Elizabeth MURFORD was born about 1620 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. She died in 1693 in Salisbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. She has Ancestral File number 3GHZ-SQ. "William Brown's wife" is canceled on the church list of 1687. She was insane for more than 30 years. According to the testimony of Wm. Brown at the witchcraft trail in 1692, Susanna Martin was, about 1660, accused of bewitching Brown's wife. "The church appointed a day of humiliation, to seek God in her behalf; and thereupon her trouble ceased....for which the church, instead of the day of humiliation, gave thanks for her deliverance. She came to meetings and went about her business as before." In April, about 1661, she and "goodwife Osgood" were summoned "to give their evidences concerning the said Martin...before the grad jury." Elizabeth Brown told her husband that Susanna Martin said "she would make her the miserablest creature for defaming her name at the court." About two months after this, Brown says, his wife "would not own him." "and from that time to this very day (30 years or more) she has been under a strange kind of distemper and frenzy, incapable of any rational action, though strong and healthy of body." On the strength os this and other evidence, Susanna Martin was convicted and executed as a witch.
[See "The New Puritan," pp. 173-5].

It's amazing what you come across when you start researching your family tree. From a historical standpoint it is an interesting story, but for me there was more in this story than just the historical record of a time of "madness". There was the record of my families long struggle with depression.

 For as far back as I can get death records for, there have been women in my family who have been "excentric", "melancholy", "moody","blue" and just plain crazy.

In reading the account of William Brown's discription of his wife''s behavior with the knowledge of medicine today, I see a manic depressive/bipolar woman. "She has been under a strange kind of distemper and frenzy, incapable of any rational action, though strong and healthy of body." The frenzied talk, the inability to make a decision. She couldn't explain what was happening to her so of course it had to be of the devil.

For 30 years (1662-1692) she suffered. It was only after her accused witch Susanna Martin was hanged that she "returned to the good wife she had been." She died a few months later. My feeling is that as her body started dying, the chemicals in the brain that caused her illness slowed down & she had a few "normal days" before she died.

God bless her.