(calm music) - [Scott] The Witch of Pungo is a perennial part of the cultural conversation.

For me what she illustrates is the importance of these stories and this intersection of legend in history to communities like Virginia Beach that have changed so dynamically over the last a hundred years.

My name is Scott Moore.

I grew up hearing stories about Grace Sherwood.

(tense music) - I'm Grace Sherwood, the Witch of Pungo.

- So, I don't think it's exaggeration to say it's the most famous Virginia witch trial and Grace Sherwood is a perennial part of the cultural conversation.

- Yeah, nice, right?

- And so to look at all the ways Grace Sherwood has been incorporated into the city of Virginia Beach's identity.

- It's very impressive.

- As a historian to be able to definitively try to prove as clearly as possible the history of that event.

What we have to rely on are the written documents that survived from the period.

For Princess Anne County, all you really have are the colonial court records, and there you're at the mercy of, well, how often did somebody come to court?

And then also how robust was the court clerk in transcribing what happened?

- Unfortunately, me and the courts, we're familiar with each other.

- We have an approximation for where she lived, which would be the Muddy Creek area of today's Pungo.

She was born to John White, who was a very respected carpenter in the area.

She married her husband, James Sherwood.

He did not have land when they got married, and so by all accounts, the couple experienced economic problems.

- It was the 17th century, very challenging.

- So they would've been farmers.

And by all accounts, probably raised tobacco, maybe some livestock like pigs.

- It's a living.

- James Sherwood starts getting sued for not paying debts.

Those are really common occurrences at this point in time.

And so around the time he starts getting sued for not paying his debts, Grace Sherwood was responsible for filing three lawsuits that were another reason Virginians got sued all the time which is slander.

Virginians were very protective of their reputations at this point in time and so if anybody began gossiping or spreading rumors about you, it was not abnormal to take them to court and defend your good name.

The first case is against one of her neighbors, Richard Capps, that got settled outta court.

Her second set of lawsuits are explicitly connected to witchcraft.

She sues her neighbors.

The court transcript records that they were apparently, according to Grace Sherwood, telling neighbors that she cursed their cotton and their pigs and that she had bewitched their land.

- Hey, not my fault, they're bad farmers.

- Elizabeth Barnes, according to Grace Sherwood, told people that Grace Sherwood was coming to visit her at night, riding her like a horse, and then turned into a cat and escaped through a hole in the door.

- Yeah, really?

- In these cases, she's the one suing her neighbors.

She's trying to defend her reputation in the community.

- My good name, right?

- Luke Hill formally accuses Grace Sherwood of bewitching Elizabeth Hill, and that happens in January, 1706.

- Total misunderstanding.

- And now this becomes a formal legal process because witchcraft is a crime in Virginia, the court can't ignore it.

It is obvious from the records the court wanted this to go away.

- As did I.

- Luke Hill takes the pretty audacious step of directly petitioning the Governor of Virginia saying, "This woman has bewitched my wife, and the local court is not doing anything about it."

- Ugh.

(calm music) - Finally, they decide to use a more unorthodox solution to find a definitive conclusion.

They're going to use essentially a trial by water.

She's rode out into the Lynnhaven River.

We know she's bound, she's put into the water her, (calm music) and we know that according to the record, she floated.

The phrase they used that she swam contrary to custom.

- I'm a good swimmer.

I grew up on Back Bay, plus I think a little air bubble got in my night shirt.

- In order for you to be a convicted witch, the court had to formally convict you and formally punish you, and that did not happen.

Now, they do say to await future trial, which means at some point they plan on dealing with it, but they never do, and those records are complete so we know they never dealt with it again and so the matter was dropped.

We do know that she's back on her farm by 1708, - Charged but never convicted.

- There's no other further trials for witchcraft.

There's no other further slander suits, and I think her ducking was not just a way of testing for witchcraft, but also the community relying on the tools it had to deal with what it considered to be problematic women who were not behaving properly.

- Geez, really?

- And so we know that this was a strange enough event for the community because we have maps going back to the early 1800s that the area that it happened was immediately called Witch's Duck.

(upbeat music) In the early 1800s, the Princess Anne County court clerk, a guy named John Burrows, he begins the process of literally handwriting all of the earliest court records because he wants to make sure they're preserved.

And here's the evidence of an honest to God witch trial in Virginia.

The Virginia Historical Society prints it and all of a sudden Grace Sherwood is Virginia's witch?

Even local storytellers then start supplementing that, blending that history and fiction.

Because again, it makes the story a lot more interesting.

We know as early as 1906, for example, locals were saying that she was abnormally beautiful.

She was so beautiful that it made women jealous and it made the husbands amorous and that's why she was targeted.

- Well, yeah, okay.

That part is true.

- You get to the 1950s and '60s and she becomes a little more colorful.

And a lot of this has to do with the devotion of Louisa Venable Kyle, who she was actively involved in historic preservation.

And in this book, Grace Sherwood becomes this mischievous sort of fiery woman who's taking charge of the situation, a troublemaker but in a good way.

- Can't argue with that.

- And from the 1970s onward, you do see sort of this growing interpretation where Grace Sherwood becomes a protofeminist.

She's sort of the model of dynamic women demanding equality within her society.

- Pooh.

- And so the story evolves and changes over time.

What she illustrates is the importance of these stories and this history.

- Legendary status, that's nice.

- Even if these stories are not historical truth, they're still important.

You know, they're still important pieces of the identity of the area.

- Hey, who knows?

Maybe they'll name a road after this whole incident.

(upbeat music) - For me the most interesting part of Grace Sherwood's story is all the ways she pops up.

Whether she's a beer during October for a local brewery, you know, where you have a local restaurant Blue Pete's who has their Witch of Pungo Fest.

The fact the Strawberry Festival for over 30 years had the honorary Witch of Pungo.

The fact there's a statue of her on Witchduck Road.

She is completely integrated into the community.

It was really rewarding to be able to tell that community story.

You're telling the story of Virginia Beach.

(upbeat music)