black box camera, hand written letters and poems, and other odd memorabilia they had saved over the years about our parents and our life as children when we lived in a working class suburb sandwiched between Kansas City and Independence, Missouri.

Somehow, curiosity led outside of the box into family history as far back as the fifteenth century. We had wealthy bankers and gifted architects on my mother’s side, with a few rogues thrown in. On my father’s side in that same century we had wealthy English cloth merchants and educators, with a few lawyers in the mix who loved to litigate.

This 23rd blog reminds me that we have 23 pairs of chromosomes carrying thousands of genes that control our physical characteristics and more personality traits than we might want or expect. Now I look at the pictures in the box of my mother and realize how truly regal and beautiful she was, how easily she would have played the role of countess in a Florentine household. I look at the photos of my father and try to imagine photo shopping his image into photos I’ve now seen of founding father Roger Sherman and General William Tecumseh Sherman. The physical similarities are not easy to see, but his adventurous personality would have linked my father to Samuel Sherman, who eagerly boarded a ship to come to the American Wilderness in 1634. I look at my sisters now, and try to imagine which parent they physically resemble more; though it’s obvious to anyone who knows them they have our mother’s inner strength and resolve. And I wonder about my poppa bear brother, who had the warm countenance of my mother, but doesn’t seem to fit any of the other ancestors. I’m amazed at the similarities we all share with ancestors, and at the same time the differences that makes each of us unique.

Sherman ancestors were here.

I realize we’re all linked with traits that determine our health, physical characteristics, and yes, maybe even personality traits that make us shy or outgoing. Go back far enough, and there’s probably some undiscovered Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal cave painting authored by one of our ancestors who would prefer to stay indoors. Blowing blood and pigments through a hollow reed to paint a picture on the cave wall was safe. Let those extroverts go out with the gang to chase mastodons.

I think it’s exciting to see younger relatives become interested in their heritage. My sister, Judy’s granddaughter, Megan, and the grand daughter of my middle sister, Sherry, just returned from Florence, Italy, where they walked on some of the same cobblestone paths trod by their ancestors. They also crossed the Ponte Vecchio Bridge that spans the Arno River close to the fifteenth century homes of their medieval Alberti family. Their adventure yielded some tantalizing clues that may help solve the parentage of my great grandfather Albert Anatole Alberti. In April, my daughter, Trish, and her husband, Chip, will visit Italy and look for further clues, and maybe test the local wines and view the beauty of Florence without the inconvenience of the black plague or a medieval ceramic pot beside their hotel bed. Last week, I find that my sister Ruth’s son Doug, and his wife Chelle, are kayaking, hiking and working smack dab in the middle of Sherman history on the New England Coast. I’ll elaborate on that down page.

There are a few mysteries and questions yet to be solved – one big one for me is when and where did my mother get a pilot’s license and why didn’t she reveal it to any of her children. There is an intriguing clue that my wife Sharon found regarding a program for female pilots during the Second World War. Was my mother willing to go to war to defend the country and her family if needed? The joy of flying, apparently shared by both my parents, lives on in the DNA of my sister Sherry’s son Michael, and her grand daughter Kara.

The blog has been an interesting tool in that it lets my brother’s boy Ben read it from his phone in Ecuador, and allows another of his sons, David, to follow on his device in Puerto Rico. A third son, Danny, along with his mother Bess, my brother’s widow, read the blog from their home near Saint Louis. There are definitely some advantages to sharing a blog on Facebook, but then I wonder why someone in Kyrgyzstan might be reading it, and it’s intriguing that there are some Italians that check in from time to time. The blog statistics show which countries blog lookers are from, and even which device they are using, but no names or locations are revealed. Anyway, I’ll continue to blog unless I think someone from Russia is stealing my identity and voting for a candidate I don’t approve of. There were 17 page views from Russia one day last week. I hope it was a single bored Russian deep into a bottle of vodka with nothing better to do.

I mentioned upstream in this blog that my nephew Doug and his wife Chelle ended up living right in the middle of their Sherman history on the New England Coast. Doug is a chemist and on the board of the Conservation Commission in North Stonington, Connecticut, dedicated to planning and regulating the natural and historic resources of the area. Chelle works at the Pequotsepos Nature Center in nearby Mystic, site of the epic Indian massacre of the Pequot Indian tribe in 1637.

Doug and Chelle live about 80 miles down the coast from Watertown, Massachussetts, where Samuel Sherman , Doug’s 11th great grandfather, lived for several years when he first arrived from England at the age of 14. They live approximately fifty miles from Weathersfield, Connecticut, where Samuel first set roots in a small Puritan Village. Samuel left after the Pequot Indians murdered some of his neighbors and took two village girls hostage. Doug and Chelle live about an hours drive north of Stratford, Connecticut, which was Samuel’s final residence for fifty years, until his death in 1670. Chelle works directly with some of the descendents of prominent players in the Pequot War, like John Mason, who led Puritan forces against the Pequot Indians in Mystic, which led to their final demise. Doug and Chelle kayak and hike many of the same inlet waterways and trails used by their Sherman ancestors and their Indian adversaries nearly 400 years ago. This Sherman history just recently came to light for me, so I’m thinking that Doug and Chelle may be just as surprised as me to find that they put down roots in the same area as their ancestors.

Pequot Indian dugout canoe.  Doug and Chelle's kayak is a bit more modern than this.

Below is a list of some new information brought to light from links Chelle has sent me.

1. It appears our Sherman history is heavily tangled with that of the Whiting and Gould families, beginning with the first Puritan colonies established in New England. Mr. Whiting was on the committee with Samuel Sherman that declared war on the Pequot Indians. Mr. Gould was on a war committee with Samuel Sherman some years later, when the colonists were on high alert expecting a coastal attack from the Dutch. I suspect the connection with the Whitings and Goulds may have originated in England.

Declaration of War by a committee including Mr. Sherman and Mr. Whiting.

2. Samuel Sherman was appointed to a position in the General Court at Weathersfield at the young age of nineteen. He was selected over a score of older men, his own father Edmund among them. His excellent education in Dedham, England must have made a very favorable impression on his Puritan neighbors.

3. Samuel served three successive years in the General Court in Stratford, Connecticut, beginning in 1662. For his capable service, the Court rewarded him with two hundred and fifty acres of land. Fifty acres was outside the bounds of Stratford in the county of Fairfield, Connecticut. Over the years he acquired additional land, and gave much of it to his children before he died. As an old man, he moved in with his son Samuel, then living in Woodbury, Connecticut.

Colonial Woodbury home near Sherman properties.

4. In 1672, at the age of 64, Samuel Sherman was granted liberty from service. He, along with Lt. William Curtis, Ensign Joseph Judson and John Minor, received a grant to erect a plantation at Pomperaug, Connecticut, which eventually became the town of Woodbury, Connecticut. With permission from this grant, Samuel Sherman and the other three men purchased a large, fertile, four mile long tract of land from the Pootatuck Indians. The land was purchased for one homespun gray coat, one hatchet, and ten pounds of powder and lead. I found the sale agreement and the signatures (marks) of the three Indian elders who sold their tribal land.

Signatures of three Indian chiefs who sold the land that is now Woodbury, CT.

5. Just as I’m about to post this blog I ran across some more information on Samuel Sherman and some of his sons in Woodbury, Connecticut. I posted earlier that I had no substantial information on Samuel’s sons, but I found Cothren’s “History of Ancient Woodbury,” which promises to fill in some missing details on some of Samuel Sherman’s eight sons.