The Secret History of Boston

[Suu]

Providence Part I:

"What Cheer?"

Once upon a time, there was a man named Roger Williams. You may have heard of him, you may not have. In case you haven't, Mr. Williams was the bane of the Massachusettes Bay Colony. A well-educated Protestant theologian from London, he believed strongly in  the idea of freedom of religion, and was adamant to preach to the non-budging puritan zealots between Massachusettes Bay and Plimoth. As was the case of several other famous exile's to the Penal Colony of Rhode's Island in Narragansett Bay, including the brash Anne Hutchinson, Williams was cast out of the colonies, and sent South to the Island...Which he fought every. Step. Of. The. Way.

You see, There *IS* A Rhode Island. Today, we call it Aquidneck Island, and it houses the ancient townes of Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth. Newport wasn't exactly what it is today. It was a rough sailing town, big among slave traders, rum runners, and pirates. Captain Kidd and Thomas Tew were, for instance, "locals," and rumors of their treasures still circulate among the townies, but we'll get there. Middletown, is exactly what it is today: a ghetto for the working class poor, most exiles from Massachusettes Bay and Plimoth, or those that tried to find a new life on the shores of New England and found themselves stuck in Hell. Portsmouth was home to Anne Hutchinson, and others who had the capital to sustain themselves on private farms and vineyards. It too, hasn't changed much.

The story is that Williams never made it to Rhode Island. He crossed the Seekonk River into the swampy lands of what is now East Providence, and was told he needed to leave, as it was still Massachusettes Bay. Roger Williams may have been the exact reason why the Commonwealth of Massachusetts up until about 3 years ago, had within it's constitution, that any citizen of Rhode Island found crossing the border into Massachusettes Bay were to be shot on sight. I'm not entirely sure if anyone had ever exercised that right in the modern era and tried to get away with it, but I digress...

Williams was pushed back into his boat, and fled across the Seekonk, desperate to not have to travel the length of the bay to Rhode's Island, he made it to the opposite shore, and walked through the dense forest before coming down a surprisingly steep hill to a smaller river which fed into a larger that he was unaware existed, and seemed to be lacking from any maps of the time.

"Moshassuck!"

He very well could have ran into his death.

There, waiting by the side of this narrow river, was a group of Narragansett, with their chief, Canonicus.

Unlike their cousins, the Wampanoag, the Narragansetts were not friendly to the whites. Local legend has claimed that it was the friendly Wampanoags that aided the Pilgrims during the first Thanksgiving, and it was the Narragansetts that ate the Pilgrims. Obviously, we know the story of Thanksgiving is quite bunk these days, but that alone makes newcomers to Rhode Island today better understand the relationship between the different tribes. Despite both being Algonquin, Wampanoag = Good. Narragansett = Bad.

"What cheer, netop?"

Canonicus approached Williams, exhibiting a mismatched language of England and Narragansett. Williams found this curious. How would these...savages...know the language of the settlers? Especially in these uncharted lands?

"What...cheer, netop." He replied. Only knowing that "netop" was the local word for "friend" from within a small journal he kept with him of native words, in the event such a situation would arise. Shaking, Williams reached for his journal: leather bound vellum, one of the few prized possessions he was allowed during his evacuation of Massachusettes Bay.

"In the year of our Lord, 1636...It is now, I find divine Providence."

To be continued.

[Don Coyote]

All of these things, are good things.

[Suu]

Rhode's Island, Part I:

Anne Hutchinson lived a tragic life. Although puritan, she found herself amidst serious controversy up in Massachusettes Bay. She was a woman. The root of all sin and evil. And she was being exceptionally unorthodox as such by holding Bible study groups in her house for other women. There, she began to formulate her own ideas on religion...until someone found out.

Thrown into a whirlwind of conspiracy and trials, Hutchinson was told to pack her bags, and leave. Bringing with her a large family, it would be exceptionally dangerous to leave Boston through unsettled dense New England forest at the onset of winter. At this time, she had heard of Roger Williams, and his infant colony known only as "Providence," and sought to seek shelter there briefly before moving on.

