Tales Of Puritan Land - Charles M. Skinner
At this the elder brother was afraid, lest she should cast a spell on
him, and rowing up the river for a distance he came upon her as she was
bathing and shot at her. The arrow seemed to strike, for there was a
flutter of feathers and the woman flew away as a partridge. But the
younger did not forget the good she had done and sought her in the wood,
where for many days they played together as of old.
"I do not blame your father: it is an affair of old, this hate he bears
me," she said. "He will choose a wife for you soon, but do not marry her,
else all will come to an end for you." The man could not wed the witch,
and he might not disobey his father, in spite of this adjuration; so when
the old man said to him, "I have a wife for you, my son," he answered,
"It is well."
They brought the bride to the village, and for four days the
wedding-dance was held, with a feast that lasted four days more. Then
said the young man, "Now comes the end," and lying down on a bear-skin he
sighed a few times and his spirit ascended to the Ghosts' road--the milky
way. The father shook his head, for he knew that this was the witch's
work, and, liking the place no longer, he went away and the tribe was
scattered.
THE MARRIAGE OF MOUNT KATAHDIN
An Indian girl gathering berries on the side of Mount Katahdin looked up
at its peak, rosy in the afternoon light, and sighed, "I wish that I had
a husband. If Katahdin were a man he might marry me." Her companions
laughed at this quaint conceit, and, filled with confusion at being
overheard, she climbed higher up the slope and was lost to sight. For
three years her tribe lost sight of her; then she came back with a child
in her arms a beautiful boy with brows of stone. The boy had wonderful
power: he had only to point at a moose or a duck or a bear, and it fell
dead, so that the tribe never wanted food. For he was the son of the
Indian girl and the spirit of the mountain, who had commanded her not to
reveal the boy's paternity. Through years she held silence on this point,
holding in contempt, like other Indians, the prying inquiries of gossips
and the teasing of young people, and knowing that Katahdin had designed
the child for the founder of a mighty race, with the sinews of the very
mountains in its frame, that should fill and rule the earth. Yet, one
day, in anger at some slight, the mother spoke: "Fools! Wasps who sting
the fingers that pick you from the water! Why do you torment me about
what you might all see? Look at the boy's face--his brows: in them do you
not see Katahdin? Now you have brought the curse upon yourselves, for you
shall hunt your own venison from this time forth." Leading the child by
the hand she turned toward the mountain and went out from their sight.
And since then the Indians who could not hold their tongues, and who
might otherwise have been great, have dwindled to a little people.
THE MOOSE OF MOUNT KINEO
Eastern traditions concerning Hiawatha differ in many respects from those
of the West. In the East he is known as Glooskap, god of the
Passamaquoddies, and his marks are left in many places in the maritime
provinces and Maine. It was he who gave names to things, created men,
filled them with life, and moved their wonder with storms. He lived on
the rocky height of Blomidon, at the entrance to Minas Basin, Nova
Scotia, and the agates to be found along its foot are jewels that he made
for his grandmother's necklace, when he restored her youth. He threw up a
ridge between Fort Cumberland and Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, that he might
cross, dry shod, the lake made by the beavers when they dammed the strait
at Blomidon, but he afterward killed the beavers, and breaking down their
dam he let the lake flow into the sea, and went southward on a hunting
tour. At Mount Desert he killed a moose, whose bones he flung to the
ground at Bar Harbor, where they are still to be seen, turned to stone,
while across the bay he threw the entrails, and they, too, are visible as
rocks, dented with his arrow-points. Mount Kineo was anciently a cow
moose of colossal size that he slew and turned into a height of land, and
the Indians trace the outline of the creature in the uplift to this day.
Little Kineo was a calf moose that he slew at the same time, and Kettle
Mountain is his camp-caldron that he flung to the ground in the ardor of
the chase.
THE OWL TREE
One day in October, 1827, Rev. Charles Sharply rode into Alfred, Maine,
and held service in the meeting-house. After the sermon he announced that
he was going to Waterborough to preach, and that on his circuit he had
collected two hundred and seventy dollars to help build a church in that
village. Would not his hearers add to that sum? They would and did, and
that evening the parson rode away with over three hundred dollars in his
saddlebags. He never appeared in Waterborough. Some of the country people
gave tongue to their fear that the possession of the money had made him
forget his sacred calling and that he had fled the State.
