USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Westerly > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 17
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Charlestown > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 17
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Hopkinton > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 17
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Richmond > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 17
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stick, or dug for gold and hidden treasures at the pointing of a witch-hazel branch or divining-rod.
THE PALATINE LIGHT.
During the early part of the present century, strange stories were told by the inhabitants of the town residing on the coast, of a fiery spectre or phantom fire-ship frequently seen by night in the direc- tion of Block Island. The best account of this is obtained from a letter written by Dr. Aaron C. Willey, a resident physician of Block Island, in 1811, to Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, of New York. We give extracts from this letter : -
" This curious irradiation rises from the ocean near the northern part of the island. Its appearance is nothing different from a blaze of fire. Whether it actually touches the water, or merely hovers over it, is uncer- tain. Sometimes it is small, resembling the light through a distant window; at others expanding to the highness of a ship with all her canvas spread. It is seen at all seasons of the year, and for the most part in the calm weather which precedes an easterly or southerly storm.
Its continuance is sometimes but transient, and others throughout the night. The first time I beheld it, was at evening twilight. in February, 1810. It was large, and gently lambent, very bright, broad at the bottom, and ter- minating acutely upward. It continued about fifteen minutes from
the time I first observed it. This lucid meteor has long been known by the name of the Palatine Light. By the ignorant and superstitious it is thought to be supernatural. Its appellation originated from that of a ship called the 'Palatine,' which was designedly cast away at this place in the beginning of the last century, in order to conceal, as tradition reports, inhuman treatment and murder of some of its unfortunate passengers. From this time, it is said, the Palatine Light appeared: and there are many who believe it to be a ship of fire, to which their fantastic and distempered imaginations figure masts, ropes, and flowing sails. . The cause of this 'roving brightness' is a curious subject for philosophical investigation. Some, perhaps; will suppose it will depend upon a peculiar modification of electricity ; others upon the inflammation of phlogogistous (hydrogenous) gas. But there are possibly many other means, unknown to us, by which light may be evolved from these materials with which it is latterly associated, by the power of chemical affinities."
Some assert that this fiery phantom was seen so long as any of the crew of the ill-fated ship survived. Some of the most credible inhabitants of Westerly were confident that they saw this spectre. No sufficient explanation of the affair has yet been given.
It was once thought that the head of a toad contained a jewel. The story of the Palatine Light, under the charmed pen of New England's sweetest poet, John G. Whittier, has been made to rival the old belief, as the following extract will show : -
" Circled by waters that never freeze, Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, Lieth the island of Manisses.
" Set at the mouth of the South to hold The coast-lights up on its turret old.
. Yellow with inoss and sea-fog mold.
" Dreary the land when gust and sleet At its doors and windows howl and beat, And winter langhs at its fires of peat !
"But in summer time, when pool and pond, Held in the laps of valleys fond, Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond ;
U
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" When the hills are sweet with the brier- rose,
And hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose Flowers the main-land rarely knows;
"When boats to their morning fishing go, And, held to the wind and slanting low, Whitening and darkening the small sails show, -
"Then is that lonely island fair ; And the pale health-seeker findeth there The wine of life in its pleasant air.
"No greener valleys the sun invite, On smoother beaches no sea-birds light,
No blue waves shatter to foam more white !
" There cireling over their narrow range, Quaint tradition and legend strange Live on unchallenged, and know no change.
"Old wives spinning their webs of tow, Or rocking weirdly to and fro In and out of the peat's dull glow ;
" And old men mending their nets of twine. Talk together of dream and sign. Talk of the lost ship ' Palatine,' -
"The ship that a hundred years before, Freighted deep with its goodly store, In the gales of the equinox went ashore.
" The eager islanders one by one Counted the shots of her signal gun, And heard the crash when she drove right on !
"Into the teeth of death she sped ; (May God forgive the hands that fed The false lights over the rocky Head !)
"O mmen and brothers! what sights were there !
White, upturned faees, hands stretched in prayer !
Where waves had pity, could ye not spare?
"Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey,
Tearing the heart of the ship away; And the dead had never a word to say.
"And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine,
Over the rocks and the seething brine, They buried the wreck of the ' Palatine.'
