Rachel Haffield Clinton Arrested for Witchcraft, May 28, 1692

Everything about Rachel Clinton’s life went wrong, and in her old age, she became a beggar and a ward of the town of Ipswich. She was an easy target for the witchcraft hysteria that spread from Salem throughout Essex County. On May 28, 1692, Rachel Clinton was arrested and was kept in the Ipswich or Salem jail, shackled with iron fetters.

Rachel Clinton was born in 1629 in Sudbury, Suffolk, England, to Richard and Martha Haffield. They moved to the Chebacco section of Ipswich, where their home was near the Essex transfer station on Landing Road, and Richard also owned a 100-acre farm, near “Haffield’s Bridge” which crossed the Castle Neck River on Old Essex Road.

Richard Clinton died in 1639, and in 1655, the Town Record has the entry, “sold to Widow Hafield four rods of ground by the corner of William Averill’s fence, near the Mill Dam, for twelve pence, to build a little house on, allowing no privilege of a house lot to it” (no privilege of commonage). The house location, as described in Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters, was between the Ipswich River and South Main Street in the approximate vicinity of the Samuel Dutch House. The early dam was several feet upriver from the present EBSCO dam.

In 1665, at the age of 36, Rachel Haffield married a man 14 years her junior named Lawrence Clinton. Clinton was a servant to Robert Cross, and the two men set up a scam. Rachel agreed to marry Clinton, but to set him free, she turned over her inheritance to Robert Cross. Soon after, she wrote of being “destitute of money and friends.”

In 1667, Lawrence Clinton was found guilty of fornication with Mary Greely, and was charged with financial responsibility for the child. At about the same time, Rachel filed charges against John Clarke that he had “lain with her.” She retracted the charge, but the court nonetheless sentenced Rachel to be whipped.

From 1671 to 1676, Rachel and Lawrence were brought into court several times for living separately. The court ordered him to provide her 2 shillings a week, to lodge with her at least once a week, and ordered Rachel to do her “duties” toward him.

In 1677, Lawrence Clinton was charged with fornication with Mary Wooden, and they were both sentenced to be whipped. Clinton left town with Mary Wooden and their two children from that relationship. Rachel Clinton filed for divorce, but soon after, she was imprisoned for adultery with John Ford “on suspicion of uncleanliness and other evil practices.” By 1680, Rachel had become a beggar and a ward of the town. On April 21st, 1692, the following summons was issued by Thomas Wade, Ipswich town clerk:

“To Sargent John Choate, senior, To Jonas Gregory, To James Burnam, all of Ipswich, Mary Andrews, Sarah Rogers, Margaret Lord. Sary Halwell, you& each of you are hereby Required in their majesties names To make Your personal appearance before ye Worshipfull Maj. Samuel Appleton Esq., & ye Clerk of ye Court to be at ye house of Mr. John Spark in Ipswich on ye 22d Day of This Instant April, at two o’clock afternoon. Then and There to Give in Your several respective Evidences in behalf of their majesties concerning with Clearing up of ye Grounds of suspicion of Rachell Clenton’s being a witch, who is Then and There to be upon further Examination. Therefore So make Your appearance according to this Summons; fail not at your peril.”

At Spark’s Tavern, depositions were made against Rachel Clinton by several Ipswich residents:

• Mary Fuller testified that “Rachel Clinton came to our house and charged me with the raising of lies of her” and that at the same moment, a neighbor’s daughter had “fallen down dead” when Rachel passed by on the way to her home. When it turned out that the neighbor’s daughter was indeed alive, she changed her story, saying, “A woman with a white cap passed by and struck me on the forehead.”
• Thomas Boreman claimed that Rachel had an encounter with some women at the Meeting House, and they had accused her of “hunching them with her elbow.” He further claimed that while riding home that night, he came across a large turtle, “that moved as fast as I rode.” The turtle vanished when he “thought of Rachel Clinton.”
• William Baker claimed that ten years previously, a quantity of beer had mysteriously disappeared from the home of “my master Rust…Rachel Clinton came there and met with some small affront.” His wife “went down to see whether the beer worked or not,” and found the barrel empty.”
• Thomas Knowlton claimed that Rachel Clinton had gone to the home of Mr. Rogers, saying that she “must have some meat and milk.” Turned down by the maid, Rachel called the maid a”whoremasterly rogue.” Knowlton also testified, “Three months ago, my daughter Mary did wake and cry out in a dreadful manner that she was pricked in the side with pins. Being asked who pricked her, she could not tell. And asked whether she gave Rachel any pins, she said about seven.”

On May 28, 1692, Rachel Clinton was arrested and was kept in the Ipswich jail, shackled with iron fetters. The Rev. Hubbard of First Church and Rev. John Wise of Chebacco Parish made formal appeals for the accused, and Major Appleton stepped down from the court, apparently in opposition to the proceedings. On January 3, 1693, the “Court of Assizes and General Goal Deliver” was convened in Salem to try 56 accused witches. Three were found guilty and sentenced to death; they were the last of twenty people who suffered that fate.

Rachel Clinton was set free on January 3, 1693. She died two years later, alone and impoverished. There is no evidence to support the oral tradition that she died on Hog Island; she likely died in the small house on the 4-rod lot by the river that the town granted Rachel and her mother in 1655. Read the story of the Samuel Dutch House on S. Main St. Rachel Clinton died in 1695, and her sister Ruth, the widow of Thomas White, who had died in 1672, was assigned the administration of Rachel’s estate, being the only family member still living. On May 9, 1723, Ruth White’s son Thomas White Jr. (1664-1740) sold the four full rods near the Mill Dam to Samuel Dutch, “being formerly granted to the widow Martha Haffell by the freeholders of Ipswich.”

Sources and further reading:

• Entertaining Satan, Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England
• Waters, Thomas: Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony Vol. 1
• Wikipedia: Rachel Clinton
• Demos, John: The Deposition of Thomas Knowlton against Rachel Clinton
• Demos, John: Entertaining Witchcraft
• Encyclopedia.com “Clinton, Rachel“
• Demos, John Putnam. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, 1982. 
• The Probate Records of Essex County: Estate of Martha Haffield, June 11, 1662
• Waters, Thomas: Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony Vol. I
• 1666 Deed from Laurence & Rachel Clinton to Thomas White