A friend told me that as he read this in the Philadelphia Inquirer, he wondered where it was going as an oped, as that's the section it was in. Of course, he found out. As a teacher of adults who want to write, I try to get them to think in terms of how material might be used. Though "Witch-Hunt in Philadelphia" could have been a straight historical piece, I saw the historical incident as being a way to show that the witch-hunt mentality still exists, and that's the approach I chose to write this in.

     Philadelphia, William Penn's City of Brotherly Love, has its own historical witch-hunt to regret.  Mention witches, and most people think of thirteenth and fourteenth century Europe, England, and Scotland, and our own country's infamous Salem witch-hunts of 1692.

     Yet not quite a hundred years later, during the very weeks in 1787 that fifty-five statesmen convened in Philadelphia to draft the United States Constitution, records reveal that a mob hunted down and eventually killed a woman accused of being a witch.

     Those accused of being witches were usually women -- said to have the ability to create sorcery such as causing people to become ill, causing a cow's milk to turn sour, making crops fail, etc.  Punishments were varied.  Among the relatively mild ones were subjection to jeering, being made to wear red crosses on their breasts, being scratched or cut (preferably on the forehead, the cut frequently being in the shape of a cross), spending time yoked in public stocks, and being immured, that is, shut up in a small cell and fed bread and water.  Another common trick was trial by water.  Bound hand and foot, the accused witch would be thrown into deep water; if innocent she was supposed to sink, if guilty, float, a peculiar calculation that disposed of her in any case.  Witches destined for the ultimate punishment met their deaths by burning, by having stakes driven into their hearts, or by being pelted with sticks or stones.

     By 1787, witchcraft was no longer a legal, recognizable offence.  Prosecutions in the colonies, in fact,  had stopped around the turn of the century.  But on May 5, 1787, a witch-hunt began. 

     As local newspapers carried reports of activities of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the Pennsylvania Packet of May 11 also reported that a supposed witch was attacked "by some persons of the vicinity...Upon the supposition she was a witch, she was cut in the forehead, according to ancient and immemorial custom, by those persons.  This old body long since laboured under suspicions of sorcery, and was viewed as the pest and nightmare of society in those parts of the town where she had hitherto lived; she was commonly called, at Spring Garden, Korbmacher [basket-maker], by the Germans: and on that score, on the present and other occasions, unfortunately became the victim of vengeance of some individuals, who afforded her the most pointed abuse which so misled a passion and resentment, could possibly impose and inflict."

     The paper noted that Korbmacher, evidently fearing for her life, had appealed to the authorities for protection.  The paper went on to denounce superstition, declaring it had no place "in the free and civilized parts of independent America."

     That, and other papers, carried few details of the attack on Korbmacher.  It was the custom for papers to merely copy items from the first paper that published it.  Investigative reporting had yet to come.  Philadelphia was swept with a heat wave the early weeks of July, and while the worthy delegates sweated over the wording of the Constitution, the citizenry dealt with dry fields, dead horses and dogs, and hot tempers.  Just as the heat abated, on July 10, a mob at New Market viciously attacked Korbmacher again.

     The Pennsylvania Evening Herald story read, "We are sorry to hear that the poor woman who suffered so much some time ago, under the imputation of being a witch, has again been attacked by an ignorant and inhuman mob.  On Tuesday last she was carried through several of the streets, and was hooted and pelted as she passed along.  A gentleman who interfered in her favour was greatly insulted, while those who recited the innumerable instances of her art, were listened to with curiousity and attention."   No details were given of the charges being hurled at the unfortunate old woman.

     Eight days later, Korbmacher was dead.  The newspapers reported, "It must seriously affect every humane mind that in consequence of the barbarous treatment lately suffered by the poor old woman, called a Witch, she died on Wednesday last.  It is hoped that every step will be taken to bring the offenders to punishment, in justice to the wretched victim, as well as the violated laws of reason and society." 

     After the July 10 attack on Korbmacher, several concerned citizens had expressed a willingness to testify against her tormentors, and an unspecified lawyer had offered to handle the case on her behalf.  On October 27, coincidentally as Halloween, the "witching-eve," approached, the Pennsylvania Evening Herald reported that the case had been heard at the October 22-26 "city sessions" held by the Mayor's Court.  The outcome of the case was not given, perhaps because the reporter was distracted by the peculiar tack taken by the presiding judge.  (As the City Archives for the docket of that court are missing for 1786 to 1788, only newspaper accounts are available.)

     As if Philadelphia's conscience hadn't enough to bear, the judge's frivolous statement has to be added to the sad story.  Following a general round-up of cases heard, the paper noted, "One woman, who had been indicted for some violence offered to the person of the unhappy creature that was lately attacked by a mob under the imputation of being a witch, maintained the justice of that opinion, and insinuated her belief that her only child sickened and died, under the malignant influence of a charm.  Upon which the presiding Justice made the following observation -- what! that a poor wretch whose sorrows and infirmities have sunk her eyes into her head, and whose features are streaked with the wrinkles of extreme old age, should therefore become an object of terror, and be endowed with the powers of witchcraft -- it is an idle and absurd superstition!  If, however, some damsels that I have seen, animated with the bloom of youth, and equipped with all the grace of beauty, if such women were indicted for the offence, the charge might receive some countenance, for they are indeed calculated to charm and bewitch us.  But age and infirmity, though they deserve our compassion, have nothing in them that can alarm or fascinate our nature."

     No mention is made in the newspapers of the time, nor in known diaries and letters of the Constitutional lawmakers, that they were aware of what was happening on their doorstep.  While Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Madison, and others were drafting laws to guarantee fair trials to those accused of crimes, a lawless mob attacked and killed an old woman.

     That witch-hunt is history, documented on the yellowed and dusty papers of more than two hundred years ago.  It wouldn't happen today.  Or could it?  The thirteenth and fourteenth century mobs were impelled by a motto taken from the biblical injunction, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."  But a "witch" is in the eye of the beholder; mobs and zealots design their own definitions.

     In the post Civil War South, crosses were burned while white-sheeted men hung innocent victims because of their skin-color.  In the mid-twentieth century, Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist zeal sent him and his mob of supporters on a modern version of the witch-hunt.  In the Philadelphia and tri-state Delaware Valley area, there have been several cross-burnings within the past years.  Political campaigns are built on the witch-hunt syndrome, as are the motivations and actions of many seeking to climb the corporate ladder.  People are jeered at, and sometimes even physically attacked, for their religious beliefs, work ethics, and political views -- for their possible "influence" over personal agendas.

     Male or female, those vulnerable of being accused as witches -- the modern victims of the hunt -- have to keep their eyes open for the hunters.  Poor old Korbmacher, with the founding fathers right on the scene, couldn't save herself.  Can Billy Penn atop City Hall provide a symbol to protect today's Philadelphians "in the free and civilized parts of independent America?"