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john greenleaf whittier

The Ipswich Fright: Terror Strikes a Town Even When the British Aren’t Coming

In the days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a general panic seized the population around Boston. Would the British regulars march to other towns, murdering their inhabitants and burning their homes? Nowhere was the fear greater than on the North Shore, where a fast-spreading rumor caused the Ipswich Fright.

Hundreds of frightened Ipswich citizens fled their homes, filling the roads with carts carrying what household goods they could grab. Their panic spread to the nearby towns of Newbury, Newburyport, Beverly, Salisbury and even Haverhill, Mass., 20 miles to the west.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The rather ignominious show of fear might have been forgotten, save for John Greenleaf Whittier. He immortalized the Ipswich Fright in 1866 with a story about it in his Prose Miscellanies.

Whittier described the Great Ipswich Fright as “the way in which the woof of comedy interweaves with the warp of tragedy.”

The Ipswich Fright

Ipswich, in the days of revolution, was a steady, conservative town solidly behind the patriot cause, wrote Whittier. Midway between Salem and the ancient town of Newburyport,

…the traveller on the Eastern Railroad sees on the right, between him and the sea, a tall church-spire, rising above a semicircle of brown roofs and venerable elms; to which a long scalloping range of hills, sweeping off to the seaside, forms a green background.

The John Whipple House in Ipswich

On April 22, the able-bodied men and boys of Ipswich had marched off to Cambridge after the Battles of Lexington and Concord three days earlier.

Rumors flew that the soldiers would come out again, and they would burn, kill and destroy everything that came in their way. Coastal towns had special concern that the British would attack from the sea.

So on that morning, old men, women and children rushed to the village green to hear the news.

“A rumor, which no one attempted to trace or authenticate, spread from lip to lip that the British regulars had landed on the coast and were marching upon the town,” wrote Whittier. “A scene of indescribable terror and confusion followed.”

Carrying Off Goods

Thomas Franklin Waters reported that someone had seen two small vessels standing in the Ipswich River. “We may be sure there was fright with good reasons at the farms on Castle Hill and Castle Neck,” wrote Waters in Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1917.

View from Castle Hill

People hid their valuables, piled their household goods into ox carts and headed north to New Hampshire.

Diarist John Tudor described the scene that followed. “[M]en and horses driving past, up and down the roads…People were in great perplexity; women in distress for their husbands and friends who had marched. …All confusion, numbers of carts, etc., carrying off goods, etc.

Contagion

The rumor quickly spread to Beverly that the enemy had massacred every man, woman and child in Ipswich. The scene repeated itself.

At mid-afternoon in Newburyport, the town had assembled to hear the details of the Battles of Lexington and Concord., according to a later account in the Newburyport Herald. Parson Carey was opening the meeting with a prayer when a rider named Ebenezer Todd rushed up. “Turn out, turn out, for God’s sake,” he cried, “or you will be all killed! The regulars are marching on us; they are at Ipswich now, cutting and slashing all before them!”

The people of Newbury ran to Salisbury, while the people of Rowley ran to Newbury. The people of Haverhill fled in boats across the Merrimack River to Bradford.

Many spent the night in empty houses in Salisbury. The houses were empty because their inhabitants had fled farther north into New Hampshire.

Woof of Comedy

During the Ipswich Panic, one woman threw her silver down her well. A man hid his private documents under a stone and stood guard in his home with a musket.

Another man put his family into a boat to find safety on Ram Island. Through the evening dusk he imagined the enemy pursued him. An infant started crying in the stern of the boat.

“Do throw that squalling brat overboard,” he said to his wife. “Or we shall all be discovered and killed.”

A woman ran four or five miles up the river. She stopped to take a breath and nurse her child, when she found to her great horror that she had brought the cat instead of the baby.

The Newburyport Herald also reported,

In another instance, a Mr. J. L. seeing Mr. C. H., a very corpulent man, standing at his door with his musket loaded, inquired of him if he was not going. “Going! No.” said he, “I am going to stop and shoot the devils.”

