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After 300 years, the Witch of Pungo is pardoned

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 11, 2006

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Monday gave an informal pardon to Grace Sherwood, who 300 years ago became Virginia's only person convicted as a witch in a trial by water.

"I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood," Kaine wrote in a letter Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf read aloud before a re-enactment of Sherwood's being dropped into the river.

Sherwood, a midwife who at times wore men's clothes, lived in what today is the rural Pungo neighborhood, and she later became known as the Witch of Pungo.

Her neighbors thought she was a witch who ruined crops, killed livestock and conjured storms, and she went to court a dozen times, either to fight witchcraft charges or to sue her accusers for slander.

She was 46 when she was accused in her final case of using her powers to cause a neighbor to miscarry.

On July 10, 1706, Sherwood was dropped into the Lynnhaven River and floated - which was considered proof she was guilty because the pure water cast out her evil spirit, according to the belief system of the time. The theory behind the ducking test was that if she sank, she was innocent, although she would also drown.

Sherwood may have been jailed until 1714, when records show she paid back taxes and with the help of then-Gov. Alexander Spotswood reclaimed her property.

She then lived quietly until her death decades later.

[Last modified July 11, 2006, 00:59:46]