"In their ernel hearts, as they homeward sped,
' The sea and the rock are dumb,' they said,
' There 'll be no reckoning with the dead.'
" But the year went round, and when once more
And along their foam-white curves of shore,
They heard the line-storm rave and roar,
"Behold! again, with shimmer and shine, Over the rocks and seething brine,
The flaming wreck of the ' Palatine'!
"So, haply in fitter words than these, Mending their nets on their patient knees, + They tell the legend at Manisses.
"Nor looks nor tones a donbt betray : 'It is known to us all,' they quietly say ;
' We too have seen it in our day.'
"Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken?
Was never a deed but left its token Written on tables never broken ?
" Do the elements subtle reflections give ? Do pictures of all the ages live On Nature's infinite negative?
"Whenee, half in sport, in malice half, She shows at times, with shudder or laugh,
Phantom and shadow in Photograph ?
"For still, on many a moonless night, From Kingston Head and Montank Light, The spectre kindles and burns in sight.
"Now low and dim, now clear and higher, Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire. Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire.
" And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine,
Reef their sails when they see the sign Of the blazing Ghost of the ' Palatine.'"
THE MANIFESTATION OF SATAN.
This singular circumstance may be given in the language of Dea. William H. Potter (of Groton, Conn., formerly of Westerly), as communicated by him to the Narragansett Weekly in November, 1860.
"During the Revolutionary War, Hannah Maxson and Comfort Cottrell (Comfort was then a name for females), two girls then staying at the house of Esquire Clarke, of Westerly, were trying their fortunes, and endeavoring
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to bring their beaus, by throwing each her ball of yarn into the well, and winding them off while they severally repeated a verse from the Seriptures, backwards. They completed their charm about dusk, and went to the front door of the house, and were there standing, awaiting the arrival of their sweethearts, or the result of their incantations, possibly a little conscience- smitten at their abuse of the verse of Scripture, but still in high spirits, and bent on an innocent frolic. Mrs. Clark, the wife of the 'Squire, was sick, in a bed in one of the rooms. But while the thoughtless girls were standing in suspense. but in high glee, lo! they both saw a monster-figure coming up the road. It was some eight or ten feet high, and marched with a stately step, but with eyes, as they said, 'as big as saucers,' and breathing flames from his distended jaws. They saw it turn from the street and approach the house. In consternation, they fled frantically, and with loud screams, into the room where Mrs. Clark lay, and threw themselves upon the bed behind the sick woman, more dead than alive. Esquire Clark, who was a pious man, and not easily frightened, came in at the back door the moment the monster had mounted the front door-step, and was glaring steadily into the house through the panes of glass over the front door. The steady. unmis- takable gaze of the demon, for such they believed him to be, convinced Mr. Clark at once that spiritual weapons were alone adequate to combat such an adversary. He immediately went to prayer, and the devil. meantime, left, never again reappearing to trouble the good man's house or the terror- stricken girls. Both became serious. One or both of them soon after found relief in a strictly religious life. The story was told through all the region with the most decisive effects. Gainsayers went to inquire only to be con- founded. Inquiries were made to find human agencies that might have tricked the family. The result of every investigation was only to confirm the belief of the good 'Squire and his hapless guests, that Satan had indeed come in answer to their impious charms and sacrilegious use of Holy Writ, and this belief came to be the settled conviction of young and old, for miles around, and for years put a stop to any such vain incantations by the maid- ens of Westerly and Hopkinton. But then it had the effect, also, in some minds, to create a superstitious belief in the appearance of spirits, and it doubtless confirmed many of the ghost and witch stories which were rife before and after. Among pious people, of well-balanced minds, for two generations, it was regarded as a rebuke from another world, standing alone and unaccountable, not necessarily confirming, or being in any way con- nected with, ordinary witch and sprite stories. The veracity, piety, and cool temperament of the excellent 'Squire, who himself met the gaze of the arch enemy, and laid the wicked spirit by prayer; the testimony, and then the altered conduct of the girls, before correct, perhaps, but trifling, ever after serious and deeply affected by any allusion to the occurrence ; and, possibly, more than all, the death of Mrs. Clark, which, I think. took place soon after, - these, together with the utter failure of all attempts to account for or explain the phantom as any earthly illusion or trick of human inception, gave this story precedence over all others of similar character, and made it unquestioned for almost three generations.
