- In 1812, Ephraim Thayer and Hannah Taft gave birth
to a daughter and named her Bathsheba.
Born in Rhode Island,
Bathsheba would spend her life living
in the Northeast United States,
eventually finding herself in Connecticut,
where she would meet a man named Judson Sherman.
The two began to date and on March 10th, 1844,
they were married and she moved on to his farm.
In 1851, Bathsheba had a son, Herbert Sherman,
her only offspring,
at least as far as the public record goes.
It is believed that she gave birth
to an additional three children, two more boys and a girl,
but none of them lived long enough to ever be reflected
in census data.
Although there were rumors of Bathsheba being involved
in witchcraft and ritualistic sacrifices
after an infant in her care died
after supposedly being impaled with a sewing needle,
there was never any proof and it was the 1800s.
Modern medical science couldn't be depended upon
to save a sick child.
So Herbert was her only kin to outlive her.
She carried on until 1885,
when she went into a bout of paralysis
that doctors at the time could not identify
and never recovered,
dying at the age of 73 years old.
We can now infer that this incident
was possibly related to a stroke.
And that's basically the life
of the real Bathsheba Sherman.
However, "The Conjuring" character, Bathsheba Sherman,
met a much darker fate.
To learn how additional context of Bathsheba's life
shaped the malevolent witch's spirit
seen in The Conjuring,
and how the character may have influenced later events,
stick around to the end of this video.
(electric guitar)
Welcome to Horror History.
Most Conjuring movies, as you would expect,
deal with the conjuring of demons.
Much of the lore is based on the grimoire,
The Lesser Key of Solomon,
which details evil entities like Malthus and Valak.
The demon attached to Isla in The Conjuring 3
similarly has occult origins.
There are, however, Conjurverse antagonists
who are based more on local urban legends.
The second is the legend of La Llorona,
a ghost from Latin American folklore,
but the original is Bathsheba the witch,
who was based on the mysterious New England farm wife
that supposedly haunts the old Arnold estate
in Harrisville, Rhode Island.
As always in Horror History,
I'll be analyzing the timeline,
but the timeline of the events
of the real Bathsheba Sherman, don't match up
with the timeline of the movie character, Bathsheba,
who died seven days after the birth of her child.
So, I'm going to start with one event
that is in both timelines,
the marriage of Bathsheba Thayer and Judson Sherman.
I'll sort all this out on the other side
of the Horror History screen.
(pages flipping and eerie music)
In real life, Bathsheba's marriage came in 1844,
when she was 31 or 32 years old.
In The Conjuring, Lorraine claims
that the farmhouse was built in 1863 by Judson Sherman.
And the way she says it
makes it seem like Judson was married to Bathsheba
at the time it was built.
I'm assuming this was very shortly after their marriage.
Typically, a couple moves in together
immediately after marriage,
so I'm just going to call it the same year.
Assuming her major life events came at similar ages,
that means movie Bathsheba would have been born
in about 1831, married in 1863,
and had the baby in 1870,
which leaves a pretty big gap between marriage and baby.
Lorraine's research mentions that Bathsheba was caught
by her husband, sacrificing the seven day old child.
But she never says with certainty that
that was her first child.
I mentioned the real life Bathsheba being associated
with rumors of other children having died young
and thus, being excluded from the public record.
And I think the movie leaves open this possibility
based on the events that play out.
Remember, when Carolyn is possessed by Bathsheba's spirit,
she's not just targeting one daughter.
She starts by going after the middle girl, Christine.
It's only after that doesn't work
that she tries to get April, the youngest.
In the movie, Bathsheba's ties to witchcraft
are explained by her lineage.
It's stated that she's related to Mary Towne Eastey,
who was accused of witchcraft
and hung during the Salem witch trials.
She is also based off of a real person
who lives 200 years earlier.
The reason for these witch sacrifices,
according to Lorraine, all ties into Satanism.
They believed that they were elevating their status
in the eyes of Satan.
After Bathsheba, or can I just nickname her Bath?
After Bath was caught sacrificing her baby,
she proclaimed her love to Satan
and cursed anyone who would try to take her land
and hung herself in the tree outside.
But as we know, the story doesn't end there.
We're given bits and pieces of the hauntings
that would occur from that point forward
and if we put them all together,
there's a common theme.
In the 1930s, a woman named Mrs. Walker
lived there with her son, Rory.
According to the papers,
Rory mysteriously disappeared in the woods,
but Lorraine's visions tell a different story,
where she can be seen stabbing her son in the cellar
before taking herself out of the picture as well.
