Abigail Graves
Descent: Meghan Jane Leineweber ← Catherine Raye Lobb ← Patricia Jane Loomis ← Edward Byron Loomis ← Isaac Hayes Loomis ← Juliette Cordelia Hayes ← Nelson Hayes ← Alanson Hayes ← Jeremiah Hayes ← William Hayes ← William Hayes ← Abigal Dibble ← Abigail Graves
In brief
She married in Hannah ____. She died about January 20, 1667, in Windsor, Connecticut.
Family
Children
- Abigail Dibble · in this lineb. January 19, 1666, in Stamford, Connecticut on Saturday Morningm. August 29, 1683, Windsor, Connecticut
Siblings
- ____ Graves
- John Gravesd. Late 1670s
- Benoni Gravesd. April 12, 1657, in Stamford, Connecticut
- Deliverance Graves
Life story
A Death Attributed to Witchcraft
Abigail Graves was born to William Graves and married Samuel Dibble, settling with him in Stamford, Connecticut, where the couple became entangled in a bitter, ongoing dispute with her father over her unpaid dowry — a conflict Abigail begged her husband to abandon in the summer of 1666, fearing what her father might do. In January 1667, while heavily pregnant, Abigail was visited by her father, who warned her she would die unless her labor went quickly; witnesses later described her collapsing into violent convulsions during and after the birth of her daughter, symptoms modern medicine would likely attribute to eclampsia but which her community, and her own husband, took as evidence of a curse. William was formally accused of witchcraft in connection with her death. Abigail died around January 20, 1667, in Windsor, Connecticut.
Sources (2)
- Norbert R. Bankert, “More on the Identity of Abigail (Graves) Dibble, and her Tragic Death and Suspicions of Witchcraft,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 155 (July 2001): 273-278; image copy, American Ancestors, (https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/11632/273/23548020 : accessed 9 July 2026).
- David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England (Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press, 1991): 164-169.