John Ketcham:  Man Or Myth? Article By Lisa Marie There actually was a man named John Ketcham and he did visit Salem for a short time. However, he didn't live there and he didn't practice witchcraft. I believe the whole accusation of witchery comes from a bit of religious intolerance and another man by the name of John Ketcham who came along about 162 years later. Why is being a witch from Salem so important? Let's look at Salem itself, home of the most well known and highly documented persecutions. Witch hysteria hit the Puritans of Salem and Salem Village. It also touched other small towns in Massachusetts Bay Colony. In January of 1692 two young girls, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, were taken by strange fits and hallucinations They just happened to be the daughter and niece of the local pastor, Rev. Samuel Parris. Shortly after that several others were afflicted. Soon the entire town was called to prayer and fasting in an attempt to disperse what they thought was an evil presence. Within 10 months 160 people would be accused. 23 would be found guilty and sentenced to death. One man would refuse trial and be pressed to death. 13 more died in prison. 50 confessed to witchcraft, very likely to avoid trial and sentencing. In October of 1692, Governor William Phips put an end to the special witchcraft court in Salem. The town of Salem now has a special memorial and elaborate grave stones for the innocent people who were brutally murdered. Was the devil afoot in Salem? Some have supposed the fevers, hallucinations and convulsions were the result of ergot poisoning. Ergot is a bacteria which grows on rye when it goes bad. Rye was a staple of the people in that day. Ergot occurs when the weather is damp and the rye gets moldy. Rye was also a staple of the Algonquin people of Long Island. But that's another story all together. According to RootsWeb.com - in 1622, a man named John Ketcham was born in England. He was the second of four children belonging to Edward Ketcham and Mary Hall. The family immigrated to Ipswitch, Massachusetts when he was about 20 years old. He visited Salem where he was "made free" via Salem's court system. It would seem he arrived here as an indentured servant. In 1646, he married. One year later, he purchased a plot of land from his father-in-law. One year after that, he became a representative of Ipswich to the Massachusetts Bay General Court at Boston. In 1653 he immigrated to Hashamomack, which would later be known as Southold (on the North Fork of Long Island) Suffolk County, New York. In 1659, he immigrated to Setauket, which would later be called Brookhaven and is about 30 miles from what would later be Amityville. In 1661, he purchased a 6-acre lot of "Old Field and a 4 acre lot in Setauket. That same year, he was elected Constable, that is to say, the earliest version of a police officer. In 1664, Setauket resident Ralph Hall and his wife Mary were accused of witchcraft. In 1665 a trial was held, the first witch trial in New York, incidentally on Long Island itself. While frequent mention is made of "the Constable," his name is never given. Since this particular John Ketcham is constable of Setauket at that time, we can only assume the transcript indicates him. Ralph and Mary Hall were found innocent, but later left the area. A number of websites claim Elizabeth (also called Goody) Garlick was the first in New York tried as a witch in 1657. While she was from East Hampton, actual trial transcripts indicate she was sent to Connecticut for her trial. She was accused some six years prior to the Halls. An interesting little tidbit is that in 1666 (hmmm?) John Ketcham was made Patentee of the first Nichols in Huntington. Huntington being on the opposite side of Long Island from what would later be Amityville. 13.8 miles was the closest he ever got to Amityville, or so it would seem. In 1668, he immigrated to Newtown, Queens County, New York where he continued as a constable. He would remain in Queens County for the rest of his life. He passed away at 65 years of age, in 1697. It was a descendent of this John Ketcham, by the name of Zebulon Ketcham, who would later become a major player in Amityville. Ketcham Avenue, near Ocean Avenue, is named for this Ketcham, not his forefather. Zebulon Ketcham joined the local militia (think "The Patriot) and in 1790, George Washington would have dinner at Ketcham's hotel, in what was then called Huntington South. The second John Ketcham in our story is born in 1780. It is said that all Ketchams in America descend from the Englishman, Edward Ketcham; however, I have hunted high and low on Edward Ketcham's Genealogy and find no connection to this particular John Ketcham. A search of the Political Graveyard turns up a number of unrelated John Ketchams. What I did find was a genealogy for Roger Parke. More on that below. It would seem, for all intensive purposes, these two Ketchams are not related. This Ketcham is of the "Religious Society of Friends." The Puritans of that time would nickname people of the society "Quakers" because of the way their bodies would shake during their visions (also called ecstasies). They were then, and still are today, very holy people. Let me back up a bit. George Fox started the Religious Society of Friends in England in the 1600's. He was interested in truth and the light of God. He was born in 1624 to parents belonging to Church of England. The fires of Protestant reform had utterly gone out leaving his parents to do what they could to instill a love of God in their boy. At the age of 11 he surrendered his heart to the Lord. He had a strange longing for