Hammond Castle: Psychics, Skulls, and Ghosts

Every July I get together with my friend Lori up on the North Shore. Sometimes we go to the beach, sometimes we explore some odd location. Last year we visited the Danvers State Hospital cemetery. This year the weather wasn't conducive for a beach trip, so instead we went to Hammond Castle in Gloucester.

Like all dramatic homes, Hammond Castle actually has a formal name: Abbadia Mare, which is Latin for Abbey by the Sea. The seaside castle was built in the late 1920s by the wealthy and eccentric inventor John Hammond as a wedding present for his wife Irene.

Hammond had over 800 patents in his name, and at one point held the second most patents of anyone in the United States after Thomas Edison. (I think he's now slid into third place.) Hammond invented radio remote control, earning him the title of "The Father of Remote Control", and at one point built a remote control yacht that traveled 120 miles with no crew.

Although he was very much a man of science, Hammond also had a strong fascination with the past. After visiting Europe, he decided to build the castle for his wife and also as a home for his collection of Medieval, Renaissance, and Classical art.

Hammond's wealth allowed him to not only indulge his taste in art, but also some of his other eccentricities. For example, pictured below is the castle's indoor pool, which Hammond enjoyed diving naked into from a second floor balcony. There's nothing wrong with skinny-dipping, but I do think it's a little strange that the pool is surrounded not only by Medieval storefronts he brought from Europe, but also a Roman sarcophagus (in the foreground) and some other Roman funeral monuments.

In keeping with his taste for Classical art, Hammond commissioned a nude statue of himself in the style of Greek sculpture (see below), and gave it to his wife as a gift. She hated it. After adding a fig leaf to it, she placed it outside on the front lawn overlooking the ocean. Apparently during parties guests would remove the fig leaf, much to Mrs. Hammond's annoyance. There's no word on how anatomically accurate the statue is.

Hammond's parties were probably a lot of fun, but I wouldn't want to be his overnight guest. The doors in one guest room are covered with wallpaper to blend seamlessly with the walls, and Hammond could shut them remotely from another room. He had a good laugh when his guests panicked at not being able to find their way out of the room, but let's just be happy there wasn't a fire.

Hammond's taste for the macabre and creepy didn't stop at funerary art and hidden doors. He also owned the skull of one of Christopher Columbus's crew men, and kept it in a Buddhist manuscript container. If you visit the castle and want to see the skull, it's in the Great Hall tucked in an alcove near the piano.

Even though he was a scientist, Hammond had a strong curiosity about life beyond the grave. He and his wife loved cats, and would have elaborate funerals for each of their pet cats when it died. He frequently said he wanted to be reincarnated as a cat. After his death in 1965 a large black cat appeared in the house and would often sit in his favorite chair. Perhaps it was the spirit of John Hammond?

While they were alive the Hammonds also experimented with Spiritualism and tried to contact spirits of the dead. Hammond even built a Faraday Cage to block electric currents and asked psychic mediums to contact the dead from inside the cage. The intention was to limit interference from the living world and enable them to more more purely contact the spirits. The floor of the castle's Great Hall has a permanent bleached spot from the cage's electromagnetic current.

A photo of the Faraday Cage.

A psychic named Mrs. Garrett and the Faraday Cage.

Needless to say, Hammond Castle is rumored to be haunted. Some people claim to have seen Irene Hammond looking out its windows, strange voices are sometimes heard, and a mysterious red-haired woman has been known to appear at weddings that occur there. No ordinary wedding crasher, she disappears as quickly as she appears.

I got the information for this post from the Hammond Castle website, Joseph Citro and Diane Fould's Curious New England, and Dark Destinations.

Witches and Bay Leaves: A Witch Story from Hampton

Modern witches and Wiccans sometimes use the phrase, "If you can't hex you can't heal" when discussing magical power. Although you don't hear this phrase much among the general population, I think it does convey the ambiguous way most people view magic. Magic is a neutral force that doesn't necessarily follow any set moral code. If someone can use magic for good, what's to stop them from using magic for evil?

It's not a new concern, and it was certainly found among the English who colonized this area. Many people who tried to help their neighbors with good magic eventually found themselves accused of witchcraft. One of these was Rachel Fuller of Hampton, New Hampshire, who was put on trial in 1680.

Before her trial Rachel was something of a self-proclaimed expert on witches and allegedly had the ability to see them, even when they were invisible to most people.

Witches, she said, had pulled a boarder out of his bed at Henry Robie's tavern so they could ride him with an enchanted bridle. Rachel also claimed she had seen several local witches, including Eunice Cole,  practicing their dark arts. Goodie Cole and her companions magically put their husbands and children asleep so they could travel abroad at night and work mischief.

Bay leaves - flavorful and magical.

