Jack-O-Lanterns: Demons, Gemstones, and New England Origins

The jack-o-lantern is a ubiquitous symbol of Halloween. All across America, people carve faces into pumpkins, placing them on doorsteps and windowsills as part of the holiday celebrations. Despite New England's modern connection with Halloween because of Salem's annual October festivities, Halloween really only became popular in New England in the latter half of the 19th century as more Irish and Scottish immigrants arrived here. The English Puritans and their descendants did not celebrate before then. 

Still, despite this, the jack-o-lantern has deep roots in New England. It seems likely that people were carving jack-o-lanterns well before Halloween was even celebrated here, and that pumpkin carving became associated with the holiday only later. Read on if you dare...

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Giant Gems and Enchanted Scarecrows

Massachusetts author Nathaniel Hawthorne was apparently the first person to ever use the term "jack-o-lantern" in print. His 1835 story "The Great Carbuncle" is about a group of adventurers searching for a giant, glowing gemstone in the White Mountains. One of the adventurers tells his companions he will hide the gem inside his tattered cloak if he finds it.

‘Well said, Master Poet!’ cried he of the spectacles. ‘Hide it under thy cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes, and make thee look like a jack-o’-lantern!’

It's not entirely clear what Hawthorne means by jack-o-lantern here. It sounds like it could be our familiar carved pumpkin lit by a candle, but the term jack-o-lantern also was used to mean ignis fatus, the glowing swamp gas phenomena also called willow-the-wisp. Either usage makes sense in the story. Halloween is not mentioned at all in "The Great Carbuncle," which was published before the holiday was celebrated in New England.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

However, a carved pumpkin does appear in Hawthorne's 1851 story "Feathertop," when a New England witch named Mother Rigby uses one as a head for her scarecrow:

Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. It was really quite a respectable face.

Mother Rigby is so pleased with her handiwork that she brings the scarecrow to life, and since this is a Hawthorne story the scarecrow learns a lot about human morality. Hawthorne does not use the term jack-o-lantern in the story, though, and Halloween is not mentioned. 

John Greenleaf Whittier: Boyhood Memories?

The Massachusetts poet John Greenleaf Whittier mentions a carved pumpkin in his poem, "The Pumpkin," which was first published in 1846 (according to Cindy Ott's 2012 book The Pumpkin: The Curious History of An American Icon).

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling, 

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! 

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, 

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within! 

Whittier was born in 1807. If he really carved faces into pumpkins when he was a boy, it would have been very early in the 19th century, long before Halloween was celebrated in New England. Whittier only refers to Thanksgiving in "The Pumpkin," but not Halloween, and he doesn't call the carved pumpkin a jack-o-lantern.

John Greenleaf Whittier

It's a little confusing, isn't it? The earliest instance historian Cindy Ott found where "jack-o-lantern" refers to a carved pumpkin comes from 1846. It appeared in a South Carolina publication called Tales for Youth, but again with no apparent connection to Halloween. It sounds as though people were carving pumpkins and using the term jack-o-lantern well before Halloween was celebrated, even if not always together.

A Demon and A Pumpkin in Rhode Island

Enough with the history, let's turn to the spooky stories. Many years ago, during the Revolutionary War, two young women named Hannah Maxson and Comfort Cottrell were staying at the Westerly, Rhode Island home of one Esquire Clark. One day while the Esquire was away on business, and his wife was sick in bed, the two young ladies decided to practice a little love magic. 

They took a ball of yarn, and tossed it repeatedly down a well and then pulled it back up. As they did, they chanted some psalms backwards. The goal of this magic spell? To find the men they would marry. 

As the sun set, Hannah and Comfort saw a tall figure walking up the road towards the house. They ran eagerly towards it, but their excitement turned to terror as they saw the figure had an enormous, misshapen head with two glowing, fiery eyes. This was no dream lover, but a demonic monster. 

Hannah and Comfort ran into the Clarkes' house and locked the door, but the hideous creature pounded on it insistently. The young women hid behind Mrs. Clarke's bed in fear, listening with the sick woman as the monster tried to break into the house. The supernatural assault only stopped when Esquire Clark returned home. Seeing a demonic creature clawing at his front door, he said some prayers against evil, which sent the monster slinking off into the woods.

This story first appeared in a November 1860 issue of The Narragansett Weekly, and the author, Deacon William Potter, notes that Mrs. Clarke died from all the excitement. Hannah and Comfort vowed never to use magic again. But Deacon Potter includes a strange epilogue. He claims that the demon was really a hoax played by a young many who lived near the Clarkes. He put a carved pumpkin on his head to scare Hannah and Comfort, not anticipating his joke's deadly results. The neighbor only revealed his role in the story seventy years later. 

It's a good spooky, cautionary tale. Young ladies - don't mess around with the occult. Young men - don't play stupid pranks that kill people. But despite the carved pumpkin, the story doesn't reference Halloween. And it's not called a jack-o-lantern.

