Tales from Granary Burying Ground: James Otis and the Lightning Bolt

I love the term "burying ground," don't you? There's something very raw and primitive about it, but at the same time it's kind of charming because no one really uses the term anymore. Modern people inter their dead in cemeteries, not in burying grounds or even graveyards. I can understand why. Cemetery is a more gracious sounding word that masks what happens to the deceased, while burying ground is quite blunt. Yup, this is where we bury them.

The Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street is one of Boston's oldest cemeteries. It was originally founded in 1660, and got its current name in 1737 from a granary that stood next to it. In the 1830s some Bostonians tried to rename it to Franklin Cemetery, after Benjamin Franklin's family who are buried inside the graveyard. The name didn't catch on, though, and we still know it by it's older, blunter, primitive name.

Many famous people have their final resting places within the Granary Burying Ground: patriots, Puritans, mariners, politicians and poets. Some of them, like lawyer James Otis, have strange stories surrounding their lives and deaths.

James Otis's grave on a stormy evening.

James Otis (b. 1725, d. 1783) is probably best known for coining the phrase "Taxation without representation is tyranny." It's a phrase many children learn in school while studying the American Revolution. Otis uttered those words during a five-hour (!) speech he made arguing against the "writs of assistance," which were laws that allowed British troops to search any colonist's home without needing a search warrant or even probable cause. Naturally the writs were extremely unpopular in Massachusetts. Otis lost his case agains the writs of assistance but parts of his epic speech were reprinted as a pamphlet and helped rouse ant-British feeling in the colonies.

Surprisingly, Otis had originally been pro-British. He came from a prominent Loyalist family, but he joined the revolutionary cause when his father was denied a promised appointment as Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Perhaps his abrupt transition from Loyalist to Revolutionary helps explain why the British troops despised him so much. In 1769 he got into an argument with several British officers in a coffeehouse. The fight turned physical, and one of the officers struck Otis on the head with a cudgel.

Here comes the strange part of the story. After the attack Otis's mental capacities declined precipitously and he was unable to work further as a lawyer. Some sources say his mental decline began before the fight, while others claim the blow to his head caused it. Whatever the cause, Otis left the Boston area to live at a friend's home in Andover. His sister came to visit often, and whenever she did Otis told her that he wished God would take him from this world with a lightning bolt. I guess he wanted death his to be fast, painless, and just a little dramatic.

James Otis

He got his wish on May 23, 1783. While standing outside the Andover house with some family members, Otis was struck by a bolt of lightning. He died instantly. No one else was injured, and Otis’s body was not burned or damaged in any visible way. Witnesses say the corpse had an expression of calm repose.

Did God hear his wish? Was it just luck? It's hard to say. In Ancient Greece it was considered a holy act to die by lightning, and Otis's contemporaries in Massachusetts seemed to feel the same way. Many years later, in the 19th century, workers who opened his grave discovered the roots of a mighty elm tree growing from his skull. This too was taken as a good omen, as his brain "had been transformed into branch and leaf and blossom, thus breathing itself forth again into the free air and the Universal Flow.”

The elm tree is long gone but you can still visit Otis's grave, which is prominently located in the front of the burying ground near Tremont Street.

Haunted Gay Bars of Boston: the Ramrod and the 1270 Club

My last few blog posts have focused on 17th century stories about witches. This week I'm changing things up. Let's talk about haunted gay bars instead.

I should say, "Let's talk about haunted gay bars again." A few years ago I wrote about the rumor that Jacques Cabaret, Boston's famous drag bar, was haunted by a former performer's ghost and may even have been a temporary morgue to house victims of the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire. My post was circulating around the internet again recently and some people reached out to share two other Boston haunted gay bar stories.

The first story is about the stately old building at 1270 Boylston Street. It was originally built as a horse carriage factory, but in the 1970s and 1980s it was home to a gay club called simply the 1270 Club. The 1270 Club featured some of Boston's best DJs and was a popular spot for dancing. The club's three floors were filled with a diverse mix of gays, lesbians, and even adventurous straight people who came for the music. Here is a quote from a 1981 Boston Globe article hinting at the club's mystique:

The 1270 Club is viewed as a mysterious club were heterosexuals don't dare tread because they've heard it's gay. For most of the week the club does cater to a predominantly gay clientele, but the exception is Wednesday when live rock is booked and the evening often becomes one of the best around town...  (Steve Morse, "Short Cuts," Boston Globe, April 9, 1981)

After the 1270 Club closed the building was the site of several other other gay bars: Maximum Security, Tatoo, and finally Quest. Currently the building is home to the Baseball Tavern, a straight sports bar.

That's the history, now here's the ghost story a friend told me. In the mid-20th century many gay bars were controlled by organized crime, and allegedly this was once the case with The 1270 Club as well. The straight mobster who owned the club didn't care about its gay clientele as long as he made money off them. He was living the good life until one night he brought two female prostitutes home to his suburban house. The three adjourned to a room above the garage for some erotic fun, but unfortunately in his eagerness the mobster forgot to shut off his car. The next morning the mobster and the two women were found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

According to the friend who told me this story, the mobster's ghost was sometimes encountered lurking around the 1270 Club by the staff. My friend knew someone who worked there who had encountered the ghost. I got the impression the ghost wasn't seen when the club was busy, but only before or after hours when a handful of staff were alone in the large empty building.

