What is Remembered Lives - The Witch Burnings of Appalachia (part 2)

The second witch burning I wanted to cover took place in the woods near Battletown Kentucky in Meade County. The town at the time of the murder (1840), because let's be honest that is exactly what this was,  was known as Staples or Stapleton. The area became known as Battletown, KY in 1885 because there was another town known as Staples in Kentucky, and they would not give a permit for a post office the name of the town was changed.

From 1830-1835 John Smock had bought 350 acres of land in the area of Battletown, and he and his family lived in Kentucky and Indiana. John Smock was a cooper. Coopers make barrels, buckets, troughs, etc from wood that is heated to make it pliable. It took a few years before the Smock family lived permanently on the land in Battletown, and it is thought that it took about three years to remove enough of the wooded area to build a cooperage, house, and barn. The Smock family consisted of John Smock (father), Margaret Smock (mother), Leah Smock (daughter), Elizabeth Smock (daughter), and Joseph Smock (son).

Margaret is said to have had remarkable healing powers, and was known to help her community. Some people in the community claimed she was a witch. But the woman burned to death for being a witch was not Margaret, but her daughter Leah. Leah was murdered at the age of 22 on August 21, 1840. Leah only lived in the Battletown area for approximately two years, but made a huge impact on the people that lived in the community at the time, and who live there now. Since her murder she hasn't left the area. Her spirit is seen frequently in a white gown, surrounded by a purple mist with cords tied at her waist, wrists, and neck.

Artist Unknown

Leah was eighteen or nineteen when the Smock family moved to Meade County. It did not take long before the people of the community became aware that Leah possessed special powers. She was known for being very intelligent, and she was the head of her class in the schools she attended when she was younger. She also began to exhibit other intelligences. She was able to foretell future events with accuracy, predict the weather, and give details about the upcoming seasons. She would accurately predict when someone ill would live or die, and would often contradict doctors on diagnosis. She was infrequently incorrect in her predictions. Due to her extrasensory perceptions people began to treat her differently with ridicule or scorn or fear.

Stories abound about Leah aiding people with their crops. It was known that she could make crops grow like no other, but if you mistreated her she could cause your crops to blight. its alleged that she even bragged about her powers, and would play on the fears of her neighbors bu warning them to treat her kindly or terrible things would befall them.
One such incident is recalled that Leah asked to hold a neighbor's new born child, but the parents refused to allow her to hold their baby because they worried that it was bad luck to let a witch hold their baby. Leah is reported to have said "you'll be sorry by morning." Sadly, the parents were sad the next morning because the child. Leah then attempted to touch the child in its casket and again she was refused. That night the neighbor's home was filled with the sounds of howling dogs, yowling cats, and other strange noises. When the parents looked outside they claimed to have seen Leah standing outside in the dark staring at the home. The father of the deceased infant is said to have led Leah home, and the sounds then ceased.

There are many other stories about Leah. One tells of how a man had purchased a team of horses. Leah went to pet them, and the man told her he did not want her touching them. She did manage to touch one, and the following day that horse had died followed by a second horse the next day. Another story from a cooper scolded Leah for some forgotten reason, and he had completed assembling eighteen barrels. The next day all of his work came undone, and the barrels fell apart.

But Leah's life wasn't completely alone and terrible. She had a friend, nicknamed Indian Joe, a Native American man who lived in a cabin that was built in the woods near Leah's home. It's rumored that Indian Joe carved a serpentine walking stick for Leah that she was often seen carrying thoruhg the fields and the wilderness.  Leah was also seen often surrounded by wild animals. On one occassion she was seen walking in the company of wolves, foxes and wildcats when two boys who had followed her started to harrass Leah for being a witch. The boys were missing for several days. When they were finally found the boys claimed that Leah had called up her animal friends to chase the boys.

Its known that anyone who harmed or mistreated Leah and her family would eventually feel her wrath. People's crops would wither, houses and barns would burn, and every one blamed Leah. Most people ended up ostracizing the family, but Leah still had a few close girlfriends, a boy friend, and her friend Indian Joe. Eventually Leah's luck started to run out. It's said that Leah uninvited entered the home of another community member's who had a new born baby, and the next day the infant had died.

There are a handful of versions about the events that took place on August 21, 1840. The one retold here is the one believed to be the most likely.

The morning of August 21, 1840 Leah's parents left to go to the town of Staples which given the terrain and travel by wagon would have been a full day's travel to town and back. Once her parents were far enough away a group of neighbors crept out of their hiding places around the house, cooperage, and smokehouse. The men and women ganged up on Leah. Tying her up in a hogtie fashion with the rope round her neck, waist, wrists, and feet. They took her tied body to the smokehouse and locked her in. Then the anonymous gang set fire to the smokehouse, and watched until the screams stopped and they were assured of her death.

Her parents returned to find her burned remains. Her parents, her boyfriend, and Indian Joe, prepared a casket and conducted a small private funeral service for Leah. Her casket was buried on the Smock property in what would become known as the Betsy Daily Cemetery. Her boyfriend carved a tombstone for her grave, and it still stands today.

