The Case of the Huron County Witch Trial

This is the interesting case of the Huron County Witch Trial, or to use its correct legal name, the case of Rex v. Pollock.

It is the story of Maggie Pollock, a woman from a small community in Ontario, Canada in the early part of the 20th century.  It revolves around how she used allegedly supernatural skills to find missing and stolen property for people, and how those services she offered ended up seeing her prosecuted under the Criminal Code of Canada for a witchcraft-related offence.

The case was decided in the Appellate Division of the Ontario Supreme Court in 1920, but the events of the story began unfolding years earlier.

In 1919, Margaret Pollock - better known as Maggie Pollock – was a woman of 40 years who resided on a farm in Morris Township in the province of Ontario.  She made a living working on the farm, which was owned by her brother, but also earned income from providing services of a rather unusual nature to the inhabitants of the region.

You see, from an early age, Miss Pollock began to delve into the world of the supernatural.  She stated she would receive visions and communications from the spirit world.  With the assistance of these spirits, she would offer to help the people of Morris Township locate items that were stolen or lost, and in return they would show their gratitude by paying her a small sum of money.  As of 1919, it is reported that the average payment was 50 cents, which would work out to approximately $8 Canadian dollars in 2024.

Now, offering services of this kind was controversial.  Many considered communication with spirits to be unwholesome or even sinful, but Miss Pollock asserted that it was a completely natural God given gift and she did not believe there was anything untoward about it.  Indeed, she told people she felt compelled to use the gifts she had been given to help others.

Regardless of the origin of her talent, in the year 1919 Miss Pollock was approached by a man named John Leonhardt who was in search of some oats.  He believed that a person or persons unknown had stolen oats from his barn, and he sought out Miss Pollock so she might exercise her powers to find them.  After holding one of the man’s mitts in her hand for a time, Ms. Pollock announced that the spirits had shown her a vision of the oat theft and proceeded to give him a description of the thieves and the direction they had fled with their ill-gotten goods.  Mr. Leonhardt then paid Miss Pollock the customary 50 cents and went on his way.

The historical records I could locate did not reveal what happened to Mr. Leonhardt or his search for the stolen oats after this, or whether the information that Miss Pollock provided was of any help to him.  Whatever may have become of the oats, it appears that someone reported Miss Pollock to the authorities, for later that year she ended up being prosecuted for committing a crime against section 443 of the Criminal Code, as it was then written, which proclaimed as follows:

“Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for one year who pretends to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, or undertakes to tell fortunes, or pretends from his skill or knowledge in any occult or crafty science, to discover where or in what manner any goods or chattels supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found.”

Brought to trial in the County Court before Judge Henry Dickinson, Miss Pollock argued for her innocence.  A Mrs. Grace Sinclair also testified on Miss Pollock’s behalf, attesting to how Miss Pollock was not fraudulent and recounting how Miss Pollock had previously helped her find a lost gold ring using her supernatural gifts.   However, this did not sway Judge Dickinson who convicted Miss Pollock of pretending to use occult knowledge to discover the whereabouts of stolen property, contrary to section 443; although the judge did agree to suspend the passing of sentence to allow her to go free while her lawyer appealed the conviction to a higher court.

In June 1920, the appeal was taken up in the Ontario Supreme Court, sitting in the historic Osgoode Hall in Toronto.  On appeal, the lawyer representing Miss Pollock advance several arguments in her defence. 

To start, he pointed out that many prominent persons of the day also believed in the spirit world and mentioned some by name, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes novels and an enthusiastic proponent of spiritualism.  He questioned whether it could really be intended for the law to prohibit occult practices when such upstanding citizens also engaged in similar behaviour.

The defence also argued that, since Miss Pollock honestly believed in her ability to commune with spirits to gain insights on the whereabouts of lost or stolen property, that she did not have the necessary dishonest mind required for conviction.  After all, the section talked about “pretending” to practice witchcraft and it was obviously aimed at dishonest and deceptive conduct, not the actions of honest citizens who were not seeking to cheat anyone.