Not until the next morning did most of the refugees learn the truth. Some, however, found out earlier. According to Whittier, a young man from Exeter, N.H., happened to be staying in Ipswich.

[H]e mounted his horse and followed after the retreating multitude, undeceiving all whom he overtook. Late at night he reached Newburyport, greatly to the relief of its sleepless inhabitants, and hurried across the river, proclaiming as he rode the welcome tidings. The sun rose upon haggard and jaded fugitives, worn with excitement and fatigue, slowly returning home ward, their satisfaction at the absence of danger somewhat moderated by an unpleasant conscious ness of the ludicrous scenes of their premature night flitting.

Images: Whipple house By Elizabeth B. Thomsen – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28573446. View from Castle Hill By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11189622. This story updated in 2022.

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The Siege of Scarborough and Maine’s Long War

In 1676, the colonial settlers in Scarborough, Maine, had abandoned the town after fierce fighting with a small army of Indians. That set the stage for the siege of Scarborough the following year.

King Philip’s War had been raging since 1675. Maine — the war’s northern theater — had so few settlers the fighting was on a relatively small scale.

West Point, Prout’s Neck by Winslow Homer (owned by the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.)

The government in Massachusetts had banned weapons sales to the natives. The natives had generally allied with the French, who encouraged them to harass the English settlements along the Maine coast. Some tried to negotiate a peace between the English and the Maine natives, and the tribes were not of one mind about whether to fight or make a treaty.

Around the mouth of the Saco River, one Wabanaki leader, Mogg Heigon, had gathered a force of perhaps 100 men and some 30 ships. Mogg, who had friendly relations with the English settlers, had been slow to support the war. Nevertheless, by the fall of 1676 his army had successfully harassed the fishermen and farmers until many abandoned the area. In October of 1676, Mogg’s men surrounded the small garrison at Scarborough’s Black Point.

The Surrender of Scarborough

Henry Jocelyn led the English settlers at Black Point. Mogg and Jocelyn knew each other, and Mogg spoke English. Mogg offered Jocelyn a deal. If the colonists would surrender, they could leave peacefully.

It’s not clear why Mogg made the generous offer. It may have been simple decency. Or he may have had some reason to suspect taking the garrison by force would be more challenging than it appeared. It may simply have been that he was accustomed to friendly dealings with the settlers and the negotiation came naturally.

Jocelyn accepted the offer, and Scarborough was left completely in Indian control. Having driven off the settlers in much of the Maine coast, however, the Wabanaki were not nearly numerous enough to protect their lands. In 1677, a group of the settlers came out of hiding and returned to Scarborough, along with a larger military force that included Bartholomew Tippen, most likely a sergeant.

The return of the colonists provoked Mogg to action. He returned to Scarborough with his small army. He sealed off the garrison and lay siege to it. But the colonists inside were better armed in 1677 than they had been in 1676. They were not considering retreat. After three days, during which the Indian’s siege had inflicted only a few casualties, Tippen shot and killed Mogg.

After the Siege of Scarborough

The loss of their leader prompted the Wabanaki to abandon the siege. It also cleared the way for another leader to emerge among the natives, Squando. In retaliation for the death of Mogg, Indians returned to the Black Point garrison and again attacked about a month later. This time they were cleverer, drawing roughly 100 of the settlers outside. The fight killed the colonists’ military leaders and decimated the settlement.

Site of Black Point Fort

According to legend, Squando had become an ardent foe of the English when settlers drowned his son. True or not, his elevation weakened any chance for a peaceful settlement of the disputes. King Philip’s War would continue in Maine until 1678 when it ended by treaty.

But it hardly ended the fighting between the persistent English colonists and the Indians (aided by the French). A new garrison was established at Black Point in 1681, near what was then known as Great Pond. The tug of war with the Native Americans would continue for more than 20 years, and in 1703 a group of Indians attacked and killed a group of settlers at the Black Point garrison, inspiring the name the pond has today – Massacre Pond.

Mogg’s name, meanwhile, was immortalized by John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, Mogg Megone, which was also turned into a film. Its story line bears little relation to actual history.

This story about the Siege of Scarborough was updated in 2022.

Image of Black Point Fort By John Stanton via FortWiki, CC By-SA 3.0.

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Eunice Cole, The Witch of Hampton Who Could Not Be Stopped

Virtually the entire town of Hampton, N.H., believed Eunice Cole was a witch. Town officials hauled her into court to face charges three times in the 24 years from 1656 to 1680. The court convicted her once. Yet the greatest magic feat she accomplished was dying peacefully in her own bed.

Eunice Cole and her husband William were servants indentured to Matthew Craddock, a Puritan and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Though Craddock never left England, he actively recruited English settlers to move to America and take part in his new venture.

Eunice Cole, from Ballad of New England by John Greenleaf Whittier

In 1637, when Eunice would have been about 47, she and her husband came to Massachusetts. They promised to pay Craddock £10 for releasing them from his service.

The Coles were first offered land in Quincy, Mass., and then Exeter, N.H., and finally settled on a 40-acre parcel of land in Hampton, N.H.. The Coles followed the Rev. John Wheelwright, a somewhat controversial Christian minister.

William, a carpenter, never prospered in Hampton, though he and Eunice were accepted members of society and attended meeting. Eunice, by all accounts, was a difficult and unlikable person. That probably contributed to her legal problems.

The Rev. John Wheelwright

Eunice Cole, Witch

In 1656, Eunice Cole was taken to Boston to stand trial for witchcraft. She faced charges that included bringing sickness on people she feuded with, killing their animals through mysterious ways and even knowing secrets about people she could only know through aid of the devil.

The court definitely declared Eunice guilty of familiarity with the devil. But there is some debate about whether Eunice was actually convicted of witchcraft. Some say she was, but others believe the court convicted her of a lesser crime because it didn’t order her execution. Rather, she was ordered to be whipped and imprisoned for as long as the court thought appropriate.

Court record from the witchcraft prosecution of Eunice Cole in 1673. Massachusetts Archives Collection, Vol. 135, No. 9

William Cole apparently did not miss his wife much, though he did miss her labor on their farm. With Eunice languishing in prison, William turned to the townspeople for help with his daily needs. The townspeople provided it, but it could not use his property as a means of payment because he had deeded it to Eunice. She had apparently threatened to leave him if he did not.

William Cole petitioned the courts to return his land to him, though he apparently did not ask for the return of Eunice.

Recidivist

Eunice did get herself freed from jail, however, by arguing that her aging husband needed her help. But before she could get herself free, William had managed to get the deed to the couple’s property returned to him, and he promptly died. His death set up a dispute over the land. In invalidating Eunice’s deed, the court had ordered the town to take the property and use it to pay for Eunice and William’s care.

William, meanwhile, had written a will that left the property to a neighbor. The court stepped in and settled the matter, giving half the estate to the neighbor and giving half of it to the town, for support of Eunice.

Eunice did not stay free for long. The terms of her release from jail required that she leave the colony within one month. Rather than depart, Eunice went back to her old ways. Soon she was back in prison. She faced charges of slanderous speech. In and out of prison over the next 10 years, in 1673 she was again formally charged with witchcraft. This time she was accused of attempting to lure a young girl into living with her, taking various animal shapes and causing a neighbor’s oven to produce foul-tasting bread.

Unconvinced that Eunice’s crimes met the legal requirements for a finding that she was a witch, the court did conclude that there was reasonable suspicion that she had “familiarity with the devil.”

The Hampton marshes

Charity Case

Eunice’s care was now up to the town of Hampton, which provided her with a small dwelling. Each family in town had to take turns providing her with food and fuel. In 1680, the townspeople made one final attempt to have Eunice convicted. They gathered up all the previous charges and added a few more. Once again she went to court. The court, however, was unpersuaded. Eunice was allowed to return home.

