"Come Away, Come Away": The Necromancer of Boston Harbor

Following up from last week's post, here's another interesting story from the John Winthrop's journal. Winthrop was one of the early Massachusetts Puritan settlers and served for many year's as the Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor. His journal contains lots of details about the politics of the colony but also includes a few weirder little tales.

One of them is this story of a necromancer who died when a ship exploded in Boston Harbor. A necromancer technically means someone who practices magic involving the dead, like raising the dead or communicating with their spirits. It also can be used more generally to mean a warlock or wizard. 

John Winthrop (1587 - 1649)

Winthrop's account doesn't begin with the necromancer, but starts instead with mysterious lights that were seen in the sky over the harbor. From January 18, 1644:

About midnight, three men, coming in a boat to Boston, saw two lights arise out of the water near the north point of the town cove, in form like a man, and went at a small distance to the town, and so the the south point, and there vanished away. They saw them about a quarter of an hour, being between the town and the governor's garden. The like was seen by many, a week after, arising about Castle Island and in one fifth of an hour came to John Gallop's point.

It's kind of a creepy paragraph. What do these lights, "in form like a man," mean? Are they perhaps an entity of some kind? They were seen again a week later:

The 18th of this month two lights were seen near Boston, (as is before mentioned,) and a week after the like was seen again. A light like the moon arose about the N.E. point in Boston, and met the former at Nottles Island, and there they closed in one, and then parted, and closed and parted diverse times, and so went over the hill in the island and vanished. Sometimes they shot out flames and sometimes sparkles. This was about eight of the clock in the evening, and was seen by many.

Now here's where things get really weird. Witnesses heard a strange voice calling out.

About the same time a voice was heard upon the water between Boston and Dorchester, calling out in a most dreadful manner, "Boy, boy, come away, come away": and it suddenly shifted from one place to another a great distance, about twenty times. It was heard by diverse godly persons. About 14 days after, the same voice in the same dreadful manner was heard by others on the other side of town towards Nottles Island.

Winthrop believes that these strange phenomena are tied to a pinnace (a type of small sailing ship) that exploded when a pistol onboard was fired into the ship's gunpowder supply. One of the crew was rumored to be a necromancer and possibly a murderer:

These prodigies having some reference to the place where Captain Chaddock's pinnace was blown up a little before, gave occasion of speech of that man who was the cause of it, who professed himself to have skill in necromancy, and to have done some strange things in his way from Virginia hither, and was suspected to have murdered his master there; but the magistrates here had not notice of him till after he was blown up. This is to be observed that his fellows were all found, and other who were blown up in the former ship were also found, and others also who have miscarried by drowning, etc. have usually been found, but this man was never found.

Winthrop doesn't explicitly explain the strange lights and voice, but I think we can piece together what he's hinting at. As a Puritan Winthrop would believe that a necromancer was in league with the Devil, the one in this story doubly so since he was (perhaps) a murderer. The voice speaking in a "dreadful manner" probably was that of the Devil himself coming to drag the dead necromancer to Hell. It sounds like it took a while for the Evil One to find him, but apparently he did in the end because his body was never recovered from the harbor.

Was there really a necromancer on board the ship when it sank? Maybe, but maybe not. The pinnace in question was owned by Captain John Chaddock, an adventurer who had a bad reputation in Boston. He and his men had sailed as mercenaries to fight in Nova Scotia's Acadian civil war but saw neither combat nor loot. Disappointed, they came to Boston. Three of of Chaddock's men died entering Boston Harbor when they fell from the ship's mast. Once Chaddock and his crew came ashore they drank, brawled and insulted the Puritans. Chaddock was fined 20 shillings for his conduct. The pinnace that exploded was carrying some of Chaddock's men to Trinidad. Overall, Chaddock was bad news.

Winthrop writes disapprovingly of Chaddock's behavior, so perhaps he was willing to believe the rumors that one of his ships carried a murderous necromancer. On the other hand, it's not impossible that one of the sailors may have practiced some type of magic. Books about magic and astrology were very popular in the 17th century, and many people, sailors included, practiced folk magic of one kind or another.

For example, in 1679 a sailor named Caleb Powell was accused of bewitching a teenage boy in Newbury. Several people testified that Powell had bragged about his knowledge of spirits and astrology, and others testified he had been trained in the black arts by a warlock named Norwood. The court ultimately found Powell innocent of the charge of witchcraft but did fine him for knowing too much about magic. 

So who knows, maybe the man who blew up in Boston Harbor really was a necromancer of some kind. Only he and the Devil know for sure.

Once Again, Harvard Students Plan to Raise Satan

Once again some Harvard students are planning to raise Satan on campus. It's not the first time it's happened, and probably won't be the last. 

So, here's the story. Tomorrow evening some students at Harvard University's Extension School will be participating in a Satanic Mass. The students are part of the Extension School's Cultural Studies Club, and are holding the devilish rite as a way of learning about other religions.

The Boston Archdiocese is outraged, saying the Black Mass mocks Catholicism and is contrary to "charity and goodness." The school's administrators responded to the church and said they support the club in this educational endeavor. The club is also planning to perform rituals from other religious traditions like Shinto and Buddhism.

