Stone-Throwing Devils

The Trickster Spirits of Early New England

The early New England colonies were, in large part, intended as a utopian experiment to establish a model Christian society in preparation for Judgment Day. To guide this lofty vision the founding patriarchs cobbled together a social blueprint based on archaic Old Testament precedents and stern Calvinist church-state doctrine. The resulting “biblical commonwealths” of their design were, in stifled reality, highly regimented settlements ruled by a strict religious order and moral code. Enforced church orthodoxy dominated civic life. Neighbors regularly turned on neighbors in righteous condemnation, with even minor infractions inviting swift and often cruel punishments by authorities. And those who transgressed the established order could expect no less than to be banished, tortured or hanged.

The rigid demands of Puritan life made for a fairly bleak existence that centered around one's predestined relationship with a cold, demanding and, at times, highly erratic God. It also fostered a psychological culture of repressed volatility. For the faithful devout, it was only by the fortified sanctity and purity of their godly settlements that the dark forces of the land were kept at bay. Sacred space was safe space; a symbolic means to ward off the unknown, unpleasant and unacceptable – and when cracks appeared in this fragile edifice it triggered sudden and unpredictable outbursts, including the seemingly paranormal...

Sex, Satanism and Sacrificial Slaughter

The Fall River Cult Murders, 1979-80

The new age may have dawned in the 1960s, but brighter days never came. For many, spiritual awakening ended in existential crisis as the harsh realities of the following decade encroached on their lives. Some found refuge in communes. Others turned to drugs or diet fads. And many seekers joined the ranks of the New Religious Movement, a cluster of fringe Christian, Eastern mystic, neo-pagan and various self-help groups that claimed to offer a path to self-discovery and higher purpose. The spirit of religious revival was in the air, but not everyone was celebrating.

The inevitable backlash to these often strange and sometimes dangerous new religious sects gave rise to the "counter-cult movement." Unsurprisingly, Christian fundamentalists played a leading role. The shock propaganda of “counter-cultists” successfully tapped into the social anxieties of the day and found broad support among concerned parents. With more women joining the workforce and teenagers left to their own devices there was a new level of fear and uncertainty within the nuclear family unit. The threat of one’s children falling victim to some crazed cult seemed very real. Or so the public was led to believe.

From within this social context a cultural phenomenon known as ‘The Satanic Panic’ was born.¹ Fueled by religious fanatics, quack psychiatrists and the tabloid media, it was claimed that a vast Satanic criminal network existed throughout the country. Organized devil-worshipers were responsible for any number of heinous acts – including kidnapping, child abuse, animal mutilation, rape, torture, human sacrifice and cannibalism – all of which was taking place under our very noses.

The Great Dying

New England's Coastal Plague, 1616-1619

“[How] strangely they have decreased by the Hand of God... and it hath generally been observed that where the English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them.” – Daniel Denton, early American colonist

The popular Pilgrim myth involves a persecuted group of Christian reformers who fled England in order to worship freely in the New World. In a narrative that finds parallels with the Israelite exodus from Egypt, these chosen people were guided by the hand of God in a perilous journey across the Atlantic in search of what would later be described by Puritan leader John Winthrop as “a beacon of religious light, a model of spiritual promise, a city upon a hill."¹ Through heroic struggle and an unshakable commitment to their faith, they were able to conquer the vast New England wilderness, tame the hostile natives and expand the glory and dominion of the Christian God in these new lands.²

In reality, the promised land wasn't exactly a Canaan that needed to be conquered. The area that would become Plymouth Colony was essentially a ghost town by the time that the Pilgrims stepped foot off the Mayflower. Deserted villages and untended fields dotted the landscape, with caches of crops, tools and other supplies hastily left behind... along with the skeletal remains of the former inhabitants. A few years prior, the entire coastal region had been ravaged by a mysterious disease that wiped out most of the native Wampanoag and neighboring Massachusetts, Pennacook, Nauset, Permaquid and Abenaki populations.

For the English settlers, this was all part of a divine plan. Providence had taken the form of a "miraculous pestilence" that had swept the land clean so a new Christian society could be established. Thomas Morton, an early colonial merchant, praised the epidemic that had recently depopulated the land, leaving it “much the more fit for the English Nation to inhabit in, and erect in it Temples to the glory of God.”³

The Infernal Hole and the Unsettled Dead

The Cursed Project to Build America's First Subway System

The Boston commute has always been a nightmare, but by the later 19th century it had reached its high mark. The city was experiencing a massive population surge that pushed it's transportation infrastructure to the very limits of sustainability. Hundreds of new immigrants were arriving daily and settling in the already over-populated inner neighborhoods. Tremont Street, the main thoroughfare, was a near-constant gridlock of foot traffic, horse carts and electric streetcars. The surrounding maze of narrow, winding streets became impassable. And the various steam-powered train lines that carried suburban commuters into the city each day created a tangled web of crosstown and inner city routes that added to the chaos.¹

The breaking point would be The Great Blizzard of 1888, one of the most severe snowstorms to ever hit the United States.² The massive storm wreaked havoc up and down the East Coast and completely paralyzed the city of Boston. Trains and street cars were immobilized by massive 50-foot snow drifts, telegraph lines went down, and hundreds of people were stranded for days without food, water or heat. Passengers trapped in the railroad cars burned the seats to stay warm. Others attempted to brave the freezing temperatures and 80mph wind gusts and tried walking home on foot but were quickly disoriented, or else stuck in the drifts. Some froze to death. In the aftermath of this catastrophe it became clear that the city needed to modernize its public transit.

The city responded by forming the Boston Transit Commission, which tasked a team of engineers to design an inter-connected transit system that would include both elevated rail lines and an underground subway network.³ The Tremont Street Subway line would be the first phase of this network, and include three stations – Park Street, Boylston and Public Garden (now Arlington Street). When the construction was finally completed, it would be celebrated as an engineering first in the United States.

But there is a dark side to this project that seldom gets mentioned in the history books.

Haunted Trees of New England

New England is steeped in ghostly legends and folklore, with an exceptionally high number of haunted sites reported throughout the region. There are houses, bars or inns that played host to tragic events where tortured souls still reside. Desolate roads or old cemeteries where lonely spirits walk the night. And whole areas where cursed villages were abandoned or great battles were fought, charged with the residual energy of the past. There are also haunted trees.

The belief in haunted trees goes back through history and across cultural boundaries. For the ancient Celts, sacred trees were considered to be a link with the supernatural world. It's a English folk belief that carried through the ages. The various native tribes indigenous to the area had their own, remarkably similar, beliefs regarding the spirits and divinities that occupied the untamed forest spaces. And the superstitious Puritans who settled these lands lived in constant fear of the dark forces that lurked just beyond their village borders...

The land remembers.