The Devil's Den in Hemlock Gorge

There are lots of places in New England named after the Devil. A few years ago, I published some lists on this blog. I'm not going to repost the full list today, but I have included a list of the Bay State's devilish places at the end of this post. 

I've been to several of these places, like the Devil's Footprint in Ipswich, the Devil's Den in Ashland, and another Devil's Den in Newbury. Amazingly, though, I've never been to the Devil's Den in Hemlock Gorge, which is in Needham right on the Newton border. I've lived in the Greater Boston area for more than 30 years, but somehow never visited the devilish place closest to me.

Last weekend we set out to rectify that. Hemlock Gorge is easily accessible by the MBTA Green Line, so Tony and I filled our water bottles, hopped on the T, and were soon at the Hemlock Gorge Reservation. I have to say that this park is worth visiting even if you aren't interested in vaguely Satanic caves. It's situated right on the Charles River and has some nice walking trails, but it also has the enormous Echo Bridge, which was built in 1877 to contain an aqueduct. The bridge is only open to pedestrians and has amazing views from its top. 

We entered the reservation from the northern side. The first thing we passed was this very dramatic spillway, where water from the Charles River flows under Route 9. I'm glad I'm not a fish or a small duck because I would definitely go over those falls to my doom.

Near the spillway was this old stone barn. Since I'm a horror-nerd, at first it reminded me of the Whateley house in H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror," whose windows and doors have been sealed up to contain an amorphous, ever-growing, ravenous monstrosity. A closer look revealed there was indeed an unsealed door and also some open windows, and a sign indicated that the building is used for some type of scientific purpose. 

Sadly, this probably means there isn't a monster inside. I guess that's good news for the neighbors, but the barn has always been a source speculation. For example, when the barn was built in 1839 some locals thought it was going to be used to raise silkworms. That never worked out, even though silkworms are preferable to monsters.

The Devil's Den was just a short walk from the barn. I knew it was a cave of some kind, but I had modest expectations because most caves in Massachusetts are pretty small. That was not the case! It's actually large enough to stand up in, and is located on a steep embankment overlooking a pond. There's also a small, little cave right next to it which is too small to hold a human.

A lot of Massachusetts caves are formed by boulders that were piled on top of each other by the glaciers. That type of cave is called a tallus cave, but the Devil's Den is quite different. It's carved out of solid puddingstone, not formed by assorted boulders. I don't know what geological forces did this, and I'm assuming it was a combination of water and wind. 

Like a lot of weird places we've visited, there was some graffiti in the Devil's Den. Although I'm not a fan of graffiti, I can understand why teenagers would want to leave their mark in someplace named after the Devil. Many of the places we visit are just slightly off the beaten path and are good locations for teens who want to hide their illicit behavior from their parents. At least there wasn't a lot of trash or broken glass in the cave, which was nice. 

This excellent page about Hemlock Gorge says that that local Native Americans may have used the cave to dry fish, but I couldn't find any information about why it's called the Devil's Den. King's Handbook of Newton (1879) only says the following: 

Just across, on the Needham Shore, is the old rocky grotto known as the Devil's Den. This is, of course, to be expected; for poor must be the New-England town that has not its bit of a cavern, consecrated to his Plutonian Majesty. 

As that quote sarcastically notes, you really can find caves or rock formations named after the Devil in many places. But why? I've seen a few theories trying to explain this. One claims that many of these places were associated with Native Americans, and that racist settlers gave them them devilish names because they thought the Native Americans were evil. That could explain the Devil's Den in Hemlock Gorge.

Sometimes there are also legends about particular devilish places that explain how they got their name. The legends might claim a particular cave earned its sinister name because it was used by smugglers or bandits, or that a particular rock formation was literally formed by the action of the Devil (like the Devil's footprints in Ipswich and Norton). Underlying all these legends and place names are old Puritan ideas about good and evil, where things outside the norm (like strange rock formations) were considered suspicious and assigned to the Devil. 