The Sea Captain and Satan

Captain Snaggs was a wealthy sea captain who lived in Barnstable on Cape Cod. He had earned his riches the old-fashioned way: by selling his soul to the Devil. He had been young and foolhardy when he signed Satan's contract, but as an old man on his deathbed he was filled with regret. He could hear the Devil's hooves coming up the walkway towards his house, and Captain Snaggs didn't want to go to Hell. So he jumped out of bed, climbed out the window, and ran like... well, he ran like hell. 

He ran down the length of Cape Cod to Orleans, where he hid in a hollow tree. But the Devil was hot on his heels, and could smell Captain Snaggs's soul. So Captain Snaggs ran again, this time to Wellfleet, where he hid in a cemetery. 

The Devil was not far behind, so Captain Snaggs grabbed a pumpkin from a nearby pumpkin patch, carved a face in it, and set it up on a tall, white gravestone. Then he lit a candle inside of it and ran towards Truro.

When the Devil arrived in the cemetery he said to the pumpkin, "Your contract is up, Snaggs. I've come to take your soul." When the pumpkin didn't answer, the Devil poked the gravestone with one talon. "Do you hear me Snaggs? Ouch! You're awfully tough for an old man! Where'd you get those muscles?" He grabbed the gravestone and gave it a mighty shake. The pumpkin fell to the ground and shattered. Realizing he had been tricked, the Devil ran towards Truro with a demonic roar. 

Captain Snaggs, meanwhile, had run all the way to Provincetown. He had reached the end of the Cape. There was no place left to go. When the Devil finally caught up with him, sulfurous smoke billowing from his nose and ears, Captain Snaggs stood there in terror.

With a tremor in his voice, he said, "All right, I'm ready. You can take me to Hell now."

The Devil looked puzzled and said, "Take you to Hell? We're in Provincetown, aren't we? We're already there."

As Elizabeth Renard notes in her 1934 book The Narrow Land, there are many variations on this story. The comedic ending always remains the same, but the name of the captain, the Cape Cod towns he visits, and the number of pumpkins involved all vary. You can listen to an excellent audio version of this tale at New England Legends, where the sea captain is named Jedidy Cole. 

Renard also notes that this story is probably of late origin, so perhaps it was first told after Halloween became a popular holiday here. It's hard to say. Have a happy Halloween!

*****

My new book, Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts, was just released on Kindle recently. So now you can enjoy it either in paperback or on your device of choice. You can buy it wherever books are sold online. 

The Minister's Veil: Guilt, Murder and (Maybe) Demons in Old Maine

I appreciate Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction more and more as I get older. I find the weird mix of the supernatural, the sentimental and the moral very appealing. I recently read his short novel The Blythedale Romance, which is about a 19th century commune, a psychic, and a love triangle, and it was really fantastic. I recommend it if you're into that sort of thing.

Today, however, I want to write about "The Minister's Black Veil,"which was published in 1832 and is one of Hawthorne's better known short stories. Like some of his other work it is based on a kernel of truth, and in addition to Hawthorne's story some interesting legends have grown up around that kernel.

First the fiction. In "The Minister's Black Veil" Hawthorne tells the story of Reverend Hooper, a minister in a small New England town in the 1700s. A quiet but respected member of his community, Reverend Hooper shocks his congregation one Sunday by arriving at the church wearing a black veil over his face. He delivers his sermon without explaining why he's wearing, or even mentioning, the black veil. The congregants are unnerved.

Photo from a 2015 fashion show by Thom Browne

That same day Reverend Hooper, still wearing the veil, presides over a funeral. As he prays over the open coffin a mourner believes she sees the corpse shudder when it sees what is under the veil. Another mourner believes they see the deceased person's spirit walking next to the minister in the funeral procession. That night Reverend Hooper presides over a wedding, his face still covered in black. At the wedding reception he sees himself in a mirror and runs out in terror.

He continues to wear the veil in the following days and his fiancee begs him to take it off. She tells him that people in town think he's trying to hide from his sins:

"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired, "that you should thus darken your eyes for ever?" 

"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil." 

"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?" urged Elizabeth. "Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office do away this scandal."

The gentle reverend refuses to remove his veil and his fiancee leaves him. He wears the veil for the rest of his life, becoming an object of both fear and reverence in town.

By the aid of his mysterious emblem—for there was no other apparent cause—he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that before he brought them to celestial light they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. 

Reverend Hooper leaves the veil on even as he lies on his death bed. As he breathes his last breaths he initially agrees to let someone remove the veil, but as they reach for it he pushes them away with the last bit of his strength, telling them to leave it on. When he dies he is buried in the veil.

The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the black veil.

That's Hawthorne's story. It's mysterious and a little creepy. What does that black veil mean? Why won't Reverend Hooper show his face? American high school students have pondered those questions for decades.

