Haunted by the Nantucket Mermaid

This post is about a mermaid who has fascinated, and possibly haunted, people for centuries. But I want to start by talking about a human man: Ichabod Paddock. 

Ichabod Paddock was born around 1661 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and died around 1750. He's buried in Middleborough, Massachusetts. Paddock is remembered today for two things: his pioneering role in the Nantucket whaling industry, and his alleged extramarital affair with a mermaid. As a whaling pioneer, Ichabod came with his two brothers to Nantucket in 1690 and taught the islanders how to hunt whales. Their actions were instrumental in making Nantucket into the whaling capital of the world. 

Oddly, we have more details about his alleged (and probably legendary) affair with the mermaid than we do about his actual life as a whaler. The legend goes something like this. Once while on a whaling voyage, Ichabod was swallowed alive by a large, seemingly invulnerable whale nicknamed Crookjaw. The local whalers thought Crookjaw was somehow magical, and this was confirmed by what Ichabod found inside the creature's stomach. Rather than digestive fluids and half-eaten fish, Paddock found a cozy ship's cabin with lit lanterns, a luxurious featherbed, and a table. Two people - a beautiful, golden-haired mermaid and the Devil himself - were playing cards at the table when Ichabod arrived. 

Engraving from 1817 by John Paas

The mermaid won the game, and the Devil angrily disappeared in a flash of sulfurous smoke. "What were you playing for?" Ichabod asked. "We were playing for you," the mermaid said, "and I'm glad I won." She took Ichabod by the hand and led him to the bed, where they made passionate love for hours. 

Ichabod eventually emerged from Crookjaw's mouth and swam back to his ship, but the next day he again commanded the crew to sail to the magical whale so he could enjoy more of the mermaid's loving embraces. After several hours he emerged from the whale and returned to his ship, only to sail back to Crookjaw and the mermaid the next day, and the next after that. Ichabod's passion for the beautiful mermaid was insatiable. 

Eventually, news of Ichabod's strange extramarital affair reached his wife, Joanna. Ichabod was a formidable whaler, but Joanna was equally formidable in her own way. Since both Crookjaw and the mermaid were magical creatures, Joanna asked a local silversmith to craft a silver-tipped harpoon. At the time, silver was believed to have the power to harm magical creatures like witches, mermaids, and even invulnerable whales like Crookjaw. Vestiges of this belief still remain today, with the idea that werewolves and vampires can be killed with silver bullets. 

Joanna presented the silver-tipped harpoon to Ichabod as a gift. He accepted it, and although he was a formidable whale-killer and mermaid-lover, he apparently wasn't bright enough to realize that silver  could kill enchanted whales and the lustful mermaids who live in them. At the urging of his crew, Ichabod hurled the silver-tipped harpoon at Crookjaw, expecting it to bounce off the whale's impenetrable hide. Instead, it sunk deep into the body of Crookjaw, who died with a groan and a geyser of blood. 

Ichabod screamed in horror, incredulous at what he had done. What had happened to his beloved mermaid? When the crew butchered the whale's body, nothing was found inside its stomach except some long yellow seaweed that reminded them of a woman's hair. The beautiful mermaid was gone. 

In 1710 Ichabod and his wife left Nantucket and returned to mainland Massachusetts, eventually having nine children. According to author Nathaniel Philbrick, little else is really known about the life of Ichabod Paddock. His legendary encounter with the mermaid has lived on, though, and is still surprisingly resonant with some people today. 

For example, the book The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts (1984) contains the following story which a Nantucket woman told author Blue Balliett. The woman came from an old Nantucket family, and went to visit the Nantucket Whaling Museum with her sister who was visiting the island. While touring the museum, the woman became entranced by a painting of a young man. She had the strange feeling that she somehow knew him, and had been in an intimate relationship with him, similar to a marriage. She said:

"I was held by a magnetism of some kind that was so strong I couldn't move. It wasn't that I was objectively interested in him, or thought I saw a family resemblance of some kind. It was rather that he had an iron grip on me." (Blue Balliett, The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts, (1984), p.62)

The woman remained staring at the painting, immobilized, until her sister came and shook her arm, asking if something was wrong. This ended the trance.

