Lithobolia in New England; or Lapidary Salutations

Agostino Veneziano, "The Witches' Procession

This account of a "stone-throwing devil" was published in 1698 by Richard Chamberlain, the secretary of the colony of New Hampshire. It was reprinted in George Lincoln Burr's "Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706." As you shall see, it shows that descriptions of poltergeist attacks have changed little over the centuries.

Such is the Sceptical Humour of this Age for Incredulity, (not to say Infidelity,) That I wonder they do not take up and profess, in terms, the Pyrrhonian Doctrine of disbelieving their very Senses. For that which I am going to relate hap­pening in the Province of New-Hampshire in America, just upon that Governour’s Arrival and Appearance at the Council there, who was informed by my self, and several other Gentlemen of the Council, and other considerable Persons, of the true and certain Reality hereof, yet he continued tenacious in the Opinion that we were all imposed upon by the waggery of some unlucky Boys; which, considering the Circumstances and Passages hereafter mentioned, was altogether impossible.

I have a Wonder to relate; for such (I take it) is so to be termed whatsoever is Praeternatural, and not assignable to, or the effect of, Natural Causes: It is a Lithobolia, or Stone-throwing, which happened by Witchcraft (as was supposed) and maliciously perpetrated by an Elderly Woman, a Neigh­bour suspected, and (I think) formerly detected for such kind of Diabolical Tricks and Practises; and the wicked Instiga­tion did arise upon the account of some small quantity of Land in her Field, which she pretended was unjustly taken into the Land of the Person where the Scene of this Matter lay, and was her Right; she having been often very clamor­ous about that Affair, and heard to say, with much Bitterness, that her Neighbour (innuendo the fore-mentioned Person, his Name George Walton) should never quietly injoy that piece of Ground. Which, as it has confirm’d my self and others in the Opinion that there are such things as Witches, and the Effects of Witchcraft, or at least of the mischievous Actions of Evil Spirits; which some do as little give Credit to, as in the Case of Witches, utterly rejecting both their Operations and their Beings, we having been Eye-Witnesses of this Matter almost every Day for a quarter of a Year together; so it may be a means to rectifie the depraved Judgment and Sentiments of other disbelieving Persons, and absolutely convince them of their Error, if they please to hear, without prejudice, the plain, but most true Narration of it; which was thus.

Some time ago being in America (in His then Majesty’s Service) I was lodg’d in the said George Walton’s House, a Planter there, and on a Sunday Night, about Ten a Clock, many Stones were heard by my self, and the rest of the Family, to be thrown, and (with Noise) hit against the top and all sides of the House, after he the said Walton had been at his Fence-Gate, which was between him and his Neighbour one John Amazeen an Italian, to view it; for it was again, as formerly it had been (the manner how being unknown) wrung off the Hinges, and cast upon the Ground; and in his being there, and return home with several Persons of (and frequent­ing) his family and House, about a flight shot distant from the Gate, they were all assaulted with a peal of Stones, (taken, we conceive, from the Rocks hard by the House) and this by unseen Hands or Agents. For by this time I was come down to them, having risen out of my Bed at this strange Alarm of all that were in the House, and do know that they all look’d out as narrowly as I did, or any Person could (it being a bright Moon-light Night), but cou’d make no Discovery. There­upon, and because there came many Stones, and those pretty great ones, some as big as my Fist, into the Entry or Porch of the House, we withdrew into the next Room to the Porch, no Person having receiv’d any Hurt, (praised be Almighty Providence, for certainly the infernal Agent, constant Enemy to Mankind, had he not been over-ruled, intended no less than Death or Maim) save only that two Youths were lightly hit, one on the Leg, the other on the Thigh, notwithstanding the Stones came so thick, and so forcibly against the sides of so narrow a Room. 

Whilst we stood amazed at this Accident, one of the Maidens imagined she saw them come from the Hall, next to that we were in, where searching, (and in the Cellar, down out of the Hall,) and finding no Body, another and my self observed two little Stones in a short space succes­sively to fall on the Floor, coming as from the Ceiling close by us, and we concluded it must necessarily be done by means extraordinary and praeternatural. 

Coming again into the Room where we first were (next the Porch), we had many of these lapidary Salutations, but unfriendly ones; for, shutting the door, it was no small Surprise to me to have a good big Stone come with great force and noise (just by my Head) against the Door on the inside; and then shutting the other Door, next the Hall, to have the like Accident; so going out again, upon a necessary Occasion, to have another very near my Body, clattering against the Board-wall of the House; but it was a much greater, to be so near the danger of having my Head broke with a Mall, or great Hammer brushing along the top or roof of the Room from the other end, as I was walk­ing in it, and lighting down by me; but it fell so, that my Landlord had the greatest damage, his Windows (especially those of the first mention’d Room) being with many Stones miserably and strangely batter’d, most of the Stones giving the Blow on the inside, and forcing the Bars, Lead, and hasps of the Casements outwards, and yet falling back (sometimes a Yard or two) into the Room; only one little Stone we took out of the glass of the Window, where it lodg’d its self in the breaking it, in a Hole exactly fit for the Stone. 

The Pewter and Brass were frequently pelted, and sometimes thrown down upon the Ground; for the Evil Spirit seemed then to affect variety of Mischief, and diverted himself at this end after he had done so much Execution at the other. So were two Candle­sticks, after many hittings, at last struck off the Table where they stood, and likewise a large Pewter Pot, with the force of these Stones. Some of them were taken up hot, and (it seems) immediately coming out of the Fire; and some (which is not unremarkable) having been laid by me upon the Table along by couples, and numbred, were found missing; that is, two of them, as we return’d immediately to the Table, having turn’d our backs only to visit and view some new Stone-charge or Window-breach; and this Experiment was four or five times repeated, and I still found one or two missing of the Number, which we all mark’d, when I did but just remove the Light from off the Table, and step to the Door, and back again.

After this had continued in all the parts and sides of the first Room (and down the Chimney) for above hours, I, weary of the Noise, and sleepy, went to Bed, and was no sooner fallen asleep, but was awakened with the unwelcome disturbance of another Battery of a different sort, it issuing with so prodigious a Noise against the thin Board-wall of my Chamber (which was within another) that I could not imagin it less than the fracture and downfall of great part of the Chamber, or at least of the Shelves, Books, Pictures, and other things, placed on that side, and on the Partition-Wall between the Anti-Chamber and the Door of mine. But the Noise immediately bringing up the Company below, they assured me no Mischief of that nature was done, and shewed me the biggest Stone that had as yet been made use of in this unac­countable Accident, weighing eight pound and an half, that had burst open my Chamber Door with a rebound from the Floor, as by the Dent and Bruise in it near the Door I found next Morning, done, probably, to make the greater Noise, and give the more Astonishment, which would sooner be effected by three Motions, and consequently three several Sounds, viz, one on the Ground, the next to and on the Door, and the last from it again to the Floor, then if it had been one single Blow upon the Door only; which (‘tis probable) wou’d have split the Door, which was not permitted, nor so much as a square of the Glass-Window broken or crack’d (at that time) in all the Chamber. Glad thereof, and desiring them to leave me, and the Door shut, as it was before, I endeavoured once more to take my Rest, and was once more prevented by the like passage, with another like offensive Weapon, it being a whole Brick that lay in the anti-Chamber Chimney, and used again to the same malicious purpose as before, and in the same manner too, as by the mark in the Floor, whereon was some of the dust of the Brick, broken a little at the end, apparant next Morning, the Brick it self lying just at the Door. How­ever, after I had lain a while, harkning to their Adventures below, I drop’d asleep again, and receiv’d no further Molestation that Night.

In the Morning (Monday Morning) I was inform’d by sev­eral of the Domesticks of more of the same kind of Trouble; among which the most signal was, the Vanishing of the Spit which stood in the Chimney Corner, and the sudden coming of it again down the same Chimney, sticking of it in a Log that lay in the Fireplace or Hearth; and then being by one of the Family set by on the other side of the Chimney, pres­ently cast out of the Window into the Back-side. Also a pressing-Iron lying on the ledge of the Chimney back, was convey’d invisibly into the Yard. I should think it (too) not unworthy the Relation, that, discoursing then with some of the Family, and others, about what had past, I said, I thought it necessary to take and keep the great Stone, as a Proof and Evidence, for they had taken it down from my Chambers; and so I carried it up, laid it on my Table in my Chamber, and lock’d my Door, and going out upon occasions, and soon returning, I was told by my Landlady that it was, a little while after my going forth, removed again, with a Noise, which they all below heard, and was thrown into the anti-­Chamber, and there I found it lying in the middle of it; there­upon I the second time carried it up, and laid it on the Table, and had it in my Custody a long time to show, for the Satisfaction of the Curious.