The Island of Rhodes. Or Rogues, maybe, is almost dead center in Narragansett Bay. Surrounded by dangerous shoals and elevated atop rocky cliffs, this is where the Hutchinson family was destined. For now. Newport was a nightmare, hardly the place to raise a child...So they founded a new town: Portsmouth, at the North end of the island, away from any dangerous free-thinking men that could endanger the family. Here, the Hutchinsons befriended local Narragansetts, and established a small, working farm among the rolling hills of Rhode's.

That's...when things starting happening.

Narragansett Bay has long been the center of many dangerous tales from the natives, many of them echoed by the rum runners and pirates of Newport. There was something in that water. The bay is deep and craggy, even on calm days it seems unusually rough, and it's not unusual for it to freeze clear across in a harsh winter. Saltwater freezing. Think about that. I've seen it happen, and today it still boggles my mind. Icebergs, sure, but the entire bay FREEZES. I could walk from Bonnet Shores to Jamestown, and Jamestown to Newport on frigid January day.

Hutchinson suffered her last pregnancy while in Portsmouth, if you could call it that. It is documented that she gave birth to what is described as, and I quote, "A bunch of translucent grapes." This is now a medical condition explained as Hydatidiform mole, but to the superstitious puritan family, isolated from civilization at the north end of an island inhabited by savages and criminals, this was dire. But, it wasn't the only strange occurrence. Two of her children disappeared, one after the other, on a foggy morning near the shoreline. They were never found, but local lore today says that when the sea fog rolls in over the Portsmouth beaches, you can often hear the sound of young children laughing and playing game of tag.

This was too much for the Hutchinson brood, and they chose, again, to move. This time away from the jurisdiction of the English, to the lands of the Dutch to the West, in the New Amsterdam Colony. They made it to Port Chester, in what is now New York close to the Connecticut border, and, without money, sought shelter in an abandoned home for the winter months before they could build their own come spring.

This turned deadly.

The natives of the Dutch colonies were not as...amiable as those of the English. The Wampanoags and Narragansetts had come to accept the white settlers, but these tribes did not. Anne, her husband, and her remaining children, were massacred on a rock near Long Island Sound, with no one within earshot to help, and no knowledge of the Low German language, they were ripped apart while still alive, and died at the hands of savages. You can visit the rock today in Port Chester, which, by entire coincidence, is the town in which the English members of the Suu Family settled first in their passage to the New York Colony some years later.

[Aucoq]

The natives of the Dutch colonies were not as...amiable as those of the English. The Wampanoags and Narragansetts had come to accept the white settlers, but these tribes did not. Anne, her husband, and her remaining children, were massacred on a rock near Long Island Sound, with no one within earshot to help, and no knowledge of the Low German language, they were ripped apart while still alive, and died at the hands of savages. You can visit the rock today in Port Chester, which, by entire coincidence, is the town in which the English members of the Suu Family settled first in their passage to the New York Colony some years later.

Wow!  That's really interesting, Suu!

These are great.  I can't wait to read what's next!

[Aucoq]

Just outside of Boston is a little parcel of land called Jamaica Plain.  It has a small-to-medium pond there called, naturally, Jamaica Pond.  The various rumors and legends about its name can be found in almost any Boston historical book, so we won't get into that.

You should, however, take a look at a map of the area.  Technically, Jamaica Plain is part of Boston.  But you'd never know it by looking.  Downtown has several arms snaking out West, broad avenues leading directly into the heart of the city.  But look.  Look again.  Tremont/Columbus? Veers left and shoots into Dorchester.  Huntington?  Hooks right into Brookline.  Between Jamaica Pond and Boston, there's a twisting maze of old streets, a collection of arcane footpaths and one-way streets protecting NIMBY-style neighborhoods from traffic.  You could dismiss these as a lack of urban planning, but I'd advise you to look further.

If you look at a map from 1630-1640, you can see some direct routes from the pond to downtown.  Makes sense that You'd want the city to have easy access to one of the larger sources of fresh water in the area.  But jump to 1772, and there it is.  The main routes avoiding the pond have already been established, and the entwined intricacies of streets and lanes have been laid down.  And note that those streets are firmly in place, more so than the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Mattapan, or Chestnut Hill.  So why the change?