Photo from a 2015 fashion show by Thom Browne

That's the fiction, but there is some fact behind it. Hawthorne based his fictional story on the real life of Joseph Moody, which he probably read about in Jonathan Greenleaf's 1821 book Sketches of the Ecclesiastical History of the State of Maine. Moody was born in 1700 in York, Maine and served as a town clerk, register of deeds, and county judge. He became minister of York's second Congregational church in 1732. In 1738 he started to act strangely after his wife died:

Mr. Moody's disorder was of the nervous kind. He supposed that the guilt of some unforgiven sin lay upon him, and that he was not only unworthy the sacred office he held, but unfit for the company of other people. He chose to eat alone, and kept his face always covered with a handkerchief when in company. (Jonathan Greenleaf, Sketches of the Ecclesiastical History of the State of Maine, p. 13)

His congregation waited three years for him to recover but in 1741 they finally hired another minister to take his place. Unlike Hawthorne's Reverend Hooper, Moody eventually did remove the handkerchief but not before earning the nickname "Handkerchief Moody." He died in 1753 and is buried in York. 

There has been a lot of speculation about why Joseph Moody wore that handkerchief. What was the unforgiven, secret sin he was concerned with? These leads us to several legends about Moody, the  most popular legend of which is that he killed someone when he was a boy. According to Gail Potter in Mysterious New England (1971), he accidentally shot his best friend on a hunting trip. He lied and told everyone his friend had been killed by Indians, but "for years the face of his dead friend rose accusingly before him." He finally decided to wear the veil as a form of secret penance and only confessed to killing his friend on his deathbed. 

Photo from a 2015 fashion show by Thom Browne

There is some truth to that story but it's not entirely accurate. When he was eight years old Joseph Moody and his friend Ebenezer Preeble were playing with a pistol when it went off and shot Preeble in the head, killing him. This is gruesome but apparently was not a secret that Moody concealed from anyone. It probably wasn't related to the handkerchief on his face, which the Museums of Old York believe he wore because of grief at his wife's death and just overall emotional exhaustion.  

Another legend from Mysterious New England claims that Moody accurately predicted the outcome of the Battle of Louisburg, when the troops from the English colonies fought the French for control of a fortress in Quebec. On June 17, 1745 Moody was preaching in York while the English troops battled the French far to the north. He prayed fervently from the pulpit that God would deliver Louisburg to the English. He abruptly stopped and then loudly thanked God for giving the English success and delivering the fortress to them. His congregation later learned that at that very moment the French had surrendered hundreds of miles away. Somehow Moody knew what had happened. 

I don't know if that story is true but it's also good one. A third legend relates to Moody's diary, which he kept beginning when he was 20 years old. He wrote the diary in Latin and in code. According to Kate Holly-Clark, who has given ghost tours in York, the contents of the diary are deeply disturbing. The diary's contents remained a mystery until the 1970s or 1980s when it was decoded by a retired York man who had been a code-breaker for the military. He was shocked by what he read. The diary contained omens of doom, mysterious portents, and references to demonic beings. He finally stopped working on the diary because he was too disturbed by its contents. 

Again, that story is quite creepy but is it true? You can read excerpts of Moody's diary online now. I didn't see anything about demons, but maybe those pages haven't been made public. Or maybe it's just a legend... 

I'm sure that Joseph Moody didn't think he'd inspire nearly three-hundred years of legends and a classic short story when he donned that handkerchief. 

Is The House of The Seven Gables A True Story?

I just recently finished re-reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic 1851 novel The House of The Seven Gables. This New England Gothic tale is full of murder, ghosts, witchcraft, curses and hidden secrets. And although it is fiction much of the plot is based on actual events. 

THE PLOT

The House of the Seven Gables begins in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. Wealthy and powerful Colonel Pyncheon wants to build his family estate on land owned by Matthew Maule, a poor farmer, but Maule refuses to sell. Pyncheon acquires the land after he accuses Maule of witchcraft. Before Maule is executed he curses Pyncheon, saying “God will give him blood to drink!” The colonel is unphased by the curse and builds his dream house, an enormous wooden structure with seven gables. 

The Turner-Ingersoll Mansion in Salem

He never gets to enjoy it. On the day the house is finished he is found dead inside a locked room. It appears the Colonel has choked to death on his own blood. Everyone in Salem assumes this is Maule's curse in action.

Generations later, the House of Seven Gables is still owned by the Pyncheon family but has fallen into disrepair. The house’s only inhabitants are Hepzibah Pyncheon, an elderly eccentric, and young Mr. Holgrave, a boarder who earns his living making daguerrotypes (an early type of photograph) and practicing hypnosis. They are soon joined by Phoebe, Hepzibah’s young cousin from the countryside, and also by Clifford, Hepzibah’s brother who has recently been released from decades of imprisonment for murdering his wealthy uncle. The house is also said to haunted by multiple ghosts. Meanwhile Judge Pyncheon, a wealthy and powerful cousin, has secret plans for the family and house...