 A mermaid illustration from 1687

The woman later went to visit her minister, and told him about her strange encounter with the painting. The minister explained that it was a portrait of Ichabod Paddock, who had fallen in love with a mermaid who was killed by a silver harpoon. The woman felt dizzy as she heard the story, because ever since she was a young child she'd had a weird "recurrent memory" that popped into her head like a daydream:

"It goes like this: I remember being in pitch darkness and having an excruciating pain in my side as I swim back and forth, back and forth, in black water. I also remember phosphorescence around me, the kind you see in the ocean on a dark night. I always thought it was peculiar, and I used to tell myself that maybe it was a memory of being inside the womb or something." (Blue Balliett, The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts, (1984), p.62)

Her encounter with Ichabod's portrait seemed eerily meaningful to her as she listened to the minister talk. Were these daydreams memories of a past life? Was she somehow the mermaid, reincarnated in 20th century Nantucket? She wasn't sure, but for months afterward she had a craving (which she resisted) to revisit the museum to see the portrait, and would wake up in the middle of the night seeing Ichabod Paddock's face floating above her bed. 

Perhaps it was just coincidence that this woman's unusual, recurring dream fit so well with the mermaid legend. That's what I thought, until I received an email from a young woman who is a member of the Paddock family, which still exists today. Like the woman in The Ghosts of Nantucket, she also feels a strange connection to the legendary mermaid, writing that "In my mythos, I am the mermaid who was given the opportunity to reincarnate because of winning half of Ichabod's soul." 

About two years later, I received an email from a man who was also a Paddock, telling me that his daughter felt a powerful connection to the mermaid legend, that she had a large mermaid tattoo on her back, and that she often dreamt of being a mermaid. I arranged to talk with him and his daughter, who it turned out was the young woman who had already emailed me. We had a nice conversation over Zoom, and I learned a lot about their family history and connection to the mermaid story. I didn't get the impression that either the young woman or her father literally believed she was the reincarnated mermaid, but rather that the mermaid was a source of family pride and artistic inspiration. 

Unlike the woman quoted in Ghosts of Nantucket, this young woman didn't feel upset or scared by the legend. Neither did her father. They thought the the legend was an interesting part of their family's genealogy. I don't blame them. Many people descended from old New England families have witches in their family tree, but only a few have a mermaid.

Mermaids aren't just cute cartoons, like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, or sexy fantasy figures, like you might see online. Mermaids are the modern iteration of ancient ocean spirits. They are elemental beings personifying the vast and unknowable waters that cover most of our planet. The ancient Greeks knew them as nereids and oceanids, the nymphs who lived in the seas and ocean. Nymphs were powerful godlike beings who were feared and petitioned for their blessings. Mermaids may also partly have their origin in stories about the Sirens, seductive female monsters that lured sailors to their doom. The seductive and possible devilish Nantucket mermaid certainly seems to share some traits with the Sirens. 

You may not believe in mermaids, just like you may not believe in invulnerable magic whales like Crookjaw. But you can't deny the hold mermaids still have on our imagination. They may not be seen in the ocean as often as they once were, but they still haunt our dreams and subconscious. 

A Nantucket Ghost Story: The Man with the Long Chin

Nantucket is a playground for the very wealthy these days, but that has not always been the case. In the past, the island has been home to Native Americans, Puritans, Quakers, whalers, and an assortment of artists and eccentrics. Nantucket has a very long history, and a long history usually means ghost stories. 

After the whaling industry collapsed in the mid-19th century, Nantucket became sparsely populated. There wasn't a lot of economic development on the island, which meant that very few of the old historic houses were torn down to make room for new ones. Those old houses are now mostly vacation homes for the wealthy, but there may be some unexpected guests stopping by to visit, as the following story indicates. 

