Exploring the Annapolis Witch Trials

ANNAPOLIS–Rebecca Fowler was an indentured servant here in the late 1600s, working the land for years until she and her husband were finally lucky enough to own a plot of land.

But her luck ran out after he died, and she took full title. She was soon charged with a deadly crime for a woman of the period: witchcraft.

A long trial led to her sad end as the only person executed for witchcraft in Maryland history, but the story didn’t die there. It’s getting told anew on nighttime tours around this historic city.

“The gallows would have been there,” says Melissa Huston as she stood on a cobblestone street in the old part of Annapolis on Wednesday night, gesturing to the town’s execution site.

The story sent chills up the spines of the tour group, never mind the fact that Fowler was executed in her hometown of St. Mary’s City. This self-made woman from centuries ago still figures prominently in the story of the Maryland witch trials.

Huston debuted her tour this week, featuring the history and legends of Maryland and connecting each one to a landmark in Annapolis, the capital city and the center of the state’s witchy history.

“I am a history storyteller,” said Huston, creator and tour guide of the Annapolis Witches & Legends Walking Tour. “We don’t do gimmicks. We do pure, authentic storytelling.”

It’s not a coincidence that her attention has turned to the Maryland witch hunts this particular fall. She defines a witch trial as an irrational accusation or case based in fear.

“Even today, everything is called a witch trial,” said Huston. “Which is what we are doing today to trans communities, immigrant communities and other minority communities. It translates across lives.”

“It is such a small percentage of this population just trying to live their honest, true lives, and they’re being vilified and demonized by people in power and being blamed for things that are way out of their control and have no business being blamed for,” said Huston. “That’s a modern witch hunt.”

Back in the colonial period, there were around 25 cases of alleged witchcraft in Maryland. Most cases were treated as slander, leading to just two convictions and one execution. Three of these cases happened in Annapolis.

Massachusetts had about 200 cases during the more famous Salem witch trials. But Maryland’s religious tolerance allowed for a more measured approach, according to Huston.

Huston’s interest in witches started years ago when she learned two of her ancestors died during the Salem trials.

She has been researching witches and witch trials in Maryland for the past year and decided to pitch doing a witch tour around Annapolis.

She’s not the only one who’s haunting the antique streets. Mike Carter, CEO and founder of Annapolis Ghost Tours and Crawls was excited to introduce something new.

“I feel like a lot of people think, ‘Oh, well, Annapolis is old, there must be lots and lots of witches,’” said Carter. “The tour we do is to cover all the cool stuff that we do know about the history of witches in Maryland.”

Huston and Carter believe that there could be medical or scientific explanations for the so-called witchcraft women in that time were accused of. Most of these “witches” tended to be, after all, single, older women and widows.

“The tour also tries to highlight and celebrate the power and the resilience of women,” said Huston. “I think a lot of us, especially because the Gen X women are starting to hit their 50s. I’m hitting my witch era.”

“You get to an age where you’re more comfortable in your skin, and you’re more comfortable speaking your mind, and filters start to come off,” she said. “And I think that’s also why a lot of women of a certain age are the ones who are accused of witchcraft.”

Huston says she is glad to be doing something different from the ghost stories she’s used to.

“I have been looking forward to telling these stories,” said Huston, who works as a tour guide for the Annapolis Ghost Tours and Crawls’s Hidden History Pub Crawl.

People in the crowd shared Huston’s interest.

“Women have been vilified throughout history,” said Celeste Dean, an Annapolis resident who participated in the tour. “I think that was just one of the ways that that took form.”

They weren’t there for ghost stories. The participants, mostly women, came to learn about other women of generations past.

“I believe in spirits,” said Deb Leonard, another tour participant. “The definition of a witch is the problem.”

The tour group gathered one recent night, next to a giant pumpkin near the harbor. Flags fluttered on sailboats. The sun crept behind clouds and a nearly full moon rose behind the nearby State House.

Huston dressed in a flowing black skirt, a patterned top and a wide-brimmed, velvety hat. Around her wrist, she wore several glow stick bracelets.

She led the tour through the cobblestone streets, reaching stops like the Governor Calvert House and the State House. After an hour of walking and listening to history come alive, the tour reached the St. Anne’s Parish cemetery.

Almost 30 people crowded around the grave of a man named William Bladen. Huston told the story of Virtue Violl, the last person charged with the felony of witchcraft in Maryland.

It was 1712. Violl had gotten into a dispute with another unmarried, older neighbor.

The story goes that she must have made some comment about the other woman’s tongue. Witnesses claimed the victim was spelled speechless. To them it was obviously witchcraft.

Bladen, then the attorney general and vestryman at St. Anne’s, brought the case to trial. But the jury was made up of “more sophisticated” men, according to Huston. Maybe the victim had a terrible allergic reaction that made her tongue swell, Huston mused. Or perhaps Violl said something so shocking that the other woman was unable to respond.

In any case, the jurors most likely believed this was just a dispute, as Huston recounts it, and found Violl not guilty. The parties went their separate ways, and prosecutor Bladen lived four more years before coming to rest, here, in the St. Anne’s cemetery.

Huston didn’t condemn Bladen, but she did choose to stand on his grave to close her tour. As she did, the bells of St. Anne’s tolled to mark the 8 o’clock hour.

“Perfect timing,” one participant said, sending scattered giggles through the crowd.

By ALINE BEHAR KADO

Capital News Service