HAWTHORNE'S INSPIRATIONS

In some ways The House of The Seven Gables is a classic Gothic novel. It features a crumbling old house, dark family secrets, murder, and eerie happenings. But unlike many Gothic writers who opted for exotic settings Hawthorne instead set the novel in his own hometown and based many of the plot points on actual occurrences.

A youthful Nathaniel Hawthorne

For example, the House of the Seven Gables is a real building, although technically it is called the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion. It was erected in 1668 and during Hawthorne’s youth was owned by his cousin Susannah Ingersoll. Hawthorne often visited and learned the history of the house, which by the 1840s had lost some of its gables. In 1908 the house was renovated became a museum. Although the full number of gables were restored some renovations were not historically accurate. A small store inspired by one in the novel was added, and a secret passage was also constructed. 

Matthew Maule and his curse were also inspired by real people and events. Matthew Maule is fictional, but the Maules were an actual family involved with the Salem witch trials. The most famous of them was Thomas Maule (1645 – 1724), a Quaker who initially accused Bridget Bishop of witchcraft but later changed his views. After the trials ended Thomas Maule was arrested for publishing pamphlets critical of the witch trials.

Hawthorne based Matthew Maule’s fictional curse on the actual one hurled by Sarah Good (1653 – 1692) at the Reverend Samuel Noyes during her trial for witchcraft. Good shouted, "I'm no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink!" Sarah Good was executed by hanging. Twenty-five years later Noyes died when he choked to death on his own blood, much like Colonel Pyncheon does in the novel. Locals believed it was Sarah Good's curse coming home to roost. Hawthorne felt a personal connection to the Salem trials because one of his ancestors was Judge John Hathorne; Hawthorne may have added the "w" to his surname to distance himself from this notorious hanging judge.

Hawthorne claimed the Pyncheon family was fictional, and that he had chosen the name to reflect their greedy, grasping nature. However, shortly after the novel’s publication members of an actual Pynchon family contacted him asking if the novel's family in the novel was based on them. Ooops! 

Did Hawthorne really not know there was a Pynchon family? I’m not sure. They were early colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and one of them, William Pynchon, served as a magistrate in the witchcraft trials of Mary Bliss Parsons of Springfield in the 1670s. The most famous modern Pynchon is novelist Thomas Pynchon, author of classics like Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49. 

A portrait of Captain Joseph White

Finally, the murder of Clifford's uncle was probably inspired by a similar murder that happened in Salem in 1830. Captain Joseph White, a wealthy older bachelor, was found bludgeoned to death in his bedroom. Various relatives were suspected, and ultimately two of them, Joseph and Frank Knapp, were convicted and hanged. Their friend Richard Crowninshield, who actually did the bludgeoning, hanged himself in his jail cell. 

Although Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporated many true events into The House of The Seven Gables there's also a lot in the novel that's purely imaginary, like a wizard who can enter people's dreams, a flock of small misshapen chickens, and a ghost who plays the harpsichord. It's definitely fiction. I'd forgotten how weird and clever nineteenth century novels can be and I really enjoyed reading it. I recommend it if you're in the mood for something Gothic and unusual. 

New England Pumpkin Lore: Cozy and A Little Creepy

October is definitely pumpkin season. The stores are full of pumpkin-flavored treats, jack-o-lanterns are appearing on my neighbors' porches, and someone recently motored across Boston Harbor in a giant pumpkin. Pumpkins are everywhere this month. There is some interesting New England lore about pumpkins, some of it homey and comforting, some of it kind of spooky. I guess that describes October too.

Pumpkins are of course native to the Americas. Historians say they were first cultivated in Central America and eventually adopted by the various American Indian groups that lived in New England. Samuel de Champlain, an early visitor to New England's shores, saw Algonquin Indians growing beans, maize and pumpkins along the banks of Maine's Saco River in the early 17th century. Pumpkin and squash were often included in dishes like succotash and were also dried for eating over the cold winter months.

When the Puritans colonized New England they adopted many local crops into their diet, including pumpkins. And because many of their English crops didn't grown well here, the early Puritans apparently ate a lot of pumpkin. A lot. It was seen as less desirable than traditional English foods, but Edward Johnson (1598 - 1672), the founder of Woburn, Massachusetts, wrote the following:

.. let no man make a jest at Pumpkins, for with this fruit the Lord was pleased to feed his people to their good content, till Corne and Cattel were increased.

Take that, pumpkin haters!

The colonists atet pumpkin in variety of ways. Boiled and mashed pumpkin was a popular dish. Mashed pumpkin was also added to breads, while dried pumpkin was used to sweeten alcoholic drinks. In addition to mashing, another popular preparation was to hollow out a pumpkin and fill it with cream. The pumpkin would then be baked until the flesh became soft and the center custardy. It sounds delicious, and I did once try to make something like this. It didn't work too well, but I think I was using the wrong type of pumpkin.