God and was regularly disappointed by his Christian brethren and their hypocrisy. In a state of despair, he turned to the Bible where he began finding the answers he sought. By the time he was 19 he was having direct communication with God. Then at 23 he began preaching the truths revealed to him. George Fox was regularly beaten, mocked and imprisoned, but he would not be silenced. He called lazy Christians to account for their lack of zeal in their faith. It would seem he had the ability to read souls. In his uneducated state, he would liken people to animals, claiming them to be cunning as a fox, vicious as a tiger or some similar statement. A uneducated man without any advantages in life stretched out his hand to change this world into an extension of the heavenly kingdom of Christ. His followers were very much like him -- simple, prayerful and holy. William Penn would later say of George Fox that he "knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men." George Fox is buried in London right next to a man named Daniel Defoe. Defoe is best known as the writer of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. I find the name similarity (Defeo) very curious. The first Quakers to land in America were two women. Arriving in Boston in 1656, they were immediately arrested. They were through a "brutal examination" to test if they were witches only to be packed back up on another ship and sent back the way the came. Two days later 8 more Quakers arrived, this time in Rhode Island. They too were packed up and sent back to England. The Puritans of that time were in an uproar. They called the Quakers diabolical and heretics. I'll quote from Long Island Genealogy: "Along with the presence of God, these Puritans were also aware of the presence of the devil, and while no witchcraft hysteria on the order of that in Massachusetts broke out, there were isolated occurrences of arrests and trials of Long Islanders in New York and Hartford. Additionally, other religious groups were looked on with suspicion or treated with complete intolerance. Held especially low were the Quakers who "by denying the validity of puritan government, infant baptism, oath taking, and public support of religion...earned widespread enmity." (Kronzek 1985, p.41). Quakers were arrested and tried for blasphemy and heresy with punishments including fines, whipping, branding on the hand and banishment. When Quakerism finally gained a foothold on Long Island, it was in the regions closer to the original boundary with New Amsterdam. " The Puritan church controlled all government affairs. To be an official of any kind, a person had to be a member in good standing of their church. The church set the laws and the punishment for lawbreakers. They actually ran the daily life of the town's residents. Non-church members, such as the Quaker were punished, often severely. It wasn't until 1681, when the famous William Penn made his Holy Experiment, that the Quakers found a home in America. Penn was granted a charter by King Charles II, for a plot of land to be called Pennsylvania. (Not Penn's idea, but that of King Charles II.) In 1682, 23 ships arrived carrying 2000 or so people. The Quakers added fuel to the fire against them when they began protesting slavery in as early as 1688. Quakers don't have "worship" services like other faiths. They have monthly gatherings wherein they sit in a circle. Individuals speak when moved by the Holy Spirit. During one of these prayer circles, centuries ago, they were given the understanding that liberty of the body should be a fundamental of their particular style of government. Imagine how the Puritan people reacted to the Quakers, who they already thought were weird, telling them GOD said slavery was bad. Why should wealthy merchants work when they had purchased people, forcibly removing them from their native lands, to do their work for them? The Quakers set out declaring that taking people against their will from their homelands as slave labor was a moral wrong. Allan Parke was and Englishman and a Quaker who came to America in 1690, just 9 years after William Penn assured the Quakers would be welcomed without having to go through witch tests. It would be just a few generations later, in 1780, that our Quaker John Ketcham is born. A descendent of Allan Parke. Also in 1780, Phoebe Ketcham is born, descendent of the OTHER John Ketcham in our story. She is born in Huntington South, which will be renamed Amityville 65 years later. So while our Ketcham from Salem wasn't a witch, his people did live in what would later be called Amityville. Along comes Elias Hicks, born in 1748 in Rockaway, Long Island. Elias Hicks would move to the south side of Long Island (near what would later be Amityville) where he would learn the carpenter's trade and become (according to RootsWeb) fascinated by the "doctrine of the Friends." Elias found his niche and eventually became a very charismatic preacher. Over the next decades, it would be discovered that Elias didn't exactly share the same faith in doctrine as the other Friends. He questioned the belief that Jesus Christ was of divine nature, as well as the authority of Holy Scripture. While his Quaker brethren were wrestling with him, to the outside world, Elias Hicks and his followers were the worst of the worst. The Puritans already looked upon the Quakers as heretics. Add to that a lack of belief in Jesus and Holy Scripture? A heinous evil indeed! Quakers would have their prayer circles during regular monthly meetings. Meeting houses were built and some individuals would travel miles for the monthly meeting. In 1787 Elias Hicks completed hist