However, a sad final outcry helps explain her behavior.
- [Mrs. Walker] She made me do it
- [Zac] Mrs. Walker was possessed to commit her crime
by the ghost of Bathsheba.
Other ghosts that we've seen in The Conjuring franchise
don't have the power to take over somebody's body like this.
We've seen it many times with demons,
but only this once from the ghost of a witch.
Since her sacrifice was done in the name of Satan,
it seems like Bath has gained some of this demonic power.
Her final proclamation in life,
cursed anyone who would try to take her land.
So when the farmhouse was eventually split up
into multiple properties,
there were even more victims for her to come after.
Like the Bledsoe boy, who drowned in a pond accident
and the maid in a neighboring home
who slit her wrists.
The maid's ghost would echo
almost the same line as Mrs. Walker.
- [MAID] Look what she made me do.
Look what she made me do!
- While not much is known about this,
there was also a tragic school bus accident
that perhaps took place on the property
and claimed the lives of four more children.
It seems unlikely that there would be a fatal accident
in rural Rhode Island,
so I imagined the bus driver, like the others,
was not in control of his or her own body
at the time the so-called accident occurred.
There's one constant that runs through
most of these tragedies.
And it helps explain part of Bathsheba's motivation.
Each of these accidents involves
the premature passing of a child.
It would seem that the witch's undertaking
does not expire in death.
The only exception to this seems to be the maid,
who looks like a young adult, though it's possible
that there's another child disappearance
that just doesn't come up in the Warrens' research.
If each kid sacrificed moves Bathsheba up in Satan's ranks,
it's no wonder that there was a huge opportunity in 1971,
when the Perron family,
with their five daughters,
first moved into the Old Arnold Estate.
- [Roger] Here we are.
(slow nostalgic music)
- It was fall of 1971
when Roger Perron purchased the farmhouse
in an auction from the bank.
However, despite Bathsheba's claim
that she would curse anyone
who tried to take her land,
Roger was not main object of her wrath.
Instead it was his wife,
Carolyn who suffered the most.
After spending the first night there,
she awakens with bruises
after breaking in the new house with her husband.
If you know what I mean.
This was a new take on the stories written by Andrea Perron
about her family's time in the house.
In her trilogy of books, "House of Darkness House of Light",
she explains that she feels Bathsheba
despised Carolyn in particular,
because she saw her as essentially taking over
the mother figure in the house
and Bath was jealous.
- My mother was never allowed
to assume her rightful position
as mistress of the house.
That's the bottom line, whatever the spirit was
that taunted and haunted my mother
so supremely over a decade,
was not willing to relinquish the position.
She loathed my mother.
She lusted after my father, lusted.
I use that word deliberately.
- [ZAC] In the books, Andrea claims
that her mother was stabbed in the leg
by the spirit with a sewing needle,
which is the same weapon
supposedly found lodged in the skull of that infant
that died under Bathsheba's care.
The fictional family also encountered
a rancid smell moving around the house,
and Bathsheba even went after the family dog.
Each paranormal instance would often began at 3:07 AM,
the official time of death of Bathsheba Sherman.
This would continue onto the second night
where the evil witch pulled on Christine's ankle
as she slept, to terrorize her.
It seems that Bathsheba also has the ability
to mess with the TV signal
and distracts Roger with a series of three knocks
that send him searching around the house.
There may be more than one meaning here.
The activity towards Roger never seems malicious,
unlike what happens to his wife and daughters.
So this could be interpreted as Bath
trying to play with him,
to kind of assume that matriarchal role.
Then there's the fact that the knocking comes in threes
which Ed Warren has his own theory about.
- Sometimes it's meant as an insult to the Trinity,
the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
- If she's trying to make a mockery of a religious concept,
this may not actually be the first example.
Just look at her name, Bathsheba.
Bathsheba was the biblical wife of King David in the Torah.
I've been calling her Bath this whole time,
but maybe I was focusing on the wrong part of her name
and should have been calling her Sheba.
This in itself could be a mockery of the queen of Sheba
from the Hebrew Bible.
And yes, obviously a baby doesn't name itself,
as far as I know,
but remember, Bathsheba's ties to witchcraft
are said to be passed down by her family.
- [LORRAINE] Ed, she's related to Mary Towne Eastey.
She's one of the women accused of witchcraft in Salem.
She was hung during the trials.
- Now, I don't know if Mary Towne Eastey
and Bathsheba Sherman were actually related in real life,
but Mary is obviously named
after another religious figurehead, the Virgin Mary,
and Bathsheba's father, Ephraim,
is probably named for Ephraim,
the son of Joseph in the Torah.
