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July 5, 1706. A steady rain fell, but a crowd had gathered, despite the miserable weather, at the Second Princess Anne Courthouse in Pungo, Virginia. Grace Sherwood, "the Witch of Pungo," was to be tried for witchcraft that day.

This was not Mrs. Sherwood's first court appearance. She was first accused of witchcraft in 1698 for bewitching a neighbor's crop. Over the course of the next eight years, she appeared in court numerous times, either to defend herself against witchcraft charges, or to sue her accusers for slander. In all of the previous witchcraft cases, she was not convicted. In July 1706, she was finally found guilty.

Grace Sherwood is Virginia's only convicted witch. Most of the fifteen witchcraft cases in Virginia ended in acquittal, with accusers being fined for slander. No accused witch was ever executed in Virginia, but Grace Sherwood came close.

Five days after her conviction on July 5, Grace was taken to the western branch of the Lynnhaven River and ducked: tied thumb to toe, crossbound, then thrown into the water. The result of the ducking would tell the court definitively if Grace Sherwood was a witch. If she sunk, she was innocent. If she floated and lived surely she was a witch as the purity of the water would expel her evil spirit and not allow her to sink.

Grace floated.

Records show she actually untied herself and swam to the surface. But because she didn't drown, Grace was imprisoned for witchcraft. Court records are unclear as to when she was released, but in 1714 she was free and paid back taxes on her property, a farm where she lived with her three sons. (Her husband, James Sherwood, had passed away in 1701.)

She faced no further witchcraft charges, the witch craze having passed, and most likely her accusers were satisfied with her conviction.

Grace Sherwood - the real Grace Sherwood - known as a healer and a midwife. Taller than most other women, and independent, especially after her husband's death, she wore pants when she worked in the fields, and immediately set herself apart from other women in town. Perhaps she was also unusually attractive and made the other women jealous. Or she had a green thumb. Maybe her crops thrived when others' failed. What better way, back then, to get rid of a neighbor you can't compete with than to accuse her of witchcraft! In the late 1600s it worked. Grace was accused of bewitching cotton crops, killing cattle, of transforming into a black cat, entering a woman's home and whipping her. (That's a hell of a trick for a cat!)

After her conviction and release from jail, Grace Sherwood apparently lived out the rest of her life quietly. She died at the age of 80. And 300 years later, on the anniversary of her ducking, Virginia governor Timothy M. Kaine pardoned Grace Sherwood.

Visitors to Virginia Beach today can take a side trip through Pungo, and visit the Old Donation Episcopal Church which overlooks the site of the Second Princess Anne Courthouse where Grace Sherwood was convicted. Old Donation Episcopal Church is located on the appropriately named Witchduck Rd. in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth Blue.
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