Interestingly, Needham has two Devil's Dens - the one we visited in Hemlock Gorge, and another one in the Town Forest. I think the one in Hemlock Gorge is larger and easier to access, but I'm jealous that Needham has two Devil's Dens. I can imagine it might cause confusion, though, if you're invited to the Devil's Den for nefarious deeds (or just a hike) but the location is not specified. 

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Places in Massachusetts named after the Devil

Devil's Back, Hull 

Devil's Basin, Newbury

Devil's Bridge, Gay Head 

Devil's Brook, Sharon

Devil's Brook, Stoughton 

Devils Cavern, Amherst (see also Devil's Garden)

Devil's Coffin, Sutton 

Devil's Corncrib, Sutton 

Devil's Den, Andover (now often called Den Rock)

Devil's Den, Aquinnah 

Devil's Den, Arlington (now Menotomy Rocks Park)

Devil's Den, Ashland

Devil's Den, Goshen 

Devil's Den, Hemlock Gorge, Needham and Newton

Devil's Den, Needham

Devil's Den, Newbury

Devil's Den, Oxford 

Devil's Den, Rockport

Devil's Den, Weston

Devil's Dishfull Pond, Peabody 

Devil's Foot Island, Woods Hole

Devil's Football, Hadley  

Devil's Footprint, Ipswich 

Devil's Footprint, Norton

Devil's Garden, Amherst (see also Devil's Cavern)

Devil's Garden, Lynnfield 

Devil's Hollow, Marshfield 

Devil's Hopyard, Shelburne Falls 

Devil's Kitchen, Lynnfield

Devil's Landslide, Wellesley

Devil's Lane, Warren 

Devil's Oven, Sherborn 

Devil's Oven, Westwood

Devil's Peak, Warren

Devil Pond, Westport (now called Devol Pond because it is more family friendly)

Devil's Pond, Rehoboth (sometimes called Sabin Pond)

Devil's Pool, Pelham 

Devil's Pulpit, Great Barrington

Devil's Pulpit, Housatonic 

Devil's Pulpit, Leominster 

Devil's Pulpit, Nahant

Devil's Pulpit, Newbury (historic, may no longer exist)

Devil's Rock, Rochester

Devil's Rock, Sharon

Devil's Rock, Swansea

The Beast of Barrington: the Bay State's First Bigfoot?

Recently, I've seen a few posts claiming that something called the "Beast of Barrington" was the first Bigfoot ever seen in Massachusetts. This idea has even started to find its way into a few books, like John O'Connor's The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster (2024). 

According to some online sources, the Beast was captured in the western Massachusetts town of Great Barrington in 1765, placed into a cage, and shown to an audience in Cambridge. Maybe the people who captured the creature wanted the professors at Harvard to see it? It's not clear.

What did the Beast look like? Well, according (again) to online sources, it was a bearlike humanoid with a head like a gorilla. That sounds pretty scary to me, and very memorable. You'd think a creature that like would be much better known! The description is also a little strange, because Europeans and Americans didn't really use the word gorilla until the 1840s... 

A 15th century engraving by Martin Shongauer

You can see why I found the story interesting, and also why I wanted to find the original source. My friend David Goudsward helped me find it: the July 4, 1765 edition of The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter. 

The Beast in described in an article titled “A Description of an Uncommon Animal Found at or near Great-Barrington.” The author writes that the Beast was being displayed in a cage in Cambridge, where “all whose curiosity lead them, may have a sight of this uncommon creature.” It was supposedly captured by armed men in Great Barrington, where it had allegedly broken into houses in search of food. Strangely for an animal, the creature also had stolen silver, linens, and other “white or glittering” objects, which it seized with its “obscene paws.” I like the phrase "obscene paws." It's very creepy!

Stealing silverware and linens sounds like something a person would do, not an animal, and the article goes on to describe what sounds like a person wearing a costume. “This animal has a power of metamorphosing itself into various forms, such as blackness of face, much resembling that of an artificial mask, also upon a near view, it has been observed to be vested with a kind of robe, having the appearance of the hide of some huge bear. This vestment seemed to be the production of art, rather than nature.” 