first meeting house. Located in Jericho, it's a little over 14 miles from what would later be called Amityville. John Ketcham lived right across the street. You can still visit the Ketcham-McAllister House in Jericho, as well as his original meeting house. Hicksville, the home of Elias Hicks lies just between Jericho and Amityville. Mr. Ketcham and his wife believed in Hicks as did the now famous abolitionist and suffragist Lucretia Mott. Not only did they fight the good fight to free slaves, but they also believed in equality for women. At that time, a woman had no worth unless she was married. A woman was of such little consequence that she wasn't even called by her name. Women of particular status were simply called "Good Wife" or Goody for short. Hence the above mentioned Elizabeth Garlick is most commonly known as Goody Garlick. The Quakers, however, viewed women on equal footing with men. While he managed to father 11 children, Elias Hicks was rarely at home. He and Lucretia Mott would often preach together, calling on people to use their inner wisdom, rather than that of Holy Scripture, demanding that people free their slaves and showing people that women had just as much worth as men. In short, they were tearing down everything the Puritans believed in: Sectarianism, religious hierarchy, and a strict adherence to church doctrines and any teaching that limited the role of women. Soon, another ingredient is thrown into the witch's cauldron. I make no excuses for my pun. Along comes a man named Isaac Post. Born in 1798, Westbury, New York (that is Long Island) Post was a Quaker, a farmer, a suffragist and an anti-slavery activist. When Elias Hicks began his preaching, Post became a follower. Here is the twist. Post was also a spiritualist. In fact, one of the few responsible for launching the spiritualist movement. Post took what he knew of the Holy Spirit and used it as stepping-stones towards communing with the dead. By 1827, the followers of Elias Hicks had officially split from their brethren, forming two branches of the Society of Friends - Orthodox and Hicksite. By 1830, Hicks himself was dead. On one of his few visits at home, he suffered a stroke and died shortly afterwards. Isaac Post and John Ketcham became very active in maintaining the Hicksite faith. However, in the early 1840's the Post and his wife Amy became deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement, using their house at 36 Sophia Street (now N. Plymouth Avenue) as a very active station on the Underground Railroad. Among the notable names of frequent visitors to the Post home we find Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglas. These three are people we hold dear to us today. 200 years ago they were the very height of evil and wrong-doing. In 1848, Isaac Post would meet the Fox sisters, Kate and Margaret. These ladies came into the public eye after incidents that would later be called "Hydesville Rappings" and "Rochester Rappings." They are thought to be the origin of the spiritualist movement. The Foxes were two sisters who at a very young age began communication with the dead. They communicated by a series of knocks or raps which they claimed formed an alphabet. Post apparently abandoned his Quaker faith and established a small group of spiritualists who met regularly with the two mediums. He would continue to support them in the face of public ridicule. Doctors examined the sisters and found that if they were forced to sit a certain way, no "communication" was heard. Post stood by them, none the less and eventually become recognized as a medium himself. Our Quaker Ketcham maintained an avid interest in Post and his spiritualism, support the abolitionist movement and suffrage for women all while upholding Quaker reform. Among data in the biographical library of Lucretia Mott is a letter, written August 30th, 1852. It is addressed to John and his wife. Part of that letter warns them of potential dangers involving Post and his spiritualism. Though she herself is interested and wishes to study the matter further, she states quite clearly that one of their mutual friends has been literally driven insane through spiritualism. There you have it. In a nutshell, the Quakers were seen as heretics. Add to that a Quaker who neither sees Jesus as the Son of God nor believes in the sanctity of Holy Scripture, fights for the rights of women and slaves and talks to dead people? Dearie me, he must be the son of the devil himself! Toss into the mix a confused identification with a previous generation's Ketcham who spent time in Salem, home of the most infamous witch trials this country has ever seen, and we discover how an innocent and pious man like John Ketcham earns the label of witch and satanist. One final note: In 1888, the "mother of the spiritualist movement" confessed to being a fraud. On October 21st, during a lecture at New York's Academy of Music, Margaret Fox stated that the rapping came about by "popping" the joint of her big toe. Pious folk of her day maintained that the rapping, regardless of her confession, must have been of evil origin. Her rapping were never heard in the church sanctuary (the Foxes were Methodists), but only outside of it. The spiritualist movement continued to grow. Not long after her revealing the truth, Margaret and her sister were back in action. "It is the greatest sorrow of my life. I began the deception when I was too young to know right from wrong." ~Margaret Fox   The Amityville Horror Truth Forum          The Amityville Horror Truth Website         hhttp://www.the nightexposed.net

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