Who were the Stamford witches? Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough, two neighbors accused in 1692 after a servant girl’s fits; Stamford tried them, and hanged no one. That spring, while Salem was filling its jail, a seventeen-year-old servant named Katherine Branch began to convulse in the house of Daniel Wescot and to name the women who tormented her. One was Goodwife Clawson of Stamford, a woman who had quarreled with the Wescots for years. The other was Mercy Disborough from Compo, down the Sound. Both were jailed, searched for witch-marks and bound and lowered into the water to see whether they floated. Then Stamford did something Salem never managed: seventy-six of Clawson’s neighbors signed a petition swearing she was no witch. The court at Fairfield heard the case in September and acquitted her in October. Disborough was convicted, and reprieved. The witches went away. The need didn’t.
Today Stamford is a corporate skyline on a colonial harbor, a commuter city with a 1640 deed in its files and a witch trial it can finally be proud of. People come for the parade balloons in November, the beaches and the boardwalk in July, the Fish Church any Sunday, and the view of the light from Shippan Point. Our Stamford, Connecticut designs gather that identity into wearable form — the oyster, the harbor, the colonial port, and this season the Harbor Witch who never was. Stamford, CT — Rippowam on the Sound, a harbor town since 1641.
Why People Visit Stamford, CT
Stamford balances harbor and city — sailboats on the Sound, a downtown skyline, and four centuries of history from Rippowam to the rail line. It is a Gold Coast harbor town an hour from Manhattan, with the water, the parks, and that one-of-a-kind church on the hill. Increasingly it is also a town with a story to tell: the one that was asked to hang its witches in 1692 and signed a petition instead.