On the morning after his disappearance, however, Deacon Dickerman
appeared in Alfred riding on a horse that was declared to be the
minister's, until the tavern hostler affirmed that the minister's horse
had a white star on forehead and breast, whereas this horse was all
black. The deacon said that he found the horse grazing in his yard at
daybreak, and that he would give it to whoever could prove it to be his
property. Nobody appeared to demand it, and people soon forgot that it
was not his. He extended his business at about that time and prospered;
he became a rich man for a little place; though, as his wealth increased,
he became morose and averse to company.
One day a rumor went around that a belated traveller had seen a misty
thing under "the owl tree" at a turn of a road where owls were hooting,
and that it took on a strange likeness to the missing clergyman.
Dickerman paled when he heard this story, but he shook his head and
muttered of the folly of listening to boy nonsense. Ten years had gone
by-during that time the boys had avoided the owl tree after dark--when a
clergyman of the neighborhood was hastily summoned to see Mr. Dickerman,
who was said to be suffering from overwork. He found the deacon in his
house alone, pacing the floor, his dress disordered, his cheek hectic.
"I have not long to live," said he, "nor would I live longer if I could.
I am haunted day and night, and there is no peace, no rest for me on
earth. They say that Sharply's spirit has appeared at the owl tree. Well,
his body lies there. They accused me of taking his horse. It is true. A
little black dye on his head and breast was all that was needed to
deceive them. Pray for me, for I fear my soul is lost. I killed Sharply."
The clergyman recoiled. "I killed him," the wretched man went on, "for
the money that he had. The devil prospered me with it. In my will I leave
two thousand dollars to his widow and five thousand dollars to the church
he was collecting for. Will there be mercy for me there? I dare not think
it. Go and pray for me." The clergyman hastened away, but was hardly
outside the door when the report of a pistol brought him back. Dickerman
lay dead on the floor. Sharply's body was exhumed from the shade of the
owl tree, and the spot was never haunted after.
A CHESTNUT LOG
There is no doubt that farmer Lovel had read ancient history or he would
not have been so ready in the emergency that befell him one time in the
last century. He had settled among the New Hampshire hills near the site
that is now occupied by the village of Washington and had a real good
time there with bears and Indians. It was when he was splitting rails on
Lovel Mountain--they named it for him afterward--that he found himself
surrounded by six Indians, who told him that he was their prisoner. He
agreed that they had the advantage over him and said that he would go
quietly along if they would allow him to finish the big chestnut log that
he was at work on. As he was a powerful fellow and was armed with an axe
worth any two of their tomahawks, and as he would be pretty sure to have
the life of at least one of them if they tried to drive him faster than
he wanted to go, they consented. He said that he would be ready all the
sooner if they would help him to pull the big log apart, and they agreed
to help him. Driving a wedge into the long split he asked them to take
hold, and when they had done this he knocked out the wedge with a single
blow and the twelve hands were caught tight in the closing wood. Struggle
as the savages might, they could not get free, and after calmly enjoying
the situation for a few minutes he walked slowly from one to the other
and split open the heads of all six. Then he went to work again splitting
up more chestnuts.
THE WATCHER ON WHITE ISLAND
The isles of Shoals, a little archipelago of wind and wave-swept rocks
that may be seen on clear days from the New Hampshire coast, have been
the scene of some mishaps and some crimes. On Boone Island, where the
Nottingham galley went down one hundred and fifty years ago, the
survivors turned cannibals to escape starvation, while Haley's Island is
peopled by shipwrecked Spanish ghosts that hail vessels and beg for
passage back to their country. The pirate Teach, or Blackbeard, used to
put in at these islands to hide his treasure, and one of his lieutenants
spent some time on White Island with a beautiful girl whom he had
abducted from her home in Scotland and who, in spite of his rough life,
had learned to love him. It was while walking with her on this rock,
forgetful of his trade and the crimes he had been stained with, that one
of his men ran up to report a sail that was standing toward the islands.
The pirate ship was quickly prepared for action, but before embarking,
mindful of possible flight or captivity, the lieutenant made his mistress
swear that she would guard the buried treasure if it should be till
doomsday.
