A Case of Spontaneous Combustion in Ipswich?

I have a confession to make: summer is not my favorite season. 

I like summer, but not as much as I did when I was a kid. Back then, I spent summer sitting in front of a fan reading the trashy horror paperbacks my aunt gave us. Now, I have to work and be productive, no matter how humid or hot it might be. Sometimes as I trudge to work, depending on the temperature, I feel like I might spontaneously combust. 

Spontaneous human combustion is the belief that people sometimes burst into flames without any external source of ignition. The part about "no external source of ignition" is important. Catching your clothes on fire while using the stove is not spontaneous human combustion. Suddenly and mysteriously burning to death while just reading a horror novel is spontaneous human combustion. 

I first read about spontaneous human combustion when I was a kid, probably in Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe, which my brother owned, but the concept dates back to 1746. That was when the term was first coined by the Italian poet Paolo (Paul) Rolli, a member of the British Royal Society, to explain the mysterious death of Countess Cornelia Zangari Bandi.

On the evening of March 15, 1731, Countess Bandi retired to her bed chamber. After talking and praying with her maid for several hours, she sent the maid away and went to sleep. When the maid returned in the morning, she saw a terrible sight in the middle of the floor: the charred remains of the countess. And there weren't even a lot of remains. According to Rolli, 

Four Feet Distance from the Bed there was a Heap of Ashes, two Legs untouched, from the Foot to the Knee, with their Stockings on; between them was the Lady's head; whose Brains, Half of the Backpart of the Scull, and the whole Chin, were burnt to Ashes; amongst which were found three Fingers blacken'd. All the rest was Ashes, which had this particular Quality, that they left in the Hand, when taken up, a greasy and stinking Moisture (from Wikipedia).

There was a lot of grease and soot in the room, but otherwise not much else was left of poor Countess Bandi, except for her lower legs, part of her skull, and three fingers. It was as if her body had been consumed quickly and suddenly by incredibly high heat. Oddly, the furniture and bed linens had not been damaged by the fire, although they were covered in grease and soot. The fire had cremated Countess Bandi but not touched anything else. 

Because it had only burned the countess, and because its source was never determined, Rolli hypothesized the fire had started inside Countess Bandi. He believed she had been consumed by a fire within her own body, a process he called "spontaneous human combustion." 

Of course, she probably caught fire from either the oil lamp or the candles in the room, but the idea of spontaneous human combustion was more exciting, and the concept quickly spread through the academic world and the general public. As more cases were 'discovered,' certain common traits were seen among the victims. They tended to be female, were often alcoholics, and were also often overweight. It seemed like the alcohol inside of them was spontaneously igniting and then burning the fat inside their bodies like a grisly, greasy, giant candle.

Image from The Irish Sun.

NONE OF THIS IS TRUE. Researchers who've reviewed cases of alleged spontaneous human combustion have always found possible outside sources of ignition, like candles, oil lamps, cigarettes, or space heaters. There is no such thing as spontaneous human combustion. The concept persisted, though, because it's fun (and scary) to think about someone suddenly bursting into flames, and because it also gave people an opportunity to pass moral judgment on their neighbors for being alcoholic and overweight, even after death.  

This blog is about New England folklore, so what does any of this have to with New England? Well, I became intrigued with the idea of spontaneous combustion last year while I was preparing to speak at an event in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Joseph Felt's 1834 book History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton has a chapter titled  "Remarkable Events," which includes a subsection called "Individuals Drowned and Killed." Among those individuals was Betsy Telock, who died at the age of 49 in a mysterious fire:

1814,  Jan.  5th.  Betsey  Telock,  M.  49,  is  burnt  to  death. 

It  has  been  commonly  reported,  that  she  came  to  her  end  by spontaneous  combustion  from  the  inordinate  use  of  ardent spirits.  But  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  gentleman,  who  first  discovered her  body,  soon  after  the  flames  in  her  room  were extinguished,  that  she  caught  her  bed-clothes  on  fire  with  a candle, and  thus  lost  her  life. 

This account, even though brief, encapsulates the entire concept of spontaneous human combustion. Betsey's neighbors seemed to think that she burst into flames because she drank too much ("inordinate use of ardent spirits"), but she probably caught on fire because she got too close to a candle. Even in 1814 people were skeptical about the idea of spontaneous combustion, and kudos to Joseph Felt for being skeptical, too.

