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    Legends and Lore of the North Shore
    Legends and Lore of the North Shore
    Legends and Lore of the North Shore
    Ebook184 pages1 hour

    Legends and Lore of the North Shore

    By Peter Muise

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    For over three hundred years, stories of witches, sea serpents and pirates have amazed and terrified residents of Massachusetts's North Shore. In the summer of 1692, phantom men were spotted in the fields of Gloucester. Farther north, "A" marks the spot for pirate treasure in the marshes of Newbury, while to the east, full moons might bring out the werewolf of Dogtown. The devil himself has burned his mark on the boulder-strewn landscape, while shaggy humanoids have been sighted loping along the coast. From Boston to New Hampshire, Massachusetts's North Shore is filled with remarkable stories and legendary characters. Join author Peter Muise and discover the North Shore's uncanny legends and tales of the paranormal.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateJul 15, 2014
    ISBN9781625850485
    Legends and Lore of the North Shore
    Author

    Peter Muise

    Peter Muise was born in Massachusetts and has lived his entire life in New England. He has degrees in anthropology from Bates College and Brandeis University. Local folklore has been his passion for almost twenty years, and he blogs about it weekly at newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com. From his home in Boston he makes frequent excursions to the North Shore in search of strange places and unusual stories.

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    • 5/5
      There is something different about the North Shore of Massachusetts, something indefinably, but recognizably wrong that has fused itself to the essence of the land. It would be easy to dismiss this as some sort of lingering miasma from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, but as Peter Muise’s new book carefully points out, Native American traditions of spirits and supernatural shenanigans predate that witch hysteria. Not convinced that Cape Ann and the North Shore have more weirdness per square inch than any self-respecting region should? Let us examine Muise’s book.Salem Witches obviously are a feature, but Muise begins 50 years before that with the first witchcraft trials, then discusses Salem and the use of “spectral evidence,” and wraps up with the last witchcraft trial held in Salem, an 1878 case that, had it played through, could have derailed the Christian Science religious movement.Being an area that made its fortune in the clipper ship China trade, it should be no surprise that the area is filled with tales of pirates and lost buried treasure. Muise has carefully selected some particularly odd tales, ranging from a lady pirate to a pickled pirate.Although the entire book is a romp, Muise obviously had the most fun compiling the middle chapters; one is on weird locations associated with later legends of pirate caves, devil visitations, and that nice gentleman who had inspirational messages carved on rocks in the middle of nowhere; and another chapter is on local eccentrics, including the minister who tried to add the spark of life to a machine.Muise wraps up the book with a lovely selection of cryptozoological tidbits: mermaids, werewolves, sea serpents and specters. Throw in a little H.P. Lovecraft, and dash of Cotton Mather, and you have an amazing debut book. Being somewhat familiar with the area, I sincerely hope this is the first in a series on the North Shore. Trust me, there’s more where this came from. Mr. Muise—get writing!

    Book preview

    Legends and Lore of the North Shore - Peter Muise

    daytrips.

    INTRODUCTION

    There are lots of reasons to visit the towns and cities that stretch along the coast from Boston to New Hampshire. Quaint towns, interesting historic sites and sandy beaches draw tourists from around the world.

    The North Shore is a beautiful part of Massachusetts, and many people are also proud to call it home. On any given day, parents are driving their kids to birthday parties, commuters are traveling to their jobs, high school teams are practicing for the next big game and retirees are hanging around Dunkin’ Donuts.

    In many ways, it’s like any other part of America: orderly, safe, industrialized and rational. But just like every one of us, the North Shore has its irrational side—the side that’s a little bit unusual, occasionally quirky and sometimes even scary.

    This book is about that side of the North Shore: the witches who gathered at night, the pirates who buried their treasure on the beach, the abandoned and haunted places hidden in the woods and the bizarre humans and other creatures who have lived here. So take a step away from the rational world, at least for a while, and get acquainted with the strange and unusual heritage of the North Shore.