I'm going to pull out some key words: "artificial mask," "robe," and "production of art, rather than nature." The article's author is using sarcasm and humor, but he's clearly describing someone wearing a costume. The Beast of Barrington wasn't a Bigfoot or a mysterious animal, it was just someone dressed as a monster or wild man, and exhibited to make money from spectators. 

 Painting of a wild man by Albrecht Durer

To make the point even clearer, the same article in The Massachusetts Gazette describes another fake wild man who appeared in Boston around the same time. This one came from Georgia and seemed to have had a criminal record, because after only “two public exhibitions, he was discovered by several that had seen the effects of his voracious appetite in other parts… Whereupon yesterday morning early he thought proper to remove to some place where he was less known, and set out for Providence, with his companion, a Black lady, who attended him from Georgia.” 

Again, although the author is being sarcastic, he's clearly writing about a human who's pretending to be a monster. It's someone performing for an audience - preferably an unwitting one. 

Although The Beast of Barrington isn't the Bay State's first Bigfoot sighting, it is an early account of a fake wild man, which is just as interesting, because there's a long history of fake wild men in Massachusetts. For example, on April 1, 1839, The Boston Times published an article claiming that a wild man captured in Mississippi was going to be exhibited in Boston. The hairy wild man supposedly was over eight-feet-tall with a powerfully-built frame, clawed doglike legs, and hair like a horse's mane.  

Thousands of people waited in line on April 1 to see this terrifying creature, but when they entered the room where he was held they saw only a mannequin with a sign reading "April Fool." Most audience members took the hoax in stride, but a small group of angry young men stormed the newspaper's offices and yelled at the editor. 

In the summer of 1861, concerned citizens reported a wild man roaming through the woods between North Adams, Massachusetts and Stamford, Vermont. He was heard shrieking at night, and people who saw him said he was terrifingly ugly. In fact, an armed posse of Vermont men tried to capture him, but the wild man “so frightened his pursuers by his hideous appearance that they could not shoot straight and he escaped harm” (Bangor, Maine, Daily Whig and Courier, August 19, 1861, quoted in Arment, The Historical Bigfoot). 

When the creature was finally captured, hundreds of curious people lined up to see the monster that had filled them with terror. They saw a strange, almost ape-like being with vacant, glassy eyes and an extremely long beard. Was it a man, or an animal?

In reality, it was just a Williams College student “who assumed the gorilla guise in a frolic which might have cost him his life” at the end of a hunting rifle. The whole thing had been a prank.

The Wild Men of Borneo (Syracuse University Library)

Wild men were also big attractions in sideshows and circuses. The famous showman P.T. Barnum showcased a variety of fake wild men in his circuses and museums, including the What-is-it (played by a series of performers wearing furry costumes) and the Wild Men of Borneo, who were two very short but very strong brothers from the Midwest. The Wild Men of Borneo lived in Somerville, Massachusetts for a while, and spent the final years of their lives in Waltham, with one passing away in 1905 and the other in 1912. 

Fake wild men continued to appear in Massachusetts during the 20th and 21st centuries, although now they're more likely to be called fake Bigfoots. For example, in 1976, an Agawam teenager created a sensation when he put on giant plywood feet and created mysterious tracks in the snow. And during the Snowmageddon winter of 2015, a Somerville man donned a Yeti costume and gained fame as the Boston Yeti. The Boston Yeti returned to the spotlight again this year in January, lured by the heavy snow. 

Hoaxes aren't as exciting as a real wild man or Bigfoot, but they're still interesting. They illustrate what people think - or hope - is lurking out there in the dark woods. Clearly, people think a large, hairy humanoid might be hiding somewhere in Massachusetts. The Beast of Barrington wasn't real, and neither was the Boston Yeti, but maybe someday a real Bigfoot will be captured and fulfill our wild-man dreams.  

The Spirit of Paw Wah Pond

Paw Wah Pond is an eight-acre saltwater pond located in Orleans on Cape Cod. It’s not an ordinary pond – a local legend says it is watched over by a spirit that lives in its depths. 

