The Sweet Milk of Satan: A Cape Cod Witch Story

Tony and I were down in Truro on Cape Cod recently, and we found a gravestone I've wanted to see for a long time. It belongs to Sylvanus Rich, who was born in 1720 and died on July 3rd, 1755. There's an interesting legend about Rich and a local witch. It goes something like this. 

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Sylvanus Rich was a sea captain. Not much is known about him, but something strange happened to him once during a routine sea voyage carrying carrying corn from North Carolina to Boston. As his ship was sailing north along Truro's Atlantic coast he told his crew to drop anchor. He had seen a small hut nestled among the dunes.

"I want some fresh milk," Rich told his men. "I'm tired of brackish water and rum. I bet whoever lives there has a cow that that gives milk." The crew watched as he rowed himself to shore (alone) and made his way to the hut. When he rowed back to the ship he had a jug of milk with him. "I was right," he said. "The old woman there had some milk for me. But she was the ugliest hag I've ever seen!" Rich retired to his cabin with the creamy beverage, but as soon as he did a fierce gale arose that shredded the ship's sails. The crewmen pounded on his cabin door for guidance, but he did not emerge until the next morning.

Sylvanus Rich's grave in North Truro Cemetery

"What's that?" Sylvanus Rich said groggily to his crew. "The sails are shredded and we're drifting? That's not my concern... Last night the hideous hag came to my cabin. She threw a magic bridle over my head and rode me like a horse up and down the Cape until sunrise. See?" He lifted his shirt, and his crew gasped at the red marks on his torso. They looked like they were made by a woman's shoe. 

"She will come again tonight," Captain Rich said. "I must prepare for her." His crew wasn't sure if he grimaced or smiled as he returned to his cabin and locked the door. 

For several days the ship drifted aimlessly off the Truro coast. Each night the dune-dwelling old witch came and used the captain as her steed, riding him up and down the Cape. Sylvanus Rich was under her spell and helpless to resist her. He spent his days and nights locked in his cabin. 

The crew was feeling desperate (and thinking mutinous thoughts), when they saw another ship approaching from the distance. By a strange coincidence, it was captained by Sylvanus Rich's son. When the crew told him his father was bewitched, Sylvanus's son went down to his cabin. The crew could hear the two men talking inside but were unable to make out what was said. 

Finally, Sylvanus Rich emerged onto the deck. "What are you all looking at?" he said. "My son's ship has materials to repair our sails. Get to work! We need to bring this grain to Boston."

The sails were repaired, and the ship finally arrived in Boston. The merchant waiting for the shipment of corn asked why it was so late. Sylvanus Rich simply said, "Blame it on the sweet milk of Satan."

That's the end of the legend. His gravestone is in Old North Truro Cemetery, but I couldn't find much information about Sylvanus Rich's life. He was born in Eastham, Massachusetts in 1720, and had at least two children with his wife Mary. His son Isaiah was born in 1744, and would only have been 11 years old when Sylvanus died. It seems unlikely that Isaiah was captaining a ship at the age of eleven, so I'm not sure how much of this legend is based on fact. 

There are a lot of New England legends about witches using magic bridles to ride men like horses. There are at least two others from Cape Cod specifically about witches riding sailors! I guess it was an occupational hazard of the time, like scurvy or getting seasick. New England witch stories aren't usually erotic, but I think the sexual undertones in these witch bridle stories are pretty obvious. Milk, usually associated with motherhood and sustenance, has a more sinister and unwholesome role in this tale. 

We never learn what transpired in the witch's hut, or what Sylvanus's son says to him that finally breaks the spell. I like that mystery. I also like that the witch is not killed or harmed at the end of this story. Instead, she is free to seduce and torment more sailors with the SWEET MILK OF SATAN. 

I included this story in my new book, Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts, which is available now for pre-ordering and will mail on September 1. You can purchase it all your favorite online book vendors. 

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My main source for this story was Elizabeth Renard's book The Narrow Land (1934), and she got the story from Shebnah Rich's Truro, Cape Cod, or Landmarks and Seamarks (1884), with additional details from oral tradition.  

"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.

Sam Bellamy, Maria Hallett, and the Wreck of the Pirate Ship Whydah

Tony and I were down on the Cape recently and finally visited the Pirate Museum in Provincetown. I've wanted to go for quite a few years and was glad to finally find the time.

The museum's exhibits are focused on the pirate ship Whydah (pronounced "widdah"), which sank off the coast of Wellfleet in 1717. The wreck was located by divers in 1982, and the artifacts they found, including gold coins, a cannon, and the ship's bell, are featured in the museum.

Here are some interesting facts I learned:

• Pirates used a primitive form of hand grenade when attacking ships.
• Venereal disease was common among pirates, but the cure - an injection of mercury directly into the bladder - was probably worse than the sickness.
• Pirates who had a limb amputated received an extra stipend of gold.

The Whydah was originally commissioned as a slave ship, and is named after the African coastal city of Ouidah. It was captured by notorious pirate Black Sam Bellamy while it was sailing in the Caribbean. Bellamy took the ship as his own, loaded it with approximately four tons of stolen gold, and headed north to Cape Cod. He never reached the Cape, but died with almost all his crew less than a mile off Wellfleet's Atlantic coast in an April storm. He was 28 and is believed to have been the wealthiest pirate in history.

There are quite a few legends associated with Sam Bellamy and the Whydah. The most enduring is about his love for a local Cape Cod girl named Maria Hallett. On Cape Cod he met and fell in love with Maria Hallett, who was young (only 15!) and beautiful. Her parents didn't approve of Sam - he was just a poor sailor - but one thing led to another and Maria became pregnant with Sam's child. Declaring his undying love for Maria, Sam set off for the Caribbean to make his fortune. He vowed to return a rich man.