Modern New Englanders are more familiar with pumpkin custard as the filling in pumpkin pie, not actually baked in a pumpkin. Surprisingly, the earliest pumpkin pie recipe from New England (written down in the 1760s by a wealthy Boston Tory family) calls for slices of fried pumpkin layered with apples and dried fruit in a pastry shell. It sounds good, but that's not what we would call pumpkin pie today. After the  Revolution the pumpkin custard pie that Americans still know and love become dominant.

So, there's the homey, cozy lore about pumpkins. They're also obviously associated with Halloween, which here in America is part harvest festival and part celebration of death and the macabre. Corn stalks, hay bales, apple cider, and cute little pumpkins are all part of the holiday's harvest aspect. Ghosts, witches, horror movies and scary carved pumpkins are part of Halloween's macabre side. Pumpkins can be cute or scary depending on how they are used.

Halloween was not really celebrated in New England until the late 1800s. It was one of those holidays, like Christmas, that the Puritans and their Yankee descendants avoided. But even though there was no Halloween, New Englanders still carved pumpkins in the fall months and lit them with candles. For example, local poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892) includes the following line in his 1850 poem "The Pumpkin":

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

Halloween wouldn't have been celebrated when Whittier was a boy, and in fact that poem celebrates Thanksgiving.

Nathaniel Hawthorne seems to be the first writer to use the term "jack-o-lantern" to describe a carved candle-lit pumpkin. He used it in his 1835 story "The Great Carbuncle." A carbuncle is a type of gemstone, and the titular one shines with a blinding light.

Hide it under thy cloak, say'st thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes, and make thee look like a jack-o'lantern!

Again, that was written well before Halloween would have been celebrated in New England. Hawthorne seemed to like jack-o-lanterns. In his 1852 story "Feathertop," a witch brings to life a scarecrow with a carved pumpkin for its head, but again there is no reference to Halloween in the story, which takes place in May.

I'm not quite sure how the jack-o-lantern became exclusively associated with Halloween, but somehow, as immigration changed New England and holidays like Halloween and Christmas became accepted, it took it's place as the reigning symbol of Halloween.

Before it was used to describe carved a pumpkin, the term jack-o-lantern denoted either a lantern-carrying nightwatchman or a will-o-the-wisp, one of those wandering orbs of light, perhaps of supernatural origin, that appear in forests and swamps to lead travelers astray. Will-o-the-wisps were often thought to be lights carried by malevolent fairies seeking to trick unwary humans. One of the rare pieces of English fairy lore from early New England mentions jack-o-lanterns in this sense of the word:

... Marblehead (Massachusetts) was a sort of compendium of all varieties of legend. For instance, the belief in the Pixies of Devonshire, the Bogles of Scotland, the Northern Jack o' Lantern was prevalent there; _ and my father has told me that he was often cautioned by the fishermen, just at twilight, to run home or the Bogles would be sure to seize him (William Wetmore Story, The Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 1851)

When you're out and about this Halloween, be careful as you walk towards that glowing pumpkin. Maybe it's been carved by friendly neighbors, but maybe it's a trick to lead you into the dark October night.

*****

Source for the jump rope rhyme: B.A. Botkin's Treasury of New England Folklore. The information about early pumpkin recipes and preparation comes from Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald's America's Founding Food. 

Is The Scarlet Letter A True Story?

I was on vacation last week, and what book is better for beach reading than Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter? Secret sins, illegitimate children, adultery, repressive Puritans, and possible supernatural shenanigans - it has everything you want in a summer book.

I hadn't read The Scarlet Letter in many years, and one thing I had forgotten is that the first chapter is a really long autobiographical essay about the time Hawthorne spent working at the Salem Customs House. Unless you are into the office dynamics of 19th century bureaucracy (and don't be ashamed if you are), this chapter is pretty dry.

Demi Moore in The Scarlet Letter.

However, it ends with Hawthorne describing how he found an embroidered letter "A" wrapped in an old document in the Customs House. Hawthorne learns the letter was placed there by a previous employee, Surveyor Pue, who had died suddenly before the Revolution. The document contains the story of Hester Prynne and her scarlet letter, and Hawthorne claims his novel is merely an expanded version of it.

In short, he claims The Scarlet Letter is a true story:

...it should be borne carefully in mind, that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself, - a most curious relic, - are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them.

Unfortunately, this isn't true. Hawthorne never found a scarlet letter at the Customs House, so I am not sure what he told people who asked to see it. He simply used this literary device to make his story seem more authentic, just as he incorporated real people (such as Governor Bellingham and the accused witch Anne Hibbens) into the narrative.

But...

There is a nugget of truth behind The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne and her illegitimate daughter Pearl never existed but Hawthorne, who read extensively about Puritan history, may have based his novel on the story of Mary Bailey Beadle.

Mary Bailey emigrated to Kittery, Maine in the 1600s. She married a local fisherman named Robert Beadle and had two children with him. Robert died five years after their marriage, and Mary took a position as a live-in housekeeper with Stephen Batchelder, a retired minister in his 80s. (Mary was only in her 20s at the time.) Batchelder was a somewhat controversial figure. He had left England for religious freedom, but found the Puritans in New England even more repressive than the British king. He made many enemies among the local Puritans with his liberal approach to theology, and they were determined to make his life miserable.

