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"Where Magazine Street ends in Central
square stand the ruins of the Cambridgeport Baptist Church recently
destroyed by fire the second time.
Strange sounds are heard at night by
persons who pass the ruined building—low moans and cries of intense agony,
that rise to weird shrieks and die away in long-drawn sighs.
These unearthly sounds increase in frequency as
the work of clearing away the ruin progresses, and old residents remember
that the same sounds were heard after the burning of the old church some
sixteen years ago, beginning as soon as the work of rebuilding started, and
increasing until the cornerstone was laid, when they ceased altogether.
During that ceremony a rather
strange incident occurred. As the stone was being lowered into place a spark
of fire was struck out in some unaccountable way and communicated to the
documents placed under the stone, but the block was quickly lowered to put
the flames out. When the stone was raised the other day there was nothing
under it but a little heap of ashes, and it is a curious coincidence that
the same thing was noticed when the cornerstone of the old church was raised.
Various theories have been put
forward to account for these things, and the local papers have attempted to
solve the mystery, but without success.
A few evenings ago I returned from
Boston shortly after midnight, and, getting off the horse-car at Central
square, turned my steps toward the church in company with an acquaintance,
an old man who has lived in Cambridge all his life. As we approached the
the ruin, its picturesque appearance struck us both, and we stopped to gaze
upon it.
The massive belfry tower and the
sharp gable-end of the chapel cast heavy shadows across the street, flecked
with patches of grayish light that struggled through the gothic windows. The
broken outline of the walls against the cloudy sky were dim and uncertain,
and the charred timber remaining upright upon the chapel, where the smaller
spire had been, added to the strange effect of the ruined pile.
As we stood gazing upon the picture
and listening to the sighing of the wind through the leafless branches of
the stately elms, a low moaning cry arose and seemed to hover in the air
above us, mingling with the sighing of the breeze and puzzling the ear to
locate the spot from whence it came. With one impulse we moved toward the
church and halted in the shadow of the tower, striving to locate in vain to
trace the sound to its source.
There was something human and yet
unearthly in that cry, like the wail of a lost spirit or a ghost in exile,
and as my companion merely nodded his head and muttered, "Yes, it is the
same," I turned to him for an explanation. "Sit down here on the step and I
will tell you all I know about it," said he, and I obeyed in silence.
In the chill night air, in the
shadow of the ruins with that uncanny music of another world floating around
and above us like a ghostly accompaniment, I listened to the old man's
story.
"You must remember that, although I
am an old man, the incidents I am told about relate occurred long before my
time, and were told to me by my grandfather, who was a Revolutionary
soldier, and, indeed, he must have heard the story from the lips of older
men.
It was away back in the early days
of Massachusetts colony, when witches were burned and Quakers hanged in this
goodly Commonwealth, and the spot where we are now sitting was covered with
brambles and wild undergrowth.
Down towards the river, in a
secluded grove of pines, was a little cabin occupied by a solitary and
singular old woman, who was looked upon with awe and aversion by the simple
people of the town. What sorrows had driven Ann Hopkins to isolate herself
from her kind none knew for certain, but from various old records and
manuscripts a portion of her history has been traced.
She was once the most beautiful girl
in the settlement and of course had many lovers, but there was one upon whom
she looked with special favor, and who was regarded by his rivals with
intense hatred. In one of the Indian wars her lover shouldered his
flint-lock and marched away to battle with the wily and cruel foe of the
white man, but beside him walked yet one more cruel and malignant, one who
could find no road to happiness that did not lead over his grave.
Well, the lover never came back, but
his rival the companion in arms returned and told how he had fallen into an
ambuscade and lost his life, adding to his talk a supplication for the hand
of Ann Hopkins.
But his unreasoning passion defeated
his purpose, for she caught a glimpse through his ruffled collar a ribbon
that held the token she had given her lover, and in an instant her woman's
heart told her the dreadful story. This was the blow that unsettled her
reason and made here shun the society of mankind.
As time rolled on and her sad story
was forgotten, her cabin came to be regarded as the abode of evil spirits,
and children were taught to avoid the malign influence of her gaze.
So long as they left her alone she
was satisfied, but one spring there came a strange sickness among the
people, and being unable to account for it in any other way they whispered
that Mother Hopkins must be at the bottom of it, and it was not long before
one was found to openly denounce her as a witch.
Circumstances that had passed
unnoticed were brought up by accusation against her. Trueman Green's cow had
passed the cabin one night and next day gave bloody milk. The witch had
looked upon a little child and it straightway fell sick and died. The night
of the great thunder-storm, when the deacon's house was struck, strange
lights and unholy noises were seen and heard around Mother Hopkin's cabin,
and one good wife was ready to swear that the witch was on a broomstick,
followed by a troop of howling imps and black cats.
It was enough. The accusations were
her death warrant, and she was taken out upon this spot at night and
burned at the stake, the deacon applying the torch.
As the red flames leaped around her
withered form and reached out hungry tongues of fire to devour the shrinking
flesh, she looked upon the faces of the eager fanatics who were piously
rejoicing in her agony and saw among them the cruel countenance of him who
had ruined and blasted her life.
The flames cracked spitefully, the
skin upon her hands and arms shrunk, distended and burst open as the bark
peels from the birch. Higher rose the flames and hotter, and the sickening
odor of burning human flesh filled all the air. The light clothing quickly
disappeared in smoke, and the thin wasted limbs writhed and twisted in
horrible agony, clothed only in fire.
See, the cords that bound her have
burned asunder, here long hair becomes a sheet of flame, and she raises her
blackened right arm toward heaven. The red light flashes back from her
scorched eyeballs upon the throng, her cracked and bleeding lips part, and
shaking the arm from which the flesh is dropping in shreds, she shrieks a
terrible curse upon here murderers.
They shrink back in chill terror,
back into the gloom beyond the glare of the ghastly flames, and Ann Hopkins
shrieks: "The curse of fire shall be upon this spot forever!"
A moment more and a heap of
bones and ashes, a few flickering embers are all that remain. But the curse
of Ann Hopkins is here today, and who can say that it is not here spirit
that haunts the place?"
Here the old man's tale ended, and I
look up and said: "Do you think the ghost of Ann Hopkins stretched these
telegraph wires overhead that are making all this weird moaning?" and the
old man arose and gazed upon me reproachfully. |
