[5] During William Kieft's term as Director of New Netherland from 1638 to 1647, he expressed great animosity towards local Indigenous peoples and accused them of cursing him.
[9][10] According to the court records, her trial had been for "some detestable and wicked Arts, commonly called Witchcraft and Sorcery, [you] did (as is suspected) maliciously and feloniously, practice at the said town of Seatalcott in the East Riding of Yorkshire on Long Island."
[12][13] A three-year witch hunt, investigations, and trials followed where the Halls found themselves fighting for their freedom and livelihoods in the court system,[14] only to eventually be released and acquitted of all charges by order of Colonial Governor Richard Nicolls in 1668.
[15][16] In June of 1670, after being convicted of witchcraft in a trial in Wethersfield, Connecticut, Katherine Harrison moved to Westchester County, New York as an order of the court and with hopes of escaping the vandalism and demolishing of her property by neighbors.
[4] Local Rockland County, New York historian Dr. Frank Bertangue Green published recollections of an oral history describing a witch trial that had occurred in the town of Clarkstown.
[26] According to Green's 1886 book, The History of Rockland County, Jane Kanniff, a twice-married widow and medicinal herbalist, became the target of witchcraft accusations after a series of incidents in which local housewives’ butter churned badly, and a cow failed to produce milk after being found standing in a wagon.