With Eunice Cole nearing 90, one day in October of 1680 several townspeople remarked that no one had seen Eunice for several days. Proceeding to her home, they found her dead. Legend holds that the townspeople hastily dug a grave and tossed Eunice’s body in it. They then attached a horseshoe (for luck) to a stake and drove it through her grave.

Eunice Cole’s story was immortalized in poems by John Greenleaf Whittier. In 1938 the Town of Hampton finally corrected the error of its ways when it adopted a formal resolution acknowledging that Eunice Cole was not a witch.

The Hampton public library maintains a thorough collection of materials related to Eunice Cole at its website.

This story last updated in 2022.

Thanks to: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F. Karlsen and Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Putnam Demos.

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In 1662 Robert Pike Halts a Quaker Persecution in Massachusetts

In 1662 three English Quakers arrived in Dover, N.H. It didn’t take long before the Puritan townspeople spoke up about the newcomers. They petitioned Richard Waldron, the magistrate at Dover, “humbly craving relief against the spreading and the wicked errors of the Quakers among them.” Dover was frontier country and Waldron was the vice president of the New Hampshire colony. He also served as representative to the Massachusetts General Court, which hotly debated Quaker persecution.

Illustration of Mary Dyer, a victim of Quaker persecution

An ornery English Puritan who arrived in New Hampshire in 1635, Waldron came from wealth. He expanded it greatly, acquiring lands in Dover and building mills on the Cochecho River. He also ran an active trading post with the local Pennacook Indians, with whom he maintained largely friendly relations.

The Quakers, meanwhile, proved themselves a thorn in the side of New England’s Puritans. They had begun arriving in the colonies in 1656, and agitated for religious freedom. The General Court in Massachusetts repeatedly voted to ban them.

Quaker Persecution

The Puritans punished Quakers by an assortment of methods, including whipping and branding.

But the Quakers persisted in demanding their rights. Several chose to suffer as martyrs rather than accept offers of leniency. They insisted the colonial authorities rescind the bans on Quakerism. In 1660, Massachusetts had even executed four Quakers who refused to renounce their faith. They included Mary Dyer, a martyr who knew her execution would prove controversial for the political leaders of Massachusetts.

Statue of Mary Dyer in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse.

In 1662, Waldron had the three Dover Quakers – Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins and Alice Ambrose – arrested as vagabonds. He ordered them tied to the back of a cart and made to walk the 60-plus miles to Boston. Waldron ordered that at each town along the way they were to be stripped and whipped by the local constable.

After carrying out the sentence in Dover, the cart was dispatched to Hampton. There, the constable also carried out the punishment.

They then came to the next stop along the punishment trail — Salisbury, Mass. The whippings then stopped.

Robert Pike

Robert Pike served as constable, militia leader and deputy to the Massachusetts General Court for Salisbury. Though the General Court had outlawed Quakerism, the decision was far from unanimous. Pike and others supported religious freedom, and he and others in Salisbury were outraged at the order to whip the women.

Pike and Walter Barefoot, a political rival to Waldron in New Hampshire, treated the three Quakers’ wounds and helped them escape to Maine. The Quakers correctly believed that the persecution was backfiring. Each incident brought greater attention to their struggle and fresh converts to their faith.

In 1661, the King of England had ordered the colonies to stop executing and imprisoning Quakers. Rather, they were to be sent to England. Waldron probably intended to have them sent to England from Boston.

Instead, the three Quakers returned quietly to Dover and established a church there. Fully one third of Dover’s population would eventually convert to Quakerism. Active persecution of the Quakers died out around 1670.

Karma

Waldron, in New Hampshire, would meet a horrific fate. Following King Philip’s War in 1678, a group of Indian fighters had fled to New Hampshire. Waldron managed to trick the Indians into attending a “war game.” As soon as they had discharged their muskets, he seized the Indians and sent them to Boston. From there they were sold into slavery.

