A History of Witches in Ohio (Part 1)

When we think of the history of witches, or witchcraft, we tend to think about certain periods of history. For example, The Early Modern Witchcraft Trials a couple thousand years ago throughout Europe, or perhaps the various crusades and inquisitions a thousand years after that. America had The Salem Witch Trials of 1962 in slightly more recent history …

Once you start to look at these things, you start to realize that (a) they never really went away; and (b) they rarely had anything to do with any real witchcraft. Not really.

I have read in numerus history books about how Ohio wants to pride itself by being able to say that this sort of thing never happened here. Which, I guess is true … if you overlook (or conveniently forget) all the times it did happen here.

The Bethel Ohio Witch Trial

Obadiah Denham of Plainfield, New Jerzey relocated to the southern parts of what would soon become The State of Ohio and plotted out a town he tried to call Plainfield because apparently, he lacked any creativity when it came to naming things. A few years later, the town had to be plotted again, but this time the name Bethel was chosen, and this name would eventually stick. (In other words, it’s still called Behel today.)

Over the next several years, the settlement would grow into a small village, among them was a family by the name of Hildebrand, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. H and their two young daughters.

Shortly after moving to Bethel, the two girls started having fits every time they were asked to do something. They would cry and scream and act hysterical, you know, as kids do. However, to the Hildebrand family, there was only one thing that could cause children to act this way: not really wanting to do their chores. No, that’s not right. It had to be “Witchcraft”.

One night, the family gathered together and filled a Linsey-Woolsey bag with small items while chanting a particular incantation or prayer. This, they believed, would somehow trap the spirit of the witch inside the bag. When they were done, they each took turns hitting the bag with a large stick, and then throwing the sack into the nearest fire, which they probably had to light themselves.

This, by no means, resembled witchcraft itself, I guess. But, what do I know? All I can say is that the family believed that performing this spell … oops, I mean ritual … it would cure themselves from whatever curse some unknown witch had put upon them.

It didn’t work. The next day, when it was time to do their chores, the two little girls started crying and having massive fits. The Hildebrand family needed to move on to Plan B.

If the spell … I mean ritual … didn’t work, that must mean that it isn’t just a witches spirit that had cursed them – but an actual, fresh and blood witch. And once they had looked around at all the people in their little settlement, it was pretty clear to them who it was: Nancy Evans, that lady that lived next door that they didn’t seem to like all that much. She was a widow, and she lived alone, so yeah – sounds like a “witch” to me.

Mr. Hildebrand approaches Houton Clarke, the community’s Justice of the Peace, and demands to have him arrest Nancy and lock her up for being a witch. Houton, however, was a sensible man. He can’t arrest Nancy, he tells the family, because she hasn’t broken the law. Apparently there were no laws against witchcraft on the books at this point in history, so there wasn’t anything he could do.

As I am sure you could have guessed, this didn’t placate the Hildebrand family at all. Houton found himself in a situation where there was no easy answer. It wasn’t fair for the widow Nancy to be run out of town … but he couldn’t seem to calm down the Hildebrand family or their friends. He thought for a moment and came up with a creative (some might say genius) idea.

For some reason, people back then believed that witches must have weighed next to nothing because they had forsaken any goodness that might weigh down their souls. Based on what happened next, I like to think that Houton believed this to be just as silly as you or I do, but there’s no way to really know for sure.

The following day, Houton tried Nancy Evans for being a witch. From the local church, he produced the largest (or, at least, the most impressive looking) bible he could find. He proclaimed that he was going to weigh both Mrs. Evans and The Holy Bible. If the Bible was heavier than Nancy, this would indicate that she was a witch and he would see to it that she was severely and properly punished and run out of town. On the other hand, if Nancy weighed more than the bib Bible, this would indicate that she was not a witch. If she was proven not guilty of being a witch, then everyone had to leave her alone.

