Jane “Naut” Kannif
The Clarksville Witch 1816
Some newspapers take out-of print history books and reprint them little by little to satisfy the demand for local background This seems like a good idea, but it does nothing to correct the compounded errors of the past, nor does it turn up anything new. If the story of the Clarkstown trial for witchcraft were to be reprinted, for Instance, is the version in Tompkins' history truer than the one in flreen's?
What people remember of the story is that Naut Kannif, an sccentric old lady who lived north of West Nyack, cast incantations on the normal activities of the community and was tried as a witch. Local farmers threatened to bind her hand and foot and cast her into a mill pond near what is now Demarest Mill Rd. to see if she sank or floated. If she sank, their suspicions she was a witch would have been verified. Instead, they weighed her in the mill scales against a huge Bible, and she tipped the scales to win acquittal.
Mrs. Kannif was the widow of a Scottish physician. Part of the evidence that led to the neighbors'suspicions was that she had much knowledge of medicinal herbs, was reticent and morose, and spent her time caring for two cats, a parrot and a son by her deceased husband named Tobias Lowerie, who was said to be as unsocial as she was.
Some take relish in boasting that the state's last trial for witchcraft took place in West Nyack. Connecticut historians like to say no witches were ever tried in that state. It makes Connecticut feel virtuous, Massachusetts, on the other hand, doesn't deny its witchcraft scare. Everyone to his taste. In spite of Connecticut's protest, Mercy Desborough of Fair-field seems to have been charged with "familiarity with Satan" in 1692. The court clerk testified she "swam like a cork" when bound and thrown into the water, but she was convicted at a later trial and saved from death only by neighbors'petitions. New York's first witchcraft trial was in 1665, when a Long Island couple were accused of sorcery and witchcraft in a duly constituted court There was no medievil folre-rol of giving the accused a water test. They were ordered to "be of good behaviour" and to appear at every session of the court and were acquitted in 1668. Of there were other witchcraft trials between then and the ordeal at West Nyack, they never made much stir.
That the Clarkstown incident happened can not be doubted. The other two instances mentioned were actual court cases. Neither of the versions of what happened in Clarkstown show that the session in Auert Polhemus' grist mill (or was it Pye's fulling mill?) was anything more than a mock trial. To be utterly fair, the "trial" of Clarkstown's "witch" should atleast be referred to in quotation marks.
The Story Grew:
Although a good story shouldn't be spoiled, it must be pointed out that not everything makes sense the way the tale is told. Like wine, it has improved with age, as such stories do.
Dr. Frank R Green, a newspaper man as well as a physician, heard the county's tales from his patients as he made his rounds, and he published a Rockland County history in 1886. The yarn about Naut Kannif was still fresh enough in his time so he could have heard it from an eye-witness, or one inclined to boast that his father had tried a witch. In his version, there is nothing about threatening to throw Mrs. Kannif into the mill pond. That was added when Justice Arthur S. Tompkins' history was published in 1902.
When it comes to describing the Bible against w which Naut Kannif was weighed, Green mentions a "brass - bound, board - covered Bible," which Is what many in the county were like. "Bound in boards" meant centuries ago what, it said, but when books became common the "board" was cardhoard.
In Tompkins' version the Bible changed to one bound with iron, with wooden covers and a chain to carry it by. I have just weighed a brassbound Dutch Bible used in that period in Rockland County, and it weighs 11 and one-half pounds, complete with all the chapters of the Apocrypha, Green says Naut's weight sent the balance pan to the ceiling with a mighty bound, and no wonder.
Miss Cornelia Bedell's history combines details from both versions and definitely dates the "trial" 1816. Green says it was before 1816, and gives Naut's real name as Jane. Tompkins calls her Hannah.
Records of the Clarkstown Reformed Church show that, children of Tobias Lowerie and his wife, Antje Hartje or Hanse, were baptised in the 1780's like those of everyone else. That gives at least a trace of evidence to indicate that Tobias wasn't a retarded and unsocial as he has been pictured.
As for Naut, Jane, or Hannah, she was probably a real character. Her actions, her appearance, and her ususual knowledge of healing arts, together with her fondness for pets, no doubt led some people to joke about her as a witch. It is said that when Naut heard this, she played along with the idea.