It may not have been the intention of the filmmakers
to call attention to this,
but I find it interesting, nonetheless.
And one more thing,
if Bathsheba was named after the biblical Bathsheba
that's also significant,
because the biblical Bathsheba
was also the father of King Solomon.
Yes, the same King Solomon from The Lesser Key of Solomon,
the demonic spell book, that was the source of lore
for The Conjuring 2 and the Annabelle spinoffs.
The last incident to occur on the second night
involves Cindy, the second youngest girl,
sleepwalking into the wardrobe in Andrea's room.
- I've never seen her do this before.
- A lot of Bath's activity is related to this wardrobe,
which the family found there upon moving in.
The wardrobe is positioned
in front of a secret nook behind the wall
where Rory Walker liked to hide
when the hauntings got too scary.
The area also features a passage down to the cellar,
which may have been used for another hanging
at some point in the house's history,
though we don't have any other details on it.
We see Bathsheba use the wardrobe again the next day
when Carolyn is playing hide and clap
with the youngest daughter, April,
and Bathsheba's hands emerge from it
and mislead Carolyn towards that direction,
probably hoping to abduct or attack her.
It's also on this day,
when birds start crashing into the house,
which might just be
another generally creepy thing to happen,
or might, once again,
be symbolic Bathsheba's anti-religious tirade,
since birds are often used as Christian symbols,
like how many churches use dove symbols
as a connection to the holy spirit.
The third night features more ankle pulling.
Christine is nearly yanked out of bed
and sees Bathsheba standing behind her door.
But her sister Nancy is unable to see it.
- [Christine] There's someone standing over there.
- [Nancy] I don't see anyone.
- [Christine] It's looking right at us.
- Nancy is able to smell the putrid scent
associated with the witch though.
Yeah, I'm beginning to think that Bath was a bad nickname.
It slams the door shut on them
causing late night calamity in the house.
Roger is gone on a job for the next week, over which time,
Bathsheba inflicts more bruises on Carolyn,
leads her around the house at night using sounds,
knocks the family pictures off the wall,
which again, were insulting to Bathsheba
because she's jealous of Carolyn being the mother figure
and eventually slammed the cellar door shut
in a way that knocks Carolyn down into the basement
where more horror ensues.
Upstairs, Cindy has another sleepwalking incident,
but this is probably just the ghost of Rory
trying to protect her.
But in this case,
the dark presence of Bathsheba has a counter-attack.
Andrea is lured back to the wardrobe
when the knocking sound continues.
(knocking sounds)
And Cindy awakens to see a sight
that no child could ever forget.
(Bathsheba snarling)
(girl screams)
(ominous music)
After more nights of turmoil,
Carolyn and Roger enlist the help
of renowned paranormal investigators,
Ed and Lorraine Warren, on November 1st, 1971.
And when Lorraine sees the dark presence
latched onto the family,
Bathsheba immediately sees her as a threat
and begins plotting, to how she can ward them off.
She latches onto Lorraine,
essentially following her home
to see what's important to her.
She witnesses her receiving this locket
from her daughter, Judy.
The next night,
when the Warrens returned to the estate
Ed places holy items around the house
to try to draw a reaction out of the spirits.
There is some activity at 9:18 PM in the cellar
and after they investigate it and find nothing,
Bathsheba tries to slam the door on Carolyn,
but she's able to jump out of the way.
The relentless attacks are really starting to get to her,
which I imagine is just what Bathsheba planned for.
- [CAROLYN] Uh, I'm exhausted.
I'm just gonna take a nap.
The late nights, they are getting to me.
- [ZAC] This leaves her alone and vulnerable.
While Lorraine is outside helping with the laundry
and the two make eye contact
before Bathsheba attacks Carolyn in her sleep
and possesses her body by puking in her mouth.
Yeah, if you're not familiar,
that's pretty much always how possession is done
in The Conjuring movies.
When Lorraine makes it upstairs,
Carolyn acts like she's fine.
So this must be Bathsheba manipulating her
and trying to hide from Lorraine.
That night, there's another sleepwalking incident,
but this time Lorraine finds the area behind the wardrobe,
eventually falling down into the basement cellar.
But as she tries to escape,
she too is attacked by Bathsheba.
Which if you think about it makes sense.
Not only is she trying to help the family,
but she's also taken on a supportive motherly role.
For example, she was helping out with laundry
while Carolyn was trying to rest.