There were many more Stones thrown about in the House that Morning, and more in the Fields that Day, where the Master of the House was, and the Men at Work. Some more Mr. Woodbridge, a Minister, and my self, in the Afternoon did see (but could not any Hand throwing them) lighting near, and jumping and tumbling on the Grass: So did one Mrs. Clark, and her Son, and several others; and some of them felt them too. One Person would not be perswaded but that the Boys at Work might throw them, and strait her little Boy standing by her was struck with a Stone on the Back, which caused him to fall a crying, and her (being convinc’d) to carry him away forth-with.

In the Evening, as in the Evening, as soon as I had sup’d in the outer Room before mine, I took a little Musical-Instrument, and began to touch it (the Door indeed was then set open for Air), and a good big Stone came rumbling in, and as it were to lead the Dance, but upon a much different account than in the days of Old, and of old fabulous Inchantments, my Musick being none of the best. The Noise of this brought up the Deputy-President’s Wife, and many others of the Neighbourhood that were below, who wonder’d to see this Stone followed (as it were) by many others, and a Pewter Spoon among the rest, all which fell strangely into the Room in their Presence, and were taken up by the Company. And beside all this, there was seen by two Youths in the Orchard and Fields, as they said, a black Cat, at the time the Stones were toss’d about, and it was shot at, but missed, by its changing Places, and being immediately at some distance, and then out of sight, as they related: Agreeable to which, it may not be improper to insert, what was observed by two Maids, Grand-Children of Mr. Walton, on the Sunday Night, the beginning of this Lithoboly. They did affirm, that as they were standing in the Porch-Chamber Window, they saw, as it were, a Person putting out a Hand out of the Hall Window, as throwing Stones toward the Porch or Entry; and we all know no Person was in the Hall except, at that instant, my self and another, having search’d diligently there, and wondring whence those should come that were about the same time drop’d near us; so far we were from doing it our selves, or seeing any other there to do it.

On Monday Night, about the Hour it first began, there were more Stones thrown in the Kitchin, and down the Chim­ney, one Captain Barefoot, of the Council for that Province, being present, with others; and also (as I was going up to Bed) in an upper Chamber, and down those Stairs. 

Upon Tuesday Night, about Ten, some five or six Stones were severally thrown into the Maid’s Chamber near the Kitchin, and the Glass-Windows broke in three new places, and one of the Maids hit as she lay. At the same time was heard by them, and two young Men in the House, an odd, dismal sort ofWhistling, and thereupon the Youths ran out, with intent to take the suppos’d Thrower of Stones, if possi­ble; and on the back-side near the Window they heard the Noise (as they said) of something stepping a little way before them, as it were the trampling of a young Colt, as they fancied, but saw nothing; and going on, could discover nothing but that the Noise of the stepping or trampling was ceas’d, and then gone on a little before.

On Saturday Morning I found two Stones more on the Stairs; and so some were on Sunday Night convey’d into the Room next the Kitchin. 

Upon owing Mr. Walton going (with his Men) by Water to some other Land, in a place called the Great Bay, arid to a House where his Son was placed, they lay there that Night, and the next Morning had this Adventure. As the Men were all at work in the Woods, felling Wood, they were visited with another set of Stones, and they gathered up near upon a Hat-full, and put them between two Trees near adjoin­ing, and returning from carrying Wood, to the Boat, the Hat and its contents (the Stones) were gone, and the Stones were presently after thrown about again, as before; and after search, found the Hat press’d together, and lying under a square piece of Timber at some distance from thence. They had them again at young Walton’s House, and half a Brick thrown into a Cradle, out of which his young Child was newly taken up. 

Here it may seem most proper to inform the Reader of a parallel passage, (viz.) what happened what happened another time to my Landlord in his Boat; wherein going up to the same place (the Great Bay) and loading it with Hay for his use at his own House, about the mid-way in the River (Pascataqua) he found his Boat began to be in a sinking Condition, at which being much surpriz’d, upon search, he discover’d the cause to be the pulling out a Plug or Stopple in the bottom of the Boat, being fixed there for the more convenient letting out of the Rain-Water that might fall into it; a Contrivance and Com­bination of the old Serpent and the old Woman, or some other Witch or Wizard (in Revenge or innate Enmity) to have drown’d both my good Landlord and his Company.

On Wednesday, as they were at work again in the Woods, on a sudden they heard something gingle like Glass, or Metal, among the Trees, as it was falling, and being fallen to the Ground, they knew it to be a Stirrup which Mr. Walton had carried to the Boat, and laid under some Wood; and this being again laid by him in that very Boat, it was again thrown after him. The third time, he having put it upon his Girdle or Belt he wore about his Waste, buckled together before, but at that instant taken off because of the Heat of the Weather, and laid there again buckled, it was fetch’d away, and no more seen. Likewise the Graper, or little Anchor of the Boat, cast over-board, which caus’d the Boat to wind up; so staying and obstructing their Passage. Then the setting-Pole was divers times cast into the River, as they were coming back from the Great Bay, which put them to the trouble of Padling, that is, rowing about for it as often to retrieve it.

Being come to his own House, this Mr. Walton was charg’d again with a fresh Assault in the out-Houses; but we heard of none within doors until Friday after, when, in the Kitchin, were 4 or 5 Stones (one of them hot) taken out of the Fire, as I conceive, and so thrown about. I was then present, being newly come in with Mr. Walton from his middle Field (as he call’d it), where his Servants had been Mowing, and had six or seven of his old troublesome Companions, and I had one fall’n down by me there, and another thin flat stone hit me on the thigh with the flat side of it, so as to make me just feel, and to smart a little. In the same Day’s Evening, as I was walking out in the Lane by the Field before-mentioned, a great Stone made a rusling Noise in the Stone-Fence between the Field and the Lane, which seem’d to me (as it caus’d me to cast my Eye that way by the Noise) to come out of the Fence, as it were pull’d out from among those Stones loose, but orderly laid close together, as the manner of such Fences in that Country is, and so fell down upon the Ground. 

Some Persons of Note being then in the Field (whose Names are here under-written to visit Mr. Walton there, are substan­tial Witnesses of this same Stonery, both in the Field, and afterward in the House that Night, viz, one Mr. Hussey, Son of a Counsellour there. He took up one that having first alighted On the Ground, with rebound from thence hit him on the Heel; and he keeps it to show. And Captain Barefoot, mentioned above, has that which (among other Stones) flew into the Hall a little before Supper; which my self also saw as it first came in at the upper part of the Door into the middle of the Room; and then (tho’ a good flat Stone, yet) was seen to rowl over and over, as if trundled, under a Bed in the same Room. In short, these Persons, being wonderously affected with the Strangeness of these Passages, offer’d themselves (desiring me to take them) as Testimonies; I did so, and made a Memorandum, by way of Record, thereof, to this effect. Viz.

These Persons under-written do hereby Attest the Truth of their being Eye-Witnesses of at least half a score Stones that Evening thrown invisibly into the Field, and in the Entry of the House, Hall, and one of the Chambers of George Walton’s. Viz.

Samuel Jenings, Esq; Governour of West-Jarsey.
Walter Clark, Esq; Deputy-Governour of Road-Island.
Mr. Arthur Cook
Mr. Matt. Borden of Road-Island.
Mr. Oliver Hooton of Barbados, Merchant.
Mr. T. Maul of Salem in New-England, Merchant.
Captain Walter Barefoot
Mr. John Hussey
And the Wife of the said Mr. Hussey.

On Saturday, July 24, One of the Family, at the usual hour at Night, observ’d some few (not above half a dozen) of these natural (or rather unnatural) Weapons to fly into the Kitchin, as formerly; but some of them in an unusual manner lighting gently on him, or coming toward him so easily, as that he took them before they fell to the Ground. I think there was not any thing more that Night remarkable. But as if the malicious Daemon had laid up for Sunday and Monday, then it was that he began (more furiously than formerly) with a great Stone in the Kitchin, and so continued with throwing down the Pewter-Dishes, etc. great part of it all at once coming clattering down, without the stroke of a Stone, little or great, to move it. Then about Midnight this im­pious Operation not ceasing, but trespassing with a continu­ando 2 very great Stones, weighing above 30 pound a piece (that used to lye in the Kitchin, in or near the Chimny) were in the former, wonted, rebounding manner, let fly against my Door and Wall in the ante-Chamber, but with some little distance of time. 