Although there was no romantic relationship between Mary and the minister, gossip spread that they were living in sin, and the local authorities fined them 10 pounds for living together unmarried. To quell the rumors Batchelder said that he and Mary had been secretly married. This doesn't really seem like a good plan, and unsurprisingly it didn't quite work out. They were instead ordered to pay a fine of 5 pounds (for not recording their marriage) but Mary was to pay a much greater price.

While working for Batchelder, she began a secret affair with George Rogers, a neighbor nearer her age. The affair became public in 1651 when Mary became pregnant with his child. The court at York, Maine delivered the following verdict:

We do present George Rogers and Mary Batcheller, the wife of Mr. Stephen Batcheller, minister, for adultery. It is ordered that Mrs. Batcheller, for her adultery, shall receive forty stripes save one, at the first town meeting held at Kittery, 6 weeks after her delivery, and be branded with the letter A.

Rogers was also flogged. Their affair ended, and Mary and Batchelder tried repeatedly to divorce, but for many years the local court vindictively would not allow it. Their divorce was only granted when Mary traveled to Boston to plead her case. Batchelder by this time had returned to England, and died seventeen days after the divorce announcement.

Despite the scandal and being branded, in 1657 she married a man named Thomas Turner. The rest of her life was relatively peaceful, and she died in 1685 at the age of sixty-three.

So there's the story that may have inspired Hawthorne to write The Scarlet Letter. The Puritans in his novel seem cruel, but the punishment that was inflicted on Mary Bailey Beadle was actually much crueler than the one inflicted on Hestery Prynne. Hester merely had to wear an embroidered letter A, while Mary had one branded into her flesh. Sometimes truth is even grimmer than fiction.

I found a lot of my information about Mary Bailey Beadle on this site and this site. 

The Witches' Sabbath in New England: Part 1

Imagine yourself walking through the New England forest on a moonlit night. You're lost in your thoughts, concentrating on the path so you can get home safely, when suddenly you hear the sound of voices off among the trees. 

You stop, and looking off into the woods you see a fire flickering. You see silhouettes of women and men gathered around it. A tall dark figure climbs onto a boulder. Holding a book in one hand he begins to speak in a deep, sepulchral voice. Is it the local minister holding a special outdoor service?

Curious, you leave the path and draw closer. As you get closer to the fire you realize the man on the boulder isn’t the pastor, and maybe isn’t even fully human. You’ve stumbled upon the witches’ Sabbath.

Ooops. Make sure you don't sign your name into that big book they're offering you...

That witches gather together to work evil magic communally is an idea appearing sporadically throughout history, but texts like the Compendium Maleficarium made it very popular in Europe beginning sometime in the Renaissance. Medieval Europe had previously been riven by conspiracy theories claiming lepers, Muslims or Jews were conspiring to overthrow Christianity, but with the witches’ Sabbath Europeans could now fear that their own neighbors were conspiring with the Devil to destroy society. Truly, the Renaissance was an age of progress!

Detail from a painting by Goya.

The historian Carlo Ginzburg gives a brief summary of what the Sabbath entails:

Male and female witches met at night, generally in solitary places, in fields or on mountains. Sometimes, having anointed their bodies, they flew, arriving astride poles or brooms sticks; sometimes they arrived on the backs of animals, or transformed into animals themselves. Those who came for the first time had to renounce the Christian faith, desecrate the sacrament and offer homage to the Devil, who was present in human or (most often) animal or semi-animal form. There would follow banquets, dancing, sexual orgies. Before returning home the female and male witches received evil ointments made from children’s fat and other ingredients.

Ginzburg is an Italian historian, and he writes mostly about continental Europe. The Sabbath was not as prevalent an idea in the British Islands, and since Englishmen originally colonized this area it was not at first prevalent here either. The earliest, pre-Salem witch trials don’t mention any Sabbath-like meetings, just solitary witches working alone.

The Salem trials changed that. So many people were accused of witchcraft it seemed obvious they must be working together. As the trials went on the image of the witches’ Sabbath began to appear in both the accusations and confessions. It was similar to what appeared in European trials, but with some significant differences.

It was not called a Sabbath, but instead was called a witch meeting. The Puritans called their Sunday religious service “Sunday meeting”, so it makes sense the witches would use a similar term for their gathering. Unlike the European version, the Salem witch meeting didn’t involve sexual orgies or ointments made from babies’ fat. Instead, the witches gathered to listen to the Devil or his earthly delegate (supposedly the Reverend George Burroughs) urge them to work harder and overthrow God’s kingdom in New England. The witches and their master wanted to found a social order where people could “live bravely, in equality, with no future resurrection or judgment, no punishment or even shame for sin.” Just as the witches’ meeting was a reversal of Sunday meetings, their social order was going to be a reversal of the Puritan one.

