Witch Duck Creek in Virginia, an oil painting by Joshua Shaw.
After hunting for the ancestors on VirginiaPioneers.net and reading some old last wills and testaments, I discovered some pretty interesting stories! Search through deeds, tax records, wills, and estates opens the door to many wondrous stories! However, it would be best to read all the wills during the period in which your ancestor resided in a specific county. The reason neighbors, relatives, and friends of your ancestors help to link more kinfolks. Example: Some of the earliest Colonial Wills and Deeds mention relatives in England and other European countries.
During Colonial days, Witchduck Point was known as WitchDuck Creek. It was located in the Lynnhaven River near Virginia Beach, Virginia. This site is historically known as the site of Grace Sherwood's witchcraft trial in 1706.
Grace White Sherwood (1660–1740), known as the Witch of Pungo, is the last person known to have been convicted of witchcraft in Virginia. Pungo was a sandy community in the southern portion of Virginia Beach. It derives its name from a local Indian tribe, the Machipungo, a branch of the Chesapeake tribe.
Alexander Spotswood (1676–1740) had accomplished himself as a British Army officer and explorer. Also, he was appointed as the Colonial Governor of Virginia for twelve years. The enterprising Spotswood also led expeditions west of the mountains, thus establishing the Crown’s dominion between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.
He was also preoccupied with making sea routes safe against piracy. In 1718, during his office as governor, the famous pirate Blackbeard was hunted down and killed. Yet, one might question his involvement in the dunking of a potential witch!
The Governor was en route to Virginia Beach to Christianize the Indians when, instead, he discovered himself participating in a water dunk test to determine whether a woman named Grace Sherwood was a witch.
As he arrived on July 10, 1706, he witnessed the trial of Grace Sherwood, who was accused of witchcraft and forced to endure suffering. The county justices ordered her “to be tried in the water by ducking.”
The test involved binding Sherwood’s hands and feet and throwing her into a body of water. It was believed she would sink if she were innocent because the water — a pure element — had accepted her; if she were guilty, she would float. Sherwood floated, was checked for physical marks that seemingly confirmed her status as a witch, and then convicted of the crime of witchcraft.
The tests were duly applied at the insistence of a jury of old women, and after these hags delivered the ambiguous verdict that she was “not like them,” poor Grace Sherwood was “ put into the water “ to drown. But she disappointed them by swimming!
The old women were disgusted, and, shaking their heads, they ordered Grace to be secured with irons and committed to jail. The poor witch went away, weeping no doubt, to endure her punishment.
This grotesque scene occurred in 1706, and the spot where the only Virginia witch was put into water is still known as the “ Witch Duck.”
Grace survived her witch ordeals and lived to the ripe old age of 80 years!
Comments: Grace Sherwood died in 1740 in Prince Anne County. She was the wife of John Sherwood of Muddy Creek, who died in 1752 in Lynnhaven Parish, Princess Anne County, Virginia, and left the plantation of 144 acres to his son, James Sherwood, the land “legally gotten” after the decease of his mother, Grace Sherwood. Other bequests were made to children Joshua, Margaret, Mary, and Sarah Sherwood. John Sherwood was probably the son of James Sherwood, who died intestate in 1701.
Source: Princess Anne County Wills and Estates published on VirginiaPioneers.net