The oldest house in Nantucket. 

It comes from Blue Balliett's 1984 book, The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts. I bought this at a used bookstore a few years ago, and really enjoy it. It's full of old-fashioned ghost stories, and also has some charming line drawings of old Nantucket houses. 

Back in July of 1981, a seven-year old girl named Jesse and her parents were invited to a dinner party at an old house on India Street in Nantucket. The adults were having a great time at the party, but Jesse was the only child there and quickly became bored. To keep her entertained, one of the hosts suggested she take a tally of interesting items in the house: candlesticks, mirrors, brass doorknobs, etc. 

The adults could hear her counting in a nearby room counting as they talked and ate dinner. But their dinner conversation was suddenly interrupted when Jesse ran into the dining room, terrified and exclaiming that she had seen a strange man in the house. Her parents and the hosts followed the frightened child into the room where she said she had seen the man, but there was no one there. 

Jesse said the man had a very large chin and was wearing a strange, dark blue suit. He had tipped his hat to her and then vanished into thin air. Although she had been scared, Jesse said he seemed friendly. She emphasized repeatedly that he had a long face and very large chin. Since Jesse was safe and unhurt, the adults at the party didn't take her story very seriously. After all, children do have active imaginations. 

Vintage photo from Ebay

A few weeks went by, and Jesse and her parents had mostly forgotten about her strange experience. One afternoon they were invited back to the old house on India Street, and the owners showed them something they had found in the attic. It was a line drawing that showed people attending a garden party at the house, probably from the 1940s or 1950s. 

When Jesse saw the drawing she said, "That's him! The man with the long chin." One of the people in the drawing was indeed a man with an unusually long chin. Some text on the back of the drawing identified everyone in it. The long-chinned man was William Hunt, a previous owner of the old house. 

After doing a little research, the current owners of the house learned that William Hunt had committed suicide in 1961, twenty years before he tipped his hat to Jesse. 

*****

This is a very satisfying ghost story to me. It has an old house, someone encountering the supernatural, and proof at the end that the encounter was real. That proof is often a major aspect of classic ghost stories. For example, think of phantom hitchhiker stories. Someone always has to independently verify and identify the hitch-hiking ghost. "That girl hitchhiking was my daughter, and she died on this night twenty years ago on the way to her prom. You saw her ghost!" Or this story, from Cape Cod: "That seaweed you found only grows on the bodies of people who drowned. You saw the sailor's ghost!" 

In these older, classic ghost stories, someone who did not witness the paranormal encounter has to confirm it was authentic, or someone finds a piece of outside evidence (a piece of seaweed, a drawing, etc.) that confirms the encounter. It's what makes these stories satisfying. If this story just ended with Jesse telling everyone she had seen a long-chinned man it wouldn't quite feel the same. 

From Monster to Mer-Bro: Four Centuries of New England Mermen

The more things change the more they stay the same. Yes, it's a cliche, but there's a grain of truth in it. Sometimes things seem like they are new but they are actually not. 

Take Gorton's Seafood, for example. Gorton's was founded in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1849. The company is still going strong and their longtime mascot, a fisherman wearing yellow rain gear, is widely recognized. But in recent months the company has tried appealing to a younger demographic by airing humorous ads featuring brawny mermen (a.k.a mer-bros) and a laid-back Neptune, god of the sea. Has Gorton's lost touch with its historic New England roots with this new advertising campaign? Not really. Although salty fishermen are an important part of our culture, mermen and their kin have also been reported in this area for hundreds of years.

An old-school merman. 

Mer-bros eating Gorton's fish sticks.

