I proceed to give an account of some other things lately happening in New England, which were undoubtedly praeternatural, and not without diabolical operation. The last year did afford several instances, not unlike unto those which have been mentioned. For then Nicholas Desborough, of Hartford in New England, was strangely molested by stones, pieces of earth, cobs of Indian corn, &c. falling upon and about him, which sometimes came in through the door, sometimes through the window, sometimes down the chimney; at other times they seemed to fall from the floor of the chamber, which yet was very close; sometimes he met with them in his shop, the yard, the barn, and in the field at work.
In the house, such things happened frequently, not only in the night but in the day time, if the man himself was at home, but never when his wife was at home alone. There was no great violence in the motion, though several persons of the family, and others also, were struck with the things that were thrown by an invisible hand, yet they were not hurt thereby. Only the man himself had once his arm somewhat pained by a blow given him; and at another time, blood was drawn from one of his legs by a scratch given it.
This molestation began soon after a controversy arose between Desborough and another person, about a chest of clothes which the other said that Desborough did unrighteously retain: and so it continued for some months (though with several intermissions), in the latter end of the last year, when also the man’s barn was burned with the corn in it; but by what means it came to pass is not known. Not long after, some to whom the matter was referred, ordered Desborough to restore the clothes to the person who complained of wrong; since which he has not been troubled as before.
Some of the stones hurled were of considerable bigness; one of them weighed four pounds, but generally the stones were not great, but very small ones. One time a piece of clay came down the chimney, falling on the table which stood at some distance from the chimney. The people of the house threw it on the hearth, where it lay a considerable time; they went to their supper, the piece of clay was lifted up by an invisible hand, and fell upon the table; taking it up, they found it hot, having lain so long before the fire, as to cause it to be hot.
In ‘Remarkable Providences illustrative of the earlier days of American colonisation’ by Increase Mather (reprint 1856 of ‘An essay for the recording of illustrious providences: wherein an account is given of many remarkable and very memorable events, which have happened this last age, especially in New England’, printed 1684.)
https://archive.org/details/remarkableprovid0000math/page/101/mode/1up?q=morse&view=theater