The ship he was hurrying to meet came smoothly on until the pirate craft
was well in range, when ports flew open along the stranger's sides, guns
were run out, and a heavy broadside splintered through the planks of the
robber galley. It was a man-of-war, not a merchantman, that had run
Blackbeard down. The war-ship closed and grappled with the corsair, but
while the sailors were standing at the chains ready to leap aboard and
complete the subjugation of the outlaws a mass of flame burst from the
pirate ship, both vessels were hurled in fragments through the air, and a
roar went for miles along the sea. Blackbeard's lieutenant had fired the
magazine rather than submit to capture, and had blown the two ships into
a common ruin. A few of both crews floated to the islands on planks, sore
from burns and bruises, but none survived the cold and hunger of the
winter. The pirate's mistress was among the first to die; still, true to
her promise, she keeps her watch, and at night is dimly seen on a rocky
point gazing toward the east, her tall figure enveloped in a cloak, her
golden hair unbound upon her shoulders, her pale face still as marble.
CHOCORUA
This beautiful alp in the White Mountains commemorates in its name a
prophet of the Pequawket tribe who, prior to undertaking a journey, had
confided his son to a friendly settler, Cornelius Campbell, of Tamworth.
The boy found some poison in the house that had been prepared for foxes,
and, thinking it to be some delicacy, he drank of it and died. When
Chocorua returned he could not be persuaded that his son had fallen
victim to his own ignorance, but ascribed his death to the white man's
treachery, and one day, when Campbell entered his cabin from the fields,
he found there the corpses of his wife and children scalped and mangled.
He was not a man to lament at such a time: hate was stronger than sorrow.
A fresh trail led from his door. Seizing his rifle he set forth in
pursuit of the murderer. A mark in the dust, a bent grass blade, a torn
leaf-these were guides enough, and following on through bush and swamp
and wood they led him to this mountain, and up the slope he scrambled
breathlessly. At the summit, statue-like, Chocorua stood. He saw the
avenger coming, and knew himself unarmed, but he made no attempt to
escape his doom. Drawing himself erect and stretching forth his hands he
invoked anathema on his enemies in these words: "A curse upon you, white
men! May the Great Spirit curse you when he speaks in the clouds, and his
words are fire! Chocorua had a son and you killed him while the sky
looked bright. Lightning blast your crops! Winds and fire destroy your
dwellings! The Evil One breathe death upon your cattle! Your graves lie
in the war-path of the Indian! Panthers howl and wolves fatten over your
bones! Chocorua goes to the Great Spirit. His curse stays with the white
man."
The report of Campbell's rifle echoed from the ledges and Chocorua leaped
into the air, plunging to the rocks below. His mangled remains were
afterward found and buried near the Tamworth path. The curse had its
effect, for pestilence and storm devastated the surrounding country and
the smaller settlements were abandoned. Campbell became a morose hermit,
and was found dead in his bed two years afterward.
PASSACONAWAY'S RIDE TO HEAVEN
The personality of Passaconaway, the powerful chief and prophet, is
involved in doubt, but there can be no misprision of his wisdom. By some
historians he has been made one with St. Aspenquid, the earliest of
native missionaries among the Indians, who, after his conversion by
French Jesuits, travelled from Maine to the Pacific, preaching to
sixty-six tribes, healing the sick and working miracles, returning to die
at the age of ninety-four. He was buried on the top of Agamenticus,
Maine, where his manes were pacified with offerings of three thousand
slain animals, and where his tombstone stood for a century after, bearing
the legend, "Present, useful; absent, wanted; living, desired; dying,
lamented."
By others Passaconaway is regarded as a different person. The Child of
the Bear--to English his name--was the chief of the Merrimacs and a
convert of the apostle Eliot. Natives and colonists alike admired him for
his eloquence, his bravery, and his virtue. Before his conversion he was
a reputed wizard who sought by magic arts to repel the invasion of his
woods and mountains by the white men, invoking the spirits of nature
against them from the topmost peak of the Agiochooks, and his native
followers declared that in pursuance of this intent he made water burn,
rocks move, trees dance, and transformed himself into a mass of flame.
