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1650s East Hampton: A Litigious Society

By George DeWan | Staff Writer

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The early inhabitants of East Hampton were a quarrelsome bunch, especially in the 1650s, when the town was just getting formed and the residents were jostling among themselves for status. But instead of getting into public fistfights or dueling matches at dawn, they accused each other of slander and defamation and took their cases to the town justices.

This was the atmosphere in which Goody Garlick was charged with witchcraft.

The issues were usually minor, but the outcomes major. One man accused a woman of slandering his wife by calling her a liar when she claimed her new petticoat had come all the way from England. A man accused another of overcharging him in a business transaction. A man claimed another man was going about town accusing his 17-year-old servant of being a masturbator.

But few claims were as odd and seemingly trivial as the pumpkin porridge case. In January, 1658, John Wooley, a servant of the Gardiners, filed a defamation suit against Mrs. John Hand, who happened to be the wife of one of the three judges, called townsmen. Out of the trial testimony comes this story:

Elizabeth Gardiner, wife of Lion Gardiner, had made pumpkin porridge, set it down and left the room. When she returned she was angered to learn that the porridge had been eaten. The culprits turned out to be two members of her own family, who she proceeded to berate angrily. But Wooley, it was claimed, stood nearby and made mocking noises, including ``bow wou,'' apparently an imitation of a dog barking. Mrs. Hand, who wasn't even there, spread the story around town.

The trial went quickly. Wooley's witnesses agreed that he wasn't there when Elizabeth Gardiner reprimanded the culprits. Mrs. Hand's witnesses provided little support in her defense. The jury found in favor of Wooley, and fined Mrs. Hand 10 shillings plus court costs.

Then came the charges of witchcraft against Goody Garlick. ``Early in February 1658 the inhabitants of East Hampton harvested a decade of ill will,'' writes historian Timothy Breen. ``. . . The appropriate context for this particular trial is not the long story of New England witchcraft, but rather the short, local history of slander and defamation. For in this society, nothing could have been more damaging to a person's reputation than a charge of witchcraft.''

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