Maybe looking at the streets themselves would be helpful.  Get a blow up of the section bounded by the Arborway/Jamaicaway, Heath Street, and Washington.  Now orient it so Centre St is more or less straight left-to-right.  Look what happens when you start at Parley Ave, and trace it around Parley Vale and then around Robinwood Lane?  See anything odd?  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for that spur coming off Robinwood.  Unless you complete the circuit to Rockview.  That, my friends, is clearly the sigil for the demon Bael.  It's unmistakable.  From there, you can find others in close proximity: Myrtle Street to Burroughs via Eliot is Naberius.  Lamartine, through Glenvale Terrace to the corner of Spring Park and Burr is Cimerus.  The whole Revere/Elm/Sedgwick clusterfuck is a tight grouping of Agares, Eligos, Marax, and Halphas.

There is, however, one clear, straight line on the entire map.  Start at the pond, find Green Street.  Now follow its unbreaking, clear path.  And when you trace that arrow-straight road, you find yourself at... Forest Hills Cemetary.


More to come

Several excavations have uncovered evidence that Boston has been inhabited since about 5000 BCE.  Curiously, while much evidence has been found of human habitation on the peninsula of Boston, curiously few habitats are found near Jamaica Pond.  Instead, there has been evidence of great fires obviously staged, and not naturally occurring around the pond.  When the Puritans arrived in 1633, the immediately began scouring for resources, and thought they found it in abundance near the pond.  However, the Wampanoag rebuffed their attempts to establish any sort of outpost near it.  As found in Willaim Smythe's personal records from 1675:

"Moƒt diƒtreƒƒing iƒ the ƒavageƒ refuƒal to allow uƒ acceƒƒ to freƒh water in the vicinity of the pond to the Weƒt. They have ƒome ƒtrange ƒuperƒtition regarding the land ƒurrounding it, aƒ well aƒ the pond itƒelf.  Unleƒƒ they relent, I'm afraid our Govenor will take very ƒtrict meaƒureƒ regarding their behaviour."

The resulting conflict became widely known as "King Philips' War", aka "Metacomet's War", where over 3,000 Native Americans were killed, and approximately 600 colonists.  The fighting raged all over the New England colonies, but there was a peculiarly strong resistance right outside of Boston.  A significant amount of casualties were accrued during fierce night time raids, where under the cover of darkness the Native warriors apparently went berserk, attacking both friends and foes in the most horrible of ways.  After hours of terrible howling and screaming, the morning sun would bring new horrors; severed limbs, eviscerated torsos, odd chunks of missing flesh from legs, shoulders, chests.  Some of the injuries were explained as post-mortem, caused by wild animals... But there were whispers of savagery unheard of in these Northern climates.  Cannibalism.  And worse.

Even when Metacom's forces had been defeated, the settlers still experienced periodic night raids that terrorized the farms and residences that had developed around the pond.  The militias were unable to catch the raiding warriors: Their tracks were usually obliterated by large gouges in the soft earth, and what trail they could follow inevitably led to the water's edge, and were lost beneath the dark, peaceful ripples.

The bodies that were left were taken down Green Street, and given a proper burial.  New land was eventually appropriated to accommodate the steady volume.



More to come

That's so creepy.  I love 'em!  Especially the idea of the trails ending at the water.  That's awesome.

[Aucoq]

New Bedford, Part I

If you want to learn the truth of an area, you ask the historians.  Every little town has them, especially in New England, and they'll give you the truth of the dates and the names, the truth of the people.  You'll learn a lot of you ask one, but you won't learn the story.  If you want to learn the story, you ask the children.

In New Bedford and nearby, if you ask them about the Acushnet River they'll all say the same thing.  You shouldn't go swimming in it.  Don't eat the fish.  They'll tell you it's because the mills in the area dumped chemicals into it years back.  That much is true, but that much you can learn from the Take Notice signs along the river's banks. 

You shouldn't go swimming in it.  Don't eat the fish.  That goes back before those mills.

The first explorers landed in the area in 1602.  The leader of the expedition, Bartholomew Gosnold, traveled down the coast from Maine to Massachusetts.  He named Cape Cod and he named Martha's Vineyard.  He stopped at Cuttyhunk and, upon exploring the nearby land around the Acushnet River, abruptly went home.  Gosnold sought to return to the New World – to Jamestown, Virginia, a wish he was granted.  He did not return to New England.

