“Unearthed Mystery: Enigmatic Anti-Witchcraft Potion Discovered at Infamous Sorceress’s Childhood Residence”
The alleged witch was born in 1761, and remains the primary subject of ghost tours in New York’s Saratoga Springs to this day. While Tubbs grew up on the same property this bottle was found, she left England at age 15.
After moving to America at the dawn of its independence, Tubbs began telling fortunes for a living. Legend has it that she was a “mysterious and uncertain character” surrounded by a brood of cats — her only companions.
Saratoga Springs Public LibraryAngeline Tubbs grew up on the same property this bottle was found, but left England as a teenager.
As the book Reminiscences of Saratoga and Ballston puts it:
In traversing the country and the village, she uniformly wore a red cloak with a hood; a handkerchief, in imitation of a turban, was bound upon her head, over which she brought the hood in foul weather. Indeed, from her appearance and occupation it was fortunate for herself that she lived more than a century after the tragedies enacted by our Puritan ancestors at Salem.
Even more fortunate? She is said to have lived to be 104 years old — quite a feat for that time. However, just because she was lucky enough to be left alone didn’t mean that people had stopped fearing witches in the 1800s.
Case in point: the recently discovered bottle. This artifact is thought to have served believers in their quest to ward off evil spells. According to The Week, it contained fish hooks, human teeth, glass, and an unidentified liquid.
Production of this type of bottle began in the 1830s, long after Angeline Tubbs had moved to America. Nonetheless, its contents are unnerving — and indicate a fear of witchcraft.
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