As a result, many New Hampshire Indians viewed Waldron with contempt. In 1689 a band of Indians tortured and killed him. Waldron was 80.

Robert Pike, meanwhile, had continued his protests for greater religious tolerance. In 1692, as the Salem witch hysteria gained momentum, Pike authored a letter to one of the witch trial judges. Pike criticized the way the trials were conducted. While he did not dispute the reality of witchcraft, he argued the trials used flawed methods to determine guilt and credibility.

Pike’s letter made him the first of many who began attacking the witch trials, eventually bringing them to an end. He died in 1706.

Memorial to Robert Pike in Salisbury, Mass.

John Greenleaf Whittier immortalized Robert Pike’s stand against Quaker persecution. In the poem, How the Women Went from Dover, the word of justice Pike are recorded:

Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;
Come what will of it, all men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
For whipping women in Salisbury town!

This story last updated in 2022.

Images: Memorial to Robert Pike By Ricky Pike – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22303717

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John Greenleaf Whittier and the Real Maud Muller

New England’s Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote the sentimental and melancholy story of Maud Muller in 1854. The poem, one of his best known, tells of Maud Muller, a beautiful farmer’s daughter, and a judge who happens to meet her one day while out riding.

After Maud gives the judge a drink of water, the two have a pleasant chat. As the judge rides off, he ponders how wonderful life could be as a country farmer with Maud Muller as his wife. He imagines his days filled with gentle breezes and the sounds of lowing cattle, not bickering lawyers.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Similarly, as she returns to raking hay she considers how pleasant life could be as the judge’s wife, with the comfort of a good income and a charming husband.

Both go on with their lives, marrying unhappily and forever regretting that they didn’t pursue their attraction.

The themes of the poem – regret and class distinctions interfering with the course of true love – made the poem one of Whittier’s most popular and enduring works.

The poems penultimate couplet is familiar even today.

Of all sad words of tongue and pen
The saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’

The tale would be adapted for films and songs. The Maud Muller character would appear in paintings and prints, and she showed up in advertisements for products as diverse as tobacco and baking powder.

An 1868 painting of Maud Muller by John G. Brown (Library of Congress)

Whittier’s fellow poet Bret Harte even wrote a parody of the poem called Mrs. Judge Jenkins. It was one of many parodies of the story. In Harte’s version, the Judge and Maud Muller actually do marry, and they live unhappily ever after. Harte’s take on the topic of romantic regret:

If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see:
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”

Maud Muller

And who was the real Miss Muller with her lifelong heartache?

Well, she was real but the heartache was purely fabricated. Whittier explained he did meet a young farm girl in bare feet raking hay. He found her by the road between South Berwick and York, Maine. He and his sister had taken a summer outing and stopped their horse by a brook. They then rested in the shade of an apple tree and chatted with the lovely girl.

After that, Whittier let his imagination do the rest. As for the name Maud Muller, it was inspired by that of a Hessian soldier who had deserted and settled in the United States after the American Revolution.

This story last updated in 2023.

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Eight Things You Didn’t Know About the Pumpkin (But Want To)

If the English colonists knew how much pumpkin they’d eat when they got to New England, they might have had second thoughts about coming.

That’s not to dismiss the pumpkin’s many fine qualities. But it’s just that some colonists got sick of eating the fruit they called pompion, especially during hard winters.

For many, pompions made the difference between starvation and survival. Colonists grew them easily and in abundance, and they could store pumpkins all winter.

A colonial cook could do just about anything with a pompion. She could make them into pies, stews, tarts, soups and puddings. Or she could boil them, roast them, fry them or mash them. She could also dry the seeds and salt them.

Here are eight other things you may not know about pompions.

1. The Pumpkin Song

The early colonists ate so much pompion they included it in the first American folk song, New England Annoyances, or Forefathers Song:

Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies;
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone!

