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Prudence Cummings Wright, Patriot Militia Commander, Captures 2 British Spies

During those confusing, intense first weeks of the American Revolution, Prudence Cummings Wright organized a ladies group — to capture Loyalist spies in Massachusetts.

Her husband had just marched off to the Siege of Boston in the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. So had the husbands of most of the other ladies.

Rumors flew that British spies were passing information from Canada to Boston through the town of Pepperell, Mass.

She decided to do something about it — even if one of the spies was a blood relation.

Prudence Cummings Wright

Prudence Cummings Wright was born Nov. 26, 1740, in Hollis, N.H., the daughter of Prudence and Samuel Cummings, the town clerk for 22 years. She had two sisters and three brothers, two of whom were Loyalists.

Prudence was a patriot. An ardent one.

She married another patriot, David Wright, in 1761. They lived in Pepperell, Mass., the next town over from Hollis, about 20 miles northwest of Concord. He had joined the militia as a private.

They had 11 children, though two of their children died young: six-year-old Mary died of fever on July 1, 1774, and on March 11, 1775, Liberty died. Prudence Cummings Wright, bereft, returned home to her parents in New Hampshire for comfort.

While there, she overheard her brother Samuel talk to his friend Leonard Whiting, a British army officer, about passing information to the British.

Prudence returned to Pepperell and gathered the women of the town. Then a 35-year-old mother of five, she organized 30 or 40 of them into a militia called ‘Mrs. David Wright’s Guard.’ The youngest, Elizabeth Hobart, was only 17.

Farm Implements

The women dressed in their husbands’ clothes and carried whatever they could for weapons. As the men had probably taken muskets with them, the women probably used farm implements such as pitchforks.

The women elected Prudence their leader, and she appointed Sarah Shattuck as her lieutenant. The women patrolled the roads leading into town.

Nehemiah Jewett Bridge, successor to the one the ladies’ militia staked out. Courtesy Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey.

They knew Jewett’s Bridge over the Nashua River was the only way through Pepperell. The Loyalists would have to cross it on their way to Boston.

Susan J. Smith, writing for the Pepperell Historical Commission, described what happened.

“Then they waited at the bridge, into the night, shielding the lantern, totally silent until two horsemen approached from the north,” she wrote. “Taking advantage of surprise Prudence burst upon them with lantern bright demanding to know their identity and business. Her brother Samuel knew the depth of his sister’s commitment to the cause and immediately turned tail avoiding possible fatal injury.

“Leonard Whiting pushed forward, believing he couldn’t be stopped by a bunch of women. He was wrong of course. Both were dragged off their mounts and searched. Dispatches intended for the British were found. The men were escorted to Solomon Roger’s tavern. There the prisoners were detained for the rest of night before being taken to Groton and the Committee of Safety in the morning.”

The committee gave the two men their liberty once they promised to leave the colony. Prudence never saw Samuel, her favorite brother, again.

Finally, Recognition

The women’s militia disbanded after that exciting night.

The town couldn’t pay the women for what they’d done until town meeting on March 19, 1777. Then Pepperell voted to pay Wright’s guard for their service. They referred to the volunteer ladies’ militia as “Leonard Whiting’s Guard.”

Prudence Cummings Wright died Dec. 2, 1823. Jewett’s Bridge has been replaced several times, and a covered bridge now stands at the crossing, along with a stone marker memorializing Prudence Cummings Wright.

With thanks to An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields edited by Lisa Tendrich Frank. This story about Prudence Cummings Wright was updated in 2022.

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6 of the Oldest Houses in New England

To make a claim for the oldest houses in New England inevitably invites controversy. The region has plenty of very old houses, but few of them survive intact. Some took several years to build. How does one date them, then: From the start of construction, or completion?

Some very old houses have been remodeled over the years. One in Rhode Island burned down during King Philip’s War, while a wealthy pop star restored and modernized another. One is the oldest stone house, and one is the oldest timber frame house.

