[COYNE] DAVID RAMSAY A N'D LONG POINT 121 



any old settler in the county. The name 'Dr. Troyer' and the term 

 'witches' are so interwoven in the minds of the old people that they 

 cannot think of one without being reminded of the other, 



"The old doctor was terribly persecuted by these witches. All 

 his troubles of mind and body were attributed to the witches who 

 existed in human form and possessed miraculous powers for producing 

 evil. He looked upon certain of his neighbors as witches, one of the 

 most dreaded being the widow of Captain Edward McMichael. Mrs. 

 McMichael was a very clever woman, and to be considered a witch by 

 the superstitious old doctor was highly amusing to her. She was a 

 woman of strong mind and great courage, and it is said she frequently 

 visited the lovely ravine and made grimaces at the poor old doctor 

 from some recess or clump of bushes, just for the pleasure it gave her 

 to tease and torment him. He was a great stutterer, and her appear- 

 ance in the ravine would throw him into a fît of wild excitement, 

 during which he would stutter and gesticulate in a threatening manner. 

 He was a great deer hunter, but if he chanced to meet Mrs. McMichael 

 when starting out on a hunting expedition he would consider it an 

 omen of ill-luck, and would turn about and go home. He kept a 

 number of horse-shoes over the door of his house, and at the foot of 

 his bed a huge trap was bolted to the floor where it was set every 

 night to catch witches. The jaws were about three feet long, and 

 when shut were about two and a half feet high. There are people in 

 Port Rowan to-day who have a distinct remembrance of having seen 

 this witch trap in Dr. Troyer's bed-room. But in spite of this de- 

 fensive means the witches would occasionally take him out in the night 

 and transform him into various kinds of animals and compel him to 

 perform all sorts of antics. Whenever he met with an experience of 

 this kind he would suffer from its effects for some time afterwards. 

 One night the witches took him out of a peaceful slumber, transformed 

 him into a horse and rode him across the lake to Dunkirk where they 

 attended a witch dance. They tied him to a post where he could 

 witness the dance through the windows, and fed him rye-straw. The 

 change of diet and the hard treatment to which he was subjected laid 

 him up for some time. It required several doses of powerful medicine 

 to counteract the injurious effects of the rye-straw and restore his 

 digestive organs to a normal condition. Strange as it may appear, 

 Dr. Troyer believed all this, yet, aside from witchcraft, he was con- 

 sidered a sane man. He is described as wearing a long white flowing 

 beard; and it is said he lived to be ninety-nine years old and that just 

 before his death he shot a hawk, off-hand, from the peak of the barn 

 roof." 



