On Wednesday, July 10, 1706, scores of people arrived at what is now known as Witch Duck Point on the Lynnhaven River in Virginia. They were there to witness a unique but brutal legal proceeding that would never again be carried out in the colony of Virginia– the trial of forty-six-year-old Grace Sherwood by ducking.

It is unknown exactly what happened when she hit the water, but what was clear to the folks who came that day was that Grace Sherwood survived and therefore she must be a witch. 

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