The Nantucket Merman

I've always liked monsters. Well, at least I like reading about them. I've never met one face-to-face but plenty of New Englanders have. People see all sorts of things around here: Bigfoot, extraterrestrial creatures, pukwudgies, and even the occasional lake monster.

What people don't see much of these days is mer-people. Mermaids and mermen don't seem to be very common around here now, but in the past they were apparently more plentiful. For example, an aggressive triton was seen off the coast of Maine in the early 1600s, while a sailor named Captain Dodge exhibited a mermaid's corpse in a Boston museum in the 1820s.

A merman was even seen off the coast of Nantucket. The year was 1714, and a minister named Valentyn was sailing past Nantucket's Great Point when it happened. Here is a quote from the good reverend's journal:

“It appeared like a sailor, or a man sitting on something; and more like a sailor, as on its head there appeared to be something like an English cap of the same color.

We all agreed he must be some shipwrecked person. After some time I begged the captain to steer the ship more directly toward it. … We had got within a ship’s length of him, when the people on the forecastle mad such a noise that he plunged down, head foremost, and got presently out of sight.

The man who was on watch at the masthead delared that he had… a monstrous long tail.” 

There's something a little creepy about that account. I can imagine the ship's crew going from "Oh, look there's a sailor in the water" to "Oh crap, that guy's got a giant fish tail!" in just a few panicky moments. I know I would.

That may not have been the only sighting of a mer-person near Nantucket. According to folklorist Edward Rowe Snow, the keeper of Great Point's lighthouse claimed to have seen something humanoid crawl out of the ocean and head into nearby Coskata Woods in the early 1900s. Some other locals claimed to have seen signs of something living in the same forest.

Great Point Light from Wikipedia.

The Coskata Woods are very old and have not been logged since 1711. It makes sense that an ancient primal sea being would want to visit an ancient forest.

Perhaps memaids and mermen are still swimming in the waters off our coast. I hope so, because I do like monsters. And make no mistake, mer-people do have a monstrous side. Folklore tells of mermaids who sink ships by raising storms or abduct handsome sailors to be their lovers, while mermen and tritons sometimes attack young women walking alone on the beach. So though I hope there are still some mer-people out there, I don't want to meet one face-to-face, and hope you don't meet one either.

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Most of the information about the Natucket merman can be found in Edward Rowe Snow's book Legends of the New England Coast. 

Ephraim Gray, the Immortal Man of Malden

Tony and I have a lot of friends who were either born in Malden, Massachusetts or live there now. On Friday we saw three friends - one was born in Malden and two live there now. On Saturday, we met a group of people out at a bar, and there were at least five Maldonians there.

Malden plays a significant role in my life, but oddly I don't believe I've ever shared any Malden lore on this blog. To rectify this, here's the story of Ephraim Gray, the immortal man of Malden.

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Ephraim Gray was a reclusive man who lived in Malden in the 19th century. He lived in the center of town in a big house, which he seldom left. Whenever his neighbors did see Ephraim he never looked them in the eye, and just grunted when spoken too. Ephraim didn't have any family, and lived only with a single manservant. The manservant would handle all the complex interactions with the outside world, like shopping and paying the bills.

Ephraim lived quietly for many years, until one day his neighbors noticed foul odors emanating from his house. Occasionally they would see the manservant open the windows to let out plumes of noxious, chemical-scented smoke. A modern person would suspect that Ephraim was cooking meth, but Ephraim's neighbors just chalked the fumes up as another one of his eccentricities.

The strange odors went on for many years as well, until one morning in 1850 Ephraim's manservant appeared at the police station. Ephraim Gray was dead.

The servant explained that for many years Ephraim had been trying to create an elixir that would grant him immortality. Unfortunately, even though he had quaffed many test brews, Ephraim had lost his race against time and died before he perfected the formula.

However, the servant also explained that he believed Ephraim's experiments would preserve his employer's body perfectly. Ephraim Gray was therefore to be buried immediately with no embalming or other mortuary preparations. The servant was quite firm on these conditions because he would only inherit Ephraim's estate if they were fulfilled.

Ephraim Gray was buried in a small crypt in a cemetery in the center of town. The servant lived in Ephraim's home for a few years before he too passed away. But the stories about Ephraim's quest for immortality lived on, and in 1870 reached the ears of two Harvard medical students. The students were curious to see if the rumors were true, and traveled out to Malden one dark night and broke into the crypt.

Olde Time Malden!

When the students pried the lid off Ephraim Gray's coffin they were amazed to see that his body was perfectly preserved. Ephraim Gray had not decayed at all in the last twenty years! Their curiosity satisfied, they resealed the coffin and returned to Cambridge.

Well, at least that's what they told people. In 1900 the cemetery needed to be relocated to make room for a new road, and all the bodies were moved to a new location. But when the workmen came to move Ephraim's body, they were surprised to see that his coffin was empty. No trace of his body could be found and it has never been located to this day.

Hard-headed skeptics claimed that the Harvard students had stolen the body to dissect, but other people in Malden whispered that perhaps Ephraim's immortality formula had really worked. Maybe it had just taken decades for it to kick in, and that he had finally awoken from his dormant state. Since he was a loner, he probably just walked out of the graveyard without saying a word.

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I have a few thoughts on this story. It appears in quite a few books, including Joseph Citro's Passing Strange and Weird New England, and Ceri Revai's Haunted Massachusetts.  Joseph Citro also mentions that Edward Rowe Snowe wrote about Ephraim Gray in the middle of the twentieth century. I can't find any record of the story that is older than that, but if someone knows where it originated please let me know.

I searched through Births, Marriages and Deaths of Malden, Massachusetts, 1649 - 1850 which is on Google books. There were records for a few people named Gray in it, but nothing for an Ephraim Gray. Maybe he was born someplace outside of Malden, which could explain why his birth is not listed. Maybe his death is not listed because he never really died!

Last week I wrote about Harvard students raising the Devil. This week it's Harvard students robbing graves. What will those kids get up to next?

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.