"It is quite certain that no explanation of the origin of this terrible illu- sion was ever known or permitted to go forth for at least seventy years after the transaction; and not till all the parties and their contemporaries were dead. The explanation, though simple, and such as would naturally occur to any one nowadays, was canvassed and rejected at the time, on account of the entire absence, as was supposed, of any possible agents in the neighbor- hood. The bringing to light the full explanation, seventy years after the occurrence, was as curious as the story itself.
"Ebenezer Brown was visiting at the house of the widow of the late
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DELUSIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS.
Daniel Rogers, of Newport, and heard Mrs. R. relate the story as it had oc- curred, and as her guest had often heard it at home. She pansed, and after a little, resuming the subject, said she had a secret to unfold which would forever solve the mystery, and felt bound to do so to one whom she knew would make a judicious use of her revelation, then, I think, for the first time communicated to a third party. Mrs. Rogers said her husband, Mr. Daniel Rogers, of Newport, was the author of the deception. He was so alarmed at the extent of the mischief he had made, that he had immediately after left that part of the country, and returned to Newport, where, marrying soon after, he had not revealed his secret to any one, except late in life, to his wife, who was enjoined not to make it known till after his death, as it would subject him to great annoyance to make explanations upon a subject so painful to recall. It seems Esquire Clark's house, where the phantom appeared, was situated about a mile below Potter Hill, on the opposite side of the road from the present handsome mansion of Mr. Gurdon Hiscox. The house has been some fifty or sixty years gone. In the old red house now occupied, if I mistake not, by Clark Hiscox, Esq., the Rogers family were then temporarily residing while the British overran the Island of Rhode Island. They were exiles from their pleasant home in Newport. Daniel Rogers and his brother William were youths together belonging to this family. William Rogers, afterwards the distinguished divine, scholar. physician, and collegiate professor in Philadelphia. was of a quiet and modest demeanor. Daniel was much beloved, but liked fun. So dressing himself up as a tantrabogus of huge dimensions, with a mammoth pumpkin moonshine for a head, he had thought to play an innocent trick, to scare the girls and then discover himself. But the extreme terror of the girls, the voice of the man in prayer. and more than that, the death of the sick woman of whose illness he had not probably been previously aware, made him speechless, and he determined to leave for Newport at once. I may be in- correct about the death of the sick woman, but iny impression is she died so soon as, in the minds of many, to connect her death with the fright. If so. this would account for his long silence, and the manner of his revealing it."
GRANNY MOTT.
Near 1740, there lived in Hopkinton (then Westerly) an old woman called Granny Mott, who had a reputation of being a witch. It is told that she would ride a smooth-shod horse upon the ice with - the greatest speed. She once came to the house of Thomas Potter to procure work. Mr. Potter's son Stephen was playing about the floor, when one of the older children whispered to him to stick an awl in the old woman's chair. She sat immovable for hours, until the family became convinced of her character, and removed the awl. Ever after, when she visited the house, she would stand or sit upon a chest or bed, however many chairs might be near. One of her neighbors was much annoyed by a flock of heath-hens, the head one of which would fly close around him, and bid defiance to his oft-repeated shots. Ile finally cut a silver button from his coat, and loaded his gun,and thus brought down the troublesome bird. He soon heard that Granny Mott was sick unto death ; she was attended by her daughter, who refused all assistance in preparing the body for inter- ment, and permitted others simply to bury her. This secrecy was
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employed to prevent persons from discovering the wound inflicted by the silver button.
REBECCA SIMIS.
In the south part of Westerly, near 1800, lived a humorous dame, of kindred power and reputation with Granny Mott. Something of her own fortune was made by dealing in the fortunes of others. She had the credit of running around a room on the chair moldings and dancing upon them; and at dead of night, transforming herself into various charmed forms, would haunt the townsmen. One man averred that she had often visited him in the night-watches, and putting her witch-bridle upon him, had ridden him great distances as a horse, greatly to his fatigue and suffering ; sometimes, in a cold night, leaving him hitched to a post for hours, while she was in a house where there was fiddling and dancing. The remainder of this story would hardly appear well in print, though it would not fail to excite laughter. We may suggest, however, that temperate eating and drinking has had a damaging effect upon witchcraft. Mrs. Sims was distinguished for shrewdness, wit, and love of practi- cal jokes. When Smith Murphy stole her hot mince-pies and con- cealed them under his coat, she lovingly embraced him till his bosom swelled with blisters as well as other emotions.