I hope you stay cool this summer and get to spend it reading trashy paperbacks in front of a fan. 

Ann Hopkins and The Curse of Fire

As I've mentioned before, one of the nice things about living in New England is that you can find weird folklore almost everywhere. Well, at least I think it's one of the nice things...

I've lived in the Boston area for many years and have walked through Cambridge's Cambridgeport neighborhood hundreds of times. It's only recently that I learned about a weird story involving a witch, a curse, and an old church in that area. And the story might even be true. It first appeared in the Boston Globe in March of 1881, and newspapers don't print false stories, do they?

The church in question is the Cambridgeport Baptist Church. In 1881 a Globe reporter went to investigate some strange happenings at the church. The church had recently burned down, and parishioners and neighbors reported some unusual things:

Strange sounds are heard at night by persons who pass the ruined building - low moans and cries of intense agony, that rise to weird shrieks and die away in long-drawn signs. These unearthly sounds increase in frequency as the the work of clearing away the ruin progresses, and old residents remember that the same sounds were heard after the burning of the old church some sixteen years ago...

That's right. This was the second time the church had burned within a twenty year period. When the church was rebuilt the first time in 1865 people also heard unusual sounds, but they stopped when the cornerstone of the church was laid. Strange.

Equally strange, when that cornerstone was laid in 1865 the documents that were being ceremonially buried under it were burned by a sudden mysterious fire. Stranger still, in 1881 the same thing occurred:

As the stone was being lowered into place a spark of fire was struck out in some unaccountable way and communicated to the documents placed under the stone, but the block was quickly lowered to put the flame out. When the stone was raised the the other day there was nothing under it but a little heap of ashes...

Conveniently, the Globe reporter meets an elderly Cambridgeport man who tells him a story that was told to him by his grandfather. According to the story, many years ago a woman named Ann Hopkins lived in an isolated cabin on the banks of the Charles River. Hopkins was once a beautiful young woman who was courted by two rivals. She loved only one of the men and promised herself to him when he returned from the French and Indian War. As a token of her affection she gave him a ribbon.

The other man, scorned by Ann Hopkins, became bitter and jealous. He too went off to fight against the French, and served alongside Hopkins's true love. During a battle he shot the man Hopkins loved but made it appear he had been killed by the French. When he came back to Cambridge he told Hopkins the sad news. At first she believed his story, but when she saw he was wearing the ribbon she had bestowed upon her true love she realized what had happened. The shock drove her insane.

For many years after this Hopkins lived alone in her cabin, ignored by the Puritans of Cambridge. But that changed when a plague struck the town. As people grew ill, they noticed that Hopkins was unaffected. They also noticed that a cow that had strayed onto her property began to give bloody milk, and a child she had glared at sickened and died. Some people even said they had seen Hopkins flying over head on a broom.

Hopkins was brought to trial and found guilty of witchcraft. The Cambridge elders sentenced her to be burned at the stake. As the flames consumed her body, Hopkins saw among the spectators the man who had killed her lover.

The red light flashes back from her scorched eyeballs upon the throng, her cracked and bleeding lips part, and shaking the arm from which the flesh is dropping in shreds, she shrieks a terrible curse upon her murderers. They shrink back in chill terror, back into the gloom beyond the glare of the ghastly flames, and Ann Hopkins shrieks: "The curse of fire shall be upon this spot forever!"

The site of Ann Hopkins execution was of course the future location of the Cambridgeport Baptist Church. Her curse was the reason the church repeatedly burned down. The old man hints ominously that her spirit still lurks in the area...

Isn't that a good story? The ending is satisfyingly cathartic and also really gruesome. Unfortunately it's probably not true. For one thing, the Puritans didn't burn witches but instead hanged them, so there is no way Hopkins died burning at the stake. Well, maybe Ann Hopkins's curse is fixed on the place she was hanged rather than burned?

Perhaps, but there is no historical record of anyone named Ann Hopkins being accused of witchcraft in Cambridge. The story, with its doomed lovers and woman driven mad by loss, sounds like a 19th century romantic legend than an account of a 17th century witch trial. Real 17th century witch stories usually don't have much romance in them, but New England legends from the 19th century often do.

