"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.

Captain Dodge and the Mermaid

Many years ago, when I was just a small boy, my parents took me and my brother to visit Harvard's museums. I remember seeing the vast collection of taxidermied animals, the glass flowers, and the dinosaur skeletons, which were pretty cool to me back then. (They're still pretty cool now!)

The exhibit I remember best, though, was something called the Fiji Mermaid. This was a small, mummified corpse of a hideous mermaid. Of course, the placard next to the glass case explained that it was not really a mermaid, but was actually a 19th century hoax someone created by sewing a monkey's torso onto a fish's tail. Hoax or not, it was seared into my memory, and the name Fiji Mermaid has stuck in my head ever since. It's one of those things you can't unsee once you see it.

Harvard's Fiji Mermaid. Now you can't unsee this thing either...

I think the Fiji Mermaid is probably the most famous mermaid to visit Boston's shores - it was once owned by P.T. Barnum - but it is not the only one. In the 1820s, decades before the Fiji Mermaid appeared, the whole city was talking about another mermaid who came to visit.

The story starts in 1822 with a man named Captain Dodge, who sailed into Boston Harbor bearing an incredible tale. Dodge said he had met a mermaid, captured her, and left her behind on an island. Dodge seemed quite fond of the mermaid and said he was hoping to go back and teach her human language and culture. He was like a nautical Henry Higgins, I guess.

The Bostonians he met were quite skeptical. It was only the 1820s but even then people in Boston prided themselves on their education and ability to sniff out a fraud. Dodge only had a drawing of his mermaid as proof, and people were unwilling to believe Dodge's story until they saw the see the real thing. Vowing to prove himself no liar, Dodge sailed off, promising to return with the mermaid.

Months passed. Captain Dodge's ship reappeared in Boston Harbor, carrying cargo from around the world but not the one thing everyone was most eager to see: the mermaid. Where was she, the crowds at India Wharf asked? Captain Dodge explained that sadly he found only her corpse when he returned to the island where he had left her. Apparently dragging a mermaid out of the ocean and leaving her stranded on an island was really bad idea. She couldn't survive outside of a marine environment.

Shouldn't someone should have charged Dodge with murder, or at least manslaughter? No one did. Instead people just ghoulishly demanded to see the corpse. I'm suppose most Bostonians were just skeptical of the whole story and didn't really think there was a mermaid to kill anyway. However, some local naturalists approached Dodge and politely asked him to bring the dead sea maiden to Boston for anatomical study. This, they argued, would help prove he was telling the truth. Dodge equivocated and sailed off without promising anything to anyone.

In 1824 Dodge once again sailed into Boston Harbor -  this time with the body of the mermaid on board his ship. Her corpse was enclosed within a glass case. Dodge made arrangements with the New-England Museum to exhibit the mermaid in their building on Court Street. Admission cost twenty-five cents. The mermaid was not allowed to be examined outside of her glass case. Those local naturalists were out of luck.

The New-England Museum (now gone), from Wikipedia

So what exactly did Dodge have inside the case? Was it an actual mermaid? Here is a description from an 1824 issue of The New York Mirror And Ladies Literary Gazette:

The question asked, is, Is it really and truly, bona fide, a Mermaid? We answer, go and see. Examine for yourself. If the skin of a large cod-fish stuffed, with the skeleton of a child’s body put on in the place of the cod’s head, the jaws and teeth of a cat inserted into that which represents the head of the child, and the whole, except for the scaly part enveloped in a bladder, or some other skinny substance, and smoked well with burning camphor, can make a Mermaid, then as sure as a fish is a fish… there is a Mermaid now to be seen in the room adjoining the New-England Museum…

So no, it was not an actual mermaid. Much like the Fiji Mermaid, it was created from the parts of various other animals. Let's hope it wasn't actually made from the body of a child.

Dodge had been sailing in the Pacific before he came to Boston with his mermaid, which helps explain where he got it. According to Wikipedia, fishermen in Japan and other Pacific nations often created these "mermaids" out of animal parts for religious reasons. They're kind of like the Pacific island version of jackalopes, I suppose. Dodge had purchased it during his voyage and then brought it back to New England to show. Did he think it was really a mermaid, or did he know if was fake? That's hard to say, but I suspect he knew it was a hoax. Otherwise, he would have let the naturalists examine it.

Dodge's mermaid corpse was one of the first to appear in the United States, but others soon followed, including the more famous Fiji Mermaid, which was promoted by none other than the great circus impresario P.T. Barnum. There is some debate over whether Harvard's mermaid is actually the same one that Barnum owned, but if not it's still a good example of these mummified mermaids. I think Loren Coleman's Cryptozoology Museum in Portland Maine has one as well. There are quite a few of these taxidermy oddities out in the world,and the term "Fiji Mermaid" is often used to describe any of them. 