Even the town historical society used to acknowledge this legend. Near the pond once stood a historical marker upon which was written: “Pau Wah Pond, named for Pau Wah, Chief of the Potonamequoits who drowned herein after Chief Quanset refused marriage to his daughter Wild Dove. Fable says - Cast a pinch of tobacco in the pond and Pau Wah gives you good fishing.” Unfortunately, the marker was destroyed in a storm and was never replaced. 

Photo by Richard Burlton, courtesy of Unsplash.

The name "Paw Wah" can be spelled several different ways, and there are a couple variations of the legend as well. The writer Elizabeth Reynard included one in her book The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934). According to Reynard, many centuries ago a local Indian chieftain named Pau Wah fell in love with Wild Dove, the daughter of Quansett, who was chief of another local tribe. One cold winter day Pau Wah went to Quansett with offerings of furs, wampum shells, and other valuables and asked to marry Wild Dove. 

Quansett looked at the offerings. He looked at Pau Wah. Then he refused the offer, saying his daughter was worth more than anything Pau Wah could ever give him. Pau Wah stormed off, angry and humiliated. 

Days later he returned to Quansett’s village, this time with a band of warriors, intent on stealing Wild Dove by force. Pau Wah and his warriors fought fiercely, but they were defeated by Quansett and the men in his tribe. 

Pau Wah fled alone into the snowy woods, accompanied only by his faithful dog. He had been humiliated in battle and knew that he was now a pariah. No one would come to help him. He ran for hours, until he came at last to an isolated frozen pond. Here, he thought, he would be safe from his enemies.

Pau Wah built a wigwam on the frozen pond, and then cut a hole in the ice to fish. Unfortunately, in his duress he forgot one crucial thing. He neglected to give an offering to Niba-nahbeezik, the spirit who controls lakes, rivers, and ponds, as one should always do. Niba-nahbeezik was offended by Pau Wah’s oversight, and vengefully made the ice under his wigwam collapse. Pau Wah, his wigwam, and his dog all sank instantly to the bottom of the cold, icy pond. 

Pau Wah sank too quickly to realize what happened – and apparently too quickly to die. He and his dog are supposedly still alive, and they live in their wigwam at the bottom of the pond. Pau Wah spends his days controlling the pond’s fish, and wishing he had some tobacco to smoke. Therefore, if anyone goes fishing at Paw Wah pond, they should throw some tobacco into it as a gift and say “Pau Wah, Pau Wah, Pau Wah, give me fish and I give you tobacco.”

The name Pau Wah (or Paw Wah) is probably a variant of the Algonquian word powwow, which means shaman or sorcerer. (Powwow is also used these days to refer to a Native American gathering with ceremonial dances.) If Pau Wah was actually a powwow, his magical prowess might explain why he is still alive under the pond. It might also explain why Niba-nahbeezik was so offended. As a shaman, Pau Wah should have known not to forget an offering. It might have seemed like a deliberate snub to the spirit. 

A local historian named W. Sears Nickerson offered up a slightly different version of the legend. According to Nickerson, Pau Wah was actually a powwow named Pompmo, who was the son of Pekswat, a well-known chieftain. Pompmo never tried to abduct Wild Dove and did not flee into the woods. Instead, he successfully wooed and married an unnamed woman, had children, and lived to an old age. 

Pompmo met his death the same way, though. He and wife lived on the shores of a saltwater pond. One cold winter, Pompmo and his wife moved their wigwam onto its frozen surface so they could fish through the ice. According to Nickerson: 

“…Cape Cod salt water ice has a reputation for being treacherous, and one stormy night with a sweeping, high tide accompanied by a warm rain, a regular January thaw set in and caught him napping. When morning broke, every vestige of ice was gone from the pond, and old Pompmo, his wigwam, and his wife were nevermore to be seen in this life” (Delores Bird Carpenter, Early Encounters: Native Americans and Europeans in New England. From the Papers of W. Sears Nickerson, 1994).

Pompmo’s spirit became restless and bored in the afterlife, so he came back to the pond where he lived so much of his life. If you want to catch any fish in his pond, you should toss some tobacco into the water and say, “Paw Waw, Paw Waw, I give you tobacco. You give me some fish?”

