Finding Water with a Whalebone

As a modern American I'm really spoiled. I have heat when it's cold, light when it's dark, and water when I'm thirsty. Of course I need to pay for all these things, but they're still available almost instantly.

Heat and electric light are generally accepted as modern conveniences, but it wasn't even easy for to get water for past generations of New Englanders, many of whom had to haul buckets of water from streams or rivers. Some lucky people had wells on their property, but getting a well was no simple task. It was difficult and potentially dangerous, so people didn't want to waste time digging where there wasn't any water underground. How then to make the important decision of where to put your well?

Many farmers and property owners consulted a dowser, someone who would use divination to find objects hidden below the earth. Dowsing has been documented back to Germany in the Renaissance, and can be used to find buried treasure, precious metals, petroleum and water. Dowsers carry an object in their hands that points mysteriously downwards when they are standing over the buried item.

Although some modern dowsers use a metal rod or pendulum, dowsers in North America have traditionally used a forked witch-hazel branch to find buried water. I'm not sure why this particular shrub is supposed to be better at finding water than other types. Perhaps it's because it has the word "witch" in its name, connoting magical power?

Frank Smith describes a traditional New England dowser in his 1914 book Dover Farms. In Which Is Traced the Development of the Territory from the First Settlement in 1640 to 1900. The dowser, named Joseph A. Smith, lived in Dover in the 1800s.

He often cut a fresh witch-hazel rod, but sometimes employed split whalebone. In using the divining-rod the legs were held in the hands, and when a spring or vein of water was crossed, the point would turn down; the power was often shown in the cracked bark of the stick when resistance was offered. 

Frank Smith writes that Smith the dowser was sought out by local farmers when sinking wells, and that he could "unerringly locate springs of water" and even estimate the number of feet that would have to be dug before water was hit. He also writes that dowsing probably operates on the same principals as magnetism or electricity.

I think it's interesting that Smith sometimes used a whalebone instead of a y-shaped branch. At first I pictured him dowsing with a giant whale rib, but realized he was probably using a smaller piece of whalebone from a women's corset. 

I think modern science is a little skeptical of dowsing, but there is a society for modern dowsers in Rhode Island.

Interestingly, a groups of dowsers in Vermont founded an apocalyptic church in the 1700s. Their rods foretold earthquakes, avenging angels, and naked young ladies. At least two of their predictions didn't come true.

The Rod Men of Vermont

A man using a dowsing rod, from Wikipedia.

Back in the 1ate 1700s, a man named Nathaniel Wood applied to be the minister of the new Congregational church in Middletown, Vermont. He didn't get the job, but was instead made an unofficial elder of the church. Nathaniel was not satisfied, became contentious, and was excommunicated from the church in 1789.

Nathaniel made lemonade from the lemons the Congregationalists had given him: he started his own church. Although at first it was only composed of family members, it soon grew quite large. Nathaniel (who became known as Priest Wood) preached that the church members were the new Israelites. A day of reckoning was coming, and God would destroy all the Gentiles (i.e. everyone who was not in Wood's church). I'm sure the Congregationalists were on the top of his list.

Around this same time a man named Winchell arrived in Middletown. Winchell was a fugitive from a neighboring county, where he was wanted on counterfeiting charges. He also was adept at using a dowsing rod made of witch hazel, which he said could detect buried treasure. Many Americans in the 18th and 19th century century believed the landscape was full of buried gold and silver, and digging for treasure was a popular activity. See my post about Dungeon Rock for an example of how treasure digging could become an obsession.

Priest Wood believed Winchell's story about the dowsing rod, and incorporated dowsing into his church rituals. Jabez Perry, a Middletown citizen who died in 1862, said it succinctly and humorously: "They (the Woods) swallowed Winchell, rod and all."

The men of the church became known as the Rod Men, and using the twitching witch hazel branches to do the following:

• Determine how long someone might live
• Locate plants to cure disease
• Find treasure. The new Israelites once dug 70 feet into the ground following a dowsing rod's twitches, but every time they got near the treasure chest it moved. Their explanation? It was guarded by a magic spell.
• Tell young women their clothes had the Devil in them, and should be removed
• Receive messages from God

Using his dowsing rod, Priest Wood was told by God to build a temple in Middletown, and to prepare for two apocalyptic events. First, a destroyer would come to kill half the Gentiles. Next, a giant earthquake would strike Middletown on January 14, 1801, and kill the other half.

Panic struck Middletown when people learned of Wood's prophecy. They weren't worried about God sending a destroying angel or earthquake - they were scared Wood and his followers would take matters into their own hands and kill everyone outside their church. The townspeople called up their militia, and January 14 passed uneventfully. No destoyer, no earthquake, and no violence.

Wood's failed prophecy spelled the end of his church in Middletown. His temple remained half built, and he and his family moved to Ellisburg, New York. Their church may have failed, but it had a lasting influence on American history. Many historians feel Joseph Smith, a native Vermonter and the founder of Mormonism, was influenced by Wood, Winchell and other members of the Rod Men.

A lot of Mormon history sites have information about the Rod Men, but I had the pleasure of reading the original source: Barnes Frisbie's The history of Middletown, Vermont, in three discourses: delivered before the citizens of that town, February 7 and 21, and March 30, 1867. I recently joined the Boston Athenaeum, which has a huge collection of New England town histories.