Bathsheba goes for her locket,
the one given to her by Judy,
the symbol of their mother-daughter relationship,
and basically a threat about who she'll go after
if Lorraine and Ed don't back off.
It's here that Bath really ups the ante,
all the objects turn face down,
and of course the air yeeting ensues.
(woman screeching)
The next day, she issues another warning
by showing Lorraine a vision of her daughter
floating motionless in the river,
but since they refuse to back off,
Bathsheba decides to make this more than just a threat.
Like Christine at the Old Arnold Estate,
Judy is also woken up by ghostly pulling at her ankle.
She gets up and discovers
that Bathsheba has actually freed
the cursed Annabelle doll from its case,
and finds the benevolent witch rocking with it in a chair.
This is the biggest threat yet,
because Bathsheba is not only threatening Judy's safety,
but also potentially freeing another powerful entity,
Malthus, who is bound to that doll,
which is usually sealed inside this case.
Nothing more would come of this relationship
for almost another year though,
as Judy's parents got home just in time to save her
and Annabelle is mysteriously returned to her case.
However, that same night,
the evil tries to sacrifice another child in Satan's name
by using the possessed Carolyn
to kidnap Christine and April.
Well, I mean,
I guess you can't really kidnap your own child,
but then again, Carolyn wasn't the one in control.
Anyway, her plan was to have the mother sacrifice the child,
just as she had with her own child over 100 years before.
- [CHRISTINE] Where are we going, Mom?
- On a fantastic trip to The Bahamas!
- No, they actually go back to the haunted house,
believe it or not.
Once he got home, Drew must have noticed something was wrong
and tried to stop her.
She took the kids down to the cellar
and tried to stab Christine with a pair of scissors.
Drew was able to hold her off,
and when Ed and Officer Brad Hamilton show up to the scene,
it takes all three men to wrestle the scissors
out of her hands.
They try to carry her out of the house
and get her to a church,
but this causes bruises to appear all over her body,
as they have been since they first arrived there.
But also, her skin sears as they try to leave the house,
- She won't let her leave the house.
- What do you mean?
- If we take her out, the witch will kill her
- They ended up tying her to a chair
to perform the exorcism,
and this causes the entire house to shake
and birds to crash in from all directions.
When Ed commands Bathsheba to reveal herself,
it is her face that pokes through the sheets
rather than Carolyn's.
She levitates off the ground, inverts,
and tries to bust through the ceiling,
laughing hysterically at their attempts to stop her,
claiming that Carolyn is already gone.
She breaks free and goes after April
with a pair of scissors.
So Ed, in one last ditch effort,
calls Bathsheba out by name,
and attempts to condemn her back to hell.
However, I don't think it was this alone
that managed to stop her.
Even though she had been possessed,
the real Carolyn was still down in there somewhere.
She recalls a memory of the day
that she and Roger went to the beach with their children
and is able to use that love to push back against Bathsheba.
In the end, it was her love for family
that helped her overcome a witch
who used her own family as a sacrifice to the devil.
And she's able to spit back out the toxic part of Bathsheba
that resided within her.
That is the last
that the Perron family saw of Bathsheba Sherman,
but that does not mean
that this entity's story is over quite yet.
The spirit was caught in the childrens' music box (somehow)
and taken back home with the Warrens to be sealed away
in their cursed artifact museum for safety,
which all worked out just fine for almost a year.
It was September of 1972
when the Warrens were away on a case,
and hired a babysitter for Judy.
The babysitter has a friend over
to help celebrate Judy's birthday,
and the friend accidentally sets free
Malthus, the Annabelle demon,
who, as we saw with Judy in November,
happens to be a beacon for other spirits.
And the house is overrun by many of the ghosts
that Ed and Lorraine had locked up over the years.
Now we don't specifically see Bathsheba
take on a visible form during this chaos,
but we do see this.
Roll it.
Judy is pulled out of bed by the ankle
just as her and Christine Perron had been
by Bathsheba the prior year.
Could this be an example of Malthus and Bathsheba
teaming up against Judy
just as they had in The Conjuring,
or is this simply a case of Malthus
having learned from Bathsheba
and deciding to take Judy's ankle into its own hand?
Either way, it seems like
old Bath will never quite be done causing trouble
in the human world,
whether she materializes in it or not.
While we only have
these two brief interactions between them,
there is a lot more to learn about Malthus
and what makes it one of the most powerful entities
in the Conjurverse lore.
So click that video on the left
to see me analyze the entire history of Malthus
and let me know what other Conjurverse characters
you'd like to see covered here on Horror History.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld
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assuming we both survive
and you can start by getting that COVID vaccine.