 Rachel fell under suspicion herself when she tried to help her neighbors, the Godfrey family, with their sick infant son. The Godfreys thought their child had been enchanted, and threw hot coals from the fireplace into his urine. If a witch was involved, this would make him or her appear. (For more details on how this works, see my posts about witch bottles and witch cake.)

Rachel soon appeared at the Godfrey's house and acted strangely.

... by and by Rachel Fuller came in and looked very strangely, bending, daubed her face with molasses, as she judged it, so as that she had almost daubed up one of her eyes, and the molasses ready to drop off her face; and she sat down by Goody Godfrey, who had the sick child in her lap, and took the child by the hand; and Goodwife Godfrey, being afraid to see her come in in that manner, put her hand off from the child and wrapt the child's hand in her apron.

Then the said Rachel Fuller turned her about, and smote the back of her hands together sundry times, and spat in the fire. Then she, having herbs in her hands, stood and rubbed them in her hand and strewed them about the hearth by the fire. Then she sat her down again, and said, Woman, the child will be well! and then went out of the door.

Then she went behind the house; and Mehitable Godfrey told her mother that Goody Fuller was acting strangely. Then the said Mary Godfrey and Sarah, looking out, saw Rachel Fuller standing with her face towards the house, and beat herself with her arms, as men do in winter to heat their hands, and this she did three times; and stooping down and gathering something off the ground in the interim between the beating of herself, and then she went home.

There are a couple ways to interpret this. If you were Rachel Fuller, you would say you came to help a neighbor heal their sick child. It was just a coincidence that you showed up after the coals were thrown into the urine. If you were one of the Godfreys, you would say the coals and urine compelled Rachel to appear because she was the witch who enchanted their child. Her alleged healing magic was just a further attempts to harm the child.

Rachel also told the Godfrey children that if they put sweet bay leaves around the windows and under the thresholds no witch could enter the house. The children did this, but because they ran out of leaves one door was left with a small space unprotected.

When Rachel next came to visit she did not enter through the backdoor, which was her normal entrance, but instead came in the front door. This was of course the door that was not completely protected. Twelve-year old Mehitable Godfrey later testified that

... though the door stood open, yet she crowded in on that side where the bays lay not, and rubbed her back against the post so as that she rubbed off her hat, and then she sat her down and made ugly faces, and nestled about, and would have looked on the child, but I not suffering her, she went out rubbing against the post of the door as she came in, and beat off her hat again, and I never saw her in the house since; and I do further testify that while she was in the house she looked under the door where the bays lay.

Although Rachel had been the one to recommend the bay leaves as protection, the Godfrey's claimed they were actually working against her since she was the true witch.

The Godrey's child died soon afterwards. Rachel was put on trial for murder in the summer of 1680, but was found innocent due to a lack of evidence. Interestingly John Godfrey, the father of the child, had himself been accused (and acquitted) of witchcraft three times in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Witchcraft trials were often motivated by property disputes and bad blood between neighbors, but beyond these purely mundane causes I think it's interesting to see how ideas about magic play out in the trials.

My sources about Rachel Fuller were Emerson Baker's book The Devil of Great Island, and this great genealogy site that has records of Rachel Fuller's trial.

Touching Whoremongers - Homosexuality in 17th Century New England

It was a good week for gay rights in the United States this week, with the Supreme Court striking down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act and upholding a lower court finding that invalidated California's Proposition 8. Let's hear it for progress!

And we have made a lot of progress in the four centuries since New England was first founded. Unsurprisingly, the early settlers in New England were staunchly opposed to any homosexual behavior. Equally unsurprising, there was plenty of it for them to oppose.

Most of the colonies had laws mandating death for anyone found guilty of homosexual acts (sodomy in the language of the day). For example, Plymouth Colony listed eight crimes punishable by death, including "sodomy, rape and buggery." Massachusetts Bay Colony had the following law:

If any man lyeth with man kinde as he lyeth with a woman, both of them have committed abhomination, they both shall surely be put to death. 

Connecticut and New Hampshire had similar laws. Rhode Island had a category of capital crimes called "touching Whoremongers." Sodomy was among these laws. I don't like these laws, but the word "whoremonger" does roll off the tongue.

Despite the threat of the death penalty, there was still quite a bit of sodomy happening in the Puritan's theocratic colonies. Check out another post about "Olde Gay Puritans" here for a few details.

John Winthrop doesn't look it, but he was full of passion!

Although people were executed under these sodomy laws, same-sex affection among heterosexuals was also paradoxically expressed much more strongly in the 17th century than it is now. In fact, it was probably quite difficult to determine who was actually a devoted sodomite and who was just friendly. Here, for example, is a quote from a letter future Massachusetts governor John Winthrop wrote to a friend before departing for New England:

I loved you truly before I could think you took any notice of me ...The apprehension of your love and worth together hath overcome my heart, and removed the veil of modesty, that I needs must tell you, my soul is knit to you, as the soul of Jonathan to David: were I now with you, I should bedew that sweet bosom with the tears of affection...