One of the earliest written accounts appears in Englishman John Josselyn's 1674 book An Account of Two Voyages to New England. Josselyn visited New England in 1638 and 1663, and on one of those trips he hear the following story from a colonist in coastal Maine:

One Mr. Mittin related of a triton or merman which he saw in Casco Bay. This gentleman was a great fowler, and used to go out with a small boat or canoe, and fetching a compass about a small island (there being many small islands in the bay), for the advantage of a shot, was encountered with a triton, who laying his hands upon the side of the canoe, had one of them chopt off with a hatchet by Mr. Mittin, which was in all respects like the hand of a man. The triton presently sunk, dyeing the water with his purple blood, and was no more seen.

A triton is a type of merman from classical mythology. They are named after the god Triton, son of Poseidon, and like the sea itself are fickle and sometimes dangerous. Perhaps Mr. Mittin was well-read in Greek myth and unwilling to see if this particular triton was friendly or not. Interestingly, in one of the Gorton's commercials a mer-bro sheds purple tears. Coincidence?

The Puritans who colonized New England did not look fondly upon ancient Greek gods or aquatic humanoids, apparently thinking both were demonic in nature. This outlook can be seen in their response to the song that Thomas Morton wrote for the raucous May Day celebration in 1628 at Merrymount Colony in Quincy, Massachusetts. It invoked Neptune and Triton, along with more overtly erotic gods like Priapus, Ganymede (Jupiter's young boyfriend), and Hymen, the god of marriage. After learning of Merrymount's pagan-themed celebration the Pilgrims at Plymouth dispatched armed troops to arrest Morton and burn down his colony. Morton was trading furs and arms with the local Indians, which threatened the Plymouth colony's economy, but his pagan and libertine tendencies were a threat to morality.

You can burn down a rival settlement, but the mer-folk are not so easily eradicated. In 1714 a minister named Valentyn sailing past Nantucket's Great Point glimpsed a merman in the water. At first Valentyn and the ship's crew thought he was human:

We all agreed he must be some shipwrecked person. After some time I begged the captain to steer the ship more directly toward it. … We had got within a ship’s length of him, when the people on the forecastle made such a noise that he plunged down, head foremost, and got presently out of sight. 

The man who was on watch at the masthead declared that he had… a monstrous long tail.

That story is quoted in Edward Rowe Snow's book Legends of the New England Coast. Snow also claims that years later, in the early 1900s, a lighthouse keeper at Great Point saw something humanoid emerge from the ocean and crawl into the nearby woods. Other local residents also said they saw signs that something not quite human had been among the trees. Gorton's mer-bros are goofy and fun; the Great Point merman sounds a little bit spooky to me.

Speaking of spooky, Rhode Island horror writer H.P. Lovecraft's 1931story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" centers on a race of monstrous aquatic humanoids called the Deep Ones who live off the coast of Massachusetts. The citizens of the decaying port city Innsmouth have made a deal with the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones give them plentiful fish harvests and golden treasure from their aquatic realm. In return, the people of Innsmouth give the Deep Ones human sacrifices and have conjugal relations with the scaly monsters. Yikes! In Lovecraft's 1926 story "The Strange High House in the Mist," various sea-gods, including Neptune and a band of tritons, pay a visit to the titular house. At least in this story they aren't demanding sex or human sacrifice. 

Lovecraft wrote fiction; he never thought the Deep Ones were real. But even during his lifetime some of his acquaintances thought he was writing about real occult practices and entities. That movement only grew after his death and some occultists have even claimed the Deep Ones are actual beings. For example, the British occultist Kenneth Grant claimed that he successfully summoned the Deep Ones to appear during a ritual. (Note: they weren't particularly pleasant!) Similarly, the American ceremonial magician Michael Bertiaux claims he has contacted the Deep Ones at an isolated lake somewhere in Wisconsin. Lovecraft based the fictional Innsmouth on Depression-era Newburyport, so perhaps the Deep Ones really are lurking in the waters just off our coast.

Unlike the Deep Ones, Gorton's mer-bros are cheery and goofy. Is this just an advertising gimmick or are there other happy mermen in New England's past? Yes, there are. Elizabeth Reynard's 1934 book The Narrow Land contains several stories given to her by Mashpee Wampanoag Indians. One of these stories tells of Matilda Simons, a widowed Wampanoag woman struggling to feed her three children. When the Christian god doesn't answer her prayers she turns to the old Indian gods. In response, the sea god Paumpagusnit sends several aquatic giants from the ocean to help her. They speak in "the guttural voice of the sea" and save Matilda's family from starvation by bringing gifts of fish. 

So perhaps the mer-bros are not as newfangled as they at first appear. While they are part of the current trend to use folkloric creatures in advertising (like those beef jerky ads starring Sasquatch), these fishmen are also have deep roots here in New England. 

Speaking of deep New England roots, recently I was a guest on Jeff Belanger's fantastic New England Legends podcast. Jeff is a font of weird knowledge and we had a great time chatting about witches, monsters, and why there are so many strange legends from New England. I hope you'll listen if you can!

The Nantucket Merman

I've always liked monsters. Well, at least I like reading about them. I've never met one face-to-face but plenty of New Englanders have. People see all sorts of things around here: Bigfoot, extraterrestrial creatures, pukwudgies, and even the occasional lake monster.

What people don't see much of these days is mer-people. Mermaids and mermen don't seem to be very common around here now, but in the past they were apparently more plentiful. For example, an aggressive triton was seen off the coast of Maine in the early 1600s, while a sailor named Captain Dodge exhibited a mermaid's corpse in a Boston museum in the 1820s.

A merman was even seen off the coast of Nantucket. The year was 1714, and a minister named Valentyn was sailing past Nantucket's Great Point when it happened. Here is a quote from the good reverend's journal:

“It appeared like a sailor, or a man sitting on something; and more like a sailor, as on its head there appeared to be something like an English cap of the same color.

We all agreed he must be some shipwrecked person. After some time I begged the captain to steer the ship more directly toward it. … We had got within a ship’s length of him, when the people on the forecastle mad such a noise that he plunged down, head foremost, and got presently out of sight.

The man who was on watch at the masthead delared that he had… a monstrous long tail.” 

There's something a little creepy about that account. I can imagine the ship's crew going from "Oh, look there's a sailor in the water" to "Oh crap, that guy's got a giant fish tail!" in just a few panicky moments. I know I would.

That may not have been the only sighting of a mer-person near Nantucket. According to folklorist Edward Rowe Snow, the keeper of Great Point's lighthouse claimed to have seen something humanoid crawl out of the ocean and head into nearby Coskata Woods in the early 1900s. Some other locals claimed to have seen signs of something living in the same forest.

Great Point Light from Wikipedia.

The Coskata Woods are very old and have not been logged since 1711. It makes sense that an ancient primal sea being would want to visit an ancient forest.

Perhaps memaids and mermen are still swimming in the waters off our coast. I hope so, because I do like monsters. And make no mistake, mer-people do have a monstrous side. Folklore tells of mermaids who sink ships by raising storms or abduct handsome sailors to be their lovers, while mermen and tritons sometimes attack young women walking alone on the beach. So though I hope there are still some mer-people out there, I don't want to meet one face-to-face, and hope you don't meet one either.

 *****

Most of the information about the Natucket merman can be found in Edward Rowe Snow's book Legends of the New England Coast. 

Sex, Whales and Witchcraft: The Legend of Ichabod Paddock

I've lived in New England my whole life, but I have only been to Nantucket once. It was a memorable trip. The island is full of beautiful historic old homes and lots of upscale amenities. It's a great spot for a posh summer vacation.

This was not always the case. Once it was a desolate isolated island. Herman Melville describes it in Moby Dick (1851):

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it — a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie...  

This does not sound like the summer playground of millionaires. It was not, but it was the whaling capital of the world. Melville himself sailed on the Charles and Henry, a Nantucket whaling ship, in 1842, which was one of the inspirations for Moby Dick.

Although the Wampanoag who originally lived on Nantucket may have occasionally killed whales, whaling as an industry only began there in 1690 when Ichabod Paddock arrived from Cape Cod. Paddock was a Quaker, an accomplished whaler, and a semi-legendary figure.