The New England Historical Society has surveyed the field of oldest houses, and we’ve come up with six that have valid claims as the oldest in each state. We realize some may beg to differ….

Henry Whitfield House

People claim the Henry Whitfield House in Guilford as the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England. You can find it at 248 Old Whitfield Street, down the street from the town green.

Puritans built it in 1639 for their minister, Henry Whitfield, a descendant of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The first settlers of Guilford began building the home in September 1639, shortly after they arrived. But they started too late in the year, and they only finished the great hall and north fireplace. They completed the house in the summer of 1640 with the help of the Menunkatuck Indians, who carried stone from nearby quarries on barrows.

The walls measure nearly two feet thick, held together with mortar made of yellow clay and crushed oyster shells.

Henry Whitfield, his wife Dorothy Shaeffe Whitfield and their nine children lived in the house. The Puritans also used it for religious services before they built their church, as a fort and as a meetinghouse for Town Meeting.

In 1660, Roman Catholics used the house as a chapel.

The owner remodeled the house in 1868, and it opened to the public in 1899 as Connecticut’s first museum. It was restored in 1902-04 and in the 1930s.

Today the Henry Whitfield House is a museum. For more information about visiting, click here.

John Bray House

The John Bray House in Kittery qualifies as one of the oldest in Maine because it was built on the site where wealthy shipwright John Bray first built a dwelling in 1662. He also kept a home in England.

The current house, a 2-1/2 story wooden frame building, was probably not built before 1720. Parts of the original house were incorporated into it. It’s set on the south side of Pepperell Road (Maine State Route 103), on a site overlooking the Piscataqua River.

The Bray House is on the far left.

Daryl Hall of the pop duo Hall & Oates bought the house in 2008 and restored it, saving it from destruction. He later sold it for $1.6 million.

Hall saw an ad in the Newtown, Conn., Antiques and Arts Weekly, that said the house was up for auction. He sent his architect to look at it. Then he sent his assistant to buy it. After 15 minutes of bidding, he owned it.

Hall restores antique houses as a hobby. He restored houses in London and Upstate New York.

The Fairbanks House

Fairbanks House, photo courtesy Library of Congress

The Fairbanks House in Dedham, Mass., is said to be the oldest timber-framed house in North America. Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks, Puritans from Yorkshire, England, had the house built for themselves and their six children. Tree ring dating confirms the Fairbanks built the house in the late 1630s and early 1640s. English carpenters from East Anglia built the house, which never had a mortgage on it.

The house passed down to the Fairbanks family through eight generations, and the Fairbanks family still owns the property. One of Jonathan and Grace’s descendants, Charles Warren Fairbanks, served as Teddy Roosevelt’s vice president and had a city in Alaska (Fairbanks) named after him. Another Fairbanks, Jason, was hanged for murder in 1801.

The Fairbanks family frequently holds reunions in which they dress in Puritan costume.

Yale professor Abbott Lowell Cummings wrote “No other house of the mid-17th century in New England has survived in such unbelievable unspoiled condition.”

The Fairbanks House, now a historic house museum, opens May through October. For more information click here.

Richard Jackson House

The Richard Jackson House, New Hampshire’s oldest, sits across the Piscataqua River from the oldest house in Maine. Located at 76 Northwest St. in Portsmouth, Richard Jackson built it in 1664 in the English style, but Americanized with an extravagant use of wood.

Richard Jackson, a mariner, farmer and cooper, outlived his two sons, dying in 1718. The house was divided in 1727 among his daughter-in-law and her children. Five generations of men named Nathaniel Jackson owned and occupied the house from 1727 to 1897.

The fifth Nathaniel Jackson bequeathed the house to his daughter, Mary E. Jackson and her son, also named Nathaniel. They rented the house to an African-American couple, Clarence and Belle Tilley. She was believed to have come to New Hampshire via the Underground Railroad. The house in 1924 was sold to William Sumner Appleton, founder of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England). He allowed Belle to continue living there.

