History & local legend
An iron chair beside Merritt Wright’s grave in the churchyard of St. James the Greater in Bristol is known locally as the Witch’s Chair. The parish preserves a gentler account of its origin: after Merritt died in 1911, his widow Sarah supposedly had the chair placed there so she could rest during visits.
The Halloween version gives the seat a different purpose. Anyone who sits there at midnight in October is said to feel a witch’s arms close around them. Investigator Jeff Robbins tried the chair during an October 2010 visit with the Midnight Watchmen. He reported feeling cold on one side of his body; the team recorded a temperature difference between his left and right sides.
Sarah herself remains a small mystery in the parish history. A newspaper obituary places her in Bristol in 1930, but her name and death date were never added beside Merritt’s on the gravestone.
