By Richard Day, Curator, Vincennes Old French House

Witches cast evil spells upon the early settlers of Vincennes, according to old French stories recounted in the Jan. 8, 1891, Vincennes Commercial.

It was believed that witches--called "cauchemars" (nightmares)--used to make women spin and weave and knit all night long.

The story also said they turned men into horses and rode them along the Wabash bottoms, through bogs and fens. In the morning, when the French woke up feeling all worn out and "hag-ridden," they would say, "C'est mon cauchemar!"

One old man always claimed that this had happened to him. The next day he said he could see where he had stood and pawed the earth, at the place where the witch had dismounted and tied him.

And there were marks on the fence rail where he had gnawed as an impatient horse. Even the day after, he still was picking some pieces of wood out of his teeth, the bewitched man said.

Witches also cast their spells upon livestock. One day Jacques Martel found his cow lying in the street. (In those days the French didn't fence in their cattle, but let them wander the prairie and the streets of Vincennes.) The cow would not, or could not, get up.

Martel knew at once that she was bewitched, so he tried an old remedy; he fed her a loaf of bread soaked in beer--but it did no good.

Then he remembered that his mother had told him the story of a bewitched horse that her mother in turn had told her, and that she had heard from her mother--and therefore it must be true.

It had happened long ago and far across the sea in the old country. The horse reared and plunged and would not get off its hind feet. They said that a great, terrible, hairy man, with a long beard such as men never wore, scared the horse, and after that it would not be still. Then the hairy man had disappeared.

The owner, who knew how to beat witches in their nefarious work, got down on his knees and uttered a peculiar prayer. At once his words dissolved the spell on the horse, so that it was docile ever afterwards.

Martel then called to mind the very words of that prayer and uttered them over his cow, who was instantly and miraculously cured--so Martel told years afterward.

It was believed that the witches could turn themselves into anything they desired, and in that shape would torment their neighbors.

One old French farmer said an old hag had been persecuting him for years, so he had no luck at all. At length he made a silver bullet, loaded his gun, and went to a deer-lick. There he killed the old crone in the shape of a deer. After that he was not bothered any more.

Not so successful was old William Minor. He had a little pony he was very proud of--it ran so fast that nothing could pass it. The wooden wheels of the old-style French cart would spin, the pony went so fast. But one day the pony suddenly died. Minor believed it died of witchery.

He had heard that if a dead bewitches animal were burnt, the guilty witch would pass by. So he hauled his pony beyond the town limits. At dusk he piled brush on the body and set it on fire.

After a time, a dark, threatening figure approached, and slowly moved along. Its lowering scowl was fearful to behold as it passed before the fire and seemed to smell the odors of the roasting body.

The figure had the shape of a large and powerful man, with a big Mackinaw blanket (as they called them in those days) on its broad shoulders and stretching down to the ground. It was Garon, the wizard.

Minor was hidden close by, but he realized that the evil being knew he was there. Still, he had courage to shoot at it three times with his rifle. The wizard caught the bullets as easily as a boy would catch a ball of yarn, and threw them away.

A similar story appeared in the June 28, 1888, Commercial, in connection with the demolition of the old "Bishop's Block," (so-called after Bishop de la Hailandiere, who bought it in 1842 and later sold it to General Myers) on the south side of Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth.

An old-timer on the scene recollected: "The brick in that building was burned on Bunker Hill," and he added with a laugh, "there used to be a story told that a witch was burnt in the kiln. You see, the fire in burning a brick kiln has to be kept up night and day. This required two sets of men, a day force and a night force.

"The night men claimed that a witch was being burned alive in the fiery kiln. 'Every night,' they said, 'we can see her sitting there, amid the blaze in the arch of the furnace. She sits there with a young child folded in her arms, quietly looking down at us. She never speaks nor never makes the slightest effort to get out. She is a witch, otherwise she would long since have been consumed.'"

The mysterious burning of the witch was accounted for by Gen Goyer, who had the contract for burning the brick for General Myers.

There was an old woman named Miner, he said, who was accused of being a witch. She was believed to have the remarkable powers usually attributed to witched. She could, it was through, bring on fits and sickness, or even death, to man or beast at will.

Goyer continued his story:

"My horse died, and I knew it was by her devilish power. I heard that the only way to punish the woman was to burn the body of the horse on Sunday morning, in a log heap, in front of the brick kiln.

"I dragged the carcass of my horse to the front of the kiln and piled on the logs. We set the pile of logs on fire and sat down to watch.

"As the fire began to roar and crackle in the brush, she tried to hide from us, and we watched her. She gradually drew nearer, being drawn nearer as her charm began to be broken. Sha was, plainly, using all her force to overcome the power that was drawing her into the fire of the kiln.

"The next instant we saw her enter the eye of the kiln, right in the fire. We looked in and could see her looking down at us as she sat in the arch, in an awful fire. After a while we saw that she held a child in her arms. In pity for the child we put out the fire, yet she continued to sit there in the fire after that, day after day.

"That is why those brick were not very well burnt. They are poor brick; we had back luck with that kiln on account of the witch."

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