To drive home this point, the witches held their meetings not in a remote forest or hilltop, but in a meadow next to the home of Salem’s minister Samuel Parris. They also celebrated an unholy sacrament by eating “red bread” and red wine. Many witches allegedly signed their pacts with the Devil using a red liquid, and it is implied that human blood was an ingredient in the bread, wine and ink.

It’s important to note that the witches supposedly attended this meeting with their spectral bodies, not their physical ones. Even those witches who flew there astride poles did so in spirit form. No one could see the witch meetings except those who attended and those who were afflicted by their magic. It happened invisibly right in the middle of Salem Village. At least, that's what was said during the trials.

A photo from Rob Zombie's film The Lords of Salem.

The Salem witch trials lasted only a year before they fell apart under the weight of ever broader accusations. But the idea of a witch’s Sabbath in New England became imprinted into the folk consciousness and literature of our region.

Probably the most famous literary depiction of the witches’ Sabbath appears in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1835 story “Young Goodman Brown.” Maybe you haven't read this one since high school, so here's a refresher.

The title character leaves his wife (the aptly named Faith) alone in their Salem home one night to journey with a mysterious stranger deep into the forest. The stranger (who is clearly the Devil) is leading Goodman Brown to a witch meeting so he can sell his soul. Brown is hesitant to sign himself over to Satan, but as he walks he sees many prominent neighbors heading in the same direction, including the woman who taught him the Christian catechism and the church deacon.

Goodman Brown finally arrives at a clearing in the forest dominated by a large boulder shaped like a pulpit. Gathered in the clearing are hundreds of people including the prominent pious leaders of Salem, notorious sinners, and even the local Indians. Goodman Brown is amazed to see them all mingling together.

The Devil says,

“There are all who ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here they are the all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows’ weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers’ wealth...”

The Devil prepares to baptize (with blood) Goodman Brown and a young veiled woman, but when the woman is revealed to be his wife Faith, Goodman Brown shouts for her to look to Heaven and resist Satan. The Sabbath vanishes in an instant, and Brown staggers into Salem as the sun rises. His neighbors and wife greet him warmly, never mentioning the Sabbath, but Brown recoils at their touch.

Had Goodman Brown really just spent the night asleep in the woods? Was it all really just a dream? Perhaps, but for the rest of his life Goodman Brown is aware of the miasma of evil surrounding humanity. When he dies his family “carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.”

I'm sorry to end on a grim note, but when you read Hawthorne you have to expect that. But don't be too sad. Next week I'll delve into the more folkloric aspects of the witches' Sabbath, which are a little more fun. 

My sources for this week's post: Carlo Ginzburg Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath; Marilynne K. Roach The Salem Witch Trials. A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege; and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown."

Top Ten New England Folkore Stories of 2010

There are a lot of top ten lists out this week. The top ten movies, the top ten fashion faux pas, the top ten books, etc.

Here's the only list worth reading - the top ten New England folkore stories of 2010, based on the number of hits they received on this blog. Enjoy, and thanks for reading in 2010!

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne Sees A Ghost
A famous author goes to the library and encounters the ghost of someone he never spoke to. Soul searching ensues! This post is so popular it makes me wonder if local schools assign Hawthorne's story for English class and kids are searching the Web rather than reading the assignment.

2. Dungeon Rock: Pirates, Treasure and Spirits
Pirates? Yes. Buried treasure? Yes. A cave and spirits? Yes. Convenient location in Lynn, Massachusetts? Yes. A photo of me looking insane? Yes. Even though I posted this way back in 2008, clearly Dungeon Rock still has everything people want to read about.

3. Cannibal Giants of the Snowy Northern Forest
This one is another oldie (from 2009), but we all like reading about monsters, particularly when they could be lurking in your own backyard. Great reading for a blizzardy day like today. Make sure you stock up on supplies first...

4. The Dogtown Werewolf
Another monster, another popular post. Does a werewolf really haunt Dogtown Common on Cape Anne? I can't decide, but the evidence and coincidences are definitely creepy.

5. Why Babies Shouldn't See Mirrors and Vampires Have No Reflection
Readers are either interested in supernatural advice for new mothers or the vampire craze has spilled over to this blog. Either way, folklore about reflections and the soul is interesting stuff.

6. Full Buck Moon
A good post for hunters, Native Americans, Wiccans and animal lovers. I think I covered a lot of diverse constituencies with one post!

7. Negro Election Day
Election Day used to be THE holiday in New England, but African Americans weren't allowed to vote so they were missing all the fun. It was a conundrum, but human ingenuity and the need for a party triumphed!

8. Thomas Morton and the Maypole of Merrymount
Very, very briefly a multi-cultural, tolerant, fun-loving utopian outpost flourished in Quincy, Massachusetts. Maybe someday it will return! This was also another post with a Nathaniel Hawthorne connection.

