Excerpt from Witchcraft in North Carolina Testimony of a more satisfactory character is furnished by the autobiography of Rev. Brantley York, who was born in 1805. York states that during the early nineteenth century the inbah itants of the Bush Creek district in Randolph County, where he spent part of his boyhood, believed in Witchcraft, Ghost - seeing, haunted houses and fortune telling. When the neighbors came together, he continues, the most prominent topic of conversa tion was relating some remarkable witch tales, ghost stories and conjurations of various kinds; and so interesting was (sic) these stories that the conversation often continued until a very late hour at night. 'often have I sat and listened to these stories till it seemed to me that each hair upon my head resembled the quill of a porcupine. I was afraid to go out of doors, afraid to go to bed alone, and almost afraid of my own shadow. 15 A striking instance of the influence exerted by witchcraft on the country people of western North Carolina at a somewhat later date is furnished by Mr. Charles L. Coon, of Wilson, to whom the writer is indebted for the use of his collectanea. The events occurred during the second quarter of the last century in an isolated section of Lincoln County originally settled by Germans and a few English. The account as given by Mr. Coon is as follows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.