Governor Winthrop was heterosexual (he also presided over the execution in 1646 of one William Plaine for sodomy) but could still write words like that to another heterosexual man. Such were the customs of the time. Love between people of the same gender was acceptable, as long as a certain carnal line wasn't crossed.

There are lots of great things about the past, but this type of repression wasn't one of them. So again, let's hear it for progress and for being able to cross those lines.

I got my information from Improper Bostonians, which is published by The History Project.

Daniel Malcolm's Grave

When I visited the Skinny House last week I also stopped by Copp's Hill Burying Ground. It's right across the street, so why not? I love visiting a historic cemetery.

Copp's Hill was first used as a cemetery starting in 1659, and ending in the 1850s. It's estimated that more than 10,000 people were buried here. It's not a very large cemetery, so I guess they were either buried on top of each other or many bones were exhumed and moved elsewhere.

Some very notable people are buried at Copp's Hill, including several members of the Mather family (famous for their role in the witchcraft trials) and Prince Hall, a famous African-American Freemason.

Lots of less notable people are there as well, including Captain Daniel Malcolm. Although not well-known today, he does have an interesting gravestone.

Note the strange round marks on the marker (including one in the skull's eye). Are they just flaws in the stone? Are they caused by natural erosion? The latter seems unlikely, because other stones at Copp's Hill show signs of wear and tear, but look nothing like this.

Well, according to legend those round marks are actually bullet holes.

Daniel Malcolm was a local patriot, and took great joy in smuggling wine and tea into Boston without paying taxes to the British. He once allegedly brought sixty casks of wine into Boston undetected - and untaxed. As the inscription on his grave reads,

A true son of Liberty

A friend of the Publick

An enemy to oppression

And one of the foremost

in opposing the Revenue Acts 

on America

The British had great hatred for Captain Malcolm, but unfortunately he evaded punishment while he was alive. Before he died, he asked to be buried in a stone grave ten feet deep so the British soldiers would not be able to harm his body.

Frustrated that he had escaped them even in death, they used Daniel Malcolm's gravestone for target practice, which is what those round marks are from.

I don't know if this story is 100% true. I suppose we'd need a ballistics specialist using an 18th century British firearm to figure out if those marks are even what a musket ball would make. But it's a good story nonetheless.

Boston's Skinny House

Boston's North End is one of the oldest parts of the city. Although most of the buildings are now multi-story brick buildings, up until the early 20th century the neighborhood was made up primarily of wooden Colonial-era buildings.

Here's a description of traveling through the old North End at night from H. P. Lovecraft's story "Pickman's Model":

When we did turn, it was to climb through the deserted length of the oldest and dirtiest alley I ever saw in my life, with crumbling-looking gables, broken small-paned windows, and archaic chimneys that stood out half-disintegrated against the moonlit sky. I don't believe there were three houses in sight that hadn't been standing in Cotton Mather's time - certainly I glimpsed at least two with an overhang, and once I thought I saw a peaked roof-line of the almost forgotten pre-gambrel type, though antiquarians tell us there are none left in Boston. 

Lovecraft was an antiquarian himself, and wrote that paragraph after a visit to to the North End in 1925 or 1926. Unfortunately for him (and for anyone who loves architecture and history), the area was considered a slum. Most of the wooden houses were demolished shortly after his visit to build the more modern brick buildings that are seen there today.

The North End before urban renewal in the 1920s. You can see more photos here.

Some of the original old buildings still remain, including the Paul Revere house and the Old North Church. A few other old houses are hidden here and there, including Boston's skinniest house.

The Skinny House is located across from the entrance to Copp's Hill Burying Ground. The four story, 18th-century home is Boston's narrowest dwelling, being only 10 feet wide at the end facing the street, and narrowing to a mere three feet at the other end. I'm getting a little claustrophobic just thinking about it! On the fourth floor, the ceilings are only six feet four inches high. You need to be both skinny and short to live in this building.

According to legend, the house was built by a man named Joseph Eustus. Joseph was left the tiny strip of land when his father died, while his brother was left a much larger adjacent plot. The brother built a spacious house on his plot, which had a prized view of the harbor, and assumed that Joseph would just abandon his miniscule inheritance. After all, it wasn't it too small to build a house on?

Not if you were angry about being short-changed in your father's will. Spitefully, Joseph built a very tall narrow house immediately next to his brother's new home. It was tall enough to block his view of the harbor. His brother's large house has long since disappeared, but Joseph Eustus's skinny house remains to this day.

The Skinny House is a private residence, so be respectful if you walk by. I found my information about the legend in Joseph Citro and Diane Fould's Curious New England. The Unconventional Traveler's Guide to Eccentric Destinations.