This could be where the story ends. But a woman with a spirit like Leah's its obvious she wouldn't let the people of Staples (Battletown), Meade County have the last word in her story.  Only a few days after her burial her spirit was seen. This caused her grave-site to be covered and filled with stones. People who venture out to her grave are likely to find the grave and cemetery over ran with venomous snakes. If not the snakes it is reported that pounding and clanging sounds come from the cemetery. Occasionally, people have even found cooperage tools and a newly made barrel at Leah's grave. It is also reported that her spirit will show herself from time to time. Beautiful Leah, raven haired, ropes tied around her wrist, waist, and neck will appear in the woods surrounded by a purple tinted fog.

But was Leah a witch? According to the people that lived around her at the time the simple answer is yes. The stories usually paint Leah as playing a instigating part in the stories about the misfortune that would befall people who wronged her. Was she just a woman who had a connection and powers that she and the community did not understand? Was she just a strong willed woman at a time that possessing a personality like hers could and did lead to her death? Sadly, we can not answer those questions. Ultimately, I do not think defining her in any of those ways is appropriate or important. After all Leah seems to get to have the final say in her life. Her neighbors murdered her in an attempt to rid their lives of a woman they feared due to her personal power. What they ended up doing was making sure that she would never be forgot.

What is remembered lives.

and Leah lives on!

(information taken from the book "Battletown Witch" by Gerald W. Fischer)

Thou Shall Not Suffer a Witch to Live- The Witch Burnings of Appalachia (part 1)

"No witches were ever burned alive in North America." That is what we are taught when we listen to historians of American history discuss witchcraft trials in colonial America as well as the few rare trials of witchcraft accusations after the colonies. The historians are correct, in a way. There are no legally documented executions by burning for women and the few men accused of witchcraft. However, they are wrong to say that no one was ever put to death by being burned alive for accusations of witchcraft.

I am not going to go into detail on  the history and translations of the Exodus verse (22:18). There are plenty of other sources on line that will do a much more thorough explanation of it than I. But to sum it up quickly the verse was translated to read "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," by King James to reflect his current beliefs and politics. A great write up of all possible meanings of the verse can be found HERE

What I wanted to focus on here is the forgotten women, the murdered women, the witches of Appalachia. The women that now only exist in the memories of oral history.

"Occasionally a body of factual knowledge exists only in the memories of men and women; and it would be lost, or greatly attenuated, were it not taken down before they died...The main use of oral information is to supplement and fill out the evidence taken from other sources. But there are some aspects...that are recorded chiefly -- and in some instances only -- in the oral tradition," George Ewart Evans (British social historian; in regards to rural east Anglian culture.)

The oral history of Rolph Hollow, in Fleming County Kentucky tell the story of the execution by burning at the stake of Hulda (Collins) Lamar.  Daniel Rolph, in his book "To Shoot, Burn, and Hang," brings the story of Hulda out from the oral history and into written history, Two of Daniel's ancestors tell the story of the execution as they witnessed it. Both Sarah Smithers and her daughter Rose Effey Rolph were returning from a neighbors home whom they had attended to for her pregnancy as they were "granny women" and "midwifes." As they were returning home they came over a hill and heard a racket. As they crept over the hill they began to smell a horrible smell, and saw that the people had tied a woman to stake and were burning her alive. Alice stated, "I will never forget the smell of burning flesh and the screams of the woman." They knew Hulda had been called a witch because of her use of herbs to cure people. Fearing for their safety, worrying that the townspeople would be coming for them if they were seen, Sarah and Rose hurried back to their home unseen.

Hulda and her sisters, Mariah and Sal,  were considered witches based on their use of gathering herbs and muttering as they did so. Many other stories surrounded the Lamar women  making the accusations of witchcraft by the community that much more damning. Washington Lamar lived his aunts and told people that if he annoyed the women they would turn him into a cat, and he'd go up the chimney finding himself on the roof. Another story recalled that the Lamar sisters were not happy about their nephew selling a sow and her litter of pigs to Mr. Colgan. Mariah Lamar was said to have visited the Coligan farm the next day and was found rubbing her hands all over the pigs and mumbling peculiar words. The following day the sow and every nursing piglet was dead. It was also believed that the Lamar witches would place a death spell on people who harmed or wronged them in some way and the only way the spell could be broken was to get a wizard to take the spell off. The idea of the wizards coincides with the other oral history of other men and women visiting the sister in order to become witches and wizards as well.

So why was Hulda the only witch burned that day, and not her sisters Mariah and Sal? Before Hulda was burned her sisters had already passed away. Dr. Alexander Wallingford when he heard that Mariah was dying went to attend to her, and to also see if the legend that a witch will die like a cat, all drawn up, was true. While Dr. Wallingford examined Mariah neither Washington Lamar or Sal Lamar asked the doctor to relieve Mariah's suffering with medication. Mariah is reported to have "died with her legs and arms drawn up like a cat's in its death grip."

Ultimately, we find that Hulda and her sisters in the community's eyes were witches, and they were dangerous. Hulda found herself executed by "traditional" laws as opposed to any contemporary legal process.