McDANIEL.
In Hopkinton lived a little old negro man, jet black, with fierce- looking eyes, named James McDaniel. His cocked hat, glaring eyes, and daring manner won for him the reputation of kinship to the monarch of darkness. When Amos Langworthy, Jr., brought "home his bride to his father's, McDaniel came and wished to fiddle ; but the father, Amos Langworthy, Sen., refused, as it was against his principle to have fiddling in his house. The old negro was en- raged, and prophesied that he would yet be obliged to have fiddling under his roof. Shortly after Mr. Langworthy's daughter, Amy, was seized with fits that nothing would allay but music ; at the sound of the viol she would recover, and then dance for hours. Many came to witness the matter, and it was believed that Miss Langworthy was bewitched by McDaniel. At last, Mr. Langworthy hired a fiddler by the month, as his daughter had fits nearly every evening, until she was visited by a Mr. Mason, of Connecticut, who laid his hands upon her and prayed ; after which she had no fits ; but she never fully recovered. Other spirits visited Mr. Lang- worthy's dwelling, entering locked rooms, deranging and polluting the dishes and milk-pans. On one occasion, when riding in great haste for a physician, Mr. L. dismounted to open the bars, and on remounting found his bridle reins tied in knots. McDaniel was not long a resident here. Ile came from New York, and had been a drummer in the Revolution.
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DELUSIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS.
THE SHAKERS.
The first Shakers came to this country from England in 1774, and established themselves in the State of New York. They claim to be the true church of God, and profess to have now entered upon a state of perfection. They discard marriage, and live in a com- munity from a common treasury. Towards the close of the century a few believers in this school were found in Westerly, Hopkinton, and North Stonington. The principal person among these was Joshua Birch, a man of property, living in the house now owned by Mr. Peleg Clarke, Sen., near Clarke's Falls, then known as the Birchen Mills. As Mr. Birch's house was large, it well accommo- dated the devoted, dancing, shaking throng. Mrs. Birch, in a trans- port of joy and self-dedication, threw her necklace of gold upon the floor, where the feet of the dancers soon reduced it to pieces. Mr. Birch sold his property and turned the avails into the hands of the society. Such of the band as were not restored to sober thinking by reason and reflection, finally emigrated, and joined the main body of that faith at New Lebanon, in New York.
Valentine Rathbun, a Baptist minister, joined the infatuated sect near 1780, but "in about three months recovered his senses, and pub- lished a pamphlet against the imposture. He says, that there attended this infatuation an inexplicable agency upon the body, to which he himself was subjected, that affected the nerves sud- denly and forcibly like the electric fluid, and was followed by tremblings and the complete deprivation of strength."
THE BELDENITES.
After the Shaker movement had subsided and the present cen- tury had opened, another wind of fanaticism passed over a portion of the town of Hopkinton, and stirred a little the air in adjacent towns. Of this movement, the leader and principal preacher was John Belden, at whose house many of the meetings were held; and hence the party was styled "Beldenites." It is reported that the sect originated in Coventry, from whence came Farnum and Belden .. The occasional preachers were Douglas, Farnum, and Morse, the latter being quite conspicuous ; hence the lines sometimes sung by the worshipers, -
" Ye Morseites of Hopkinton, Keep your armor bright; Ye Morseites of Hopkinton, Make ready for the fight."
It will be perceived, in this strain, that the poetry and devotion are about equally blended. Meetings were held at the residences of Benjamin Kenyon, Libbeus Coon, and Abel Tanner. The sect or throng called themselves Christians, and practiced baptism. Most of their notions were novel, and all of them, as in like cases, much
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confused. Withal, they practiced strange physical exercises, such as running around the chimney, dancing, barking, hooting, leaping, shouting. Sometimes they ran around like quadrupeds, upon their hands and toes. The females practiced what they called the " Holy Ghost kiss." They were. in the habit, at the close of their meetings, of going about and rousing people from their slumbers, warning them to " flee from the wrath to come."