Image from here.

There are several legends about Paddock. For example, one claims that while he was in the Pacific he threw his favorite harpoon into a whale. The harpoon reached its mark, but the whale escaped. Thirteen years later, he was once again in the Pacific. His ship sighted a whale, which the crew successfully captured and killed. While they were cutting it up they found a harpoon embedded deep in its flesh. It had the initials "I.P." on it. It was the same whale Paddock had harpooned thirteen years ago.

One of the weirder legends tells how Paddock's ship was pursuing a whale named Crookjaw. No matter how hard Paddock's crew threw their harpoons they just bounced off Crookjaw. Even Ichabod himself could not harpoon the whale. Frustrated and unwilling to admit defeat, Ichabod put a knife between his teeth and dove into the ocean. As his terrified crew watched he swam right towards Crookjaw.

Crookjaw opened his mouth and swallowed Paddock whole.

Much to his surprise, Paddock did not die inside the darkness of a whale's stomach. Instead, he found himself inside a comfortable ship's cabin. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, and a large feather bed sat against one wall. A table filled the center of the room, and two people were playing cards at it. One was a beautiful blonde woman who had a shining green fish tail instead of legs. The other was a dark-clad man who smelled of fire and brimstone.

When the card players saw Paddock the dark man threw down his cards in anger and disappeared. The blonde woman (mermaid? witch?) smiled at Paddock.

"What were you wagering on?" he asked her.

"Why you, of course." She smiled again.

Meanwhile, the crew of Paddock's ship waited for some sign of their captain. After swallowing him Crookjaw just sat immobile, floating silently as the waves splashed against him. The crew didn't know what else to do. Their harpoons and knives were useless against the whale.

After several hours, Crookjaw opened his mouth and Paddock swam out on a torrent of water. He climbed back aboard his ship. "Boys," he said with a big grin, "We need to come back here tomorrow. I've got more work to do!"

Paddock and his crew came back the next day, and once again Paddock swam into the whale's mouth. His crew waited for hours while Crookjaw floated passively in the water until their captain emerged from the whale. Then they came back the next day. And the day after that.

This went on for quite a while. Rumors began to circulate around Nantucket that Paddock had been seduced by a devilish woman who lived in a whale, and they eventually reached the ears of his wife. Mrs. Paddock was young, beautiful, and unwilling to cede her husband to a witchy mermaid. She developed a plan.

One day as Paddock was about to set sail his wife ran down the wharf to his ship. "Husband!" she cried, "Husband! I have brought you a gift."

In her hands she held a glistening new harpoon. It's sharp tip shone brightly in the sun. Paddock thanked her and set sail for his assignation with her gift in his hand. Mrs. Paddock smiled a cold smile as the ship left the wharf.

When the ship found Crookjaw in his usual spot Paddock prepared to dive into the sea, but one of his crew stopped him. "Captain," he said, "Don't you think you should try that new harpoon your wife gave you? It's mighty fine. Maybe it can pierce the monster's skin."

Grudgingly, Paddock took up the harpoon. He knew it couldn't harm the enchanted whale, and he was eager to see his marine mistress. Still, he needed to keep up some level of appearance. He drew back his arm and threw the shining harpoon at Crookjaw.

The harpoon easily pierced the whale's hide, and with a hideous groan Crookjaw rolled over on his back. He was dead. Mrs. Paddock had asked a local blacksmith to forge a harpoon with a silver tip, and silver is one metal that always defeats witchcraft.

The crew didn't find a ship's cabin inside the whale when they cut open its stomach, just bile and half-digested fish. Paddock searched desperately through the offal for some sign of his lover, but all he found was long yellow seaweed and a few seashells.

*****

This story appears in quite a few places and with several variations. In some versions the seductress is clearly a witch, and in others a mermaid. I found this version in Nathaniel Philbrick's Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602 - 1890. Philbrick notes that Paddock was eventually kicked out of the Quakers after he "sailed about in a vessel where dancing was performed and he a partaker therein." The story about Crookjaw may be a legend but it seems to say something true about Paddock's personality.