As far as I know, no one has ever found an authentic mermaid (or merman) corpse. Skeptics might say that's because they don't exist, but perhaps mermaids are really manifestations of the ocean's spirit, beautiful but dangerous, and cannnot ever be captured. As for Dodge's mermaid, she long ago disappeared and hasn't been seen since.

*****

My sources for this week were Edward Rowe Snow's 1957 book Legends of the New England Coast, and also this great fairy tale blog which led me to the quote from The New York Mirror.

Fort Indpendence: Edgar Allan Poe, a Skeleton, and a Sea Serpent

"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous stories. For those of you who need a reminder, the plot involves a man named Montresor who takes revenge upon his friend Fortunato, who has insulted him in an unspecified manner. One night during Carnival when Fortunato is drunk Montresor lures him into his basement by promising him a rare cask of Amontillado wine.

But instead of giving him wine, he chains Fortunato into a niche and then seals it with stones and mortar. Fortunato cries out, "For the love of God, Montresor!" Montresor replies, "Yes, for the love of God" as he puts in the last stone. The crime is never discovered.

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849. 

Although Poe's 1846 story is a work of fiction, there is a local legend that it is based on fact. Confused? Read on.

In 1827 Edgar Allan Poe was serving in the military at Fort Independence on Castle Island in South Boston. Poe was a native-born Bostonian, but had acquired quite a bit of gambling debt by the time he was 18. To avoid his debtors and raise some cash he enlisted in the Army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, telling the recruiters he was 22 years old. This part of the story is true. Poe was always living on the edge.

Fort Independence on Castle Island, Boston.

While he was serving at Fort Independence, Poe noticed a gravestone in the fort's cemetery dedicated to Lt. Robert Massie, who died on Christmas Day in 1817. The other soldiers told Poe that Massie had been killed in a duel with another officer, Lt. Gutavus Drane. Drane had never been popular with the enlisted men at the fort, and what little popularity he had vanished after he killed Massie. One night when he was drunk the soldiers lured him into the basement of the fort and walled him up alive. Years later, Poe used this incident as inspiration for "The Cask of Amontillado."

A sealed door on the fort's exterior wall.

That part of the story is mostly legend, and some of the details are quite murky. Again, Poe really did serve at Fort Independence, but Gustavus Drane was not walled up alive. He was promoted, married, died of an illness, and was buried outside of Philadelphia. Alternately, some versions of the story say the entombed officer was really named Greene or Drake, and Massie's name is sometimes spelled Massey for more confusion.

There is no gravestone for Robert Massie at Fort Independence, but historian and folklorist Edward Rowe Snow claims it was moved to Fort Devens in Ayer. And perhaps the story really is true after all. Rowe also claims that when renovations were being done on the fort in 1905 workers found a skeleton entombed within a wall - and it was wearing a uniform from the early 1800s.

Tony looked but could not see a skeleton.

So there you go - fact, fiction and legend are all intertwined at Fort Independence, and it's hard to determine what's true and what isn't. It's a great story though, and sometimes that's what's most important.

Another great story from Castle Island is that a sea serpent was sighted there in 1818. Two soldiers and an officer all reported seeing the large monster swimming in the harbor. There were a lot of sea serpent seen off the coast of Massachusetts in the 19th century, so it does seem likely one was seen near Fort Independence. I'll let others determine if the sea serpent was real or not.

A good viewing spot for sea monsters.

Even if you aren't intrigued by stories of revenge, skeletons, and aquatic monsters Castle Island is still worth a visit. There have been fortifications on the island since 1634, so it's rich in history. For example, it was from Castle Island that the British attempted to bombard the American revolutionaries on Dorchester Heights. Fort Independence is the seventh fort to stand on the island,  and was built in 1801. Sadly you can't go inside it, but the views are great, there's a beach, and the island is connected to the mainland so you can walk, drive, or take the bus there.

I got most of my information from Stephanie Schorow's East of Boston: Notes from the Harbor Islands. You can find Edward Rowe Snow's version of the legend here; I believe it first appeared in Yankee Magazine in the early 1960s.

The Fragrant Haircut of Fort Warren

During November and December I feel compelled to write about the holidays, so my posts are usually about food and festive traditions. I'm sad to see December end, but I do feel liberated to write about weird and creepy things again. Yay!

I acquired a few new folklore books over the holidays, including Jay Schmidt's Fort Warren: New England's Most Historic Civil War Site. Tony gave it to me for Christmas, and when I opened it I immediately found this bizarre tale.