Nancy, unsurprisingly, weighed more than the bible, a lot more. So, standing before the entire town, Houton decided Nancy wasn’t a witch.

Now, I kind of wish everyone had lived happily ever after, but that appears not to be the case. Nancy moved out of town and went to live with her sister in Brown County, and I really can’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to live next to people who tried to have me burned at the stake. As for the Hildebrand family, they left town on their own, too, headed west.

It is unclear if their children were still acting out every time Mama told them to do their chores.

Leatherlips

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the Wyandots were living in what today is Ohio, and they were allies with The British. They helped fight the American expansion westward, at least until The Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. After that, The United States declared victory and began to claim the lands that everyone had been fighting over.

General “Mad Anthony” Wayne (who was leading the troops at The Battle of Fallen Timbers) led a delegation of several men, including William Wells, William Henry Harrison, William Clark, Caleb Swan, and Meriwether Lewis to Fort Greenville where they met with various leaders from the native tribes. The Wyandot sent three representatives, Tarhe, Roundhead, and Leatherlips, while several of the other native nations sent people, too.

To make a long story short, the 1794 Treaty of Greenville drew a giant line in the map that divided Native lands from European Settler land, which many of the settlers seemed to try to encroach like it were a sport. The treaty also tried to foster some kind of agreement between the native population and the new settlers, which was okay, although it led to the War of 1812 in whatever year that one happened. But, we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here.

Among the Wyandot, not everyone was all that thrilled that the war was over, that they were going to have to give up their lands, and suddenly they had to act friendly toward the people that they had been fighting … not to mention that this treaty heavily favored the European settlers, which brings us to two brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (otherwise known as “The Prophet”.)

To say that Tenskwatawa was upset would be an understatement. But, they were of two different tribes, so there wasn’t much he could directly do. Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa formed the Tecumseh Confederacy as the native people were packing up and leaving Ohio Country, which would play a bigger role in history in a bit, but for now, let’s just say things between the Shawnee leaders and Leatherlips were a bit tense.

Leatherlips was also making it very easy for people to hate him for doing things like, I don’t know, selling some of the Wyandot lands to people like William Henry Harrison. It didn’t seem to matter what his intentions were, or the reasons behind these things – to Tenskwatawa, Leatherlips was a traitor, pure and simple.

By 1810, Tenskwatawa had enough, he could bear no more. Leatherlips had to go.

Tenskwatawa met with Roundhead, another Wyandot leader who just happened to be Leatherlip’s brother so they could discuss how to put an end to this situation. It wasn’t going to be easy, the two men realized. They had been trying to unite as many of the native people as they could to be something like one big happy family made up of hundreds of nations. There were still those who agreed with Leatherlips and understood his vision and the reasons he did all the things he did so any act against Leatherlips would divide the native peoples he was trying to unite.

Clearly at the insistence of Tenskwatawa. Roundhead accused Leatherlips of witchcraft, which was a bit of a surprise. Roundhead took the accusation to the Wyandot counsel (which, I might add, he was the head of) and the counsel immediately called for his death.

When Roundhead’s men arrived in what is today Dublin, Ohio – they were first met with angry Wyandots who didn’t understand what was going on. Their anger quickly turned to offers of bribes, but the men could not be swayed.

A quick trial was held on Wyandot land and Leatherlips was officially sentenced to death. That evening, he put on his best clothes and faced his executioners. After some prayers and the singing of the death chant, Leatherlips died by a blow from a Tomahawk.

Leatherlips would later be buried where he fell, and a monument would be erected in his honor a short way down the Scoto River.

A History of Witchcraft in Ohio?

In a way, it seems kind of weird that Ohio has seen both a Witch Trial and a Witch Execution, and there doesn’t seem to be any witches involved, at all. (Then again, the fact that many women weren’t witches at all didn’t seem to matter all that much during the Witch Trials.)
Yet, there is still a curious history of witches in Ohio … but for that, you’ll need to wait for Part 2.