Grace Sherwood

A farmer, healer, and midwife, she was accused by her neighbors of transforming herself into a cat, damaging crops, and causing the death of livestock.

Her first case was in 1697; she was accused of casting a spell on a bull, resulting in its death, but the matter was dismissed by the agreement of both parties.

A statue depicting her was erected near Sentara Bayside Hospital on Independence Boulevard in Virginia Beach, close to the site of the colonial courthouse where she was tried.

She is sculpted alongside a raccoon, representing her love of animals, and carrying a basket containing garlic and rosemary, in recognition of her knowledge of herbal healing.

[4][5][6] In April 1680 Grace White married a respected small-farm landowner, James Sherwood, in the Lynnhaven Parish Church.

[5] No drawings or paintings of Sherwood exist, but contemporary accounts describe her as attractive and tall and possessing a sense of humor.

[18] As early as 1626, nineteen years after the founding of the Jamestown colony, a grand jury in Virginia sat to consider whether Goodwife Joan Wright was a witch—she had supposedly predicted the deaths of three women and had caused illness as revenge for not hiring her as midwife.

[19] Nevertheless, Virginia did not experience events of mass hysteria such as the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials in 1692–1693, in which 19 people were executed on allegations of sorcery, some years before the first accusations against Sherwood.

[14] Ecclesiastical influence in the courtroom was much less a factor in Virginia, where the clergy rarely participated in witchcraft trials, than in New England, where ministers took an active part.

There were few such towns in Virginia, where the population mostly lived on farms and plantations, connected by water transport and scattered over a large area.

[22] Virginia's lay and religious leaders were more interested in prosecuting offenses such as gossip, slander, and fornication, seeing them as threats to social stability.

Judges and magistrates would dismiss unsubstantiated cases of witchcraft and allow the accusers, who found themselves "under an ill tongue", to be sued for slander.

[10] Although few Virginia records survive from that era, 19 known witchcraft cases were brought in the colony during the 17th century, all but one of which ended in acquittal.

[14] Nonetheless, as late as in 1736, Virginia's justices of the peace were reminded that witchcraft was still a crime, and that first offenders could expect to be pilloried and jailed for up to a year.

[2][12][33][34] According to Richard Beale Davis in his journal article on witchcraft in Virginia, by this time "Princess Anne County had obviously grown tired of Mrs. Sherwood as a general nuisance".

[36] Sherwood sued Hill and her husband for assault and battery, and on December 7, 1705, was awarded damages of twenty shillings (one pound sterling).

[29][35] On March 7, 1706, Sherwood was examined by a jury of 12 "ancient and knowing women" appointed to look for markings on her body that might be brands of the Devil.

[12] Those in Williamsburg considered the charge overly vague, and on April 16 instructed the local court to examine the case more fully.

[30] Five women of Lynnhaven Parish Church examined Sherwood's naked body on the shoreline for any devices she might have to free herself, and then covered her with a sack.

[14][1] Several women who subsequently examined her for additional proof found "two things like titts on her private parts of a black coller [color]".

[40] On September 1, 1708, she was ordered to pay Christopher Cocke 600 pounds (270 kg) of tobacco[c] for a reason not indicated in surviving records, but there is no mention of the payment.

[2] Stories about the Devil taking her body, unnatural storms, and loitering black cats quickly arose after her death, and local men killed every feline they could find; this widespread killing of cats might have caused the infestation of rats and mice recorded in Princess Anne County in 1743.

[53] Grace Sherwood's case was little known until Virginia Beach historian and author Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book about her in 1973.

Called The Witch of Pungo, it is a collection of seven local folk tales written as fiction, although based on historical events.

[50][54] Sherwood's story was adapted for Cry Witch, a courtroom drama at Colonial Williamsburg, the restored early capital of Virginia.

[60] A local legend in Virginia Beach states that all of the rosemary growing there came from a single plant Sherwood carried in an eggshell from England.

[63] Governor Tim Kaine granted an informal pardon to "officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood" on July 10, 2006, the 300th anniversary of her conviction.