The Black Mass will be led by the Satanic Temple of New York. Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves says they will base their Mass on La Bas, a 19th century novel by the French Decadent Joris-Karl Huysmans. Greaves is an atheist and a Harvard alumnus, and claims the ritual is more political than religious in intent.

“This is not a supernatural ritual,” Greaves told the Daily News. “We don’t believe in the supernatural. And I don’t think belief in the supernatural should give you any privilege, since any deeply held belief should be protected."

"...There’s no stronger cultural symbol for the revolt against the general idea of arbitrary authority and revolt against ultimate tyranny,” Greaves said of Satan. “There’s no better a construct that can act as a narrative for our works and goals.”

The Satanic Temple of New York is no stranger to publicity. They've been in the news recently with their efforts to erect a statue of the goat god Baphomet in front of the Oklahoma state capital building. Last summer, Greaves and the Temple performed a Pink Mass at the grave of Christian fundamentalist Fred Phelps's mother with the intent of making her lesbian in the afterlife.

Lucien Greaves (center) celebrating the Pink Mass

The Satanic Temple seems like a group of political pranksters more than serious Satanists, but their presence on campus still indicate how things have changed at Harvard University. Harvard was founded in 1636 to train Puritan ministers and they took the Devil quite seriously.


The last time Harvard students tried to raise the Devil things didn't go the way they expected. That story goes something like this. One day, way back in the 1640s, Harvard's president Henry Dunster was called away to Concord on business. A group of student took advantage of his absence to experiment with some black magic. After all, Harvard had an extensive occult library, so why not use it?

Harvard's Dunster House, named after Henry Dunster, the school's first president.

The student's did succeed in raising Satan, but unfortunately were not able to control him. The Evil One proceeded to run amok on campus. In a panic, the students sent a message to Dunster that he needed to come back to campus immediately. Dunster mounted his horse and galloped back to campus to handle the rampaging demon. He was a well-trained minister and knew just what to do.

When he arrived at Harvard he poured the contents of his gunpowder horn onto the ground and told the Devil to appear. Satan obeyed, apparently drawn by the familiar, sulfurous smell of the gunpowder. Dunster ignited the gunpowder and the Devil disappeared in a fiery explosion, leaving behind only a foul smell. There's no word on whether the students were expelled or were given extra credit for successfully applying what they found in the library.

I'm all for youthful occult experimentation, but I do think caution is required, particularly if you're summoning Satan. Let's hope Greaves or one of the students brings a horn of gunpowder in case their ritual is more effective than they think.

(The story about Henry Dunster and the Devil was first told by one of his descendants in Proceedings of The Centennial Celebration of The One Hundredth Anniversary of The Incorporation of The Town of Mason, N. H., August 26, 1868 and has since been repeated in various folklore books.)

Sally Somers, the Witch of Southwest Harbor

Which is scarier - a ghost, or an evil witch? If you visit Southwest Harbor, Maine you don't have to choose because it's haunted by an evil witch's ghost. You'll get two supernatural creatures for the price of one!

Sally Somers was born in 1791 to Elsie Somers, a witch who was known for extracting tribute from sea captains to guarantee safe passage of their ships, but also for using herbs to heal the sick. I suppose you could call Elsie morally neutral, since she was just trying to make a living from her dark arts.

Sally, on the other hand, was just no damn good.

Sally bewitched a young man named John Clark into marrying her. He spent much of their marriage wandering around in an enchanted, zombie-like daze. John tried to escape Sally's spell by booking passage on a ship bound for Europe, but disappeared before the it set sail. Everyone suspected Sally, but since his body was never found she wasn't charged with a crime.

According to another legend, Sally sacrificed two black dogs on the top of a nearby mountain so she could assume their form when she sent her spirit out to cause mischief. These devil dogs roamed through the area, terrifying the locals and sometimes drinking blood. Creepiest of all, they were said to have human eyes.

Like all successful witches, though, Sally's preferred to take the form of a black cat when she wanted to cause trouble. In this shape Sally would spy on her neighbors and find out if anyone was gossiping about her. Those who did usually came to a bad end. This black cat was also said to have human eyes.

Sally's reign of terror ended when one of her neighbors, tired of all the witchy shenanigans, fashioned a silver bullet and shot the spectral black cat. It died instantly, and Sally passed away three days later.

That was in 1832, but Sally's malefic influence supposedly still lingers around Southwest Harbor. The apples that grow on a tree near her house allegedly cause illness, accidents and even death to anyone who eats one.

In 2004, a woman named Daisy Harper was concerned for her mother's well-being because she was working in Sally's former home. Hoping to appease Sally's ghost, Daisy dropped an offering of colored stones into a crack in the apple tree's trunk. The stones fell for a long, long, long time before they hit the bottom. I don't think we want to know what's lurking under Sally's tree.

Daisy had good reason to be concerned about her mother. The furniture in Sally's house sometimes moves on its own, and it's said that anyone who breaks a pane of glass will die shortly afterwards. One window that overlooks the harbor even has an imperfection in it that looks like a witch.

If you ever go hiking near Southwest Harbor, be careful. The locals say a large black cat with human eyes haunts the woods. I guess Sally's spirit is still out there causing trouble.

I found this story about Sally in Marcus LiBirzzi's Ghosts of Acadia. If you like lurid stories about ghosts, this is the book for you.