Are either of these stories true? Is it even an authentic Native American legend, or was it made up by white folks? There are a lot of fake Native American legends out there, unfortunately, and this could be one of them. Still, I do like the story, particularly as we've had a lot of cold weather recently. 

I’m not sure if the legend is true, but if you go fishing at Paw Wah pond you may want to bring some tobacco, just in case. Don’t throw in a cigarette or cigar, which might kill the fish. Just a tiny pinch of plain, organic, untreated tobacco will do. Maybe Pau Wah, or Pompmo, or even Niba-nahbeezik himself will accept your offering and send you some fish.

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A special thank-you for my friend David Goudsward for sharing the Nickerson information with me!

Does A Witch's Ghost Haunt This Cemetery?

I love visiting cemeteries, as long-time readers of this blog know. They're beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing spaces filled with sculpture and art. As an added bonus many of them have strange legends attached to them. Recently, Tony and I visited Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts. It's a gorgeous cemetery, and there's a weird legend attached to it. And the weird legend is connected to Halloween!

Lowell Cemetery opened in 1841 as a private, non-sectarian cemetery. Its layout and design was inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, which was the first "garden cemetery" in the United States. 

Before Mount Auburn, cemeteries were primarily functional. They were places to bury and memorialize the dead, but they weren't designed with aesthetics in mind. Old cemeteries are basically just rows of graves; newer garden cemeteries usually have beautiful plantings, gently curving paths, and landscape features like chapels, ponds, and fountains. 

Lowell Cemetery is definitely a garden cemetery. According to the cemetery's website, Lowell did not have any public parks in 1841, so the cemetery filled that role for many years. People would come to stroll, watch birds, and absorb the sylvan atmosphere. It still fills that role, even today. There were definitely a few families strolling around when Tony and I visited. 

"That's all great, but tell me about the spooky stuff," I can hear you say. Well, here it is. According to a local legend, a witch is buried in the cemetery, and she comes alive every year around Halloween. 

The witch is supposedly buried under this monument:

It's called the Clara Bonny monument, and here are some facts about Clara Bonney. She was born on June 19, 1855 to a prominent local judge. She married Charle Sumner Lilley, a lawyer and protege of her father. She died on July 19, 1894, possibly from sepsis caused by the birth of her daughter. 

Clara's family was extremely distraught by her death, so they commissioned a spectacular monument for her. It included a bronze sculpture titled "New Life" by Frank Elwell, the head of the sculpture department at the Metropolitan Museum. Her mother, father, and husband would all eventually be buried there as well.

The sculpture is very dramatic and quite unusual, because the breasts of the woman depicted are almost exposed. It's a really low-cut dress, particularly for a cemetery. Strange-looking monuments often have legends attached to them, and that's the case here. 

I told you the facts about Clara Bonney, but a local legend says Clara Bonney was executed for witchcraft. Every year in October, the statue's dress drops lower and lower each day, until on Halloween night her breasts are exposed. And then... 

Well, I'm not really sure what happens. One online source said that after her breasts are exposed, Witch Bonney's ghost stalks the streets of Lowell, wreaking vengeance on the descendants of the people who executed her. Other sources say her spirit is free to wander through the cemetery on Halloween night, but leave out the vengeance part. In general, the focus is on the dress creeping lower and Witch Bonney's spirit emerging from the grave. What the ghost does once it's free is less important. 

There's a large stone lion near Clara Bonney's monument, and according to some people the lion guard's Clara's grave. Does the lion keep the living safe from her, or her safe from the living? I'm not sure, but the lion is the gravestone for James Ayer, a 19th century medicine manufacturer. 

No one has been executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts since 1692, so it should be obvious that Clara Bonny wasn't really executed as a witch. This is one of many spurious witch legends in Massachusetts, but I think that's okay. Stories like this help people remember the 17th century witchcraft trials, and help them feel connected to their home town. I don't think there's anything wrong with a witchy legend, particularly at Halloween, as long as people don't take it too seriously.

Speaking of witchy things, visitors to Clara Bonney's grave often leave little offerings for her, like coins, rocks, or flowers. I forgot to bring a coin, so I just poured out some water on the ground. Hopefully it was acceptable. 

