The Bethel Ohio Witch Trials

If you drove through the village of Bethel, Ohio today, you would think that it’s just one of many quaint little farming towns the state has to offer. However, this area was the sight of the only recorded witch trail in Ohio with, thankfully, a happy ending. 

In 1805 (some sources say 1803), two years after Ohio became a state and only 7 years into the towns history, the two eldest daughters of the Hildebrand family began acting in such a manner that was deemed not normal for them or ladies of their age. They would cry, scream, speak of beings only they could see. These episodes would be brought on by the coming of night, and eventually the family and town started to believe they were overtaken by evil spirits.

In an attempt to exorcise the evil spirits, the family performed a ritual (ironic). A bag full of Linsey-woolsey, a thick spongy material made of linen and wool, was made as kind of a binding bag. The bag was held by members of the family, while the others performed a ceremony that was supposed to see the witch trapped inside the sack. Once the ceremony had concluded, the family laid the sack on the porch, chopped it up into tiny pieces with an axe and then burned the remains. 

Wouldn’t you know it, this ritual didn’t work and the two daughters continued to be tormented by fits of screams and unseen forces. It was then that the finger pointing began, Nancy Evans, an elderly woman was the accused.

The Evans family were the Hildebrand’s closest neighbors, Nancy reportedly owned a black cat (how classic) and that was all it took for the townsfolk to begin keeping their distance from the Evans family. Scared for their daughter’s safety, the Hildebrand family went to the Justice of the Peace for help.

Being a new state, Ohio had no laws for or against witchcraft. The Justice of the Peace, knowing of the witch trails made famous in New England, decided that they would perform a Witch Weighing. You would weigh the accused against the Bible, if she was lighter than the book, she was a witch, if she was heavier, then she was in fact not a witch.

Nancy agreed to the weighing and naturally, she was much heavier than the Bible. Thankfully this witch trial had a less bleak ending than many did in the late 1600s. 

Not long after the weighing, the Nancy family moved to the Brown County area, most likely to distance themselves from the town that tried to accuse one of their own. Nancy would live the rest of her life here and would die of old age as a respected member of the community.

There are no reports found that stated whether or not the Hildebrand daughters continued to be tormented by unseen spirits or if this was just a classic case of bored people in the days of old.