“During the evening there had been another besides Mr. McDonnel there.  About ten o’clock this other priest retired, as I understood.  Soon after this Mr. McDonnel called me, with others, into the room where Eliza was, when he said that she (Eliza) was possessed of the devil Mr. McDonnel then commenced interrogating the devil, asking the devil if he possessed her.  The answer was, “Yes.”  The priest then asked, “How long?” and the answer was, “Six months and nine days.”  The priest then asked, “Who sent you into her?” The answer was, “Mr. Lockwood.”  The next question was, “When?” “When she was asleep,” was the answer.  He then asked the devil if Mr. Lockwood had ever tempted Catharine, meaning me, and the reply was, “Yes.”  Then the question was, “How many times?” And the answer was, “Three times, by offering her drink when she was asleep?”

“I came home about five o’clock in the morning, greatly shocked at what I had seen and heard, and impressed with the belief that Eliza was possessed with the devil.  I went again to the priest’s on Wednesday to find Eliza, when the priest told me that he, Mr. McDonnel, exorcised the devil at high mass that morning in the church, and drove the devil out of Eliza.  That he, the devil, came out of Eliza, and spat at the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ, and departed.  He then told me that, as Eliza got the devil from Mr. Lockwood, in the house where I lived, I must leave the house immediately, and made me promise him that I would.  During the appalling scenes of Tuesday night, Mr. McDonnel went to the other priest and called him up, but the other priest did not come to his assistance.  These answers to the priest when he was asking questions of the devil, were given in a very loud voice and sometimes with a loud scream.”

“Catharine Dillon.”

“Subscribed and sworn to, this 31st day of December, 1851, before me, job S. Olin, Recorder of Troy, New York.” [A copy.]

At the interview between Mr. J. W. Lockwood and the Rev. Mr. McDonnel, officiating priest at St. Peter’s church, there were present Hon. James M. Warren, T. W. Blatchford, M. D., and C. N. Lockwood, on the part of Mr. Lockwood, and Father Kenny and Mr. Davis on the part of the Rev. Mr. McDonnel, on the evening of the 31st December, 1851.

Mr. McDonnel at first declined answering any questions, questioning Mr. Lockwood’s right to ask them:  He would only say that Eliza Mead came to his house possessed, as she thought, with an evil spirit; that at first he declined having anything to do with her, first, because he believed her to be crazy; second, because he was at that moment otherwise engaged; and thirdly, because she was not in his parish; but, by her urgent appeals in the name of God to pray over her, he was at last induced to admit her.  He became satisfied that she was possessed of the devil, or an evil spirit, by saying the appointed prayers of the church over her; for the spirit manifested uneasiness when this was done; and furthermore, as she was entering the church the following morning, she was thrown into convulsions by Father Kenny’s making the sign of the cross behind her back.  At high mass in the morning he exorcised the devil, and he left her, spitting at the cross of Christ before taking his final departure.