He restored the property, removing modern modification and replacing the windows with leaded diamond paned windows typical of the era. Appleton’s restoration became the basis for Historic New England’s preservation philosophy of keeping generations of changes intact.

The public may now visit the house, a museum. For information about visiting, click here.

Stephen Northup House

In 1645, Stephen Northup came from England at about the age of 15, and in 1660 he started building the house now at 99 Featherbed Lane in North Kingstown, R.I.

He first lived in Providence, where he served as town sergeant in 1660. Five years earlier Providence Town Meeting granted him 25 acres. Since he sold land in Providence in 1662, he probably finished the North Kingstown house that year and moved into it.

Most of the original house probably burned in King Philip’s War (1675-76), along with everything south of Providence. Northup then rebuilt the house, possibly with parts from the 1660 building. Additions were made around 1712 and 1850.

The southwestern portion of the home is original to the 1660 building standards with additions made around 1712 and 1850. The present home may have portions of its current form rooted in the year 1660.

Northup married, had six known children and lived until at least 1687. He built the first dam at the Gilbert Stuart home, according to a family researcher. The Northups owned or operated the gristmill there.

Stephen Northup’s great-grandson, Capt. Henry Northup, who freed his slave Mintus in 1797. Mintus took Northup as his last name, and had a freeborn son, Solomon Northup, the subject of the Academy Award winning film 12 Years a Slave.

Stephen Northup also has a descendant in Stephen Douglas, who famously debated Abraham Lincoln and lost to him in the 1860 election for U.S. president.

The Northup House now belongs to a private owner.

Mooar-Wright House

The oldest house in Vermont – or at least the oldest continuously occupied house — is believed to be the enigmatic Mooar-Wright House in Pownal, the far southwestern town in the state. No documentation exists of its early ownership. According to local legend, the house was built as a tavern by Charles Wright in 1762. Others speculate Dutch settlers built the house thinking it belonged to the New York colony.

People sometimes call the house the Defoe-Mooar-Wright House. Some historians believe John Defoe, a Loyalist imprisoned in 1776, built it. He escaped and fought on the side of the British at the Battle of Bennington. Patriots captured him again, but he escaped again to Canada. Other historians believe Charles Wright built the house in 1765.

The house has a Dutch frame around a typically English layout. In 2009, the Rev. Gregory Dickson bought the house intending to renovate it, according to the Bennington Banner. Its previous owner, Margaret Lillie, used part of the house as a law office. Both belong to the Pownal Historical Society.

Members of the Mooar family are the last owners anyone in Pownal can remember. They visited the home in the summer during the 1950s.

Photos: Henry Whitfield House By Dmadeo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6013719; Stephen Northrup House By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20434112. Bray House By Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37099250. This story about New England’s oldest houses was updated in 2022.

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Duc D’Anville Sails for New England in 1746 to Burn the Town of Boston

In 1745, William Pepperrell led an expedition to Acadia that stunned the French government. The French king, Louis XV, ordered the Duc D’Anville to retaliate.

Pepperrell, his men and a contingent of British naval vessels had captured the French fortress at Louisbourg. Louisbourg, a key fort for the French, protected the mouth of the St. Lawrence River so essential to Canadian trade.

William Pepperrell

Furious, Louis XV decided that Louisbourg must be retaken. Not only that, all of New England must be conquered. And Boston, which celebrated Pepperrell’s victory, must be be bombed and reduced to ashes.

Those were his orders to Jean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, or as he was known by his royal title, Duc D’Anville.

The Duc D’Anville had orders to assemble the largest fleet ever to sail to North America (up until the American Revolution) and retake the region. He began provisioning 64 ships (some estimates say 66) in Brest. He also rounded up the 11,000-man army that would carry out the mission.

Why Louisbourg?

The reason Pepperrell attacked Louisbourg in the first place — and risked retaliation from the Duc D’Anville — went back many years.

The French province of Acadia had been perilously positioned for decades before Louisbourg fell. The British had established a strong toehold in the area in 1710 with the capture of Annapolis Royal, originally a French settlement in Nova Scotia. Despite repeated attempts, the French couldn’t recapture it.

The capture of Louisbourg, the most celebrated English victory in all the French and Indian wars.

When the on-again, off-again wars with the French and Indians resumed in 1744, the British decided to expand their holdings by taking Louisbourg. New Englanders were only too happy to join the fight, as they viewed the French as a hostile threat to the Georges Bank fishing grounds.

And over the years, New Englanders had built up the reputation of Louisbourg far beyond reality, exaggerating its wealth and the strength of its fort.

The fall of Louisbourg seemed almost miraculous, and Pepperrell was celebrated throughout New England. However, as word began to spread that the French planned retaliation, the New Englanders grew fearful that the British would not protect them.

Disillusion

The soldiers who had conquered Louisbourg were somewhat disillusioned with their victory. They had been ordered not to loot the town. For the most part, they didn’t harass the townspeople as they loaded their belongings onto ships bound for France.

When the soldiers did move into the city, they found it far from the seat of elegance they imagined. And making matters worse, the long siege required to take the town had left virtually every house battered with cannon shot and explosions.

The men made the best of the situation. For a while they prospered by leaving the French flag flying over the fort to lure French ships into the port. That way, they could seize them easily as war trophies and sell their valuable cargoes.

Privateer Boscawen engaging a Fleet of French Ships in 1745

Duc D’Anville

Gradually word spread of the Duc D’Anville’s planned return, and the forces braced for an overwhelming assault. In Brest, however, D’Anville struggled.

In April of 1746 he dispatched two ships to scout the area around Louisbourg. These advance scouts would help him direct his full forces when they arrived soon after.

Duc D’Anville

But his planned departure in early May didn’t happen. He shad a hard time getting his suppliers to meet their deadlines and outfit his ships. His fleet only left in late June, and a storm quickly blew the vessels back to land in Rochelle.

From there the Duc D’Anville regrouped and headed across the Atlantic again. The fleet’s troubles grew only worse. Another storm on the open ocean cost the expedition even more vessels. Lightning exploded the munitions on one ship, killing sailors. Others were lost to the heavy waves.

Meanwhile, the prolonged voyage took its toll in other ways. Food supplies began running low and typhoid, influenza, scurvy and other diseases began decimating the force.

The crew managed the grim daily exercise of burying the dead. They sewed the corpses inside canvas and weighted them down with a cannon ball before dropping them over the side. Morale was awful.

Nova Scotia

By late September, the invasion force arrived in Chebucto Bay (now Halifax Harbour), Nova Scotia. Two ships arrived first, carrying the Duc D’Anville. D’Anville had been separated from the majority of his forces. The two ships arrived at the Nova Scotia coast with no knowledge of the terrain or the ports. He fortuitously captured a local vessel and hired the captain to pilot his vessels to safety.

Halifax Harbour from the air

When the captain decided to renege on the deal, he was told he would either pilot the ships to safety or be thrown overboard with his legs bound in irons. He relented.

In port at last, D’Anville didn’t know the fate of the remaining vessels, and he faced the despairing thought that perhaps they had all perished in the storms.

Death of the Duc D’Anville

In this frame of mind, D’Anville died on Sept. 27, 1746. Detractors suggested he had poisoned himself rather than face the consequences of his disastrous voyage. Others believed a stroke killed him, as he had suffered several seizures.

Shortly after his death, the remainder of D’Anville’s fleet did indeed arrive in Chebucto Bay. Some 40 to 50 ships tumbled into port after one final storm tossed them about.

They were filled with sick and hungry men. One captain told of his crew nearly resorting to cannibalism. Command had fallen to D’Anville’s second-in-command Constantin-Louis Estourmel, who urged them to scrap the expedition. At a war council, however, he was overruled. Fifteen-hundred men were to be dispatched to Annapolis Royal to make an assault on that town.