At the close of one of the night meetings of these visionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Belden and Mrs. Kenyon had a call to immediately visit and labor with Rev. Matthew Stillman, the worthy pastor of the Sabbatarian church. They set forth on their weighty mission, and reached Elder Stillman's about midnight. On rapping upon the door, Mrs. Stillman appeared, and asked what was intended. She was answered, " We have been sent by the Lord, to-night, to warn Elder Stillman against holding up bars to the free communion of the saints of God." Asked Mrs. Stillman, " Are you sure the Lord sent you to Elder Stillman to-night on this errand ?" They replied, " Yes ; and we came immediately, and we must see the elder, and deliver our message." Mrs. Stillman coolly responded, "I am sorry for you ; but I should have thought that the Lord would have known better than to have sent yon to-night, for my husband is absent; he left home yesterday."
But a vein of libertinism was only too apparent. It was gen- erally believed that they ignored the proper limitations of the mar- riage relation. Their excesses speedily proved their ruin. Soon after 1815, the flame of emotional folly burned low, and after some of the members had moved to the State of Ohio, the party was dissolved. Morse and his family at last removed to Block Island.
Among the Beldenites was a most singularly enthusiastic speaker, Gurdon Wells, from Coventry, Conn, who in his ministrations indulged in deep and agonizing groans, the fruits, as he said, of the spirit within. On one of his visits to the old Hill Church, where he hoped for proselytes, after finishing his remarkable exercises, he waved his arms and exelaimed, "Stand back, and let a godly man pass out."
Elisha Peck, another of these enthusiasts, was a more calm man and able speaker; yet he lived by visions. After moving to the West, and becoming a preacher of the Christian denomination, he was informed of the day of his death, in preparation for which he had his coffin made, and preached his own funeral sermon.
WILKINSONIANS.
Westerly had some experience relative to the delusion which originated with the far-fame.l Jemima Wilkinson. This singular woman, of rare endowments, of unusual beauty, of prepossessing
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manners, of charming speech and glowing enthusiasm, was born in Cumberland, R. I, in 1751. Her ministry and mission, to which she asserted that she was miraculously called by being raised up from sickness and actual death, after her soul had been called to heaven, where she was expressly commissioned to return to earth and preach to a deluded, dying world, began in the historic year 1776. By divine direction she assumed the name of "Universal Friend," declared she had immediate revelation for all she delivered, that she had arrived at a state of absolute perfection, could foretell future events, discern the secrets of the hearts of men, had power to heal diseases and even to raise the dead. Her principal success in New England was in South Kingston, R. I., under the patronage of Judge William Potter, of which an account may be found in Updike's History of the Narragansett Church.
Sallying forth with her train, all on horse, marching two by two, this fanatical priestess of a new dispensation, which painfully and sometimes scandalously broke up the business and family relations of her followers, visited various parts of the State to declare her revelations and her divinely-received power. On different occasions she came into Westerly, and was usually entertained at the large and hospitable mansion of Dr. Joshua Babcock. Here to wonder- ing audiences she held forth her strange sentiments. Probably Doctor Babcock opened his doors chiefly from his respect for Judge Potter. But the Universal Friend found but few friends and congenial spirits in this region. More sober and practical views controlled the people. The calls of the patriot struggle were louder than the voice of Jemima.
The infatuated woman finally, in 1784, calling her devotees around her, and persuading them to sell their estates and leave their unbelieving kindred, emigrated to Yates County, N. Y., and planted a settlement, which she named "New Jerusalem," where, after swaying her sceptre of fanaticism with varied success, she paid the common debt of nature, July 1, 1819.
ABBOTT'S HOUSE.
Tradition tells us that the first regularly framed house that arose in the town among the light and heavy log houses of the settlers, stood near the centre of the present town, north, about half a mile, from the post-road, and west, a few rods, from the cross road lead- ing towards Dorrville. The old cellar-hole still remains, a little west of the Bliven homestead. The Bliven house has in it some of the timber of this first house. This was a very notable edifice, said to have been built by a pirate who bore the name of Abbott. It had a round top, which gave to it the look and name of a castle. More- over, it had a high stockade around it, hence it was sometimes called " the fort "; more generally, however, " the castle." The cel-
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