What May Have Happened:
Purely as guess-work, to take the fanciful elements out of the story, this is what may have taken place.
Naut probably made a frightful nuisance of herself when she took up with the notion that she was really a witch, No doubt children ran screaming to their mothers when she appeared, and the Clarkstown huysvrouws told their husbands something had to be done about it. So they must have decided to scare the daylights out of the old lady, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't too bright in all respects.
A posse led her by night to the mill. With or without the semblance of a judge or jury, they very likely tied up the old granddam and threatened to toss her into the pond without intending to do so. She would know this was the fate of witches. But to show her she wasn't really the witch she thought herself, they staged the scene of weighing her against the Bible. Anyone would know the Bible couldn't outweigh a woman 10 times heavier except someone who felt herself able to fly on a broomstick. The test set her free, and evidently curbed her activities.
What occurred shortly afterward kept the tale alive. A child in the Pye family is said to have been crushed to death under- the massive wooden hammer used to beat cloth in the fulling mill. It probably brought thoughts of retribution to those who had staged the mock trial, and perhaps some felt they really had tried a witch after all.
"Many of the Dutch farmers in Clarkstown had inherited a belief in the supernatural from their ancestors in Holland," writes Tompkins The evidence doesn't support this. Most of the "spookies," or tales of ghosts and goblins, seem to have been born in the imaginations of slaves in local families. Witchcraft accusations and trials were not a part of Dutch times, and were ususual in Dutch localities. It is said Mrs. Kannif or Tobias threatened to take her persecutors to court over the incident in the
mill, but nothing came of it. At least this shows the "trial" had no legal standing.
So the story of Clarkstown's "witch" remains intact, but in more believable terms. The hazing of a troublesome old lady may be something of a benchmark as a form of psychiatric treatment, but it was not really "the last trial of witchcraft in the stae of New York" although many will keep on calling it that and improving the details as the years go on.
In the late 50's there was an operetta-play called "Clarkstown Witch" written by Augustus Nowak, performed several times in Rockland County.
The Clarksville Witch 1816
Some newspapers take out-of print history books and reprint them little by little to satisfy the demand for local background This seems like a good idea, but it does nothing to correct the compounded errors of the past, nor does it turn up anything new. If the story of the Clarkstown trial for witchcraft were to be reprinted, for Instance, is the version in Tompkins' history truer than the one in flreen's?
What people remember of the story is that Naut Kannif, an sccentric old lady who lived north of West Nyack, cast incantations on the normal activities of the community and was tried as a witch. Local farmers threatened to bind her hand and foot and cast her into a mill pond near what is now Demarest Mill Rd. to see if she sank or floated. If she sank, their suspicions she was a witch would have been verified. Instead, they weighed her in the mill scales against a huge Bible, and she tipped the scales to win acquittal.
Mrs. Kannif was the widow of a Scottish physician. Part of the evidence that led to the neighbors'suspicions was that she had much knowledge of medicinal herbs, was reticent and morose, and spent her time caring for two cats, a parrot and a son by her deceased husband named Tobias Lowerie, who was said to be as unsocial as she was.
Some take relish in boasting that the state's last trial for witchcraft took place in West Nyack. Connecticut historians like to say no witches were ever tried in that state. It makes Connecticut feel virtuous, Massachusetts, on the other hand, doesn't deny its witchcraft scare. Everyone to his taste. In spite of Connecticut's protest, Mercy Desborough of Fair-field seems to have been charged with "familiarity with Satan" in 1692. The court clerk testified she "swam like a cork" when bound and thrown into the water, but she was convicted at a later trial and saved from death only by neighbors'petitions. New York's first witchcraft trial was in 1665, when a Long Island couple were accused of sorcery and witchcraft in a duly constituted court There was no medievil folre-rol of giving the accused a water test. They were ordered to "be of good behaviour" and to appear at every session of the court and were acquitted in 1668. Of there were other witchcraft trials between then and the ordeal at West Nyack, they never made much stir.