This thundring Noise must needs bring up the Men from below, as before, (I need not say to wake me) to tell me the Effect, which was the beating down several Pictures, and displacing abundance of things about my Cham­ber: but the Repetition of this Cannon-Play by these great rumbling Engines, now ready at hand for the purpose, and the like additional disturbance by four Bricks that lay in the outer-Room Chimney (one of which having been so imploy’d the first Sunday Night, as has been said) made me despair of taking Rest, and so forced me to rise from my Bed. Then finding my Door burst open, I also found many Stones, and great pieces of Bricks, to fly in, breaking the Glass-Windows, and a Paper-Light, sometimes inwards, sometimes outwards: So hitting the Door of my Chamber as I came through from the ante-Chamber, lighting very near me as I was fetching the Candlestick, and afterward the Candle being struck out, as I was going to light it again. So a little after, coming up for another Candle, and being at the Stare-foot door, a wooden Mortar with great Noise struck against the Floor, and was just at my Feet, only not touching me, moving from the other end of the Kitchin where it used to lye. And when I came up my self, and two more of the same House, we heard a Whistling, as it were near us in the outer Room, several times. Among the rest of the Tools made use of to disturb us, I found an old Card for dressing Flax in my Chamber. 

Now for Monday Night, (June 26) one of the severest. The disturbance began in the Kitchin with Stones; then as I was at Supper above in the ante-Chamber, the Window near which I sate at Table was broke in 2 or 3 parts of it inwards, and one of the Stones that broke it flew in, and I took it up at the further end of the Room. The manner is observable; for one of the squares was broke into 9 or 10 small square pieces, as if it had been regularly mark’d out into such even squares by a Workman, to the end some of these little pieces might fly in my Face (as they did) and give me a surprize, but without any hurt. In the mean time it went on in the Kitchin, whither I went down, for Company, all or most of the Family, and a Neighbour, being there; where many Stones (some great ones) came thick and threefold among us, and an old howing Iron, from a Room hard by, where such Utensils lay. Then, as if I had been the design’d Object for that time, most of the Stones that came (the smaller I mean) hit me (sometimes pretty hard) to the number of above 20, near 30, as I remember, and whether I remov’d, sit, or walk’d, I had them, and great ones sometimes lighting gently on me, and in my Hand and Lap as I sate, and falling to the Ground, and sometimes thumping against the Wall, as near as could be to me, without touching me. Then was a Room over the Kitchin infested, that had not been so before, and many Stones greater than usual lumbring there over our Heads, not only to ours, but to the great Dis­turbance and Affrightment of some Children that lay there. And for Variety, there were sometimes three great, distinct Knocks, sometimes five such sounds as with a great Maul, reiterated divers times.

On Tuesday Night (June 28) we were quiet; but not so on Wednesday, when the Stones were play’d about in the House.And on Thursday Morning I found some things that hung on Nails on the ‘Wall in my Chamber, viz, a Spherical Sun-Dial, etc. lying on the Ground, as knock’d down by some Brick or Stone in the ante-Chamber. But my Landlord had the worst of that Day, tho’ he kept the Field, being there invisibly hit above 40 times, as he affirm’d to me, and he receiv’d some shrowd hurtful Blows on the Back, and other Parts, which he much complained of, and said he thought he should have reason to do, even to his dying day; and I observ’d that he did so, he being departed this Life since. 

Besides this, Plants of Indian Corn were struck up by the Roots almost, just as if they had been cut with some edged Instrument, whereas re vera  they were seen to be eradicated, or rooted up with nothing but the very Stones, altho’ the in­jurious Agent was altogether unseen.  And a sort of Noise, like that of Snorting and Whistling, was heard near the Men at Work in the Fields many times, many whereof I my self, going thither, and being there, was a Witness of; and parting thence I receiv’d a pretty hard Blow with a Stone on the Calf of my Leg. So it continued that day in two Fields, where they were severally at Work: and my Landlord told me, he often heard likewise a humming Noise in the Air by him, as of a Bullet discharg’d from a Gun; and so said a Servant of his that work’d with him.

Upon Saturday (July 1), as I was going to visit my Neigh­bour Capt. Barefoot, and just at his Door, his Man saw, as well as my self, 3 or 4 Stones fall just by us in the Field, or Close, where the House stands, and not any other Person near us. At Night a great Stone fell in the Kitchin, as I was going to Bed, andthe Pewter was thrown down; many Stones flew about, and the Candles by them put out 3 or 4 times, and the Snorting heard; a Negro Maid hit on the Head in the Entry between the Kitchin and Hall with a Porringer from the Kitchin: also the pressing-Iron clattered against the Partition Wall between the Hall and a Chamber beyond it, where I lay, and Mr. Randolph, His Majesty’s Officer for the Customs, etc. 

Some few Stones we had on Sunday Morning, (July 2) none at Night. But on Monday Morning (the 3d) both Mr. Walton, and 5 or 6 with him in the Field, were assaulted with them, and their Ears with the oldSnorting and Whistling. In the Afternoon Mr. Walton was hit on the Back with Stones very grievously, as he was in his Boat that lay at a Cove side by his House. It was a very odd prank that was prac­tis’d by the Devil a little while after this. One Night the Cocks of Hay, made the Day before in the Orchard, was spread all abroad, and some of the Hay thrown up into the Trees, and some of it brought into the House, and scatter’d. Two Logs that lay at the Door, laid, one of them by the Chimny in the Kitchin; the other set against the Door of the Room where Mr. Walton then lay, as on purpose to confine him therein: A Form that stood in the Entry (or Porch) was set along by the Fire side, and a joint Stool upon that, with a Napking spread thereon, with two Pewter Pots, and two Candlesticks: A Cheese-Press likewise having a Spit thrust into one of the holes of it, at one end; and at the other end of the Spit hung an Iron Kettle; and a Cheese was taken out, and broke to pieces. Another time, I full well remember ‘twas on a Sunday at Night, my Window was all broke with a violent shock of Stones and Brick-bats, which scarce miss’d my self: among these one huge one made its way through the great square or shash of a Casement, and broke a great hole in it, throwing down Books by the way, from the Window to a Picture over-against it, on the other side of the Chamber, and tore a hole quite through it about half a foot long, and the piece of the Cloth hung by a little part of it, on the back-side of the Picture. 

After this we were pretty quiet, saving now and then a few Stones march’d about for Exercise, and to keep (as it were) the Diabolical hand in use, till July 28, being Friday, when about 40 Stones flew about, abroad, and in the House and Orchard, and among the Trees therein, and a Window broke before, was broke again, and one Room where they never used before.

August 1. On Wednesday the Window in my ante-Chamber was broke again, and many Stones were plaid about, abroad, and in the House, in the Day-time, and at Night. The same Day in the Morning they tried this Experiment; they did set on the Fire a Pot with Urin, and crooked Pins in it, with design to have it boil, and by that means to give Punishment to the Witch, or Wizard (that might be the wicked Procurer or Contriver of this Stone Affliction) and take off their own as they had been advised. This was the Effect of it: As the Liquor begun to grow hot, a Stone came and broke the top or mouth of it, and threw it down, and spilt what was in it; which being made good again, another Stone, as the Pot grew hot again, broke the handle off; and being recruited and fill’d the third time, was then with a third Stone quite broke to pieces and split; and so the Operation became frustrate and fruitless.

On August 2, two Stones in the Afternoon I heard and saw my self in the House and Orchard; and another Window in the Hall was broke. And as I was entring my own Chamber a great square of a Casement, being a foot square, was broke with the Noise as of a big Stone, and pieces of the Glass flew into the Room, but no Stone came in then, or could be found within or without. At Night, as I, with others, were in the Kitchin, many more came in; and one great Stone that lay on a Spinning-Wheel to keep it steady, was thrown to the other side of the Room. Several Neighbours then present were ready to testifie this Matter. 

Upon August 3, On Thursday the Gate between my said Landlord and his Neighbour John Amazeen was taken off again, and thrown into Amazeen’s Field, who heard it fall and averr’d it then made a Noise like a great Gun.