I don't know if the story is true, but it is interesting. The straight mobster undone by his own lust, dead and unable to profit any longer off the community he exploited, seems like a fitting ghost to haunt a gay bar. The 1270 Club was an important place for gays and lesbians in Boston when it was open, and a ghost story like this helps keep its memory alive in the community.

The other story I heard (from several people) is about the building at 1254 Boylston Street. This is just a few doors down from 1270 Boylston, so we have two spooky gay bars on the same block. This building houses the gay nightclubs Ramrod and Machine, but in an earlier incarnation it was just a gay leather bar called The Ramrod. The dancefloor at Machine is located in what was once the unused basement of the Ramrod. According to a couple informants, this basement space was used by one of the local medical schools to store human body parts. Leathermen partied one floor above a grim collection of medical specimens. Jars filled with formaldehyde-soaked body parts lined dusty old shelves in a space that today is filled with dancers, drag queens, and Ryan Landry's campy theatrical productions.

I didn't hear any actual ghost stories associated with Ramrod/Machine, just that the basement was once filled with human body parts. Which is probably creepy enough, right? It's interesting that the basements of Jacques and the Ramrod were both said to be storage areas for dead bodies, although for one it was only temporary. Is this just a folklore trope or were they actually used for this purpose?

That's all the information I have right now. I've been to both of these locations and never noticed anything paranormally weird, but please feel free to share anything you know in the comments. I always enjoy learning more about the place I live, even if the information is kind of gruesome. 

The Devil Revealed by His Foot: A Witch Trial and A Folk Story

Here's a story that sounds like a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a young woman living in London, England. Like most young women of that time (the 17th century) she was eager to marry and move out of her parents' home.

One day while she was walking down the street a young man began talking with her. She didn't know him, but she liked him almost immediately. He was handsome. He was well-dressed. He was a smooth-talker. He flattered her. The young woman found herself falling just a little bit in love with him.

"It's been lovely talking with you," he finally said. "I need to be on my way, but perhaps I can meet you here again tomorrow?"

The young woman agreed. How could she refuse such a handsome young man? But as she walked away she glanced down at his feet. She gasped softly. One foot was normal, but one foot was a cloven hoof. She had been flirting the Devil.

She had no intention of marrying the Devil. The next day she did not go the appointed meeting place, but instead hid nearby. She watched as the Devil arrived, and watched as he grew more and more impatient as he waited. When the Devil realized she was not going to show up he grew enraged. The young woman watched in horror as he angrily ripped down a heavy iron gate and stalked off with it in his hands.

From this site about trimming goat hooves!

That really sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? Surprisingly, it isn't. A Connecticut woman, Goodwife Ayres, told this story to two neighbors in the 1660s. It had really happened, she said, and she even claimed she was the young woman in the story. Her neighbors remembered the story and later told it to a Hartford judge when Goody Ayres was accused of witchcraft in 1662.

Like so many accused witches, Goody Ayres was an unpopular person in Hartford. Her husband William was a well-known thief and had been convicted of stealing pigs, cows, horses and even iron bars and his bad reputation rubbed off on her. When a young woman named Elizabeth Kelly grew ill she accused Goody Ayres of bewitching her, and after Kelly died her parents charged Ayres with witchcraft.

I think it's obvious to a modern reader that Goody Ayres's story is just a folktale. The revealed foot is an old motif that shows up in lots of stories. For example, a Biblical legend claims that King Solomon was suspicious of the Queen of Sheba when she arrived in Jerusalem. He had heard that she had one human foot and one goose foot, but her long skirts hid her feet. Thinking of a way to trick her, the wise king led her over a stream while touring the kingdom, and as she lifted her skirts he caught a glimpse of a webbed bird foot.

The Queen of Sheba is not the only queen with a strange foot - a very similar story is told about Emperor Charlemagne's mother, Queen Bertha. The German folk-goddess Perchta is said to have one goose foot, and many European fairies are also believed to have animal feet. For example, the erdluitle, small humanoid fairies found in Switzerland, wear long robes and skirts to hid their goose like feet, which are either hooved or goose feet. The fees of France look like beautiful humans, but each has one flaw, like a bird or animal foot. The Manx sleigh beggy look human but leave crow's foot prints in the dirt when they walk.

I think you get the picture. Goody Ayres's story about the Devil was just the latest iteration of a recurring story, but she gave herself the starring role. Not much is known about Ayres (including her first name), and I wonder why she told this tale about meeting the Devil. Did she think it was entertaining? Did she do it to impress her neighbors? Did it make her human husband look better in her mind? "Hey, he might be a thief but it could be worse. I almost dated Satan!"

Sadly, we'll never know. The Hartford judges found Goody Ayres guilty of witchcraft. I don't think the story about the Devil's foot was the conclusive piece of evidence, but it certainly didn't help her case.

Sources: David Hall's Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England (one of my new favorite books), Nancy Arrowsmith and George Moorse's A Field Guide to The Little People, and R.G. Tomlinson's Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut.