BBP Heritage Association

Please join us for our October General Membership meeting. Open to all! All meetings are held at the BBP Library. There is also a raffle drawing at every meeting. We hope to see you there!

The Devil in New York: The Witchcraft Trial of Goody Garlick

Speaker: Tara Rider, Ph.D., Stony Brook University

Sunday, October 19, 2025

2-4pm

Step back into the shadow of colonial New York, where witchcraft and suspicion were the topic of fireside conversations. Decades before Salem became synonymous with witch trials, the small town of East Hampton found itself in the clutches of fear as a woman named Goody Garlick stood trial, accused of consorting with the devil. This talk explores the tangled web of rumor, power, and superstition that ensnared an entire community. Dr. Tara Rider is a senior lecturer at Stony Brook University in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences with a multidisciplinary background in history, marine studies, and sustainability. Her research focuses on how nature, gender, and race are entwined with questions of power, culture, and identity.