    Chapter 1

    NATIVE AMERICAN LORE AND MAGIC

    The cities and towns that make up the North Shore are some of the oldest in the United States. Roger Conant founded Salem in 1626, only six years after the Pilgrims landed down on Cape Cod, and most other towns in the area were settled long before anyone even dreamt of the American Revolution. By American standards, the North Shore is almost ancient.

    But it’s important to remember that people lived here for thousands of years before the first Europeans ever set foot on the North Shore’s beaches. Archaeologists believe the first humans came into Massachusetts more than ten thousand years ago. They were hunters and gatherers, and they followed mammoths, hairy bison and other game into the region as the animals grazed their way across the newly fertile landscape revealed by the retreat of the last ice age’s glaciers.

    Ten thousand years ago is ancient history by any standard. Although archaeologists have found tools and other artifacts from the ancient people who lived on the North Shore, very little is known about what they thought or how they lived.

    For example, in the 1970s, several ancient Indian burials were discovered at Morrill’s Point in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Some of the skeletons, many of which had been carefully buried in the fetal position, were more than five thousand years old. Intriguingly, the bodies had been ritually covered in red ochre, a pigment found in soil. The use of this pigment in burial rites indicates the deceased were part of the Red Paint culture, which existed along the New England, Canadian Maritime and Arctic coasts for thousands of years. Although archaeologists understand that the Red Paint people lived by fishing and hunting, they did not use writing, so we don’t know anything about how they viewed the world. Their myths, legends and lore have been lost to us. The same holds true for the other ancient peoples who inhabited the area.

    However, we do know a lot more about their descendants, the American Indians who inhabited the North Shore when the English explorers and settlers arrived. The tribes that inhabited the North Shore were known as the Pennacook, which means roughly at the bottom of the hill. They are also sometimes referred to as the Pawtucket, which means at the falls in the river.

    For centuries, thousands of Pennacook lived in the area before they were killed by European diseases, for which they had no defense, and defeated in wars by the better-armed English. Their settlements were clustered near the ocean and rivers, which were convenient for both fishing and travel by canoe. The weather by the water was also conducive to growing crops like corn, squash and beans. An early Puritan settler in Salem, which was called Naumkeag by the Pennacook, noted the many plains where there is much ground cleared by Indians for their extensive gardens.

    The Pennacook were divided into smaller tribes, each ruled over by a sachem, or chief. Sachems were usually men and passed their positions to their sons when they were no longer able to rule. Their rule was not autocratic and absolute but was instead based on how persuasive they were. Any of their subjects was free to give fealty to another sachem at any time.

    While the sachems were the political leaders, the Pennacook sought spiritual and religious guidance from men called powwows. Although powwow is now used to mean a Native American gathering or celebration, it originally referred to someone who attained magical or spiritual power. It may be related to the word taupowaw, which meant one who spoke wisely. Powwows were shamans and worked with spirits to help the members of their tribes.

    MANITOUS AND SPIRITS

    Like the other Indian groups in New England, the Pennacook believed everything in the world was infused with spiritual energy, which they called manitou. Trees, animals, rocks, rivers and people all possessed some degree of manitou. Some things contained a lot of it, such as large mountains or ancient trees. Unusual animals were also highly charged with manitou. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, wrote in 1643:

    The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have often seene, but never could take any of them. They say they are Manittooes, that is Gods, Spirits, or Divine powers, as they say of everything which they cannot comprehend.

    Some people also possessed a lot of manitou. Williams noted, Thus if they see one man excel others in Wisdom, Valour, Strength, Activity, etc. they cry out Manittoo.

    The word manitou also referred to the many gods and spirits that inhabited the world. Like the other Algonquin tribes in New England, the Pennacook were polytheists, and many gods controlled the different aspects of the world. Although we don’t know exactly how many gods the Pennacook worshipped, Roger Williams said the Narragansett of Rhode Island believed there were thirty-seven separate gods, and the Wampanoag on Martha’s Vineyard believed the same.

