DUNGEON ROCK, LYNN.
BY FRANK P. HARRIMAN.
All over the land there are localities to which, in some way or other, have become attached names that indicate something of the supernatural, or such as are intended to excite apprehension. What stout heart does not stand dismayed before a real dungeon? A prison under ground is something awful to contemplate. Whose hair does not stand on end at the thought of possible confinement in a dark, damp, cold stone prison-house, with rusty-hinged or even sealed doors, where no window opens to the light of day; where no friendly voice is ever heard; where liberation is impossible, and where, cursed with the remainder of life, one is doomed to a miserable existence till the mortal and the immortal separate? Deliver us from such terrors as these!
In visiting Dungeon Rock, however, like most places of a similar character, we find there is no especial reason for fear, notwithstanding the indicative name, and the many blood-curdling traditions connected therewith.
It was a fine autumn day, when, together with some friends, we mustered courage to pay our respects to this now famous spot. We found our way thither from the city of Lynn by horse-cars, a part of the way by a barge and on foot. The driver of the barge, like most drivers of such vehicles, displayed no small amount of scientific driving. Why it is that almost all scientific driving generally results in some mishap, we are unable to determine. But we conclude that the particular science to which we refer is usually engendered by the driver having his elbow crooked at some bar before the journey commences. On all such occasions stops are quite common; branches of trees are not avoided, and they threaten to destroy our best suits, or brush us altogether from our seats; the brakes do not work; the traces get unhitched; an immense whip is flourished and cracked; the horses become unmanageable; frightened women in a high key scream "Mercy!" and the ride becomes not only dangerous but unendurable.
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After a ride up hill and down over a winding road skirted by forest trees on either hand, we were left in the woods at the foot of a steep hill. The remainder of our way was by a path of the most primitive nature, something, we should judge, like that of the native Pawtuckets, with the exception of the rapid ascent, for the natives were wiser than we in laying out their highways, for they avoided both hills and swamps. Shortly we found ourselves in the immediate vicinity of Dungeon Rock, which is situated on the summit of a granite-capped eminence overlooking the surrounding country. Quite a concourse of people had assembled on this occasion, apparently to spend the day and have a "good time" generally. We should have said before that this is considered a kind of Mecca for those who hold to the Spiritual faith. There are several buildings which seem to have been dropped down without much order, and a large platform furnished with plank seats. An entertainment had been furnished, though for what purpose or by whom we knew not. There was some fine singing, in solos, duets, and quartettes, and a slender little girl showed a good lip, large lungs, and nimble fingers on a silver cornet, out of which she fired repeated volleys of sputtering jigs at the overelated spectators.
Lynn's first historian, who dealt somewhat in tradition, among other things, says, in substance, "early in 1658, on a pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the river a considerable distance, when they landed and proceeded directly into the woods. They had been noticed by only a few individuals; but in those early times, when the people were surrounded by danger and easily susceptible of alarm, such an incident was well calculated to awaken suspicion, and in the course of the evening the intelligence was conveyed to many houses. In the morning the vessel was gone, and no trace of her or her crew could be found." He further states that on going into the foundry connected with the then existing iron-works, a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, hatchets, and other articles of iron, were ordered to be made and left at a certain place, for which a return in silver would be found. "This was done" (so says the historian), and the mysterious contractors fulfilled their part of the obligation, but were undiscovered. Some months afterward the four men returned and made their abode in what has, to this day, been called Pirates' Glen, where they built a hut and dug a well. It is supposed that they buried money in this vicinity, but our opinion is that most of the money then, as now, was kept above ground. Their retreat being discovered, one of the king's cruisers appeared on the coast, and three of them were arrested and carried to England and probably executed. The other, whose name was Thomas Veal, escaped to a rock in the woods, in which was a spacious cavern, where the pirates had previously deposited some of their plunder. There the fugitive practised the trade of shoemaking. He continued his residence here till the great earthquake of 1658, when the top of the rock was unloosed and crashed down into the mouth of the cavern, enclosing the unfortunate man in what has been called to this day Pirates' Dungeon or Dungeon Rock. We cannot vouch for the complete truthfulness of this historian's statements.
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In 1852, one Hiram Marble purchased from the city of Lynn a lot of woodland in which Dungeon Rock is situated. He came, as was claimed, influenced by Spiritualistic revelations.