That the Clarkstown incident happened can not be doubted. The other two instances mentioned were actual court cases. Neither of the versions of what happened in Clarkstown show that the session in Auert Polhemus' grist mill (or was it Pye's fulling mill?) was anything more than a mock trial. To be utterly fair, the "trial" of Clarkstown's "witch" should atleast be referred to in quotation marks.
The Story Grew:
Although a good story shouldn't be spoiled, it must be pointed out that not everything makes sense the way the tale is told. Like wine, it has improved with age, as such stories do.
Dr. Frank R Green, a newspaper man as well as a physician, heard the county's tales from his patients as he made his rounds, and he published a Rockland County history in 1886. The yarn about Naut Kannif was still fresh enough in his time so he could have heard it from an eye-witness, or one inclined to boast that his father had tried a witch. In his version, there is nothing about threatening to throw Mrs. Kannif into the mill pond. That was added when Justice Arthur S. Tompkins' history was published in 1902.
When it comes to describing the Bible against w which Naut Kannif was weighed, Green mentions a "brass - bound, board - covered Bible," which Is what many in the county were like. "Bound in boards" meant centuries ago what, it said, but when books became common the "board" was cardhoard.
In Tompkins' version the Bible changed to one bound with iron, with wooden covers and a chain to carry it by. I have just weighed a brassbound Dutch Bible used in that period in Rockland County, and it weighs 11 and one-half pounds, complete with all the chapters of the Apocrypha, Green says Naut's weight sent the balance pan to the ceiling with a mighty bound, and no wonder.
Miss Cornelia Bedell's history combines details from both versions and definitely dates the "trial" 1816. Green says it was before 1816, and gives Naut's real name as Jane. Tompkins calls her Hannah.
Records of the Clarkstown Reformed Church show that, children of Tobias Lowerie and his wife, Antje Hartje or Hanse, were baptised in the 1780's like those of everyone else. That gives at least a trace of evidence to indicate that Tobias wasn't a retarded and unsocial as he has been pictured.
As for Naut, Jane, or Hannah, she was probably a real character. Her actions, her appearance, and her ususual knowledge of healing arts, together with her fondness for pets, no doubt led some people to joke about her as a witch. It is said that when Naut heard this, she played along with the idea.
What May Have Happened:
Purely as guess-work, to take the fanciful elements out of the story, this is what may have taken place.
Naut probably made a frightful nuisance of herself when she took up with the notion that she was really a witch, No doubt children ran screaming to their mothers when she appeared, and the Clarkstown huysvrouws told their husbands something had to be done about it. So they must have decided to scare the daylights out of the old lady, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't too bright in all respects.
A posse led her by night to the mill. With or without the semblance of a judge or jury, they very likely tied up the old granddam and threatened to toss her into the pond without intending to do so. She would know this was the fate of witches. But to show her she wasn't really the witch she thought herself, they staged the scene of weighing her against the Bible. Anyone would know the Bible couldn't outweigh a woman 10 times heavier except someone who felt herself able to fly on a broomstick. The test set her free, and evidently curbed her activities.
What occurred shortly afterward kept the tale alive. A child in the Pye family is said to have been crushed to death under- the massive wooden hammer used to beat cloth in the fulling mill. It probably brought thoughts of retribution to those who had staged the mock trial, and perhaps some felt they really had tried a witch after all.
"Many of the Dutch farmers in Clarkstown had inherited a belief in the supernatural from their ancestors in Holland," writes Tompkins The evidence doesn't support this. Most of the "spookies," or tales of ghosts and goblins, seem to have been born in the imaginations of slaves in local families. Witchcraft accusations and trials were not a part of Dutch times, and were ususual in Dutch localities. It is said Mrs. Kannif or Tobias threatened to take her persecutors to court over the incident in the
mill, but nothing came of it. At least this shows the "trial" had no legal standing.
So the story of Clarkstown's "witch" remains intact, but in more believable terms. The hazing of a troublesome old lady may be something of a benchmark as a form of psychiatric treatment, but it was not really "the last trial of witchcraft in the stae of New York" although many will keep on calling it that and improving the details as the years go on.
In the late 50's there was an operetta-play called "Clarkstown Witch" written by Augustus Nowak, performed several times in Rockland County.