On Friday the 4th, the Fence against Mr. Walton’s Neighbour’s Door, (the Woman of whom formerly there was great Suspicion, and thereupon Examination had, as appears upon Record;) this Fence being maliciously pull’d down to let in their Cattel into his Ground; he and his Servants were pelted with above 40 Stones as they went to put it up again; for she had often threatned that he should never injoy his House and Land. Mr. Walton was hit divers times, and all that Day in the Field, as they were Reaping, it ceas’d not, and their fell (by the Mens Computation) above an hundred Stones. A Woman helping to Reap (among the rest) was hit 9 or 10 times, and hurt to that degree, that her left Arm, Hip, Thigh, and Leg, were made black and blue therewith; which she showd to the Woman, Mrs. Walton, and others. Mr. Wood-bridge,a Divine, coming to give me a Visit, was hit about the Hip, and one Mr. Jefferys a Merchant, who was with him, on the Leg. A Window in the Kitchin that had been much batter’d before, was now quite broke out, and unwindow’d, no Glass or Lead at all being left: a Glass Bottle broke to pieces, and the Pewter Dishes (about 9 of them) thrown down, and bent.

On Saturday the 5th, as they were Reaping in the Field, three Sickles were crack’d and broke by the force of these lapidary Instruments of the Devil, as the Sickles were in the Reapers hands, on purpose (it seems) to obstruct their Labour, and do them Injury and Damage. And very many Stones were cast about that Day; insomuch, that some that assisted at that Harvest-Work, being struck with them, by reason of that Disturbance left the Field, but were follow’d by their invisible Adversaries to the next House. 

On Sunday, being the 6th, there fell nothing considerable, nor on Monday, (7th) save only one of the Children hit with a Stone on the Back. We were quiet to Tuesday the 8th. But on Wednesday (9th) above 100 Stones (as they verily thought) repeated the Reapers Disquiet in the Corn-Field, whereof some were affirm’d by Mr. Walton to be great ones indeed, near as big as a Man’s Head; and Mrs. Walton, his Wife being by Curiosity led thither, with intent also to make some Discovery by the most diligent and vigilant Observation she could use, to obviate the idle Incredulity some inconsiderate Persons might irrationally entertain concerning this veneficial Operation; or at least to confirm her own Sentiments and Belief of it. Which she did, but to her Cost; for she received an untoward Blow (with a Stone) on her Shoulder. There were likewise two Sickles bent, crack’d, and disabled with them, beating them violently out of their Hands that held them, and this reiterated three times successively. 

After this we injoy’d our former Peace and Quiet, unmolested by these stony Disturbances, that whole month of August, excepting some few times; and the last of all in the Month of September, (the beginning thereof) wherein Mr. Walton himself only (the Original perhaps of this strange Adventure, as has been declared) was the designed concluding Sufferer; and going in his Canoo (or Boat) from the Great Island, where he dwelt, to Portsmouth, to attend the Council, who had taken Cognizance of this Matter, he being Summoned thither, in order to his and the Suspect’s Examination, and the Courts taking Order thereabout, he was sadly hit with three pebble Stones as big as ones Fist; one of which broke his Head, which I saw him show to the President of the Council; the others gave him that Pain on the Back, of which (with other like Strokes) he complained then, and afterward to his Death.

Who, that peruses these praeternatural Occurences, can possibly be so much an Enemy to his own Soul, and irrefutable Reason, as obstinately to oppose himself to, or confusedly fluctuate in, the Opinion and Doctrine of Daemons, or Spirits, and Witches? Certainly he that does so, must do two things more: He must temariously unhinge, or undermine the Fundamentals of the best Religion in the World; and he must disingenuously quit and abandon that of the Three Theologick Virtues or Graces, to which the great Doctor of the Gentils gave the Precedence, Charity, through his Unchristian and Uncharitable Incredulity.

Weekend Link Dump

This week's Link Dump is brought to you by the Cats of Friday the 13th.

What the hell happened to these prehistoric Americans?

What the hell might be hidden in King Tut's tomb?

What the hell is the "Stonehenge" of the Golan Heights?

Why the hell did ancient Californians build these walls?

Watch out for those cursed figureheads!

Watch out for Sweeney Todd!

Watch out for the hell hounds of Dartmoor!

Watch out for your neighbor's chili!

An 18th century cabinet maker writes a letter to the future.

The curious murders of a French Count and his wife.

When "Mad as a hatter" was more than just a turn of phrase.

A very rude medieval demon cat.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Chamber Pot.

A scandalous "Crim. Con." case from the early 19th century.

In search of Medieval America.

A ghostly version of that old "Is it live or is it Memorex?" commercial.  (Yeah, I'm old enough to remember those.  I'm practically old enough to remember the Mayflower landing.)

A stunning Slovenian lake.

A Croatian "sea-organ."

Real-life Frankensteins.

A new theory about King Ludwig II and the "Poe Toaster."  (For anyone who's interested, I've posted the text of an 1886 article about the link between Ludwig and Poe on my other blog.)

X-Treme Bagpiping!

Meet Jemmy the Rockman.

Some strange Australian deaths.

Some strange tales from WWI.

Some strange tales from Pennsylvania.

The ultimate Bad Neighbor?

Don't try this at your favorite restaurant.

The hazards of being a dog's nursemaid.

The colorful career of Charlotte Charke/Charles Brown. 

You know you've got a fun family when one of the saner members is nicknamed "Foul Weather."

"Thermal anomalies" at the Pyramids.

Demonstrating ancient Chinese makeup tips.

Sugar sculptures as political propaganda.

Mary Jane Kelly, Jack the Ripper's most mysterious victim.

Ancient Chinese family helps a woman become Emperor, goes on to regret it.

Gotta love those bigamy punchlines.

Remembering some neglected seamen of WWII.

Peppering your way to good health.

"Undine," you say, "do you know what your blog is lacking?  That is to say, what it's lacking besides talent, brains, and a solid grasp of English grammar?  Information on killing tree stumps!"  Well, your wait is finally over.

The Sultanate of Women.

The colorful history of Duart Castle.

A haunted Croatian island is for sale.

The power of the pumpkin.

The first detectives.

Nothing like a little quality control.

The colliding worlds of Immanuel Velikovsky.

The strange and gruesome death of a college student.

The execution of John Hanlon, who surely deserved it.

You think I could possibly neglect to link to a story about Demon Cats?

Film footage of life in Nazi Austria.

A woman's disappearance is solved in a way reminiscent of Poe's "The Black Cat."

St. Catherine, matchmaker.

An archive of images from the French Revolution.

Monstrosities made to order!

Child-stripping and child-stealing.

Hester Bateman, silversmith.

A murder mystery on Marsden Moor.

The history of Venice's Jewish ghetto.

An angry poltergeist fails to get results.

And it's over and out for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll be talking 17th century poltergeists.  In the meantime, here's one of my all-time favorites, via Van the Man:

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

This tale of a wandering "Woman in Black" comes from the "Yorkshire Telegraph and Star" for November 7, 1908:

The latest ghost story comes from Ipswich. On the Ranelagh Road, in a quiet neighbourhood near the main railway station, general alarm among the residents has been caused owing to the declarations of the members of one family that a “woman in black” has haunted them for several weeks past. At the house in question there went to reside five weeks ago the new stage manager of the Hippodrome, Mr. Crane. Coming from Scarborough with his wife and two little daughters aged 8 and 5 respectively, he rented the house, mainly owing to its pleasant and healthy situation, and having no idea that it possessed a history which linked it with ghost stones.

Terrified by the weird happenings at their home, the family took a hurried departure Thursday evening, since when an otherwise quiet suburb has been visited by crowds people anxious to find the ghostly object, which is described as a "woman in black.”

The figure was first seen in a passage next to the house on 29th October by the elder of the two daughters, who naturally in her fright cried for her mother. Mrs. Crane (says a "Morning Leader” correspondent), rushing to her frightened child, exclaimed, “Woman, what you want?” The figure made no reply, but backed away and disappeared through the door which leads to the coal-cellar. The strange apparition is described as having the figure of woman of medium height. It floats through the air, it is said, about 3 ft. from the ground, and is clothed in black. Its lower limbs or feet are visible, and though the body appears fairly substantial, only the upper part of the face can be seen.

The eyes are deeply sunken, but the cheekbones are large and protruding. On the head is a curious kind of three-cornered black shawl. The right hand and arm hang loosely by the woman’s side, but with her left hand she trails a very large bundle wrapped in something resembling unbleached calico and tied at the top. The child Ivy thinks that this bundle is a baby, and says she saw the woman place it for a moment on the staircase. On the forefinger of the left hand is a broad ring set with one very large stone.

The husband returning from his duties at the Hippodrome has on several occasions found his wife and children in a state of collapse, the spectral figure having frequently been seen by them. Mrs. Crane, feeling safe in a new home, declares that the ghost touched her on the shoulder in the pantry only last Sunday, and that she saw it four times during Thursday. She also says that it came accompanied with a cold draught of air.