Such was his power over the forces of the earth that he could burn a tree
in winter and from its ashes bring green leaves; he made dead wood
blossom and a farmer's flail to bud, while a snake's skin he could cause
to run. At the age of one hundred and twenty he retired from his tribe
and lived in a lonely wigwam among the Pennacooks. One winter night the
howling of wolves was heard, and a pack came dashing through the village
harnessed by threes to a sledge of hickory saplings that bore a tall
throne spread with furs. The wolves paused at Passaconaway's door. The
old chief came forth, climbed upon the sledge, and was borne away with a
triumphal apostrophe that sounded above the yelping and snarling of his
train. Across Winnepesaukee's frozen surface they sped like the wind, and
the belated hunter shrank aside as he saw the giant towering against the
northern lights and heard his death-song echo from the cliffs. Through
pathless woods, across ravines, the wolves sped on, with never slackened
speed, into the mazes of the Agiochooks to that highest peak we now call
Washington. Up its steep wilderness of snow the ride went furiously; the
summit was neared, the sledge burst into flame, still there was no pause;
the height was gained, the wolves went howling into darkness, but the
car, wrapped in sheaves of fire, shot like a meteor toward the sky and
was lost amid the stars of the winter night. So passed the Indian king to
heaven.
THE BALL GAME BY THE SACO
Water-Goblins from the streams about Katahdin had left their birthplace
and journeyed away to the Agiochooks, making their presence known to the
Indians of that region by thefts and loss of life. When the manitou,
Glooskap, learned that these goblins were eating human flesh and
committing other outrages, he took on their own form, turning half his
body into stone, and went in search of them. The wigwam had been pitched
near the Home of the Water Fairies,--a name absurdly changed by the
people of North Conway to Diana's Bath,--and on entering he was invited
to take meat. The tail of a whale was cooked and offered to him, but
after he had taken it upon his knees one of the goblins exclaimed, "That
is too good for a beggar like you," and snatched it away. Glooskap had
merely to wish the return of the dainty when it flew back into his
platter. Then he took the whale's jaw, and snapped it like a reed; he
filled his pipe and burned the tobacco to ashes in one inhalation; when
his hosts closed the wigwam and smoked vigorously, intending to foul the
air and stupefy him, he enjoyed it, while they grew sick; so they
whispered to each other, "This is a mighty magician, and we must try his
powers in another way."
A game of ball was proposed, and, adjourning to a sandy level at the bend
of the Saco, they began to play, but Glooskap found that the ball was a
hideous skull that rolled and snapped at him and would have torn his
flesh had it not been immortal and immovable from his bones. He crushed
it at a blow, and breaking off the bough of a tree he turned it by a word
into a skull ten times larger than the other that flew after the wicked
people as a wildcat leaps upon a rabbit. Then the god stamped on the
sands and all the springs were opened in the mountains, so that the Saco
came rising through the valley with a roar that made the nations tremble.
The goblins were caught in the flood and swept into the sea, where
Glooskap changed them into fish.
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
From times of old these noble hills have been the scenes of supernatural
visitations and mysterious occurrences. The tallest peak of the
Agiochooks--as they were, in Indian naming--was the seat of God himself,
and the encroachment there of the white man was little liked. Near
Fabyan's was once a mound, since levelled by pick and spade, that was
known as the Giant's Grave. Ethan Allen Crawford, a skilful hunter,
daring explorer, and man of herculean frame, lived, died, and is buried
here, and near the ancient hillock he built one of the first public
houses in the mountains. It was burned. Another, and yet another hostelry
was builded on the site, but they likewise were destroyed by fire. Then
the enterprise was abandoned, for it was remembered that an Indian once
mounted this grave, waved a torch from its top, and cried in a loud
voice, "No pale-face shall take root on this spot. This has the Great
Spirit whispered in my ear."
Governor Wentworth, while on a lonely tour through his province, found
this cabin of Crawford's and passed a night there, tendering many
compliments to the austere graces of the lady of the house and drinking
himself into the favor of the husband, who proclaimed him the prince of
good fellows. On leaving, the guest exacted of Crawford a visit to
Wolfeborough, where he was to inquire for "Old Wentworth." This visit was
undertaken soon after, and the sturdy frontiersman was dismayed at
finding himself in the house of the royal governor; but his reception was
hearty enough to put him at his ease, and when he returned to the
mountains he carried in his pocket a deed of a thousand acres of forest
about his little farm. The family that he founded became wealthy and
increased, by many an acre, the measure of that royal grant.