Jane “Naut” Kannif
The Clarksville Witch 1816
Some newspapers take out-of print history books and reprint them little by little to satisfy the demand for local background This seems like a good idea, but it does nothing to correct the compounded errors of the past, nor does it turn up anything new. If the story of the Clarkstown trial for witchcraft were to be reprinted, for Instance, is the version in Tompkins' history truer than the one in flreen's?
What people remember of the story is that Naut Kannif, an sccentric old lady who lived north of West Nyack, cast incantations on the normal activities of the community and was tried as a witch. Local farmers threatened to bind her hand and foot and cast her into a mill pond near what is now Demarest Mill Rd. to see if she sank or floated. If she sank, their suspicions she was a witch would have been verified. Instead, they weighed her in the mill scales against a huge Bible, and she tipped the scales to win acquittal.
Mrs. Kannif was the widow of a Scottish physician. Part of the evidence that led to the neighbors'suspicions was that she had much knowledge of medicinal herbs, was reticent and morose, and spent her time caring for two cats, a parrot and a son by her deceased husband named Tobias Lowerie, who was said to be as unsocial as she was.
Some take relish in boasting that the state's last trial for witchcraft took place in West Nyack. Connecticut historians like to say no witches were ever tried in that state. It makes Connecticut feel virtuous, Massachusetts, on the other hand, doesn't deny its witchcraft scare. Everyone to his taste. In spite of Connecticut's protest, Mercy Desborough of Fair-field seems to have been charged with "familiarity with Satan" in 1692. The court clerk testified she "swam like a cork" when bound and thrown into the water, but she was convicted at a later trial and saved from death only by neighbors'petitions. New York's first witchcraft trial was in 1665, when a Long Island couple were accused of sorcery and witchcraft in a duly constituted court There was no medievil folre-rol of giving the accused a water test. They were ordered to "be of good behaviour" and to appear at every session of the court and were acquitted in 1668. Of there were other witchcraft trials between then and the ordeal at West Nyack, they never made much stir.
That the Clarkstown incident happened can not be doubted. The other two instances mentioned were actual court cases. Neither of the versions of what happened in Clarkstown show that the session in Auert Polhemus' grist mill (or was it Pye's fulling mill?) was anything more than a mock trial. To be utterly fair, the "trial" of Clarkstown's "witch" should atleast be referred to in quotation marks.
The Story Grew:
Although a good story shouldn't be spoiled, it must be pointed out that not everything makes sense the way the tale is told. Like wine, it has improved with age, as such stories do.
Dr. Frank R Green, a newspaper man as well as a physician, heard the county's tales from his patients as he made his rounds, and he published a Rockland County history in 1886. The yarn about Naut Kannif was still fresh enough in his time so he could have heard it from an eye-witness, or one inclined to boast that his father had tried a witch. In his version, there is nothing about threatening to throw Mrs. Kannif into the mill pond. That was added when Justice Arthur S. Tompkins' history was published in 1902.
When it comes to describing the Bible against w which Naut Kannif was weighed, Green mentions a "brass - bound, board - covered Bible," which Is what many in the county were like. "Bound in boards" meant centuries ago what, it said, but when books became common the "board" was cardhoard.
In Tompkins' version the Bible changed to one bound with iron, with wooden covers and a chain to carry it by. I have just weighed a brassbound Dutch Bible used in that period in Rockland County, and it weighs 11 and one-half pounds, complete with all the chapters of the Apocrypha, Green says Naut's weight sent the balance pan to the ceiling with a mighty bound, and no wonder.
Miss Cornelia Bedell's history combines details from both versions and definitely dates the "trial" 1816. Green says it was before 1816, and gives Naut's real name as Jane. Tompkins calls her Hannah.
Records of the Clarkstown Reformed Church show that, children of Tobias Lowerie and his wife, Antje Hartje or Hanse, were baptised in the 1780's like those of everyone else. That gives at least a trace of evidence to indicate that Tobias wasn't a retarded and unsocial as he has been pictured.
As for Naut, Jane, or Hannah, she was probably a real character. Her actions, her appearance, and her ususual knowledge of healing arts, together with her fondness for pets, no doubt led some people to joke about her as a witch. It is said that when Naut heard this, she played along with the idea.