To some extent the story is supported by the statement of a married couple who left after spending only one day in the house. Their explanation to their friends was that “they had seen things in the night.” A neighbour is also positive that last Christmas, when the place was empty, there were strange noises to be heard.

I have not been able to find any follow-ups to this story.

Kansas Gothic: The Strange Murder of Viola Ard

"Do you not weep?
Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upward and bedews the heavens."
~John Webster, "The Duchess of Malfi"

Although the murder of Viola Ard is forgotten today, it not only has a fair claim to be one of Kansas' most unusual unsolved killings, it was merely the climax to a chain of sordid events that often resembled a Jacobean melodrama set on the American prairie.

At the time of her death, Viola Ard was only 20 years old. She had been married for about a year to Roy Ard, a well-to-do farmer in Elsmore township, near Iola, Kansas. The brief married life of the Ards had been fraught with unusual peril. They told friends and neighbors that someone was trying to kill them. In October 1914, Viola became very ill after drinking a glass of water that turned out to contain poison. Later, a can of fruit that had been sitting on a back porch was also found to be poisoned. A week after these incidents, the Ards had been fired upon with a rifle as they returned home from church. Shortly after that, Roy Ard was struck on the head from behind as he entered his hay mow, knocking him unconscious. His attacker fled before he came to. The family seemed to be besieged by a venomous phantom.

On the night of November 10, 1914, the Ards, along with Viola's sister, 15-year-old Katie Latimer, went to visit Roy's cousin, Charles Ard. The purpose of the call was so that Roy could submit a request to join the Anti-Horse Thief League--sort of a rural Neighborhood Watch.  He said membership might aid him in capturing his family's mysterious foe.  After an uneventful evening, the trio set out for home, with Viola driving their automobile. Katie sat next to her, with Roy in the back seat.

About a quarter of a mile away from the Ard farm, their car passed over a small bridge. As soon as they hit the road again, someone fired a rifle at the car. A bullet went through Mrs. Ard's heart, killing her almost instantly. The other occupants of the car were not injured, and they later claimed they had not seen or heard anyone, but they said the shot must have been fired by someone hiding in the hedges alongside the bridge. The autopsy confirmed that the fatal shot could indeed have been fired from that position. The autopsy failed to locate the bullet, but it was believed to have been of a .32 calibre. There were no powder burns on the corpse, and no scorching around the bullet hole in her dress. This led investigators to presume that she had not been shot at close range--her assailant must have been at least several feet away.

The site where Viola was killed, via Kansas Historical Society

The police were stumped. So, it seems, was everyone else. On the day after the murder, the "Iola Register" commented that "There is absolutely at this time no 'finger of suspicion' which usually is the first thing that crops out. Gossip usually wags one way or another in volume sufficient for officers to pick up a thread and attempt to work out something tangible.

"In this instance, every circumstance points but to the one plain fact, cold blooded murder, deliberately planned. But by whom? There the officers halt, completely baffled.

"So far as Roy Ard is personally concerned, there is not a single word of gossip. No one even suggests it. The comment of his neighbors is that his married life has been entirely happy."

Viola's mother described Roy as a "model husband." A local constable called the new widower "a man of peace, of even temperament, of friendliness and would be the last to be drawn into a controversy of any kind." The dead woman's uncle called Viola "one of the sweetest women I ever knew...You can't say too many kind things about Viola for that is impossible."

The survivors of the shooting could not give any clue about who might have wanted to harm them. It was not even clear who the intended victim might have been. Just Viola? Or her husband? Katie Latimer? Or did the assassin intend to kill all three of them, but lost his/her nerve after the first fatal shot?

The mystery disappeared from the papers until May 1915, when Roy Ard came forward with a startling story. One night, as he and a friend, Fred Donaho, were walking home from visiting a neighbor, someone shot at them. The two men fled without catching any sight of their attacker.

Ard said that while he naturally connected this shooting with the murder of his wife, he again professed to have no idea who this enemy might be, or why anyone in the world would carry such a deadly grudge against him. This latest crime also seemed fated to remain an unsolved puzzle.

Life got even stranger for the Ard family. About a month after this second shooting, Elbert Ard, Roy's 20-year-old cousin, was judged insane and sent to an asylum. A few days after that, Roy's uncle Jacob Ard was found dead on a high bank near a local river. It was ruled that he died of "apoplexy." In October, Roy's brother Ora was fired at as he was doing chores near his barn. Again, the shooter appeared to be invisible. It was beginning to look like the entire Ard family was under a curse.

Months went by without any further developments, and the Ard case, while never forgotten, naturally receded from people's minds. Then, early in March 1917, came a twist that may surprise you: Roy Ard was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

Ard was curiously nonchalant about his arrest. He showed no surprise when he was taken into custody, commenting that he had expected that "someone would rib this up on him." He then went sullenly quiet, refusing to make any statement.

At Ard's preliminary hearing, the star witness was the only other known observer of Viola's murder, Katie Latimer. A reporter in the courtroom described her as "peculiarly handsome and attractive, apparently of the cuddling, nesting disposition, if action is indication of disposition...She was a picture of health, happiness, and hilarity"--odd words to describe a girl whose brother-in-law was standing trial for the murder of her sister. In the months since Viola's death, Katie had given birth to an illegitimate child.

Katie said nothing about the murder that she had not told to investigators before. She testified that Roy had been sitting in the middle of the back seat of the car, with his hands folded and resting on the back of the front seats. When the shot was fired, Viola fell forward and collapsed on Katie. Roy asked Viola if she was shot, and receiving no reply, he pulled her over the back seat. "The engine kept running. We did not get out of the car." Katie said they saw no one either before or after the shooting.

Roy took the wheel of the car. He was silent until they arrived home, when his only comment on his wife's murder was "This beats hell." He added, "Here is a woman who was always true to me." Katie stated that on the day before Viola's funeral, he told her not to tell anyone anything, and to answer no questions. He said he expected to go to jail.

An Elsmore hardware dealer testified that about two weeks before Viola's death, he had sold Roy Ard a .32 calibre revolver. The local sheriff stated that on the night of the murder, he had confiscated this revolver, and found that its bullets perfectly fit the wound in Viola's back. Ard had admitted that he had carried his revolver in his pocket on the night his wife was shot.

At Ard's request, his attorneys waived further evidence and asked that he be bound over to the district court where "he can get a fair hearing before a jury of twelve men."

No one could guess how that "fair hearing" might end. At the close of the hearing, the "Elsmore Leader" commented that "There has never at any time since the night that Viola Ard met her death been any evidence produced to show any reason whatever why Roy Ard would want to get rid of his wife. On the contrary, it has been shown that they were very much attached to each other and no one ever heard them utter a cross word to each other. The case promises to be one of the hardest fought legal battles ever waged in the county."

Ard's trial was held in mid-May. The prosecution alleged that Roy murdered his wife for one of the oldest reasons in the book: another woman, in this case, his beautiful young sister-in-law. They dealt with the absence of powder burns on Viola by suggesting that the powder "went in with the bullet on account of the close range." The presumption was that the other attacks on the family were all hoaxes. The defense scoffed at these theories, asserting that numerous tests showed that the fatal shot had to have been fired no closer than two feet or so. They broadly hinted that perhaps Roy's brother-in-law Charles Dietrich--who had never been friendly to him and who owned a .32 calibre rifle--was the real killer. The major point at issue was whether or not it was possible for a bullet traveling in the direction in which that one did to have been fired inside the car. The prosecution alleged that if the fatal shot had been fired outside of the car, it would have had to have hit Roy, as well. The defense, naturally, said just the opposite. There was also conflicting testimony about the bloodhound that had been brought to the murder scene. Some witnesses claimed the hound failed to pick up any trail. The dog's owner, however, stated that the animal did pick up a scent, starting at a hedge by the bridge, but was unable to follow it very far. The defense called up a parade of character witnesses, all of whom--including Viola's parents--testified to the excellent reputation of the defendant and the deep affection between husband and wife.

The exception to all this sweetness-and-light testimony came from a former Ard employee named Pete Anderson. He related a conversation he had witnessed between Viola and Roy's father, David Ard. Viola commented, "I'll be an angel someday." David snapped back, "You'll be a damned old buzzard out in a hollow tree some day. It would have been all right if you had done what we told you to do." This made Viola burst into tears, after which Roy called her a "cry baby." The meaning behind this sinister-sounding and decidedly enigmatic exchange was never revealed.