During the Civil War, the First Corps of Cadets was stationed at Fort Warren on George's Island in Boston Harbor. They were relatively isolated out there, but one day a cadet got leave to go into Boston.

Fort Warren today - photo courtesy Tony!

One of the first things he did in the city was get a fresh haircut. The barber gave him the works, and finished off his hair with a fragrant, oily pomade.

When he returned to Fort Warren, the other cadets teased him about how nice his hair smelled. (I guess they were jealous). The cadet ignored them and fell fast asleep in his bunk.

His sleep was not restful, unfortunately. He was tormented by a terrible dream that mosquitoes were buzzing around his head. He tossed and turned, but he couldn't escape the nightmare.

I might have nightmares too if I slept here...

When the cadet finally woke up he was horrified to find that all of his hair was gone! The oily pomade's delightful fragrance had attracted the rats who lived in the fort's walls, and they devoured his delicious smelling hair while he slept. Their gnawing had filled his dream as the buzzing of mosquitoes.

And you know what? To make matters worse, his hair never grew back.

The most famous spooky tale about Fort Warren is the lady in black, but I think this one is pretty good too.

Happy 2012!

The Ghost of Fort Warren

Tony went on a company outing to George's Island in Boston Harbor this week, and took these great photos of Fort Warren.

Fort Warren was built before the Civil War to defend Boston from naval attacks, and was also used to house Confederate prisoners. It's now a historic landmark.



It's an amazing place, with great views of the city and harbor, and lots of dark tunnels to explore. You definitely need a flash light to see all of it.

A woman in a black dress is supposed to haunt Fort Warren. She's the restless spirit of Mrs. Andrew Lanier, the wife of a Confederate soldier held prisoner there. Mrs. Lanier, disguised as a man, had sneaked into Fort Warren to free her husband. They were discovered by the guards as they fled, and Mrs. Warren accidentally killed her husband when her pistol misfired.



She was sentenced to hang on February 2, 1862. Her last request was that she be executed wearing a dress, rather than in the men's clothing she wore as a disguise. The guards dressed her in an old black gown, which her ghost is still said to wear.



Allegedly, a soldier stationed at Fort Warren during WWII became so deranged after encountering Mrs. Lanier's ghost that he spent 20 years in an institution. Spooky!



This story is well-known, but I found the details in Thomas D'Agostino's Haunted Massachusetts.

Nix's Mate: Pirates, a Curse, and Dutch Water Spirits

No pirate corpses were visible the day I sailed past Nix's Mate.

Last week a friend and I took the ferry from Boston to Provincetown. One of the sights we saw as we cruised through Boston Harbor was Nix's Mate, a very small island topped by stone pyramid. It may be only be 200 square feet, but it has more folklore per foot than any other island in the harbor.

WHERE DID ALL THE LAND GO? Nix's Mate was originally a 12 acre island where sheep grazed. Now, it's just a tiny rocky shoal that's entirely hidden during high tide. What happened? According to Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, in the 1630s a certain Captain Nix was murdered in a ship anchored off the island. His first mate was convicted of the crime, and sentenced to death by hanging on the island. As he was led to the gallows, he shouted "God, show that I am innocent. Let this island sink and prove to these people that I have never stained my hands with human blood." After the sailor was executed, the island slowly began to sink into the sea, proving his innocence. (A more boring explanation is that the land was quarried for gravel.)

WHAT'S IN A NAME? There are a few explanations of where Nix's Mate got it's catchy name, which it's had since 1636. The first is that was named after Captain Nix's who was hanged there. However, there are no records of Captain Nix or a sailor being executed on the island in the 1630s. This leads to the second explanation - that Nix's Mate is really a garbled version of nixie scmalt, which is Old Dutch for "wail of the water spirits." Allegedly, a Dutch passenger on a boat muttered this as he heard the waves pounding against the island's cliffs. (You can read more about the water spirits known as nixen here.)

PIRATES! Although there is no record of Nix's mate being executeded on the island, three actual pirates are known to have been hanged there, with their bodies left in the gibbet as a warning to other would-be pirates. The most famous of the three was William Fly, who was executed in July of 1726. Fly refused to repent during his trial, and wanted to die as bravely as he lived. According to Robert Cahill's New England's Cruel and Unusual Punishments, Fly walked to the gallows carrying a flower, and smiled at the executioner as the noose was put around his neck. Other sources claim that Fly even helped tie the noose around his own neck. The corpses of Fly and the other pirates were buried on Nix's Mate, and are now probably at the bottom of Boston Harbor.