It was February 1698, and disease was sweeping through Leonardtown, a small village in southern Maryland. Locals knew whom to blame: They set fire to the hut of Moll Dyer, a single woman living alone on the edge of town who had been deemed a witch.

She escaped the enraged citizens, only to die in the frozen wilderness. Her body was found clinging to a rock, on which her knees and hands supposedly left impressions.