What May Have Happened:
Purely as guess-work, to take the fanciful elements out of the story, this is what may have taken place.
Naut probably made a frightful nuisance of herself when she took up with the notion that she was really a witch, No doubt children ran screaming to their mothers when she appeared, and the Clarkstown huysvrouws told their husbands something had to be done about it. So they must have decided to scare the daylights out of the old lady, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't too bright in all respects.
A posse led her by night to the mill. With or without the semblance of a judge or jury, they very likely tied up the old granddam and threatened to toss her into the pond without intending to do so. She would know this was the fate of witches. But to show her she wasn't really the witch she thought herself, they staged the scene of weighing her against the Bible. Anyone would know the Bible couldn't outweigh a woman 10 times heavier except someone who felt herself able to fly on a broomstick. The test set her free, and evidently curbed her activities.
What occurred shortly afterward kept the tale alive. A child in the Pye family is said to have been crushed to death under- the massive wooden hammer used to beat cloth in the fulling mill. It probably brought thoughts of retribution to those who had staged the mock trial, and perhaps some felt they really had tried a witch after all.
"Many of the Dutch farmers in Clarkstown had inherited a belief in the supernatural from their ancestors in Holland," writes Tompkins The evidence doesn't support this. Most of the "spookies," or tales of ghosts and goblins, seem to have been born in the imaginations of slaves in local families. Witchcraft accusations and trials were not a part of Dutch times, and were ususual in Dutch localities. It is said Mrs. Kannif or Tobias threatened to take her persecutors to court over the incident in the
mill, but nothing came of it. At least this shows the "trial" had no legal standing.
So the story of Clarkstown's "witch" remains intact, but in more believable terms. The hazing of a troublesome old lady may be something of a benchmark as a form of psychiatric treatment, but it was not really "the last trial of witchcraft in the stae of New York" although many will keep on calling it that and improving the details as the years go on.
In the late 50's there was an operetta-play called "Clarkstown Witch" written by Augustus Nowak, performed several times in Rockland County.
The Clarksville Witch 1816
Some newspapers take out-of print history books and reprint them little by little to satisfy the demand for local background This seems like a good idea, but it does nothing to correct the compounded errors of the past, nor does it turn up anything new. If the story of the Clarkstown trial for witchcraft were to be reprinted, for Instance, is the version in Tompkins' history truer than the one in flreen's?
What people remember of the story is that Naut Kannif, an sccentric old lady who lived north of West Nyack, cast incantations on the normal activities of the community and was tried as a witch. Local farmers threatened to bind her hand and foot and cast her into a mill pond near what is now Demarest Mill Rd. to see if she sank or floated. If she sank, their suspicions she was a witch would have been verified. Instead, they weighed her in the mill scales against a huge Bible, and she tipped the scales to win acquittal.
Mrs. Kannif was the widow of a Scottish physician. Part of the evidence that led to the neighbors'suspicions was that she had much knowledge of medicinal herbs, was reticent and morose, and spent her time caring for two cats, a parrot and a son by her deceased husband named Tobias Lowerie, who was said to be as unsocial as she was.
Some take relish in boasting that the state's last trial for witchcraft took place in West Nyack. Connecticut historians like to say no witches were ever tried in that state. It makes Connecticut feel virtuous, Massachusetts, on the other hand, doesn't deny its witchcraft scare. Everyone to his taste. In spite of Connecticut's protest, Mercy Desborough of Fair-field seems to have been charged with "familiarity with Satan" in 1692. The court clerk testified she "swam like a cork" when bound and thrown into the water, but she was convicted at a later trial and saved from death only by neighbors'petitions. New York's first witchcraft trial was in 1665, when a Long Island couple were accused of sorcery and witchcraft in a duly constituted court There was no medievil folre-rol of giving the accused a water test. They were ordered to "be of good behaviour" and to appear at every session of the court and were acquitted in 1668. Of there were other witchcraft trials between then and the ordeal at West Nyack, they never made much stir.