Annapolis Royal in 1753 by John Hamilton

Estourmel, faced with the enormity of the challenges, attempted suicide on his sword and was relieved of command. Future Canadian governor Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière was placed in charge.

More Calamity

The calamity continued. The two scout ships that D’Anville had originally sent out had sailed the waters around Nova Scotia for months before concluding that the armada of invading ships was not coming. They turned back to France. Upon arrival the sailors on the scout ships were shocked to learn that no one knew D’Anville’s situation.

The two ships were dispatched back to Nova Scotia with further orders for the Duc D’Anville. Arriving in October, they couldn’t find the fleet.

Meanwhile, the attempt on Annapolis Royal had led nowhere. The war council met again, and this time the evidence of defeat was overwhelming. The remaining soldiers and sailors were dying off at a rapid pace. Disease had spread to the Indians, who the French relied on on for assistance. The epidemic would eventually wipe out uncounted hundreds of the local Indians. In addition, the weather was turning cold.

Action between HMS Nottingham and the Mars by Samuel Scott

Some estimated the fleet was now reduced to roughly 1,000 healthy fighting men, and some of those falling ill every day. The French force now had no hope of retaking Louisbourg, let alone conquering New England, and a war council in late October decided it must return to France.

While returning to France, one of the French vessels, Le Mars, was captured by HMS Nottingham.

Waiting for the D’Anville Expedition

As the invasion imploded in Canada, New Englanders initially knew nothing of the problems facing the French. The news reached New England that the Duc D’Anville had arrived in Nova Scotia – but the condition of his fleet was not reported.

New Englanders reacted with fear. Massachusetts Gov. William Shirley ordered 1,500 soldiers to Boston. They strengthened forts and put cannons in place. They sunk hulks in the harbor to make it difficult for invading French ships to make their way. And the city waited.

Gov. William Shirley

The governor ordered a Fast Day on October 16. The Rev. Thomas Prince famously offered up a prayer in the Old South Meeting House, “Deliver us from our enemy! Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the waters to the eastward! Raise Thy right hand. Scatter the ships of our tormentors and drive them hence. Sink their proud frigates beneath the power of Thy winds!”

When news arrived that the city was safe, the thankful New Englanders gave credit to God for keeping the Duc D’Anville and his formidable fleet away from New England.

Louisbourg, meanwhile, would return again to French control as part of a treaty between the French and British before farmers from New England resettled it in 1760.

This story about the Duc D’Anville last updated in 2021. Images: Halifax Harbour By Plismo – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7232048

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Seven Strange Facts About Colonial Funerals

New England’s early colonists paid a great deal of attention to death and funerals. Many people attended colonial funerals, and would think it strange for a town’s resident not to pay respect to an upstanding citizen by attending a funeral.

Customs at colonial funerals were quite different from today.

Many of today’s traditions, such as giving right of way to a funeral procession, stem from the earliest days of America. Other traditions from colonial funerals have died out or changed over time.

Here are seven strange practices of colonial funerals that faded away:

2 sets of pall bearers, sometimes 3

Early colonists carried the body of the deceased all the way from the funeral service to the graveyard. The older, more respected members of the community often found that a long way to carry a heavy coffin.

So two sets of men got pallbearer duty. The younger men of the community would be assigned as under bearers to carry the bier on which the coffin rested. Older men would carry the pall, which draped the casket. In cases where the graveyard was a long way off, a second set of under bearers spelled the first group.

Occasionally, the men set down the bier on a slab to rest.

Gloves, Routine Parts of Colonial Funerals

Families sent mourning gloves to people expected to attend the funeral of a departed loved one. Mourners wore the gloves during the funeral and at the graveside.

They were fashionable, respectful and, for ministers at least, plentiful. Andrew Eliot, ordained pastor of Boston’s North Church in 1742, kept a careful diary of his life. In his 32 years as a minister, he received 2,940 pairs of funeral gloves.

