The Devil of Great Island Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England [Paperback]

In 1682, ten years before the infamous Salem witch trials, the town of Great Island, New Hampshire, was plagued by mysterious events: strange, demonic noises; unexplainable movement of objects; and hundreds of stones that rained upon a local tavern and appeared at random inside its walls. Town residents blamed what they called Lithobolia or the stone-throwing devil. In this lively account, Emerson Baker shows how witchcraft hysteria overtook one town and spawned copycat incidents elsewhere in New England, prefiguring the horrors of Salem. In the process, he illuminates a cross-section of colonial society and overturns many popular assumptions about witchcraft in the seventeenth century.

The First Stone Is Cast * Evil Things * The Waltons * The Neighbors from Hell * Fences and Neighbors * Neighbors and Witches * Great Island's Great Matter * The Mason Family Stake their Claim * The Spread of Lithobolia * To Salem * Beyond Salem

Emerson W. Bakerteaches history at Salem State College in Salem, Massachusetts. He lives in York, Maine.

Does a fine job of bringing to life a little-known aspect of the tumultuous Puritan era. Kirkus Reviews

Enthralling . . . Baker's welcome account throws a strong light on an American witchcraft episode that has not hitherto received the attention it clearly deserves. The Historian

With deft insights, Tad Baker illuminates a supernatural mystery from seventeenth-century New England. Thoroughly researched and clearly written, The Devil of Great Island leaves no stone unturned, revealing a popular culture of marvels and wonders. And it offers a gripping tale well told. Alan Taylor, author of American Colonies

Thoroughly fascinating and fascinatingly thorough, Baker's lively narrative of a witchcraft episode in early New Hampshire exposes the many reasons why a 'stone-throwing devil' attacked George Walton and his tavern. In learning about life on Great Island, at the moul#&