Lithobolia

Overview

In 1682, the quiet community of Great Island, now New Castle, New Hampshire, became the stage for a bizarre and frightening series of events. For an entire summer, hundreds of stones fell from the sky onto George Walton’s tavern, striking Walton himself, his son Shadrach, and others nearby. No one ever claimed to have seen who was throwing them. The trouble was not limited to stones; inside the tavern, household items like hammers, mauls, iron crowbars, and spits were flung about as if by an unseen force. Demonic voices were also heard. The commotion was so notable that Boston minister Increase Mather later recorded it in his book Illustrious Providences.

George Walton had plenty of enemies. He was locked in a property boundary dispute with a female neighbor, whom he accused of witchcraft. She fired back by calling him a wizard. But there were other motives for targeting him. Walton was a Quaker, and in Puritan New England, being a Quaker was itself a crime, drawing deep suspicion. He was also a successful innkeeper, merchant, and lumberman who had become the largest landowner on the island, a fact that bred envy among his less prosperous neighbors. He was involved in multiple lawsuits over business and property. Adding to the tension, Walton employed two Native Americans, a risky choice so soon after King Philip’s War, when peace was still uneasy. His tavern attracted a rough crowd of outsiders, including fishermen considered godless and undesirable by the rest of the island’s residents.

Whatever the true cause of the months-long stone assault, this event is remembered as the first major outbreak of apparent witchcraft in America. News of the “Stone-Throwing Devil” spread across the colonies and even reached England. In the years that followed, similar accusations of witchcraft flared up in other New England towns, eventually leading to the infamous Salem witch trials.