I didn't notice anything strange or creepy at Lowell Cemetery, until just as we were about to leave. As I took one last photo of Clara Bonney's grave, my iPhone's camera malfunctioned. The photo showed nothing but a gray light (see above). Maybe it was just because my phone is old, or maybe it was something more? This has only happened to me a few times before, usually at places with a reputation for being haunted...

Happy Halloween!

Book Review: Wicked Strange by Jeff Belanger

Is New England one the weirdest parts of the United States? With all the strange stories and legends we have, sometimes it seems that way,  

It's hard to measure weirdness, but New England is certainly one of the oldest parts of the country. The first English colonists arrived in the early 1600s, bringing folklore about witches, ghosts, and the Devil with them. To put that in perspective, consider this: some of those early Pilgrims and Puritans would have once been Queen Elizabeth's subjects, and could have seen the first performances of Shakespeare's plays. Not that the Puritans approved of theater, but maybe a few of them snuck in a matinee or two...

Those stories about ghosts, witches and the Devil lingered here long after the Puritan church disappeared. They're still remembered in place names, old legends, and even urban folklore. Other weird stories arose over time as well. Some incorporated elements from the local Algonquin cultures, others came from the mass media or more recent immigrant groups. 

Today, four-hundred years after the Pilgrims set foot on Cape Cod, New England is just chock-full of weird legends and folklore. It's not surprising that Poe, Lovecraft, and King, the three greatest American horror writers, were all born here. 

There are more stories and legends here than can fit into one book, and authors have been collecting them for years. Many local town histories from the 19th century included chapters about ghosts and witches, which were often described as "something our ancestors believed in, but we don't now." Some broader collections of New England folklore appeared then as well. For example, in 1884, Charles Godfrey Leland wrote Algonquin Legends of New England, while Charles Skinner included dozens of New England legends in Myths and Legends of Our Own Land (1896). 

Those authors may have garbled some of the details, but 20th century folklorists like Richard Dorson tried to do better in books like Jonathan Draws the Longbow (1946). Later authors, like Vermont's Joseph Citro, followed in this same vein while keeping their books entertaining. After all, what's the point of telling a ghost story if it's not spooky?

Happily, a new collection of New England legends has just come out. It's called Wicked Strange: Your Guide to Ghosts, Monsters, Oddities and Urban Legends from New England. The publisher sent me a free review copy, and I'm glad they did, because it's a great book. 

The author is Jeff Belanger, who is well-known in the paranormal scene. He's written other books, like Weird Massachusetts and The Fright Before Christmas, and has worked on TV shows like Ghost Adventures and Paranormal Challenge, and co-hosts The New England Legends podcast. In other words, he knows his stuff! The book has beautiful photos by Frank Grace, which add to the weirdness. 

Here are three reasons I like this book:

It Covers All Six States: Wicked Strange includes over 100 short chapters on different topics, evenly divided among the six New England states. Little Rhode Island gets as much coverage as Maine, and the division by state lets you find stories closest to you, which is useful. This past weekend, Tony and I visited a nearby haunted site after reading about it in Wicked Strange. 

Topical Variety: There are some different ways to write about local legends. You can focus on one topic, like I did with Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts, or you can write about a variety of topics. That's the approach that Jeff Belanger takes in Wicked Strange. He covers some of the classic topics, like America's Stonehenge in New Hampshire, Montpelier's Black Agnes, and Boston's Great Molasses Flood, but also less well-known ones like the Woonsocket werewolf, the Devil's Baked Beans in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, or the Hoodoo Hearse of Holden, Maine. The book covers haunted locations, cryptids, weird crimes, and a lot of uncategorizable weird happenings.

Beautiful Photography: Frank Grace's photos are beautiful and unsettling. They make the subjects look as strange as the stories that are told about them. The press release for the book says, "Frank has been photographing weird and wonderful New England for the last thirteen years." Thirteen is sometimes considered unlucky, but that's not the case here!

I'm glad to add Wicked Strange to my library, and I think you'll enjoy it, too.