In his book Ghosts of Cambridge, my friend Sam Baltrusis wonders if the Ann Hopkins legend is a garbled version of the true story of Winifred and Mary Holman, two 17th century Cambridge women accused of witchery but ultimately acquitted. That definitely could be possible, but there is definitely no evidence of someone named Ann Hopkins being executed for witchcraft in Cambridge.

Although the 1881 Globe article doesn't point out the implausibility of a witch being burned at the stake in Cambridge, it does end on a debunking note. The reporter writes:

Here the old man's tale ended, and I looked up and said: "Do you think the ghost of Ann Hopkins stretched these telegraph wires overhead that are making all this weird moaning?" and the old man arose and gazed upon me reproachfully.

Although I like to look at the facts behind a supernatural story, I'm also not a huge fan of debunkers.  I still think there's room for a little mystery and wonder in the world, even in Cambridgeport. Were the parishioners and neighbors really so naive that they would mistake the sound of telegraph wires for ghostly shrieks? That seems unlikely. And what caused the two mysterious fires that burned down the church? Why were there spontaneous flames during two cornerstone ceremonies? Things aren't explained as neatly as the article suggests.

Even if there is a scientific explanation for everything that occurred, I think this story nicely illustrates New England's ambiguous relationship with witches. On one had, people here know that the people accused of witchcraft weren't really witches. They were just innocent victims of religious mania and gossip. Even in this story it's clear that Ann Hopkins isn't really a witch.

On the other hand, although Hopkins isn't a witch she still successfully places a curse on the spot where she died. In this respect she follows in the footsteps of other accused witches who, although innocent of witchcraft, still manage to work some kind of magic as they die. For example, accused Salem witch Sarah Good cursed Reverend Noyes as she died, saying God would give him blood to drink. Near Plymouth a woman named Aunt Rachel cast a curse with her dying breath, while in Bucksport, Maine an accused witch (or maybe her son) cast a curse on the judge who sentenced her to hang.

Those are just a few of the New England stories where accused witches curse the people who execute them. These tales claim that even though witches aren't real, magic and the supernatural are. It can be found anywhere, even a few blocks from downtown Cambridge.

Squash Pie and Burning Barrels for Thanksgiving

This week I'm making a squash pie for Thanksgiving. That's right, squash pie, not pumpkin.

Every year my mother makes three pies at Thanksgiving: apple, squash, and mincemeat. (I volunteered to help make the squash pie this year.) Her mother made the same three pies as well.

Squash pie is kind of old-fashioned. It's made just like pumpkin pie, but using canned squash. I think only Maine's One-Pie company still produces canned squash, and it can be hard to find in some areas. I suppose that if One Pie ever goes out of business my family's tradition of squash pie will end.

I often think of holiday traditions as ancient and timeless, but that's not true. Traditions come and go and the holidays change through time. For example, Thanksgiving (the archetypal New England holiday) used to be celebrated with dances:

... some gather in a neighbor's dwelling, and find rich jokes over the crackling of hickory nuts and eating of the good dame's preserves; some patronize the ball in my landlord's spacious chamber, and seek "no sleep till morn" in the excitement of the dance... (John Carver, Sketches of New England, 1842)

Sleigh rides were also quite popular in the 19th century, but of course Thanksgiving often occurred in December then, rather than November.

A giant bonfire made of barrels was once part of the Thanksgiving festivities in Norwich, Connecticut. Originally the bonfire was a simple (if large) pyramid of empty barrels stacked high. Large crowds would gather on Thanksgiving night to watch the fire, and over time the bonfire became more elaborate. Two pyramids of barrels, one on each side of the Thames River, replaced the original single pyramid, and tar-filled barrels were strong on a rope between them across the water. The whole structure was lit on fire, and people crowded onto the nearby hillsides to watch the fiery spectacle. (This information is from David E. Phillips's Legendary Connecticut, 1992).

When I first learned about the Norwich barrel bonfires I thought they were just a nineteenth century thing, but according to this article the last one took place in the 1980s. Unlike the earlier giant bonfires, these more recent ones were sponsored by different neighborhoods. But eventually the barrel-burning tradition faded away in Norwich. Some writers say it was because the barrel fires were too dangerous - at least one person died because of them - but others say it's just because wooden barrels are harder to find now.

I'm sure barrel-burnings were a crucial part of Thanksgiving to some people in Norwich, just like squash pie is a crucial part of the holiday for my family. But someday that squash pie might be replaced by pumpkin, and I guess I'll just have to accept that change when it comes.