The Witch of Pungo — Southern Gothic

“The seventeenth century was an age when witches and demons, alchemists and sorcerers, sea monsters and fanciful creatures were accepted by Englishmen, regardless of social or intellectual station in life. [...] Virginia, with its dark forests and strange native inhabitants, must have seemed quite frightening indeed. King James I himself had written that the devil’s handiwork was ‘thought to be common in such wilde parts of the world.’ It was there that ‘the Devill findes greatest ignorance and barbaritie.’ For at least the next hundred years, Virginians would be on the lookout for Satan and his followers.””

— Carson O. Hudson, Jr., "Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia"

The Last person convicted of Witchcraft in Virginia…

The practice of witchcraft has a complicated history in North America. When the first colonists arrived, they did so with an already existing concept and superstition about the practice. While the most well-remembered trials in American history were in Salem, MA, when nineteen people were executed between 1692 and 1663, it is far from the only instance of witch trials during the colonial era.

On Wednesday, July 10, 1706, scores of people arrived at what is now known as Witch Duck Point on the Lynnhaven River in Virginia. They were there to witness a unique but brutal legal proceeding that would never again be carried out in the colony of Virginia– the trial of forty-six-year-old Grace Sherwood by ducking.

It is unknown exactly what happened when she hit the water, but what was clear to the folks who came that day was that Grace Sherwood survived and therefore she was must be a witch.

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Sources:

Burr, George Lincoln, ed. Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914.

Chewning, Alpheus J. Haunted Virginia Beach. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006.

Davis, Richard Beale. “The Devil in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 65, no. 2 (April 1957): 131-149. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4246295.

Gahan, Mary Beth. “Witch of Pungo’s church dedicates marker to her.” July 11, 2014. The Virginian-Pilot. https://www.pilotonline.com/news/article_8168fea0-b37f-5680-954a-74f67a286300.html.

“Grace Sherwood: The One Virginia Witch.” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 69. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1884. Google Books. https://books.google.com.

“Grace Sherwood, The Witch of Pungo.” February 1, 2021. Colonial Ghosts. https://colonialghosts.com/grace-sherwood-the-witch-of-pungo/.

“Grace Sherwood - the Witch of Pungo (1660-1740.) Copyright 2010. Old Donation Episcopal Church. Accessed May 1, 2022. Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20120412035254/http://www.olddonation.org/index.php?page=grace-sherwood---a-unique-story.

“The Haunting of Witchduck Road.” Updated June 7, 2021. VirginiaBeach.com. https://www.virginiabeach.com/article/haunting-witchduck-road.

Hines, Emilee. Virginia Myths and Legends: The True Stories Behind History’s Mysteries. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Hudson, Carson O., Jr. Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2019.

Hume, Ivor Noël. Something from the Cellar: More of This & That. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2005.

Misra, Sulagna. “A Brief History of Witches in America.” October 28, 2017. Mental Floss. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87525/brief-history-witches-america.

Ruegsegger, Bob. “Virginia’s ‘Witch of Pungo:’ Accused remembered as Colony’s Joan of Arc.” (Fredericksburg, Va.). The Free Lance-Star. October 30, 1999. https://news.google.com/newspapers.

“Va. Woman Seeks to Clear Witch of Pungo.” Posted July 7, 2006. USAToday. https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-09-witch-pungo_x.htm.