(Read the lyrics to the whole song here.)

The Pumpkin Patch by Winslow Homer

2. Pompkinheads

Much as Wisconsinites are known as ‘cheeseheads,’ New Englanders were called ‘Pompkins.’ ‘Pompkinshire’ described ‘Boston and its dependencies,’ according to Francis Grose in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published in London in 1796. In a letter to the editor of American Farmer in 1833, the writer stated he had “traveled through the ‘Land of Steady Habits,’ or ‘Pumpkin Dominion’ (I mean the New England States).” And a biographer of Horace Greeley described him as belonging ‘to the nasal, angular, psalm-singing, pumpkin-growing generation.’

Pinchot Sycamore with pumpkin

3. Provocative and Windy

Pumpkin is a diuretic, as a 17^th century traveler named John Josselyn pointed out. In Josselyn’s 1671 book, New-England’s Rarities, he published one of the oldest surviving pumpkin recipes. “It provokes Urine extreamly,” wrote Josselyn (he was right), and ‘is very windy’ {it isn’t). (For a stewed pumpkin recipe, click here.)

4. Large Yellow Pumpkin

Henry David Thoreau likely grew the first giant pumpkin in America. He wrote in his book Wild Fruit that in the spring of 1857: “I planted six seeds sent from the Patent Office and labelled, I think, Potiron Jaune Grosse – Large Yellow Pumpkin (or Squash). Two came up and one has become a pumpkin which weighed 123 ½ pounds. The other bore four weighing together 186 ¼ pounds. The big pumpkin ‘took a premium at the Middlesex Show’ that fall.”

Henry David Thoreau

5. Abigail Adams

The Pilgrims at Plimoth Plantation likely ate stewed or baked pompion, rather than pompion pie. But pumpkin pie came into its own in the late 18^th century, and Abigail Adams had a recipe for it. She used molasses rather than sugar, which made the pie a bit tart.

Though the Adamses didn’t celebrate the modern Thanksgiving, they did celebrate Forefather’s Day in late November. Abigail may have served her pumpkin pie then.

For updated versions of Abigail’s recipe, click here.

Abigail Adams, 1766 (Benjamin Blythe)

6. Healthy Eating

Pumpkins have many health benefits, which may be why they kept the early colonists alive. Native Americans used them to treat urinary infections (see John Josselyn) and intestinal worms.

Pumpkins have lots of: fiber, which can lower blood pressure; Vitamin A, which aids vision; Vitamin C; potassium, which balances electrolytes; and beta-carotene, which may help prevent cancer. Their seeds also have a variety of antioxidants, which can reduce inflammation. They are linked to a reduced risk of cancer and they’re high in magnesium, which reduces blood pressure. They’re also loaded with tryptophan, which promotes sleep. And they may improve insulin regulation in diabetics.

7. Illuminated Vegetable

People probably made the first jack o’lanterns from turnips or mangelwurzels, a kind of beet. Making jack o’lanterns at Halloween started in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. The illuminated vegetables supposedly warded off evil spirits or represented supernatural spirits. The custom then spread to England. Then it came to America, where John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem in 1807 about carving pumpkins.

The word ‘jack o’lantern’ originally described will-o-the-wisp, or strange light flickering over peat bogs.

Modern carving of a Cornish Jack-o’-Lantern made from a turnip.

8. Connecticut Pumpkin

The Connecticut Field Pumpkin, one of the oldest in existence, has been the standard carving pumpkin since 1871. Jack Howden developed a variety of it, called the Howden, which has a more symmetrical shape. It then got its name from the place where the original was found: Connecticut.

Connecticut Field Pumpkin

Images: Connecticut Field Pumpkin, By HalfGig – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28513830. Vintage pumpkin postcard by Dave licensed under Creative Commons 2.0. Cross-section By Sarbjit Bahga – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75977115. Carved turnip By Bodrugan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22472756. This story last updated in 2022.

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