That the Clarkstown incident happened can not be doubted. The other two instances mentioned were actual court cases. Neither of the versions of what happened in Clarkstown show that the session in Auert Polhemus' grist mill (or was it Pye's fulling mill?) was anything more than a mock trial. To be utterly fair, the "trial" of Clarkstown's "witch" should atleast be referred to in quotation marks.
The Story Grew:
Although a good story shouldn't be spoiled, it must be pointed out that not everything makes sense the way the tale is told. Like wine, it has improved with age, as such stories do.
Dr. Frank R Green, a newspaper man as well as a physician, heard the county's tales from his patients as he made his rounds, and he published a Rockland County history in 1886. The yarn about Naut Kannif was still fresh enough in his time so he could have heard it from an eye-witness, or one inclined to boast that his father had tried a witch. In his version, there is nothing about threatening to throw Mrs. Kannif into the mill pond. That was added when Justice Arthur S. Tompkins' history was published in 1902.
When it comes to describing the Bible against w which Naut Kannif was weighed, Green mentions a "brass - bound, board - covered Bible," which Is what many in the county were like. "Bound in boards" meant centuries ago what, it said, but when books became common the "board" was cardhoard.
In Tompkins' version the Bible changed to one bound with iron, with wooden covers and a chain to carry it by. I have just weighed a brassbound Dutch Bible used in that period in Rockland County, and it weighs 11 and one-half pounds, complete with all the chapters of the Apocrypha, Green says Naut's weight sent the balance pan to the ceiling with a mighty bound, and no wonder.
Miss Cornelia Bedell's history combines details from both versions and definitely dates the "trial" 1816. Green says it was before 1816, and gives Naut's real name as Jane. Tompkins calls her Hannah.
Records of the Clarkstown Reformed Church show that, children of Tobias Lowerie and his wife, Antje Hartje or Hanse, were baptised in the 1780's like those of everyone else. That gives at least a trace of evidence to indicate that Tobias wasn't a retarded and unsocial as he has been pictured.
As for Naut, Jane, or Hannah, she was probably a real character. Her actions, her appearance, and her ususual knowledge of healing arts, together with her fondness for pets, no doubt led some people to joke about her as a witch. It is said that when Naut heard this, she played along with the idea.
What May Have Happened:
Purely as guess-work, to take the fanciful elements out of the story, this is what may have taken place.
Naut probably made a frightful nuisance of herself when she took up with the notion that she was really a witch, No doubt children ran screaming to their mothers when she appeared, and the Clarkstown huysvrouws told their husbands something had to be done about it. So they must have decided to scare the daylights out of the old lady, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't too bright in all respects.
A posse led her by night to the mill. With or without the semblance of a judge or jury, they very likely tied up the old granddam and threatened to toss her into the pond without intending to do so. She would know this was the fate of witches. But to show her she wasn't really the witch she thought herself, they staged the scene of weighing her against the Bible. Anyone would know the Bible couldn't outweigh a woman 10 times heavier except someone who felt herself able to fly on a broomstick. The test set her free, and evidently curbed her activities.
What occurred shortly afterward kept the tale alive. A child in the Pye family is said to have been crushed to death under- the massive wooden hammer used to beat cloth in the fulling mill. It probably brought thoughts of retribution to those who had staged the mock trial, and perhaps some felt they really had tried a witch after all.
"Many of the Dutch farmers in Clarkstown had inherited a belief in the supernatural from their ancestors in Holland," writes Tompkins The evidence doesn't support this. Most of the "spookies," or tales of ghosts and goblins, seem to have been born in the imaginations of slaves in local families. Witchcraft accusations and trials were not a part of Dutch times, and were ususual in Dutch localities. It is said Mrs. Kannif or Tobias threatened to take her persecutors to court over the incident in the
mill, but nothing came of it. At least this shows the "trial" had no legal standing.
So the story of Clarkstown's "witch" remains intact, but in more believable terms. The hazing of a troublesome old lady may be something of a benchmark as a form of psychiatric treatment, but it was not really "the last trial of witchcraft in the stae of New York" although many will keep on calling it that and improving the details as the years go on.
In the late 50's there was an operetta-play called "Clarkstown Witch" written by Augustus Nowak, performed several times in Rockland County.
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