January 13, 2012.
WITCHES
WITCHCRAFT from the Tales of Knotts Island by Henry Beasley Ansell.
From the Newspaper Collection of Janet Grimstead Simons .
Comment- Melinda Lukei: Grace Sherwood of Witchduck fame. I have the court records from Princess Anne County and the legends that my mother told me, but I have noticed that others tell different stories than the ones I heard. Grace was raised on Knotts Island, her father was John White. He gave her property on Muddy Creek Road when he died. There is one problem, I have not been able to trace any further back from her father and I haven't been able to trace her descendants. The stories that Edgar Brown and The Lady from the Ferry Plantation house are incorrect. I can prove that the house they say she lived in on Muddy Creek was owned by Tanor Whitehurst. I went into the house and they used nails to put the timbers together. That was not how houses were built at the end of the 1600's early 1700's.
Grace was a witch that was tried at Witchduck point in Virginia Beach. The trials at Princess Anne Court house were from 1698-1701. When they threw her into the Lynnhaven River, she floated and lived. The wind blew down the chimney and claimed her body when she died. Many legends and tales have been told about Grace. Going to England in an egg shell to get Rosemary for her biscuits. The trials talk about her turning herself into a black cat, putting spells on people. Also getting into people's houses thru the keyhole. All the women were jealous of Grace because she was pretty, wore mens clothes and worked in the fields with the men. Stories told mouth to mouth for 300 years, so many different tales have come from different families.
January 11, 2012. From the Junior Historians. An excerpt from
the book Witches and Demons in History and Folklore by F. Roy Johnson.
Knotts Island Witch
The people of Knotts Island have preserved a witch tradition . The
Island was peopled by English from Liverpool and London, and old
English
tales were being told by their desendants at the opening of the
twentieth
century. Even at that late date people would not scent their lard with
rosemary at hog killings, because the plant was said to have been
brought to their island by an old witch.
When the first settlers came they looked for rosemary, but not a
bush was to be found. Then one morning, at the rising of the sun, the
people looked eastward and saw a small speck come up from the ocean
through old Currituck Inlet two miles east of the Island. The speck
quickly grew in size, and the people saw "a small bark boat" move
swiftly without either sail or oar to the Island. It bore an old woman
whom everyone knew. She stepped ashore and planted a rosemary bush in
the soil. She had been to England, the people contended, and brought
the plant to the New World. It thrived, but she was thereafter known
to be a witch. Upon the Island the plant has remained witchy to this
day. In some other parts of Currituck County the people contended they
didn't like the flavor of rosemary, thus never using it.
This story has been told with several variations. In one, the
witch supposedly swam to England and back; and in another she took to
the air and soared like other witches.
January 13, 2012. From Rod Mann