Directed by the spirit of the departed pirate Tom Veal, Mr. Marble commenced to excavate from this very hard porphyry rock in search of a subterranean vault, into which had been poured, as was supposed, the ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound of the hammer and the drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests, and then all was hushed.
Hiram Marble died in his lonely residence at Dungeon Rock, November 10, 1868, aged sixty-five. He was widely known for his perseverence in the work in which he was engaged. Sixteen years he labored without a realization of his ardent hopes. He remained a Spiritualist to the last, and those of a like faith were invited to the funeral services which took place on the day following his death.
"His faith has not been without works, nor his courage barren of results, and centuries hence, if his name and identity should be lost, the strange labor may be referred to some recluse Cyclops who had strayed hither from mystic lands."
"Edwin Marble, who succeeded his father in the strange search for treasure, died January 16, 1880, aged forty-eight years. He was buried near the foot of the rock on the southwestern slope, it having been his express desire to be interred near the scene of his hopeful, though fruitless, labors."
The broken rock, which they removed solely with their own hands, makes quite a mountain of itself.
We decided to enter the place where so many years of fruitless toil had been spent. A wooden gate on rusty hinges opened and we passed in, and the gate closed behind us.
The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all the way through solid rock that had remained undisturbed for centuries on centuries, until the work of this ill-directed Marble commenced. Down, down we went, out of the warm sunlight into this cold, damp subterranean passage, winding hither and thither, till we reached an ice-cold pool of water which is constantly being supplied from some hidden fountain, and, were it not removed by pumps, would fill the place to the brim.
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This rock-hewn passage is lighted with lanterns hung at the various turns, so that the descent and ascent, notwithstanding the way is rough, can be made with safety. Though the day was warm outside, we were in a very short time chilled through and glad to make our escape. How these men could have endured many long years of labor in this vast refrigerator, and retain any degree of health, is a problem. Faith and zeal doubtless kept the blood moving through their veins. It is said that a knife, or dirk, and a pair of scissors of very ancient origin, which we were shown, were found by Mr. Marble in a fissure of this solid rock. That they were left there by pirates, years on years ago, no sane man can for a moment believe. The probabilities are that some one deceived Mr. Marble.
When this misguided adventurer commenced this work, he was possessed of about fifteen hundred dollars, which he expended long before his death, after which, he depended upon the charities of those who sympathized with him in his undertaking.
In one of the buildings named above, there are several portraits of pirates and their wives, drawn, it is said, by some one under the influence of the spirits, in a marvelously short space of time. Several wives of Captain Kidd are among them.
Captain Kidd must have been a remarkable man, to want more than one such character for a companion, provided the likenesses are true to nature; at any rate we are not at all surprised that he was a pirate, under the circumstances.
To illustrate how Mr. Marble professed to have been directed, we give the following correspondence with the spirits:--
Mr. Marble wrote: "I wish Veal or Harris would tell what move to make next."
This query was covered by fifteen thicknesses of paper and then the medium was called in, and, merely feeling of the exterior of the paper, wrote what the spirit of Veal revealed through him. Captain Harris, named in the communication, is supposed to have been the leader of the piratical band.
Response of Veal: "My Dear Charge,--You solicit me or Captain Harris to advise you as to what to next do. Well, as Harris says he has always had the heft of the load on his shoulders, I will try and respond myself and let Harris rest. Ha! ha! Well, Marble, we must joke a bit; did we not, we should have the blues, as do you some of those rainy days when you see no living person at the rock, save your own dear ones. Not a sound do you hear, save the woodpecker and that little gray bird [Mr. Marble's pet canary], that sings all day long, more especially wet days, tittry, tittry, tittry. But, Marble, as Long [pg 238] "Your guide, "TOM VEAL." Another communication, from C.B. Long, contains the following: "The names of Hiram and Edwin Marble will live when millions of years shall, from this time, have passed, and when even kings and statesmen shall have been forgotten." And so the man and, after him, his son worked on till, so far as they were concerned, death closed the scene. Whether any person in the years to come will follow these misguided laborers, and take up the work where they left it, is a question. The legendary lore of Dungeon Rock is eclipsed by the dominant impulse of lives absorbed in an idea, based upon supernatural agency. While it is an evidence of a misguided zeal, unequaled by anything the whole world has heretofore probably known, in and of itself it is no mystery. The mystery is that there ever lived human beings to undertake such an unpromising work, where such hardship and perseverance were required, and where the folly of any hope of success must have been apparent to an intelligent person every day, from the commencement to the close of the twenty-seven years of servile toil.