What did he do with them? He sold them, at least as many as he could. His diary shows a steady effort to divest himself of the gloves over the years.

Old North Church

Rings Were the Thing

The families of the deceased often created commemorative rings for their loved ones. They would be distributed to families, close friends and ministers. The rings represented a steady stream of business for goldsmiths and silversmiths.

The rings frequently had inscriptions with sayings, such as: ‘Death Parts United Hearts,’ or ‘Death Conquers All’ or ‘Prepare for Death.’ Because of the expense, mourning rings were more common at the colonial funerals of the wealthy.

The minister Andrew Eliot, in addition to collecting gloves, also had a massive ring collection. He stored it in a tankard.

Families often cherished the rings and handed them down from one generation to the next. The colonists didn’t view them as maudlin, but rather cheerful reminders of their reunion with their dead family in the afterlife.

No Sermons

While many townspeople attended colonial funerals, the services were virtually silent affairs. The earliest colonists, wishing to avoid any appearance of papistry, conducted minimalist funerals that no one could confuse with the Catholic ceremonies.

Sermons and eulogies were non-existent. Instead, the pallbearers would silently conduct the body to the graveyard. Mourners attached notes of praise for the deceased to the bier, which would be compiled and published as memorials to the deceased.

Bostonian Thomas Lechford (1590-1644) offered a description of colonial funerals in his notebooks:

At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all the neighborhood or a goodly company of them come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and then stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present.

At funerals for major civic leaders, a minister would say a few words at the grave about the man’s character. For the most part, however, interment was a silent affair. This custom began dying out in the early 1700s, however. Popular sentiment began to build behind the idea that the dearly departed should have a few well-chosen words said over his grave.

Sober Affairs, Funerals Were Not

Early New Englanders used colonial funerals as a great excuse to tie one on.

Lucius Manlius Sargent, in his collection Dealings with the Dead, noted that in early colonial funerals guests viewed the body and then proceeded to a nearby table – always provided. They could then choose liquor from a well-stocked bar.

Mourners then generally went outside and to chat until it was time to carry the coffin to the burial ground. Though rarely did colonial funerals cause drunkenness, the idea of not serving liquor would have shocked. And the bar tab could grow quite large.

The following listing represents the funeral expenses for David Porter of Hartford, who drowned in 1678. The biggest outlay: booze.

A pint of liquor for those who dived for him. – 1 shilling
A quart of liquor for those who brought him home. – 2 shillings
Two quarts of wine & 1 gallon of cider to jury of inquest. — 5 shillings
8 gallons & 3 quarts wine for funeral. – £1, 15 shillings
Barrel cider for funeral. –16 shillings
1 Coffin. –12 shillings
Winding sheet. — 18 shillings

Sargent noted the practice of serving alcohol at funerals finally petered out, saddening a great many of the older citizens.

Mourning Got Out of Hand

As the colony grew wealthier, more and more mourners received rings, scarves and gloves. The wealth or popularity of the deceased was highlighted by the number of gifts distributed or the length of the funeral bell ringing.

The showiness and expense offended Puritan leaders, and several efforts limited the practices. In 1741, the Massachusetts government decided to fine a person 50 pounds for distributing wine or rum or funeral rings. The colony also restricted gloves to pall bearers and the clergy.

In Salem, the government hoped to curb excessive bell ringing and grandiose funerals by limiting what undertakers could charge for bell-ringing. Officials also limited the number of times a bell could be rung, as well as the overall cost of organizing the funeral.

Objects, Even Houses, Were Draped

People didn’t only decorate themselves colonial funerals. In some places, they decorated objects with black crape.

In Hartford, black cloth covered all wall decorations, mirrors and pictures. Mourners closed window shutters and sometimes tied them together with black ribbon or a sash. They kept it that way for a year-long mourning period.

Following the death of Sir William Pepperell of Kittery, mourners draped his entire house.