It took fifty years after the land around the Acushnet River was first explored to finally settle it.  Plenty long for a generation to have come and gone and forgotten why it was left alone the first time.  The Wampanoags were old enough to know it in their bones to leave the river be, but the settlers took the superstitions of their elders and the local savages to mean little.

Acushnet was misinterpreted by the settlers when the land was dubiously purchased from Massasoit.  They thought the word cushnea referred to the river's name.  In fact, it was a specification meaning "as far as the waters."  The tract of land settled would become New Bedford and its surrounding towns.

If the settlers could, if they knew to ask the story of the land from the Wampanoag children, they would discover cushnea was a warning as well.  As far as the waters.  No further.

Fantastic writing, EoC!  You guys make me want to visit Boston sometime.  (I've been there before but just for an overnight layover.  But I did like those couple of blocks it took me to walk from my hotel to a Chinese restaurant and back!)

[LMNO]

Rosicrucian Freemasons officially were given leave to set up shop in Philadelphia in 1694, but they had been running around the colonies like gadflies for at least a decade prior, trying to find a place to establish themselves.  A Mason named Henry Price travelled to Boston in 1681 to scout around.  He found lodgings with an interesting group of people known as the Moravians.

These people were a spin-off church started by Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish self-proclaimed "Christian Mystic" who declared that the Lord had giving him the ability to see through reality into the spirit world and converse with angels and demons.  He also had what could be called "unconventional" ideas regarding marriage, the Trinity, and what he referred to as "sensual bodies" which today we would most closely associate with Tantra.  Most of these latter theories were kept secret to outsiders, but considering what the Rosicrucians believed, Price was able to get along comfortably with the Moravians, in particular a young man named John Chapman.

Price and Chapman became fast friends, and would spend their evenings exploring Boston: Price to see if there were any New World ley lines in the area, and Chapman tracking down pockets of psychic energies.  Wouldn't you know it, about four-and-a-half miles outside the city, Price's calculations and Chapman's resonances lined up.  At the next full moon, they travelled out to the pond.  No known record exists of that night.

It was the following week that the streets started to be built between the pond and the city.  Minutes from the Council of Assistants at the time note that the two men made a passionate appeal to build a series of roadways off the peninsula, and onto the mainland to facilitate further settlement.  The measure passed unanimously, in part due to Chapman's eloquent rhetoric, recorded in part:

Our God, who keepƒ uƒ and protectƒ uƒ, shall lead uƒ down thiƒ Great Road of Proƒperity; and shall drive the wicked and the demonƒ into labyrinthƒ like Minoƒ did the Minotaur

Price did his best to guide the planners to design a so-called "optimal" street system, but still had to make some late night "adjustments" to the blueprints.  Indeed, if you look over the original plans (found in the Boston Public Library's archives), there are small corrections and deviations that, to a well-trained occultist eye, become significant when looked at from a grand scale.  And even so, there were rumors of survey markers being moved at night...

[Eater of Clowns]

This is becoming much larger in scope than I thought - it's awesome.

[Suu]

I've been digging up all kinds of crazy things since LMNO asked me to jump in on this. I always knew New England was creepy, but not THIS creepy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've been digging up all kinds of crazy things since LMNO asked me to jump in on this. I always knew New England was creepy, but not THIS creepy.

Schollay Square in Boston was forcibly evacuated (20,000 people) and torn down.  No real reason was ever given.

The City government buildings now stand where it was.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Miller_(preacher)

This guy was mixed up in the Schollay Square thing, owning the original property the old Howard Theater rested on.  He was discredited when the world failed to end, and moved on.  Some of his disciples went missing en masse at some point before then.  "Millerites" continued to spread out from the area, even after Miller's prophecies didn't come true.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

New England is absolutely, deliciously creepy. Even Lynn/Salem/Peabody has weird undercurrents.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Boston also has the honor of having the worst baseball player ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Creeden

[Eater of Clowns]

The theme of the creepy thing about New England being the land itself I'm just now picking up from Twid and LMNO's recent writings.  All the strange people and events as only byproducts of a fucked up place.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The theme of the creepy thing about New England being the land itself I'm just now picking up from Twid and LMNO's recent writings.  All the strange people and events as only byproducts of a fucked up place.

Welcome to Tucson.   

Actually, I think it's really more that Boston is and was a collection point for people who couldn't get along in their own countries...IE, weirdos.

Also, Irish people everywhere.