In 1730, Mount Holly, New Jersey, held a witch trial. Three hundred people gathered. Neighbors were weighed against a Bible, tossed into a millpond… even accused of making hogs sing psalms. The story spread when a young Benjamin Franklin printed it in his newspaper. But there's a twist...But the belief itself? That didn’t die.
A century later, Jersey farmers still wore charms to ward off witches. By the 1940s, Pine Barrens folklore named Peggy Clevenger — not a witch, but a woman turned into one by rumor. Her name was forever stained so the community could have a bogeyman.
New Jersey’s witch stories...? They never really went away.
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