Again, the prominence of the deceased generally dictated the size of the colonial funeral show and the quantity of black bunting used.

If you enjoyed reading this story, you may also want to read about epitaphs in New England graveyards here.

Hat tip to Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle. This story about colonial funerals was updated in 2021.

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Joseph Moody, The Colonial Minister Who Wore a Handkerchief Over His Face

The story of the Rev. Joseph Moody, who preached with a handkerchief over his face, was too good for Nathaniel Hawthorne to pass up.

The legend of the Puritan preacher in colonial Maine was passed down for generations, and Hawthorne (who lived in Maine as a teenager and young adult) got wind of it. He wrote a fictional short story about Moody called The Minister’s Black Veil..

But Joseph Moody had already written the story of his own life in a diary written in coded Latin.

Uncommonly Qualified

The real Joseph Moody was born in 1700 in York, Maine, graduated from Harvard in 1718 and died in 1753.

As the minister of the Second Church of York, he was greatly esteemed, according to an epitaph. He was also

…an excelling instance of knowledge, ingenuity, learning, piety, virtue and usefulness, was very serviceable as a school master, clerk, register, magistrate and afterwards as a minister was uncommonly qualified and spirited to do good

Illustration from ‘The Minister’s Black Veil,’ by Elenore Abbott, 1900

Joseph Moody was the son of Parson Samuel Moody, a longwinded, eccentric and irritable minister. Parson Moody served as chaplain to Sir William Pepperell’s regiment during the siege of Louisbourg in 1745.

There are several stories about when – and why – Joseph Moody wore the handkerchief over his face, as well as its color.

According to one version, he was happy for 14 years in various local jobs — as schoolmaster, York’s registrar of deeds, county clerk and judge. But his father thought he should preach, and prevailed upon the town to incorporate a second parish in York.

Preaching didn’t suit Joseph Moody. He sank into melancholy, his mind became disordered and he started wearing the black handkerchief knotted above his forehead and hanging below his chin. . As townspeople began to shun him, he became more of a recluse, wandering the churchyard at night.

According to another version, Joseph Moody was disappointed when his cousin Mary Hirst wouldn’t marry him. He grew increasingly eccentric, finally donning the black silk handkerchief. According to a third story, he killed a friend in a hunting accident and wore the handkerchief ever after. His father made him stay up all night with the body of his friend as atonement.

The Real Joseph Moody

Richard Bowen, a program specialist at the Museums of Old York, offered a fourth – and more plausible – explanation: Joseph Moody was vulnerable to depression and guilt. After years of overwork, he suffered a mental and physical breakdown when his wife and infant daughter died in childbirth.

Only during that period did he wear a white handkerchief over his face. He recovered, and his parishioners welcomed him back. He went on to become the esteemed minister described in his epitaph.

The Diary

When Joseph Moody turned 20 years old, he began to keep a diary, in code and in Latin. The book was tiny, about five inches long by three inches wide. (You can read excerpts from it here.)

His diary, later deciphered, records life on the Maine frontier. It contains news of conflicts with Indians, of pirates and of dangerous voyages by boat to Marblehead, Gloucester and Newbury in Massachusetts.

On May 25, 1723, for example, he wrote,

Tis said that Sergeant Card was beset by two Indians about 9 or 10 o’clock last night near Capt Harmon’s barn one of which fired on him and pierced the breast of his Jacket we scarce know what to think of so strange a story.

On April 5, 1724, he reported:

Several vessels lately taken by Nutt ye Pirate and kindly treated.
Joshua Elwells was taken from him.

Joseph Moody also seemed preoccupied with death, often recording only that someone had died – even as far away as Boston.

He died in 1753 at the age of 52. People said he sang hymns in his room during his last hours. Today, you can find his tombstone at the old Second Parish Burying Ground on Route 91 in York. It reads:

Although this stone may moulder into dust,
Yet Joseph Moody’s name continue must.

This story was updated in 2022.

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