Andover Bewitched: The First Witch
Who was the first person accused of witchcraft in Andover?
In 1665, Andover resident Job Tyler accused John Godfrey of witchcraft. After at least three accusations, Godfrey was still not found guilty. Job Tyler and John Godfrey’s story is part of Andover’s early history and sets the scene for the later witch trials. Curious about the trials in 1692? Check out the first entry in the “Andover Bewitched” Series!
Job Tyler was Andover’s “first” settler…
English Puritans settled Andover in 1646, when they purchased the land known as “Cochichawicke” for six pounds and a coat.1 This agreement, made between the English and an Indigenous man named Cutshamache, made space for a few Native Americans to remain and for the English to begin settling and dividing the rest of the land among themselves.2
When the English began to settle what would become Andover, Job Tyler was already living on the land without an official legal claim; he was a squatter.3 Tyler stayed after the town was established and kept his house in the Boxford area of what would become Andover.4 He lived with a wife, Mary, and had several children, Moses, Hopestill, Mary, John, and Sam. Moses would eventually inherit Job’s land and built a new house there.
From his early claim to the land and throughout his life, Job Tyler conflicted with the town. He spent a lot of time in the courts; for example, suing and counter-suing Andover blacksmith Thomas Chandler after disagreements over Hopestill Tyler’s apprenticeship to Chandler.5 Because Chandler was wealthier and more well-established in the town, Tyler was not well-liked.
John Godfrey was Andover’s first alleged witch…
Meanwhile, John Godfrey was a fellow outsider. Godfrey was a roving herdsman; he took many odd jobs throughout Andover, Haverhill, and other nearby towns. He didn’t marry, and doesn’t seem to have settled in any one town for a significant length of time.
Godfrey, like Tyler, appeared frequently in court. He sued his neighbors, people he had worked for, and other townsfolk extensively, usually in cases of debt or for “slander.” He wasn’t only a plaintiff; he also appeared as a defendant in cases of “suborning a witness” and “lying.”6 He often won the cases in which he was a plaintiff, and even won some when he was a defendant.
Understandably, Godfrey earned his bad reputation; he was quick to sue, moved frequently, and seems to have been personally disagreeable too, based on depositions against him.
Historian John Demos writes that the earliest accusations of witchcraft against John Godfrey were in 1640. These were not brought to court, or if they were, the records no longer remain. But an accusation of witchcraft was very serious.
In the seventeenth century, the term “witch” did not necessarily mean someone with magical powers or someone who cast spells. Instead, it referred to someone who worked with the Devil, either by choice or through coercion. A witch’s covenant with the Devil might look supernatural, like a spectral image of them appearing to their neighbors, or a victim falling ill for no visible reason.
In 1641, Godfrey brought two cases of slander against his neighbors, probably for murmurings about his supposed witchcraft.7 Godfrey won both cases.
Job Tyler accused John Godfrey again and again…
Job Tyler accused John Godfrey of witchcraft at least twice, once in 1659, and again in 1665. After years of failed accusations, Tyler’s testimony finally went to court in 1665.8
This time, Tyler brought a fellow Andover resident with him, John Remington. Tyler claimed that Godfrey had afflicted his wife, Mary Tyler, and that he’d summoned an animal familiar. Godfrey allegedly had a familiar “like a black bird, to wit as big as a pigeon, come down at the door of their house which did fly about.”9 Since familiars were associated with witches, this did not look good for John Godfrey.
John Remington, the fellow plaintiff, claimed that Godfrey had brought supernatural harm upon his son. According to his deposition, Godfrey and Remington had had an argument over the care of Remington’s family cattle, and afterward, Remington’s son fell from his horse and witnessed Godfrey’s crow familiar.10
The 1665 case was tried in Boston before the Massachusetts governor, Simon Bradstreet. Eighteen witnesses from Andover, Haverhill, and nearby testified against John Godfrey. Almost all spoke negatively about Godfrey, even those who had never been involved in court cases with him. Andover’s Reverend Francis Dane spoke in Godfrey’s defense, as Dane would do again during the 1692 hysteria.
But John Godfrey was acquitted…
Despite the significant testimony against him, John Godfrey once again escaped indictment. He was acquitted and released from prison.
According to the University of Michigan’s William Clements Library, “while the court found [Godfrey] ‘suspitiously Guilty of witchcraft,’ they did not find him ‘legally Guilty.’”11 He was free, though the stain of the accusation would follow him.
After his release from prison, Godfrey sued Job Tyler for libel and won.
But, Godfrey did not live much longer, dying in 1675; leaving behind no family and a small amount of property, bequeathed to those who cared for him at the end of his life.
Why was John Godfrey able to escape the death penalty for witchcraft, when so many others would be brought to trial? We may not ever know for sure. A few possibilities: he was certainly a good litigant, as he was very familiar with the courts and won many of the cases he brought against his neighbors.12 He was itinerant, moving from town to town for his whole life, so no single town had complete responsibility for him. It’s possible that Job Tyler’s bad reputation in town weakened the strength of the accusation against Godfrey.
Or, maybe it was simply that the town and its residents were not swept up in the same hysteria as would occur in 1692. Similar testimonies were brought forth during the 1692 trials and held up as fact amid the paranoia of the trials.
In any case, John Godfrey’s lucky escape shows an interesting view into the court system involved in the witch trials. What could have happened if, in 1692, logic had prevailed?
More to come…
Stay tuned for more entries of Andover Bewitched!
If you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the trials you’d like to learn more about, leave a comment! I’m excited to hear from you.
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Thank you for reading!
— Toni
Juliet Haines Mofford, Andover Massachusetts: Historical Selections from Four Centuries (Merrimack Valley Preservation Press, 2004): 9.
For more on Cutshamache, see https://peabody.andover.edu/2021/05/13/cutshamache-and-cochichawick/
See Charlotte Helen Abbott, Early Records of the Tyler Family of Andover at the Memorial Hall Library or at the Andover Center for History and Culture. Also: Bruce Tyler, The Tyler Family and The Salem Witchcraft Trials. See PDF here.
See Bill Dalton, Dalton column: Job Tyler, Andover's original pioneer? (2013).
Mofford, 18.
John Demos, “John Godfrey and His Neighbors: Witchcraft and the Social Web in Colonial Massachusetts” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1976): 242-265.
Demos. See also John Demos, Entertaining Satan : Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (Oxford University Press USA, 2004).
Frederick C. Drake, “Witchcraft in the American Colonies, 1647-62” American Quarterly, Winter, 1968, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter, 1968), pp. 694-725.
Mofford, 27.
Demos. See also Samuel Drake, Annals of witchcraft in New England, and elsewhere in the United States, from their first settlement (1869).
See Demos, “John Godfrey and His Neighbors” for more on this theory.
We are really interested in this series. We live on Foster’s Pond, close to where the accused Ann Foster resided. But of even more relevance to us is that we are direct descendants of three Andover residents who were accused and jailed: Mary (Clements) Osgood, Deliverance (Hazeltine) Dane, and Edward Farrington. We are also direct descendants of Rev. Francis Dane and Hannah (Allen) Holt, sister of Martha Carrier, and related to numerous people who were victimized by the events of 1692. Wish there were a sprinkling of plaques throughout the towns (Andover and North Andover) to memorialize either where people lived or where specific events occurred. Bob and Diane Hanscom
Hi. I was seeing if anyone from the Andover Center was still actively responding to inquiries here. I am actually a descendent of the Tylers. My paternal grandmother Charlene Tyler passed away when I was a child. I am trying to find some living Tyler women.