Witches and sailors have a fraught (and often sexual) relationship in New England folklore. For example, Captain Sylvanus Rich was seduced by a witch who gave him the "sweet milk of Satan," while Skipper Ireson was ridden like a stallion at night by a witch as punishment. The Paddock legend is more elaborate but clearly fits in this genre.

Hercules, Hesione, and the Sea Monster, from the Museum of Fine Arts

Heroes have been swallowed by giant sea monsters throughout history. For example, Hercules was swallowed by a sea monster that came to eat the Trojan princess Hesione. He emerged alive several days later after killing the monster from the inside, but not before losing all his hair due to the acid in the monster's stomach. Two lessons to learn: Hercules is invulnerable but his hair isn't, and sea monster acid is nature's depilatory.

Jonah and the Whale, Pieter Lastman, 1620

The most famous person to emerge from a whale's stomach is of course the Biblical prophet Jonah. Jonah was told by God to preach in Nineveh, but didn't want to because he was afraid of the hostile reception he'd get there. He booked passage on a ship going in the opposite direction, but the crew threw him overboard after God besieged the ship with a storm. A whale swallowed Jonah, swam to Nineveh, and vomited him up on the shore. Jonah got the message and started preaching. 

In the movie Pinocchio, Gepetto is swallowed by a whale, and Pinocchio eventually goes inside to save him. This act of sacrifice turns the puppet Pinocchio into a real boy. 

Hercules, Jonah and Pinocchio find heroism, destiny and redemption inside their respective whales. Ichabod Paddock finds witchcraft, secret sex and the Devil. But after all, this is New England.

A Nantucket Ghost Story: The Specter Whalemen

Well, October 31 has come and gone. But don't be sad! Every day is Halloween on this blog, and I'm in the mood for a ghost story.

This story is from 1841, and first appeared in a publication called The Old American Comic And The People's Almanac, which was published in Boston. Richard Dorson includes it in his book Jonathan Draws the Longbow (1946), which is how I learned about it.

The following illustration was printed with the story when it appeared in The Old American Comic. Wow! It's amazing. I think it would make a great tattoo for someone young and hip.

The story is called "The Specter Whalemen," and it goes something like this. Back in the 19th century, Captain Reuben Joy was a prominent whaling ship captain from Nantucket. He was a successful and respected member of the Nantucket community, but he had one regret in his life: he was unmarried. He had been wooing a widowed woman named Mrs. Barnard, but she had refused his advances.

Captain Joy's life changed forever on his 13th whaling voyage. He was captaining the Betsey Ann, and the ship had rounded Cape Horn in search of whales off the coast of South America. The voyage had been a good one, and the hold of the ship was full of valuable whale oil. The ship was preparing to return to Nantucket when a school of sperm whales was seen nearby.

Longboats were lowered, and the crew approached the whales. The ship's second in command, Mr. Ray, successfully harpooned one of the animals. The whale was strong and put up a fight, dragging Mr. Ray's longboat off into the distance. Captain Joy ordered a search for Mr. Ray's boat after the other returned to the Betsey Ann, but Mr. Ray and the other men in his boat could not be found.

The next day Captain Joy told the crew it was time to go home to Nantucket. The men protested. They wanted to search once again for the missing boat. The captain overruled them, arguing that Mr. Ray and the others had undoubtedly been killed by the whale, and that since the ship was now shorthanded they needed to make haste and return. Despite their misgivings the men agreed.

As the Betsey Ann sailed up the east coast of South America it encountered another whaling ship that had recently departed from Nantucket. This ship carried letters from home, including one for Captain Joy. When Captain Joy opened the letter his face turned pale. Mrs. Barnard had died.

A nearby crew member watched the captain read the letter, and heard him say: "Then I have damned my soul for nothing."

