THE YORKVILLE ENQUIRER — FEBRUARY 3, 1870
This weird story brings to my mind one my step-mother used often to tell. It happened before she married my father, and she herself was present at the scene. The narration never lost interest to me, as I knew the people whom it concerned. After hearing it, I would creep to bed, my excited imagination easily conjuring each gust of the wind, rustling through the trees, to be some old witch on her broomstick, who might come down the chimney and ride me away.
Old Mr. Rainey, who lived in the Bethesda congregation, believed himself bewitched. He was, for many years, a weakly, sickly man, and all his ailments were, by the whole community, attributed to the power of old Balsey Fox, a noted witch, who lived in the “Black Jacks.” The only way to remove the spell was, by some means to obtain the benediction of “God bless you” from the old sorceress. To do this, some scheme must be fallen upon to entrap her into it unawares, as, of course, she would not voluntarily abjure her dominion over him.
A plan was conceived of inviting all the women of the neighborhood, within a circuit to include old Mrs. Fox, to meet at his residence on a certain day, the object of which was generally known. A large concourse assembled—men as well as women—but the witch, alas! was not among them; and without her presence the rest could avail nothing for the intention had been that each woman of the assembly