    The chief god was Cautantowwit, who lived in the southwest corner of the sky. If you’re familiar with New England weather, you’ll recognize that the most pleasant weather comes from this direction, so it’s only fitting that the chief deity should live there. It was believed that Cautantowwit had created the first man and woman out of wood and had sent his messenger, the crow, to mankind bearing the gifts of corn and beans. He was also associated with the thunderbird, an enormous magical creature that brought thunder as it flew overhead. After death, the souls of the deceased would make their way to Cautantowwit’s house, but the door would open only for those who had lived good lives. Those who had lived evilly were cursed to roam eternally.

    Roger Williams among the Narragansett Indians. New York Public Library.

    Cautantowwit was mostly benevolent, but unfortunately he was not very responsive to the needs of mankind. He did not answer prayers, did not appear in dreams to give guidance and would send misfortune when he was unhappy with how people were acting. Fortunately, there were many other gods who did respond to the prayers and rituals of the powwows. These included the manitous that ruled over different aspects of the natural world, such as:

    Wompanand: the Eastern God

    Chekesuwand: the Western God

    Wunnanameanit: the Northern God

    Sowwand: the Southern God

    Wetuomanit: the House God

    Squauanit: the Woman’s God

    Muckquachuckquand: the Children’s God

    Keesuckquand: the Sun God

    Nanepaushat: the Moon God

    Paumpagussit: the Sea God

    Yotaanit: the Fire God

    Individuals would often take one particular god as their patron and believed that he or she watched over them.

    The manitou that responded most often to human prayers and petitions was Hobbamock. Also known as Abbomacho, Cheepi and Chepian, this manitou was in many ways the opposite of Cautantowwit. Hobbamock was associated with the northeast, the direction from which the most unpleasant weather emanates. While Cautantowwit dwelt in the sky, Hobbamock could be found in the swamps, marshes and darkest forests. His sacred animal was the snake, and he controlled darkness and disease.

    After reading this, you might think, Hmm, that Hobbamock guy sure sounds like the Christian devil. The Puritans who settled in the area definitely thought he was, and they sometimes used his name when talking about the devil. It’s important to point out that the Pennacook and other Algonquin tribes did not believe in the devil, however, and they did not view the spiritual world as being divided between forces of good and evil.

    Each manitou controlled different aspects of the world, and if you wanted help in a certain area, you needed to work with the correct manitou. Since Hobbamock controlled disease, it was important for powwows to have a good relationship with him if they wanted to heal people. A man could not even become a powwow without seeing Hobbamock in a dream. Boston minister John Eliot asked several Indians how one became a powwow and was told that if any of the Indians fall into a strange dreame wherein Chepian [aka Hobbamock] appeares unto them as a serpent, then the next day they tell the other Indians of it. Upon hearing about this dream, their neighbors dance and rejoice…and so they become their Pawwaws.

    After dreaming about Hobbamock, the new powwow would acquire various lesser manitous, which helped him in his work. For example, a powwow from Martha’s Vineyard had four spirits he could summon. They appeared as a man who saw great distances, a crow that foretold trouble, a pigeon that gave wise advice and a serpent that healed and also harmed. These four manitous lived in different parts of his body.

    One of the main functions of a powwow was to cure the sick. This was done by going into a trance and communicating with the helper spirits, which would diagnose the problem. Upon waking, the powwow often sucked the illness from the patient’s body in the form of a small object like a stone or feather. The Pennacook and other Indians believed these disease-causing objects were shot into people by malevolent manitous, ghosts or angry powwows. William Wood, who lived in Lynn during the early 1600s, describes in his 1634 book, New England’s Prospect, how a powwow healed a man who had a stick stuck in his foot:

    A Pow-wow having a patient with the stump of some small tree run thorough his foot, being past the cure of his ordinary Surgery, betook himself to his charms, and being willing to show his

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