Nantucket was a tightly-knit community, and the crew member knew that Captain Joy had unsuccessfully wooed Mrs. Barnard. He also knew that Mrs. Barnard had spurned the captain's advances in favor of Mr. Ray, who was younger and more handsome. Had Captain Joy called off the search for the missing boat so his rival would die?

The following year Captain Joy once again was in command of a whaling ship off the coast of South America. When the ship approached the same area where Mr. Ray had disappeared a school of whales was again sighted. Boats were lowered.

Captain Joy and the men in his boat successfully harpooned and killed a whale, but the captain's feeling of triumph was shortlived. A decrepit and weathered longboat appeared nearby, and as it drew closer Captain Joy recoiled in horror. It was the Mr. Ray's missing boat, and it was manned by a crew of skeletons.

As they approached the captain could hear their bones rattling, and hear the crew's skeletal leader shriek out commands to his undead crew. Oddly, no one but Captain Joy could see or hear the hideous spectral whalemen.

Captain Joy ordered the boats back to the ship and quickly set sail. As they departed the captain looked back. The ghost boat was following them. With a hellish laugh the skeleton's leader threw his harpoon. It didn't reach the ship, but the captain's heart grew cold.

From that time onward Captain Joy encountered the skeletal crew on every voyage he made. Haunted by guilt and terror, he retired from whaling and confined himself to his house on Nantucket, until he finally died alone and unloved.

*****

Is there any truth to the story? There were indeed several whalemen from Nantucket named Reuben Joy, but I couldn't find any indication one was haunted by hideous skeletons. Whether or not the story is true, it serves as a cautionary tale about love and fate.

How Maushop Created the Most Expensive Real Estate in New England

My last post was about Indian deities; my previous posts were about Provincetown, a summer resort. Can I write about Indian gods and resort towns in one post? Yes, if I write about Nantucket.

Oh, Nantucket, playground of the wealthy elites! I can understand why, since it is so beautiful there. No one is sure what the name (an Algonquian word) means exactly, but it may mean something like "far away island" or "in the midst of waters." Nantucket is nicknamed the Grey Lady because of its occasional foggy weather.

In the past it also had a less attractive nickname: the Devil's Ash-Heap. I can't imagine people saying "Where am I spending my summer? Why, on the Devil's Ash-Heap, of course!"

According to a legends told for hundreds of years by the Wampanoag of Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket was created by Maushop ("Big Man" in Proto-Algonquian), the giant culture hero of southern New England. William Baylies, a physician from Dighton, first recorded this story in 1786:

On a time, an offering was made to him of all the tobacco on Martha's Vineyard, which having smoked, he knocked the snuff out of his pipe, which formed Nantucket. (found in William Simmons Spirit of the New England Tribes)

Later versions of the story elaborated on this, adding details such as Maushop creating Nantucket as a refuge for two lovers whose marriage was opposed by their parents.

Maushop was basically a benevolent force, but Nantucket was called the Devil's Ash-Heap because Christian writers assumed that all indigenous gods were evil. For this same reason, an off-shore rock formation Maushop created is named the Devil's Bridge, and a bowl shaped depression on Gay Head where Maushop used to live is called the Devil's Den.

Most legends recorded in the 18th and 19th century say that Maushop abandoned New England when the European settlers came. However, legends from the 20th century note that he might still be lurking around. Dolores Tantaquidgeon recorded the following in the 1920's:

Maushop takes the form of various creatures and may be sensed about Gay Head at times as a gust of cold wind that rushes past one...

Nosapocket, a member of the Mashpee tribe, told William Simmons in 1981 that she encountered a large, hairy giant in the woods. It eventually came to her house and looked into her window.

And its chest I would say had to be about five feet wide. Its lungs were bigger than my body, and it just breathed... I was not very frightened, but excited that such beings still lived amongst the Mashpee Wampanoag.

Many pages of Maushop stories can be found in Simmons's excellent book Spirit of the New England Tribes.