When Ard himself took the stand, he was described as "the coolest witness at the trial," answering all questions calmly and promptly. He told essentially the same story as Katie Latimer, although he denied ever telling her that he expected to be arrested. He added the information that the Ards had long been victimized by a mysterious prowler. When they were away from home, they would often return to find someone had broken in and caused complete disorder: furniture overturned, beds upset, their belongings scattered about. Nothing was ever stolen, however. On one occasion, their telephone wires had been disconnected.

He firmly denied killing his wife or having the slightest interest in any other woman. "I loved my wife and she loved me, and I did all I could to make her happy."

The case against Ard rested entirely on circumstantial evidence--and, judging by what was reported in the newspapers, extraordinarily flimsy circumstantial evidence. It is not very surprising that after deliberating less than an hour, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty."

So that was that. Police, unable to find any other even remotely plausible suspect, inevitably found their investigation of the crime coming to an end. It was never determined who shot Viola and why--let alone who was responsible for the weird events before and after her murder--and it's safe to say it never will be.

There was one peculiar footnote to the Ard murder. In 1917, Viola's mother, Permelia Latimer, brought a slander suit against one of the prosecuting attorneys in Roy Ard's trial, F.J. Oyler. Shortly before Roy Ard's arrest, Katie Latimer brought charges of statutory rape against one Eldon Hawley, who was, she said, the father of her baby. During Hawley's trial, (which ended in an acquittal,) Oyler, who represented Hawley in court, told the jury that Mrs. Latimer knew that Roy Ard had killed Viola, and she that she and Katie were conspiring to falsely state that Hawley had fathered a child who in actuality was sired by Ard!

Oyler was found not guilty.  Mrs. Latimer appealed the verdict.  The lawsuit went through the state's court system for no less than four years. Finally, in 1921, the Supreme Court of Kansas ruled that "slander uttered by an attorney in the trial of a case is not actionable if it have reference to the cause under consideration, although false and malicious." They upheld the defendant's previous acquittal, leaving forever unanswered the question of whether or not Oyler had spoken the truth.

Weekend Link Dump

This week's Link Dump is sponsored by the famous 1920s dance team of Felix the Cat and Ann Pennington.

What the hell has NASA found in Kazakhstan?

What the hell will we find in that "alien megastructure?"

What the hell happened at this coffee mill?

What the hell is falling in Arizona?

Who the hell was Agent 355?

What the hell is the River Witham Sword?

Where the hell is Shakespeare's skull?  We may--or may not--know!

Watch out for those spectral hounds!

Watch out for the Devil's Sonata!

Watch out for Nan Tuck's ghost!

A radio broadcast from the night New York went dark.

Rescue cats have their own underground railroad.

That time the FBI investigated spontaneous human combustion.

Howard Carter's King Tut diary.

Is Nessie just a PR stunt?

The life and times of some real vampires.

Georgian star-gazing girls.

How to throw a Victorian seance.

How a French soldier became an American teacher.

Some legendary lost cities.

The strange photographs of Stella Lansing.

The life and times of a Georgian era reformer.

Thomas Morris can always be counted upon to bring on the "Ouch!"

I'm on board with this one.

Oh, just another post about dancing chickens at amusement parks.

The strange life of Rasputin's daughter.

A guide to black magic from the 18th century.

If this works, I want to import these witches to the U.S.

Witchcraft tales from the Land of Necropants.

A possible new case of spontaneous human combustion.

A particularly gruesome 18th century crime.

A dead king sings a love song.

Just another day in Los Angeles.

Photographs from a doomed Arctic expedition.

19th century advice for young wives.

Vampires in 19th century New England.

How shipwrecks are rewriting human history.

Medieval cat stories really didn't pull any punches.

The sad death of a Victorian servant.

The unexpected dangers of going through the looking glass.

A particularly weird Mystery Floods case.

For this woman, there's a whole lotta shaking going on.

A German clown cat.

A medieval love letter.

A guide to Haunted Italy.

Werewolves of London, and elsewhere.

19th century university students behaving badly.

A 19th century stepfather behaving very badly.

That time the Devil took up residence in Essex County.

The increasing popularity of Dark Tourism.

The tradition of "Nut-Crack Night."

A bizarre Halloween murder.

The legendary crime at Littlecote House.

Why it's not wise to say Coventry smells bad.

A history of London ravens.

The Library of the Weird.

The English village that sacrificed itself to stop the plague.

This blog always has room for a little Gallows Humor.

Smugging for a Guy.

The debunked--but still interesting--Margaret Murray.

Those unhealthy Georgians.

And, finally:  My new hero!


That wraps up this week's Link Dump.  See you on Monday, when, as so often happens around here, we'll be talking murder.  In the meantime, here's one of my favorite Morbid Country songs:

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Whenever you run into a story featuring 19th century spiritualists, you know the good times are about to roll. This account of a real "Dead Man Walking" appeared in the "Elkart [Indiana] Times," December 9,1858. It is a reprint from the "New York Evening Post."

The spiritualists of this city, or a portion of them, at least, are gravely discussing the question whether the spirit of a man whose dead body was dissected by medical students in Hartford, Connecticut, is picking himself up piecemeal, and bringing his bones, one by one, to this city, to be put together again. The weekly spiritual conference, have seen fit to make this a subject of inquiry, and the "Spiritual Telegraph," from time to time, informs its readers of the progress of the affair.

The story is related substantially as follows:

When Dr. Redman, the partner of Dr. Orton, in Twelfth street, New York, was a medical student, a body was to be dissected upon a certain occasion, and the students agreed to draw lots to determine which one should have the bones. Dr. Redman was already a medium, and before the dissection took place the spirit communicated with him, and expressed the wish that the bones might fall into Redman's possession. The doctor replied that since possession was to be determined by lot, he might not get them.

"Draw first," replied the spirit, "and I will make you draw the prize."

Acting upon this hint, the lucky Redman drew first and took the bones. He conveyed them to Hartford, where he subsequently left a part of them, removing the rest to his office in the city.

Having related to his partner the singular history of the skeleton, Dr. Orton requested him to bring the remainder of it to the office; whereupon the ghost who once owned and occupied the dilapidated and abused tenement, set up a loud knocking, and claimed the right, which no reasonable man could deny him, of having a word to say about the disposition of his bones. He expressed a willingness that they should be taken to New York; it made no especial difference to him whether the ossified portion of his frame was in one place or another; still it was natural he should feel some pride in the matter, and expressed the determination of bringing the bones from Hartford to this city himself.

This extraordinary determination, which, we believe, has no parallel in ghostology, ancient or modern, it is alleged, is being carried out. The very next day after it was announced, a bone dropped on the sidewalk, in front of the two doctors, near their house, and since that time, bone after bone has been removed, sometimes dropping from the ceiling and sometimes upon the walk. On the 26th day of May the ghost done an unusual good day's work. As the doctors were crossing Broadway near Thirteenth street 3 o'clock, P.M., a bone dropped at their feet, and at 6 o'clock the same afternoon another encountered them in Fourteenth street; both being portions of the spinal column.

The ghost whose body has been cut up and moved, does not however, claim the exclusive credit of the removal. With the fairness which, we trust, will ever characterize his transactions, he acknowledges with gratitude the assistance of other ghosts, who have kindly consented to help do the job; but what compensation he gives for their services, is not stated.

The ghost commenced picking himself up sometime in the spring. Whether he is yet done is not stated; but the "Telegraph" of this week brings additional testimony, in the shape of an anonymous statement, (regarded as conclusive by many spiritualists) the substance of which is contained in the following paragraph:

"On the 2d of last June Dr. Redman held a seance at a house where I was visiting.--When the circle was over I accompanied him down stairs; on the way down, my spectacle case, which had been missing during a part of the evening, was thrown over my shoulder. He picked it up, and was holding it with both his hands, conversing with me about its disappearance. While thus engaged, standing facing each other, with a full blaze of gaslight shining on us, the front door closed, and no other means of egress or ingress being near, something came dropping down, as if from the ceiling, and fell between us. On being taken up, Dr. Redman recognised it as a bone belonging to the vertebrae of the neck of this much talked-of spirit."

When the Spiritual Conference and the "Telegraph" arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, we will inform our readers.

The "Spiritual Age," for June 12, 1858, reported that Dr. Orton informed them that the bones of his spirit pal, whose name was Cornelius Winne, "continue to disappear from Hartford, and to arrive mysteriously in New York." The final bits of Winne were finally delivered on December 15, but the good doctors claimed to remain in spiritual communication with the peripatetic departed.