9. Grandmother Woodchuck
We all need a wise, grandmother to look after us. The Algonquian hero Glookskap's grandmother just happened to be a magical woodchuck. Anyone have a problem with that?

10. Indian Pudding
It's sweet, it's salty, it's spicy and it's made with cornmeal. Could Indian pudding be the perfect food? The thousands who have read this post clearly think so.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Sees A Ghost

Nathaniel Hawthorne (b.1804, d.1864)

Most people are introduced to Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school, when they're forced to read The Scarlet Letter in English class. Students would probably like him a lot more if they knew he had actually seen a ghost. Like last week's post, this story is also focused on the Boston Athenaeum.

When Hawthorne was a bachelor (probably in the 1830s), he used to spend a significant amount of his free time reading at the Athenaeum. Among the many men he frequently saw there, he took particular note of one Reverend Doctor Harris, the Unitarian minister of Dorchester's First Parish Church. As Hawthorne describes him,

"He was a small, withered, infirm, but brisk old gentleman, with snow-white hair, a somewhat stooping figure, but yet a remarkable alacrity of movement."

Doctor Harris would spend his time in the Athenaeum's reading room with the Boston Post, the local Democrat newspaper. He and Hawthorne never spoke, and were never formally introduced.

One day, a friend of Hawthorne's remarked that Dr. Harris had passed away. But when Hawthorne went to the Athenaeum that day, he saw Dr. Harris still sitting in his customary seat, reading the newspaper (which probably contained his obituary notice)! He tried to ignore the ghost, but,

"Once or twice, no doubt, I may have lifted my eyes from the page to look again at the venerable Doctor, who ought then to have been lying in his coffin dressed out for the grave, but who felt such interest in the Boston Post as to come back from the other world to read it the morning after his death."

Hawthorne was the only person in the room who seemed to see Dr. Harris. And he continued to see him every day, reading the newspaper, for the space of several weeks.

Are there any ghosts in the Boston Athenaeum today?

Towards the end of this period, he noticed the ghost began to watch him expectantly. Perhaps, he thought, the ghost had a message for him from beyond the grave, or would charge him with a task he would need to accomplish before it could rest.

Interestingly, Hawthorne didn't accept this implicit invitation to speak to the ghost. After all, he thought,

"I had never been introduced to Doctor Harris, dead or alive, and I am not aware that social regulations are to be abrogated by the accidental fact of one of the parties having crossed the imperceptible line which separates the other party from the spiritual world."

Finally, one day in the reading room, Dr. Harris's ghost looked at him with

"a sad, wistful, disappointed gaze, which the ghost fixed upon me from beneath his spectacles; a melancholy look of helplessness, which, if my heart had not been as hard as a paving-stone, I could hardly have withstood."

And that was the last time he ever saw Dr. Harris.

Mix one part Yankee reserve, one part fear of death, and voila! You get this story, which is very New England. After all, how many times do we pass by living people that we see every day without speaking to them? Would we treat a dead person any differently?

You can find Hawthorne's tale many places, but I found it on the Dorchester Athenaeum site.

Concord's Haunted Inn

In late March Tony and I took a trip to Concord, Massachusetts. It's the quaintest town I've ever been in! Tony took plenty of photos.

There's plenty there to see, like Nathaniel Hawthorne's grave in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Hawthorne included lots of folklore in books like The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. While in Sleepy Hollow, we also saw three of my favorite animals: a groundhog, crows, and a garter snake.


We stopped by Walden Pond, and saw the site of Thoreau's famous cabin in the woods. The pile of stones has been placed there, one rock at a time, in tribute by visitors.


Parts of the Minuteman National Park are also in Concord. It was late March when we were there, and the Concord River had flooded over its banks in a big way.


Concord is historic, well-maintained and very pretty. But, as a long-time fan of Stephen King, I know every little New England town has some spooky secret. For Concord, it's the ghost that haunts the Concord Inn.



The Concord Inn's original structure was built in 1716 by John Minot, and was expanded by subsequent owners. It opened as a hotel in 1899.

Room 24, which is in the oldest part of the inn, is reportedly haunted. A man in 18th century clothing has been seen repeatedly in that room. He never harms anyone or speaks, but simply walks towards the fireplace and disappears. According to Thomas D'Agostino in Haunted Massachusetts, in 2005 a group of ghost hunters investigating the Inn saw the man, and had a book thrown at them.

A well-known story about the Inn goes something like this. Many years ago, a pair of newlyweds were honeymooning in Room 24. The bridge awoke in the middle of the night, feeling uneasy. At the foot of her bed she saw, glowing faintly, a man in antiquated clothing! He disappeared into the fireplace. The terrified bride shook her husband awake, and explained what she had seen. "We need to leave at once!", she said.

"But darling", her husband replied, "the ghost comes with the price of the room."

The owners of the Concord Inn don't hide the fact they have a ghost. After all, it's probably good for business. They have more information about the ghost on their Web site.

Happy Patriots Day!