Grace Sherwood
Grace White Sherwood (* about 1660, † 1740 ), known as the Witch of Pungo ( Witch of Pungo ) was a farmer, healer and midwife who was accused of witchcraft in the colony of Virginia. It was 1706, the last known person who has been convicted in Virginia after a water sample as God's judgment as a witch.
Sherwood lived in Pungo, the then Princess Anne County, now part of Virginia Beach. She married 1680 in the Episcopal Church of Lynnhaven James Sherwood, a small farmers. As a wedding gift she received from her father John White 20 ha of land. After White's death in 1681 she inherited the remaining 59 ha of his farm. The couple had three sons: John, James and Richard. Sherwood worked on the farm, where she also drew medicinal plants with which they healed people and livestock. They also helped as a midwife. Sherwood 1701 widow and not remarried.
Their neighbors had they displayed and testified that she had turned into a cat, damaged crops and caused the death of cattle several times since 1697. There are no pictures of Sherwood, but contemporary accounts describe her as attractive, tall and humorous. That they pulled medicinal herbs and wore pants at work, they were suspect. Belinda Nash, who researched her story and a biography wrote, believed that their neighbors were trying to come up with the complaints of sorcery in their country. In the latter case, which led to a process in 1706, she complained to Luke Hill and his wife Elizabeth to have caused a miscarriage. The court ordered that Sherwood's guilt or innocence by " water sample with cold water " (English: "Witch Duck" ) is to be determined. The process drew on July 10, 1706 a large crowd. Sherwood was cross- linked at the Lynnhaven River, on the site which is now considered Witch Duck Point known and thrown into the water. She went under, she was innocent. When she emerged, she was burdened with the weight of a Bible. Nevertheless, she managed to free themselves and resurface. This was "proven" their fault, and then they probably spent several years in prison before she was released in 1715. She wrote a will in 1733, which was enforced in 1740.
The case of Grace Sherwood, little was known until the historian and writer Louisa Venable Kyle from Virginia Beach in 1973 published a book which dealt with seven stories of the early settlers on the basis of historical foundations under the title The Witch of Pungo. Sherwood's case was in Colonial Williamsburg, the restored capital of the former colony of Virginia, played for a court scene, Cry Witch, adapted. Belinda Nash wrote a biography of Sherwood and pursued her acquittal. On 10 July 2006, the 300th anniversary of its condemnation, presented the governor Tim Kaine her honor restored by recognizing the verdict as a miscarriage of justice. She was honored with a statue near a hospital, she shows with a basket of herbs.