The story inspired a less-than-reverent contemporary ballad, "Migratory Bones":

We all have heard of Dr. Redman,
The man in New York who deals with dead men,
Who sits at a table
And straightway is able
To talk with the spirits of those who have fled, man!
And gentles and ladies
Located in Hades,
Through his miraculous mediation,
Declare how they feel,
And such things reveal
As suits their genius for impartation.
'Tis not with any irreverent spirit
I give the tale, or flout it, or jeer it;
For many good folk
Not subject to joke
Declare for the fact that they both see and hear it.
It comes from New York, though,
And it might be hard work, though
To bring belief to any point near it.
Now this Dr. Redman,
Who deals with the dead men,
Once cut up a fellow whose spirit had fled, man,
Who (the fellow) perchance
Had indulged in that dance
Performed at the end of a hempen thread, man;
And the cut-up one,
(A son of a gun !)
Like Banquo, though he was dead, wasn't done,
Insisted in very positive tones
That he'd be ground to calcined manure,
Or any other evil endure,
Before he'd give up his right to his bones!
And then, through knocks, the resolute dead man
Gave his bones a bequest to Redman.
In Hartford, Conn.,
This matter was done,
And Redman the bones highly thought on,
When, changed to New York
Was the scene of his work,
In conjunction with Dr. Orton.
Now mark the wonder that here appears:
After a season of months and years,
Comes up again the dead man,
Who, in a very practical way,
Says he'll bring his bones some day,
And give them again to Redman.
When, sure enough
(Though some that are rough
Might call the narrative "devilish tough "),
One charming day
In the month of May,
As Orton and Redman walked the street
Through the severing air,
From they knew not where,
Came a positive bone, all bleached and bare,
That dropped at the doctor's wondering feet!
Then the sprightly dead man
Knocked out to Redman
The plan that lay in his ghostly head, man:
He'd carry the freight,
Unheeding its weight;
They needn't question how, or about it;
But they might be sure
The bones he'd procure,
And not make any great bones about it.
From that he made it a special point
Each day for their larder to furnish a joint!
From overhead, and from all around,
Upon the floor, and upon the ground,
Pell-mell,
Down fell
Bones,and thigh bones,
Jaw bones, and thigh bones,
Until the doctors, beneath their power,
Ducked like ducks in a thunder-shower!
Armfuls of bones,
Bagfuls of bones,
Cartloads of bones,
No end to the multitudinous bones,
Until, forsooth, this thought gained head, man,
That this invisible friend, the dead man,
Had chartered a band
From the shadowy land,
Who had turned to work with a busy hand,
And boned all their bones for Dr. Redman!
Now, how to account for all the mystery
Of this same weird and fantastical history?
That is the question
For people's digestion,
And calls aloud for instant untwistery!
Of this we are certain,
By this lift of the curtain,
That still they're alive for work or enjoyment,
Though I must confess
That I scarcely can guess
Why they don't choose some useful employment.

The Bainbrigges: A Family Only a Kardashian Could Love

George Romney, "King Lear in the Tempest"

Although it is forgotten today, in 1850 the lawsuit of Bainbrigge vs. Bainbrigge held the entire United Kingdom on the edge of their seats. The legal details of the case were straightforward and of themselves not particularly interesting. What enchanted the public was the how the suit revealed the hitherto little-known lurid history of the principals in the matter. As always, bad behavior--particularly among the upper-classes--made for irresistible entertainment.

The central figure in the case was Thomas Bainbrigge, a man whose sordid and depressing history reads like a parody of a Thomas Hardy novel. He began his life as a charmed figure: Wealthy, highly intelligent, well-educated, charming, refined. He moved in England's best social and political circles, where his favor was wooed by all. Fittingly, this Prince Charming eventually found himself a Princess--the beautiful niece of an earl. The two became engaged. It was like something from a fairy tale.

Well, every fairy tale needs a villain, and in this case, it proved to be Thomas' father. Although Bainbrigge senior had originally approved of the match, when it came time to work out the settlement the bride would receive, he thought the girl's parents asked him to contribute an excessive amount of money. Bainbrigge senior was so offended, that he cavalierly forbade the marriage altogether.

This was, naturally, a great blow to Thomas. When his beloved died a short time later, his grief and bitterness was so intense that he angrily withdrew from society altogether. When his father died in 1798, Thomas inherited a vast estate, but by then he was too soured on the world to take any pleasure from it. He buried himself at his mansion of Woodseat, near the Sherwood Forest, installed an attractive woman named Elizabeth Parker as his housekeeper, and let his private life go to a defiant ruin. He dressed like a vagrant, let his sumptuous residences decay, and generally lived like a dissipated Roderick Usher. Everyone in his household had to live with his crude speech and manners, unkempt person, and violent, erratic temper. Curiously, though, when he occasionally mixed in local society, he appeared as his old self. His hosts and the other guests found this immaculately-dressed figure to be so suave and personable they found it impossible to believe the stories about his curious domestic life--even after Elizabeth Parker gave birth a girl in 1790 whom Bainbrigge accepted as his daughter.

However, when Parker became pregnant a second time--with a child Bainbrigge knew could not be his--he indignantly banished her from the premises. Despite this, he had become greatly attached to his baby daughter, and resolved to raise her as his acknowledged heiress. The girl, Betsy, received the finest education and training money could buy, and when she was thirteen, Bainbrigge made out a will leaving her everything he possessed--with the provision that, if she ever married, her husband should assume the name of Bainbrigge. If Betsy had no children, the estate would pass after her death to the children of Bainbrigge's brother.

Betsy grew up into a beautiful and talented young woman. What prevented her from being accepted into local society was not her illegitimacy, but rather her father's increasingly alarming behavior. As Thomas grew older, his eccentricity began spiraling downward into madness. His strange and violent manner--usually fueled by alcohol--became too notorious to be ignored. Through no fault of her own, Bainbrigge's daughter was forced to share in his now hermit-like existence

The teenaged Betsy found herself isolated in the gloomy, squalid atmosphere of Woodseat, with no companionship beyond the indifferent, disreputable servants and her brooding, disturbing father. It really should have been no surprise to anyone when the lonely girl became pregnant by her father's coachman.

When Bainbrigge heard the news, however, he was not only surprised, but dangerously furious with the girl he had once, in his own peculiar fashion, greatly loved. He immediately wrote out a new will leaving the bulk of his fortune to his siblings and their descendants, cutting Betsy off with nothing but an annuity of two hundred pounds a year. He allowed his daughter to remain on the estate until her baby was born, but after that event, he swore, she would be banished from his properties and his life forever. (The coachman, incidentally, had long since fled, never to be seen again.)

After Betsy had her baby in February 1809, a girl named Marianne (or Mary Ann,) Bainbrigge relented somewhat. However displeased he may have been with his daughter, she was all he had. He allowed Betsy to stay in the dubious shelter of Woodseat. As for Betsy's daughter,  Bainbrigge became even more infatuated with this new baby girl than he had been with the ultimately-unsatisfactory Betsy. From the first moment he lay eyes on the child, he was utterly enchanted, and openly declared that he would make yet another will, leaving everything to little Marianne. His granddaughter became the center of his existence,which would prove to be a decidedly questionable blessing for the child.

Betsy had no difficulty in virtually relinquishing custody of her daughter. She had had it with Woodseat--the isolation, the squalor, and above all the oppressive presence of her strange father. She sought her escape through the only way available to her--marriage. For many years, Thomas Bainbrigge and a local farmer named Arnold had carried on a bitter feud, which had originated in Bainbrigge's insistence on hunting over Arnold's land. Relations between the men had, on at least one occasion, descended into physical violence. The mere mention of Arnold's name was more than enough to send Bainbrigge into one of his frightening fits of rage.

It was the son of this same Arnold whom Betsy chose to marry.

When Bainbrigge heard of his daughter's decision, he reacted with predictable fury. He sent her off to one of his other properties in the custody of two servants, putting her under a virtual house arrest.

Betsy was undeterred. She had undoubtedly knew her father would react in some such extreme fashion, and was likely enjoying the thought that she had finally found a way to get revenge upon him. She soon escaped her captivity, and she and young Arnold successfully eloped. Bainbrigge's reaction to this development was to roar that from that moment, his daughter was dead to him. Naturally, he made yet another will, this time cutting Betsy off entirely, and leaving every penny he had to little Marianne. If she died without children, Bainbrigge's brothers and sisters would inherit. Bainbrigge's solicitor, a man named Blair, was named as the will's trustee.