Some stories say Sam intended to find sunken treasure in the Caribbean, but found his way into piracy instead. Maria, who was left at home on the Cape, was shunned by her family and neighbors. Premarital pregnancy was not uncommon in colonial New England, but it usually led to a speedy marriage. Maria didn't have that option. She bore her child alone and unmarried in a isolated hut in the woods.

There are many variations of the legend, but they fall into two broad types. In the first, Maria grows bitter. Really, really bitter. She's been shunned by her community and abandoned by the man who said he loved her. Alone and angry, she turns to the one person who always was available to the New England outcast - the Devil. In return for her soul, and possibly the life of her child, the Dark Man makes her a witch. When Maria learns that the Whydah is approaching Wellfleet she climbs onto one of the high dunes and raises a storm. The man who ruined her life is drowned, the Whydah sinks, and Maria dances in the wild wind and rain. The area where she cast her spell is now called the Lucifer Land, Satan's Harvest, or the Devil's Pasture in local folklore.

That's the grim, gloomy version. The slightly less grim version claims that Maria remained faithful to Sam, watching and waiting patiently for his return. On the night of the storm she watched from the dunes, hoping the Whydah would make it safely to shore. When it didn't, she lost her mind from grief and ran down to the beach. The next day she was found on the shore, screaming and wailing as she wandered through the wreckage and drowned corpses. Her ghost is still said to walk near Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, and her cries can be heard on dark stormy nights.

Tony scanning the Atlantic coast for pirates, ghosts, witches, etc.

 There's a lot of historical documentation on Sam Bellamy's life, but there's no documentation about Maria Hallett. Did she even exist? It's impossible to know, but Hallett is an old Cape Cod name so it's entirely likely. Records from the early 1700s can be a little spotty.

Legends and strange phenomena surrounded the Whydah even into the modern age. Barry Clifford, the explorer who found the Whydah in 1982, claims that the expedition was plagued by bad luck and strange mechanical malfunctions while it was searching for the wreck. The divers and crew once even heard a voice over their radio repeat the following words: "We want your boat... We want your boat..." The weird shenanigans stopped only after Clifford and his crew poured rum into the ocean and toasted the dead pirate crew. Shortly after making this offering to the dead they discovered the sunken ship and its treasure.

In 1998, the staff at a Wellfleet restaurant also reproted a strange encounter. One of their customers emerged from the restroom in a panic. He said he had seen a young woman in an old-fashioned dress, but that she had disappeared. The staff checked the restroom and found it unoccupied. The customer hastily signed his name of the credit card slip and ran out of the restaurant. His last name was Bellamy.

The story of Sam Bellamy and Maria Hallett can be found in many places, including Elizabeth Reynard's The Narrow Land and Mark Jasper's Haunted Cape Cod and the Islands. The stories about the modern ghosts are from the Houston Museum's website.

Don't Be A Jonah: Bad Luck On Ships and Boats

I am not a sailor.

My brother loves to sail. My father loves to sail. I come from a long line of Nova Scotia fishermen, but somehow I didn't get the sailing gene. Instead I got the "I get seasick even riding a bus" gene. Maybe I inherited that one from my mother's side.

I'm still interested in nautical lore, even if I'm not a sailor. There is quite a bit of it in New England, naturally, and much of it concerns what might bring bad luck to a ship.

A person or thing that brings bad luck to a ship is called a "Jonah." The term of course comes from the Biblical prophet of the same name. Jonah is best remembered for being swallowed by a whale, but that's only part of his story, which goes something like this: Jonah was commanded by God to go preach in the Assyrian city of Nineveh, but refused to go. Instead he boarded a ship sailing in the opposite direction. He wanted to put as much mileage between himself and Nineveh as possible. God wasn't buying it, though, and sent a terrible storm which threatened to sink the ship. The sailors on board determined that Jonah was to blame for the bad weather and tossed him overboard. The storm abated and the ship reached its destination safely. (Jonah meanwhile was swallowed by a whale and eventually went to Nineveh).

"Sorry Jonah, but you gotta go!"

Similar stories appear throughout European literature and folklore. For example, in Shakespeare's play Pericles, the hero's wife dies in childbirth while at sea. A huge storm threatens to sink the ship, but the sailors calm it by throwing her body into the ocean. Don't be sad - since Pericles is one of Shakespeare's late romances there's still a happy ending. In folklore, mermaids often cause storms to delay or sink ships carrying handsome sailors they want to marry. The storm can only be stopped if the sailor throws himself overboard into the mermaid's waiting arms.

So apparently if you're on a ship carrying a reluctant prophet, the corpse of someone who died in childbirth, or a handsome sailor you will experience bad weather. If it's carrying all three just swim back to shore right away!

Here in New England, the following were considered bad luck:

• A man carrying a black valise on board will bring bad luck and should be shunned.
• Anyone carrying an umbrella on board brings bad luck.
• It is unlucky to pound nails on a ship on Sunday.
• Hawks, owls and crows will bring bad luck it they land on a ship.
• Dropping the hatch into the hold is bad luck.
• Never watch a ship sail out of sight, because it's the last time you'll see it.

Some men were also just considered naturally unlucky. A new crew member on a fishing boat will be blamed and labeled a Jonah if the boat brings in a small catch on his first trip. Stories are told of men who hexed three ships in a row with their bad luck. Time to pursue a new profession!

All is not grim, though, and there is light at the end of the voyage. Here are some things that bring good luck:

• Dropping a cake of ice overboard before leaving port
• Bees or small birds bring good luck if they land on the ship.
• A horseshoe nailed into the mast will protect the ship from witches.

Now I just need something to prevent motion sickness on the MBTA bus!