Unfortunately for Miss Pollock, when Justice Orde handed down the decision of the Ontario Supreme Court, the defence arguments did not prevail.  On the point that other persons also engaged in spiritualism, the justice pointed out that the law did not prohibit people from engaging in seances or other supernatural pursuits in general, only in certain specific ones such as finding stolen or missing property.  Additionally, the justice ruled that a person could be guilty of pretending to practice prohibited occult arts specified in the law even if the person honestly believed they had such powers and had no intention to cheat anyone.

For one thing, Justice Orde noted that the word “pretend” in section 443 was being used in an older sense of the word, which roughly equated to profess or claim, rather than being deliberately dishonest.  For another, the justice declared the court needed to look to the intentions of the lawmakers when interpreting the law and, in the eyes of the legislators, supernatural powers were not a reality.  It was the lawmaker’s intent to criminalize the act of claiming to be able to supernaturally locate property because they presumed it to be impossible and false, regardless of whether the person who made the claim knew it was false or not.  To put it another way, such occult practitioners were guilty of pretending to practice the occult even if they didn’t know they were pretending.

According to news reports from the time, after the Ontario Supreme Court upheld her conviction, Miss Pollock did not receive any prison time.  Instead, she received a $200 fine (about $3000 in 2024 dollars) and was admonished to cease her occult property location services; although, to be clear, she could still give opinions on where property might be found, just without making mention of any supernatural sources of knowledge. 

Interestingly, laws against pretending to practice occult arts – including a law against fortune telling – would remain on the books in Canada in some shape or form for another century.  It wasn’t until 2018, that section 365 of the Criminal Code (which was the more modern equivalent of section 443) was repealed.  Even more interestingly, a woman had been charged with violating the law only a few days before it was repealed, but that story will have to wait for another time.

So, what are the closing thoughts about this case?  I suppose it shows how there is a long history of fear for those who practice arts that are seen as occult, and until recently the law was used to suppress these activities.  Gradually, over the centuries, the penalties became less severe – being downgraded from the death penalty that was common in centuries past to a mere fine in the case of Miss Pollock – but the fear and distrust remained.  Perhaps now we are beginning to move past such fears.  One can only hope.

SOURCES:

Bill C-51, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, 1st Session, 42nd Parliament, 2018. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-51/royal-assent

Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c. C-46. https://canlii.ca/t/53gxz

Harris, K. (2018, December 19). Woman charged with witchcraft just 2 days before offence scrubbed from law. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/witchcraft-criminal-code-charge-1.4951071

Lewis, K, & Murdoch, M. (2022, October 27). Double, Double Toil and Trouble: The Tale of Maggie Pollock and the Huron County Witch Trial. Huron County Museum. https://www.huroncountymuseum.ca/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-tale-of-maggie-pollock-and-the-huron-county-witch-trial/

nesbittkaila. (2023, February 9). Maggie Pollock & The Huron County Witch Trial. Public History in Practice. https://publichistoryinpractice.ca/2023/02/09/maggie-pollock-the-huron-county-witch-trial/

Official Data Foundation. (n.d.a). $1 in 1919 worth $16.26 today. in2013dollars.com. Retrieved February 19, 2024 from https://www.in2013dollars.com/canada/inflation/1919?amount=1

Official Data Foundation. (n.d.b). $200 in 1920 is worth $3,084.17 today. in2013dollars.com. Retrieved February 21, 2024 from https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1920?amount=200

Rex v. Pollock, 1920 CanLII 873 (ON CA). https://canlii.ca/t/jzmdh

Schwarcz, J. (2017, March 20). The Strange Friendship Between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. McGill Office for Science and Society. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-you-asked/how-did-sir-arthur-conan-doyle-trick-houdini

Woodyard, C. (2014, November 25). Occult Science and Oats: A Canadian Witch Trial. Haunted Ohio. http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/occult-science-oats-canadian-witch-trial/

Description: 1893 engraving of Salem Witch Trials

Credit: Howard Pyle, Public Domain,

via Wikimedia Commons

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