As good as his word, Bainbrigge treated his daughter as if she had never existed, ignoring all her efforts for some sort of rapproachment. He settled into complete isolation in his gloomy manor, with baby Marianne as virtually his only companionship. After Betsy's "betrayal," his peculiarities grew to the point where the few servants left around him believed it was inevitable that he would soon wind up in a madhouse.

Three years after Betsy's marriage, Bainbrigge moved his little household to one of his estates in Derby, where he devoted himself to Marianne, drinking, and horse racing, roughly in that order. While riding in one of the races, he fell on his head, injuring himself severely. When Betsy heard that her father was probably dying, she made an effort to see him, but his servants contemptuously barred her from entering the house. On what he assumed was his deathbed, Bainbrigge continued to refuse to see Betsy, but he softened towards her enough to say she had his forgiveness, and to amend his will so that she would receive fifty pounds a year.

However, Bainbrigge recovered, but his accident appeared to have exacerbated his increasing insanity. In contrast to his careful upbringing of Betsy, he allowed Marianne to run wild. She received no formal education and had no friends outside the household servants, who were all nearly as strange and crude as their master. Bainbrigge took a perverse delight in seeing his idolized granddaughter grow up into a foul-mouthed, conniving, insolent delinquent. When, at the age of eight, Marianne berated the servants with some precociously vile language, he merely laughed delightedly. Around that time, Bainbrigge impulsively decided to fire all the female household help. When one girl objected to having to leave under such short notice, Bainbrigge indignantly seized her by the throat, nearly choking her to death and he dragged her out of the house. If solicitor Blair had not quietly slipped her a sum of money, the girl would have had her ex-master indicted for attempted murder. Marianne grew up assuming such scenes were perfectly normal.

In 1818, Bainbrigge's lifestyle, centered as it was around alcohol and choler, finally took its toll, and he took to what proved to truly be his deathbed. Betsy again arrived on the scene, but this time her father was in no condition to refuse her admittance. As it turned out, she had a secret ally in her father's solicitor, Mr. Blair. For many years past, Blair had been embezzling from Bainbrigge's estate. Blair's greatest fear was that Bainbrigge's nephew Thomas Parker Bainbrigge, who was heir after Marianne, would inherit the estate, as this would mean Blair's thievery would inevitably be detected. Accordingly, Blair and Betsy put their heads together and devised a plan that would benefit them both. They decided that the dying Bainbrigge would sign a new will leaving the bulk of his estate to Betsy and her children, should Marianne die childless. Bainbrigge's siblings and their offspring were cut off entirely. The Arnolds, of course, would tactfully overlook Blair's theft.

By this point, Bainbrigge was too ill to have any real idea what was going on around him. Blair placed a pen in his hand and guided his shaking hand on the document well enough to make a semblance of his signature. Two days later, Bainbrigge died.

Betsy and Blair immediately took complete control of the Bainbrigge fortune. Eleven-year-old Marianne, the rightful heiress, was packed off to a boarding school. However, it was far too late to undo the effects of her depraved upbringing. She resisted all efforts to educate her or modify her unruly behavior, and at the age of sixteen she eloped with the penniless son of an apothecary. The pair had two children.

For as long as Marianne lived, the descendants of Bainbrigge's siblings respected her rights as heiress. However, by 1845, Marianne and her children were all dead, and these Bainbrigges felt this changed the situation completely. They were certain that Thomas Bainbrigge's final will cutting them out of the succession had been obtained through fraud. Accordingly, in 1850, Thomas Parker Bainbrigge brought a lawsuit to have this will overturned. (Blair had by this time gone bankrupt, and was removed as trustee of the Bainbrigge estate.)

The Arnolds, naturally, fought back, and the great battle over the question of old Thomas Bainbrigge's sanity was on. The Bainbrigges produced a string of witness giving dismal testimony about "Mad Bainbrigge's" last years. He was described as letting himself become intolerably filthy and covered with insects. He allowed his clothes to fall into rags. His home was just as dirty and vermin-ridden. Many appalling stories were told of his violent, erratic, and shocking behavior. "Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper" reported breathlessly:

When he rode out in his carriage, it was unwashed and uncleaned, and covered with the dirt of the fowls which roosted in it. His horses were not groomed, and he took any of his farm labourers, without any change of dress, to drive it. He once drove into Derby with a man who had been just driving a dung cart, and in the very dress in which he had driven it. He used to crouch so near the fire that his coat tails were burned off. He used to go to buy his own fish and meat, and was once met in the streets of Derby with fish covered with blood hanging out of his coat pockets. He was once seen bringing home a slaughtered ox on the top of his carriage. Another time he brought home a calf's head and pluck on the bow of his saddle. He wore a flannel waistcoat from March to July without once being washed, and when remonstrated with once on the subject, he said washing would spoil flannel. He one made his labourers set out in the midst of a storm of hail and rain to make hay, and when a coach passed by, and the passengers shouted out, "Are ye mad?" the men answered, "It is not we that are mad, but our master." He once suddenly gave directions to dispossess all his tenants in a street in Derby, though they did not owe him a penny of rent, and actually ejected every one of them without any reason whatever but some wild fancy of his own. When he had some friends at dinner once, the servant brought him a cold plate. He ordered him to keep it at the fire till he called for it, and when he did, and the man brought it, it burned his (Mr. B's) fingers; and thereupon be seized a roast goose that was on the table by the legs and hung it after the man, and cursed and swore at him and kicked him out of the room, In 1817, a lady went up with the granddaughter, Marianne, into his bedroom, and there saw a bottle of brandy and a bottle of gin, and the poker and tongs an a chair near his bed; and he told her on several occasions that he kept them there to protect him against the devil. He used to mutter frequently to himself, "I must go to:the devil, but I am not ready yet." All religious feeling departed, and he cursed and blasphemed in a most frightful manner--in such a manner that no one could doubt that he was in a state of complete mental aberration. There could be no better proof of this than the change in his conduct respecting his granddaughter Marianne. In 1815, he had taken great precautions for her proper education; but, subsequently, so lost was he to all proper feeling, that he taught her to curse and swear, and encouraged her in the moat incredible obscenity, and in the use of language to which none abut the most depraved could listen...A crowd having begun to stare at them one day at Buxton, she said she would give them a salute, and looking bask to the multitude, slapped her hand on the back part of her body...He was so violent to his servants that none could stop with him. He offered to fight his farm bailiff if he would not go up to his neck in a pool of water, and because he did not he discharged him, and then caused him to be summoned for deserting his service and to he imprisoned for twenty-eight days. As a general rule, when they in any way displeased him he used to fling bottles, glasses, crockeryware, knives, or any articles that were nearest to him. Even when they did not offend, he often wantonly attacked them. One day he came into the kitchen found a servant toasting bread, and bending down with her back to him, and he stole up to her, and stuck a fork with all his strength into the back part of her person, and then ran out, and she did not recover for a month. When he drove out in his carriage he took his gun with him, and once threatened to shoot the man who was driving, for having taken the wrong road; and the man jumped off and ran away from him...He had forty servants in a few months, as none would stop with him for more than a few days...He had a stallion which used to break out of a paddock in which it was kept, and get to the mares when people did not want him to do so. He therefore put him into a stable with a large loose box. The horse got lame, and so indignant was he that he sat in judgment on him, sentenced him to seven years' transportation, and then commuted it to imprisonment and solitary confinement. The horse was accordingly kept in partial darkness, with no straw to lie on, and only as much hay and water as would keep life in him; and at the end of four months, when he was almost starved to death and had dung up to his belly, and the servant told the master he was all but dead, the answer was, "Well, he is just alive, keep him so; he has not served out his time." He used to drink excessively; but liquor made him not drunk, but mad and furious.

The star witness for the Arnold side was solicitor Blair. He admitted his embezzlement, but strongly denied having helped Thomas Bainbrigge sign his will. Other witnesses for the Arnolds testified that while Thomas Bainbrigge had certainly been a peculiar and unpleasant character, he was not actually insane.

In his summing-up, the judge in the case was sympathetic to the Arnold camp. However, the jury, after deliberating only twenty minutes, returned a verdict in favor of Thomas Parker Bainbrigge. It looked as if, at long last, the Arnolds were out of the money.

Not quite. The defendants immediately appealed the verdict. It was beginning to appear that the true heirs to the Bainbrigge fortune would be the lawyers for both sides. However--rather unusually in such cases--both sides were brought together and induced to save something from the impending wreck. In the end, a compromise was reached where the estate was shared equally among all the interested parties, and the Great Bainbrigge Saga came to an uncharacteristically quiet end.