Not far below this spot, in the wildest part of the Notch, shut in by
walls of rock thousands of feet high, is the old Willey House, and this,
too, was the scene of a tragedy, for in 1826 a storm loosened the soil on
Mount Willey and an enormous landslide occurred. The people in the house
rushed forth on hearing the approach of the slide and met death almost at
their door. Had they remained within they would have been unharmed, for
the avalanche was divided by a wedge of rock behind the house, and the
little inn was saved. Seven people are known to have been killed, and it
was rumored that there was another victim in a young man whose name was
unknown and who was walking through the mountains to enjoy their beauty.
The messenger who bore the tidings of the destruction of the family was
barred from reaching North Conway by the flood in the Saco, so he stood
at the brink of the foaming river and rang a peal on a trumpet. This
blast echoing around the hills in the middle of the night roused several
men from their beds to know its meaning. The dog belonging to the inn is
said to have given first notice to people below the Notch that something
was wrong, but his moaning and barking were misunderstood, and after
running back and forth, as if to summon help, he disappeared. At the hour
of the accident James Willey, of Conway, had a dream in which he saw his
dead brother standing by him. He related the story of the catastrophe to
the sleeping man and said that when "the world's last knell" sounded they
were going for safety to the foot of the steep mountain, for the Saco had
risen twenty-four feet in seven hours and threatened to ingulf them in
front.
Another spot of interest in the Notch is Nancy's Brook. It was at the
point where this stream comes foaming from Mount Nancy into the great
ravine that the girl whose name is given to it was found frozen to death
in a shroud of snow in the fall of 1788. She had set out alone from
Jefferson in search of a young farmer who was to have married her, and
walked thirty miles through trackless snow between sunset and dawn. Then
her strength gave out and she sank beside the road never to rise again.
Her recreant lover went mad with remorse when he learned the manner of
her death and did not long survive her, and men who have traversed the
savage passes of the Notch on chill nights in October have fancied that
they heard, above the clash of the stream and whispering of the woods,
long, shuddering groans mingled with despairing cries and gibbering
laughter.
The birth of Peabody River came about from a cataclysm of less violent
nature than some of the avalanches that have so scarred the mountains. In
White's "History of New England," Mr. Peabody, for whom the stream is
named, is reported as having taken shelter in an Indian cabin on the
heights where the river has its source. During the night a loud roaring
waked the occupants of the hut and they sprang forth, barely in time to
save their lives; for, hardly had they gained the open ground before a
cavern burst open in the hill and a flood of water gushed out, sweeping
away the shelter and cutting a broad swath through the forest.
Although the Pilot Mountains are supposed to have taken their name from
the fact that they served as landmarks to hunters who were seeking the
Connecticut River from the Lancaster district, an old story is still told
of one Willard, who was lost amid the defiles of this range, and nearly
perished with hunger. While lying exhausted on the mountainside his dog
would leave him every now and then and return after a couple of hours.
Though Willard was half dead, he determined to use his last strength in
following the animal, and as a result was led by a short cut to his own
camp, where provisions were plenty, and where the intelligent creature
had been going for food. The dog was christened Pilot, in honor of this
service, and the whole range is thought by many to be named in his honor.
Waternomee Falls, on Hurricane Creek, at Warren, are bordered with rich
moss where fairies used to dance and sing in the moonlight. These sprites
were the reputed children of Indians that had been stolen from their
wigwams and given to eat of fairy bread, that dwarfed and changed them in
a moment. Barring their kidnapping practices the elves were an innocent
and joyous people, and they sought more distant hiding-places in the
wilderness when the stern churchmen and cruel rangers penetrated their
sylvan precincts.
An old barrack story has it that Lieutenant Chamberlain, who fought under
Lovewell, was pursued along the base of Melvin Peak by Indians and was
almost in their grasp when he reached Ossipee Falls. It seemed as if
there were no alternative between death by the tomahawk and death by a
fall to the rocks below, for the chasm here is eighteen feet wide; but
without stopping to reckon chances he put his strength into a running
jump, and to the amazement of those in pursuit and perhaps to his own
surprise he cleared the gap and escaped into the woods. The foremost of
the Indians attempted the leap, but plunged to his death in the ravine.