Witches of Pennsylvania by Thomas White

Author:Thomas White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

A map from an 1872 atlas depicting the Haydentown area in Fayette County. Moll Derry, the Witch of the Monongahela, lived in the area from the 1790s to the 1840s. Courtesy of the Library and Archives Division, Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.

At the time, Derry was training an apprentice named Hannah Clarke who lived about a mile away from Updyke. One afternoon, shortly after the murder, a prominent local citizen paid a visit to Clarke. When he was leaving, he noticed a drawing on the back of her door that vaguely resembled Updyke. The man took notice of a nail protruding from the drawing’s head. It had appeared to have been tapped in only once or twice. When he asked Clarke about it she explained that if she drove the nail the whole way into the drawing, Updyke would die. Instead, she was going to tap it in slowly, a little at a time, so that Updyke would suffer for the crime he committed. The man decided to investigate on his own, so he walked up the road to Updyke’s house and paid him a visit. Sure enough, Updyke was complaining about a sharp pain in his head. The man, now believing in Updyke’s guilt, said nothing and went home. The man checked back occasionally with Clarke to see if she had driven the nail in. Clarke dragged the process out for weeks until Updyke was in so much pain he could not get out of bed. He finally confessed to the crime as he writhed in pain. The next day, Clarke drove the nail the entire way in, and Updyke died.

Moll Derry would become associated with many other tales of the unusual and supernatural, including the death of Polly Williams at the White Rocks. She allegedly predicted the murder of the young woman at the hands of her fiancé (for a full account of that story, see my book Ghosts of Southwestern Pennsylvania.) Even after her death, Derry continued to surface in fictional accounts and regional histories.

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