The Samuel Wyllys Papers
"I saw
this morning Goodwif Seager in ye woods wth three
more women and with them I saw two black creatures ... "
So begins the testimony of Robert Sterne in the
first document of the Samuel Wyllys Papers. This innocent-looking piece
of paper, about four inches by four inches, brought one woman more
thoroughly under the scrutiny of the authorities and eventually to trial
for witchcraft.
The Samuel Wyllys Papers are a group of 88 court documents from
1600s Connecticut, with the official title Depositions on Cases
of Witchcraft, Assault, Theft, Drunkenness, and Other Crimes Tried In
Connecticut 1663-1728. The documents place us squarely in the
actual society of the times, a place of saints and sinners. Witches
were believed to be real, and it was very likely that your cross
neighbor was one. A faithless husband might leave his wife; the law
must intervene.
Samuel Wyllys came to Hartford at age six in 1638 and literally
grew up with the Colony of Connecticut. He collected documents as
part of his duties in his years of service to the colony. In 1654-1684,
1689-1692, and 1698, he was a "Magistrate" or "Assistant", a member of
the Upper House of the legislature, members of which also sat on the
Particular Court and later the Court of Assistants on a rotating basis.
He was also a Commissioner for the United Colonies in 1662, 1666, 1667, 1669,
and 1671, patentee and custodian of Connecticut's 1662 Charter, and held
other leadership positions. In June 1659, the General Court "requested"
him "to goe downe to Sea Brook, to assist ye Maior [John Mason] in
examininge the suspitions about witchery, and to act therein as may be
requisite."
Through his many years of service, various documents and records of events
in the lives of his contemporaries came into Samuel Wyllys'
possession. The settlers of early Hartford were a litigious group, and
not afraid to point out their neighbor's faults. Among the court papers Wyllys acquired were documents pertaining to
Elizabeth Seager, Elizabeth
Clawson, Mercy Disborough, and Katherine Harrison -- all accused of
witchcraft.
Other documents concern a man who sold cider to the
Indians on the Sabbath, getting two of them drunk. And, there was a wife
and her suspected lover, the constables finding him between the two
mattresses that made up the bed, taking him away with the wife dragging
behind, her arms clasped about his waist. Also, the man who suddenly
was the owner of 50 yards of calico, at a time when such cloth was
scarce. Where did it come from? The magistrates wanted to
know, and the King's men claimed it. All of these are cases in the Wyllys
Papers.
The reader will quickly see that the written
alphabet of the 1600s is not quite like the modern written alphabet.
Although the State Library has not prepared transcriptions of all of the
documents, we do offer some suggestions for
reading and interpreting old handwriting.
The Connecticut State Library is proud to present the digital version of
the Samuel Wyllys Papers. Step back with us into the days when Hartford
was young, its inhabitants were all too human, and -- your neighbor
might be a witch!
Browse the Samuel Wyllys Papers
Provenance
In those days, men of position had offices in their homes. Samuel
Wyllys would have kept these early depositions and other papers in his
house (now gone) on top of the hill just to the south of the present
Charter Oak Place in Hartford. After his death, succeeding generations
assumed responsibility for them. Three Wyllyses, each Secretary of the
Colony or Secretary of the State for Connecticut in his turn, represent
a ninety-eight year span in which the descendants of Samuel Wyllys had
continuous custody of the papers. Samuel's only son, Hezekiah Wyllys,
was Secretary of the Colony for 23 years (1712-35). Hezekiah's son,
George Wyllys, replaced his father in 1735, and served for 61 years
(1735-1796.
For more about Samuel's life, see The World of Samuel Wyllys.
George's son, another Samuel Wyllys, replaced George in 1796 and was
Secretary of the State for 14 years (1796 until his death in 1810). That Samuel had two brothers, William and Hezekiah, who allowed William
Stone, editor of the Connecticut Mirror, to examine the papers
relating to witchcraft. Transcripts of some documents appeared in the
New York Commercial Advertiser, July 14 and 15, 1820; the New
York Spectator, July 18, 1820; and The Hartford Times and Weekly
Advertiser, August 8, 1820.
William Wyllys died January 18, 1826 and Hezekiah Wyllys on March 29,
1827. The documents accumulated by their ancestor, Samuel Wyllys,
appear to have remained in the original Wyllys house until Hezekiah's
death. When the house was sold, the papers went to Hezekiah's
daughter Amelia (Wyllys) Adams, wife of Ashur Adams of Charlestown,
Massachusetts, and on her death (ca.1859) and Ashur's (ca. 1861), to their children. In
1868, one of the children sold most of the documents to Nicholas Brown
of Providence, Rhode Island.
