In 1683, Increase Mather received a narrative of apparitions and disturbances reported by Mary Hortado and her husband Antonio near Salmon Falls, in the Berwick area of present-day Maine. The account begins in June 1682 and includes a return to their house the following March. Its transmission can be traced through Thomas Broughton and Joshua Moodey, but the surviving narrative does not independently establish the causes of the reported voices, injuries or moving objects.
Where the account comes from
Mather printed the narrative in his 1684 collection, commonly known as Remarkable Providences. Its heading says that it was taken from Mary’s own account on 13 August 1683. George Lincoln Burr’s 1914 edition supplies a useful source note connecting it with correspondence preserved among the Mather Papers.
In a letter dated 23 August 1683, the Portsmouth minister Joshua Moodey explained that he had sought material through John Emerson. He obtained the enclosure from Thomas Broughton, who read to him what he had recorded from the woman and her husband. Moodey copied it for Mather and judged it credible, while expecting that a fuller account might still be obtained.
That is a more particular source trail than an anonymous modern retelling, but it remains a chain of testimony and transcription. Broughton’s recording, Moodey’s copy and Mather’s publication should not be counted as independent observations of an apparition. Mather’s introductory assurance that the reports were true states his confidence, rather than describing a test that established a supernatural cause.
The published narrative locates the household near Salmon Falls in Barwick, formerly called Kittery. Burr identifies this as Berwick on the Maine side of the river. Historical Berwick covered a wider area than the modern town, so the locality should not be converted into a confidently identified house or a modern street address.
The first reported disturbances
The story begins on an evening in June 1682, with the exact day expressly forgotten. Mary said that she heard a challenging voice at the door of her home. About an hour later, while at the doorway, she reportedly received a blow near her eye that pushed her head towards the doorpost. The account identifies no visible person delivering it.
Two or three days later, a stone was said to have been thrown through the house towards the chimney. Mary estimated it at roughly half a pound or a pound, but when someone went to retrieve it, it could not be found. All the family were reportedly indoors, and no hand was seen throwing it. The narrative does not preserve the stone or a surveyed account of where each person stood.
About two hours afterwards, a frying pan hanging in the chimney reportedly rang loudly. The account says that neighbours on the opposite bank, estimated at about a hundred rods or more away, heard it too. Their alleged hearing is recorded within the family’s narrative; the reviewed passage does not reproduce separate signed statements from those listeners or an independent measurement of the sound’s range.
These opening episodes combine a voice, an alleged physical blow, a missing stone and a sound. They are not interchangeable observations, and the source does not show that one demonstrated agent produced all four. The religious description of invisible assault is the interpretation attached to the sequence.
The reported appearance on the river
Mary and Antonio then crossed the river by canoe. They said that something resembling a newly shaven man’s head and a white cat’s tail moved through the water ahead of them. The head and tail appeared two or three feet apart, without a visible body connecting them.
According to the narrative, the couple returned within less than an hour and the appearance followed their canoe back, disappearing when they landed. This is the most distinctive visual episode in the account. Its description does not identify an animal specimen, record an independently examined trace or establish that the separated forms belonged to one physical being.
The episode should also remain in its own historical setting. Mather’s heading frames the narrative in terms of satanic apparitions. That does not justify adding a later local legend’s identity or a modern claim about a particular river creature without a separate source. The review concerns what the seventeenth-century narrative actually reports.
Mary’s later experiences away from home
A day or two later, Mary reportedly received another blow to her head while in the yard, causing swelling and soreness. On going indoors, she said that she was bitten and scratched. The narrative says that marks resembling human teeth were seen by many people, but it does not identify those observers individually or provide a medical examination establishing their origin.
The family left to stay with a neighbour across the river. There, Mary described a woman wearing a green outer garment, a short blue cloak and a white cap. The figure appeared to threaten her with a firebrand but did not strike her. On the following day, a similar figure appeared in grey clothing with a white apron and head covering, seeming to laugh without an audible voice.
The account then says Mary was free from those particular disturbances. This is a reported change in her experience, not a demonstration that the figure had a known historical identity or that leaving the house proved a cause. The river crossing and refuge are part of the story, but the surviving narrative does not securely locate the neighbour’s property.
Antonio’s return and the field reports
The next section concerns Antonio returning with the family to their own home in March before the August 1683 recording, understood here as March 1683. He reportedly heard someone walking in an upper room and saw the floorboards buckle under the apparent footsteps. When members of the household went to look, they found no visible person there.
The family again withdrew across the river, while Antonio continued cultivating his land. The narrative says that a substantial length of log fence was thrown down. It also describes cattle-like hoofprints between rows of corn, despite nobody seeing cattle and no damage being found to the crop, not even cropped leaves.
Those last qualifications are part of the original report. The story does not describe a witnessed herd attacking the field or a verified loss of the corn. No examination of the prints, fence structure or surrounding access survives in the reviewed account to establish what caused them.
Mather’s separate addition and the outcome
After explicitly ending the supplied narrative, Mather adds another report: people advised Mary to surround the house with bay foliage as protection. He says peace lasted while it remained green, followed by renewed trouble when it withered and was removed. He criticises those who offered the advice. The passage is a separately introduced report, not part of Broughton’s recorded sequence or evidence that the remedy worked.
The outcome is insufficient evidence. The contemporary material documents a detailed family account and the route by which it reached Mather, but does not independently identify the reported figures or establish causes for the injuries, noises and household effects. It contains neither a demonstrated supernatural explanation nor a documented exposure that settles the entire sequence as fraud.
The map uses a rounded Berwick town reference for the historic Salmon Falls locality. Historical boundaries and the exact former house remain uncertain; the pin is not a claim that the events occurred at the modern town’s centre or that a particular property is open to visitors. The image is a page of the historical narrative, not evidence that an apparition was photographed.
Sources and review
The main text is Mather’s narrative in Burr’s 1914 edition, pp. 37–38, compared with Moodey’s 23 August 1683 letter, Mather Papers, pp. 360–361. The letter also discusses a separate Walton case; its precise June date is not assigned to the Hortados. Historical boundary context was checked against the Old Berwick Historical Society’s account. Coordinates use the 2025 Census Gazetteer. Sources and image rights checked 13 November 2026.