Nicholas Brown passed the papers on to his son, Nicholas Brown III, and
later they went to John Carter Brown, the son of Nicholas III. John's
widow, Mrs. Sophia Augusta Brown, on July 10, 1907 sold part of the
papers to George Godard, Connecticut State Librarian. The documents, of
varying size, were then arranged, indexed, "preserved by the silk or
Emery process", and "substantially bound". The resulting volume of
Samuel Wyllys Papers is in the State Archives [CSL Call Number Main
Vault 974.6 fW97].
Some Wyllys documents that did not follow this route eventually went to the
John Hay Library at Brown University. In 1930, Photostats of these
documents were made for the Connecticut State Library and are now bound
in a separate volume entitled Samuel Wyllys Collection Supplement,
Depositions on Cases of Witchcraft Tried in Connecticut 1662-1693 [CSL
Call Number Main Vault 974.6 fW97 Supp.]. In exchange, a Photostat of
the State Library's volume of the Samuel Wyllys Papers was sent to Brown
University.
Use of the original Samuel Wyllys Papers has been limited to those who could come to view them in person in the
Connecticut State Archives. A microfilm made in 1954 by
the Genealogical Society of Utah [Family History Library film 0003645] does not have clear images of many of the items. Digitization now makes these historic court papers available to anyone
with access to a computer.
The Online Presentation
The Samuel Wyllys Papers were digitized by Connecticut State Library staff. Each of the 80 or so documents in the Papers was photographed with a digital camera, creating TIFF files. The TIFF files were converted to PDF because the zoom and pan functions on these handwritten documents are more intuitive in PDF than in JPG files.
The spelling of names as given in the documents is used, and the Library of Congress authorized form of name is given in parentheses, as seen in the Case of Abigail Bets (Abigail Betts) & John Slead (John Slade). The modern or LC form of name is used in Subject and Contributor but the author's spelling is used in the Description.
When a transcription was made, established State Library conventions for making transcriptions are used. The author's own spelling is transcribed. Line breaks are indicated with a / back slash. For an example, look at the Case of John Rogers and try out the "Page & Text" view or look at the metadata in the "Page Description" for the Appeal of John Rogers, page 1. The transcriptions were prepared by one of our staff members, Christine Pittsley, on her own time.
Browse the Samuel Wyllys Papers
Bibliography:
These titles are in the State Library collections. Please search the catalog for availablity.
Barbour, Lucius Barnes. Families of Early
Hartford, Connecticut. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
Inc., 1977 [CSL call number HistRef F 104.H353 A22 1977]. See pp.
696-700 for information on the Wyllys family.
Hall, David D. Witch-hunting in Seventeenth Century New England.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991 [CSL call number BF
1575 .W62 1991].
Hinman, R. R.
Catalogue of the Names of the First Puritan Settlers
of the Colony of Connecticut. Hartford: Printed by E. Gleason,
1846 [CSL call number SpecColl F 93 .H65]. See pp. 108-9.
Report of the State Librarian to the Governor for the Two Years Ended
September 30 1908. Hartford: Published by the State, 1909 [CSL
call number ConnDoc St 292 1908].
Seymour, George Dudley. Captain Nathan Hale 1755-1776: Yale College
1773 Major John Palsgrave Wyllys 1754-1790: Yale College 1773, Friends
and Yale Classmates. New Haven: Privately Printed for the Author,
1933 [CSL call number E 280 .H2 S512].
Talcott, Mary K. The Original Proprietors. Hartford: Society
of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford, Inc., 1986 [CSL call
number HistRef F 104 .H353 A28 1986]. See pp. 271-2.
Tomlinson, R. G. Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut. [s.l.]: R.G.
Tomlinson, 1978 [CSL call number BF 1576 .T65 1978]. See pp. 67-8 for a brief
overview of the Samuel Wyllys Papers.
"Trials for Witchcraft." Hartford Times and Weekly Advertiser,
August 8, 1820, p. 2.
The Wyllys Papers: Correspondence and Documents Chiefly of
Descendants of Gov. George Wyllys of Connecticut, 1590-1796.
Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1924 [CSL call number F 91
.C7 v. 21].
Prepared by Bonnie Linck, History and Genealogy Unit,
Connecticut State Library, October 2008.
Browse the Samuel Wyllys Papers
