WICKED, WILD, WACKY AND GHOSTLY NEW ENGLANDERS

WICKED, WILD, WACKY AND GHOSTLY
NEW ENGLANDERS

In looking for the distinct "squeak of insanity" that appears to
permeate the New
England culture, I had to look no further than my birthplace, Taunton,
Massachusetts.
Herein are but a few of the wicked, wild and wacky New Englanders who
have graced
our lore and legend.
As a writer, especially of non-fiction (I have only written three
pieces of fiction
and each and every one of them got me in trouble somehow, but I will
tell you all about
them by and by.) you learn very quickly to always start at the
beginning. Obviously it is
the best place to start anything, especially an article or anything
else for that matter.
For instance, a relationship. Who wants to start a relationship at than
end? Or why? Best
to start at the beginning of things. And so when it comes to exploring
some of New
England's wicked, wild and wacky personage, there seemed to me no
better place to start
than home. There's no place like home.
Home for me, for most of my life was Taunton, Massachusetts, a small
industrial
town in southeastern Massachusetts located along the banks of the
Taunton River. And it
was along the banks of this river that some very wicked, wild and wacky
people
emerged. Here are just a few.
In his book, American Caesar, a biography of General Douglas
MacArthur,
noted auther and historian William Manchester hailed Sarah Barney
Belcher of Taunton
as being restated to the three top leaders in World War II. Mrs.
Belcher, born in Taunton
in 1771, has the distinction of being the common ancestor, through a
series of Colonial
intermarriages, of General Douglas MacArthur, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and
English Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
She was the paternal great, great grandmother of General MacArthur,
who was in
turn, the eighth cousin of Winston Churchill, and a sixth cousin of
President Roosevelt.
***
Tauntonian William Z. Foster ran for President of the United States
three times.
Mr. Foster, who was born in Taunton in 1881, was known the "American
Lenin." He was
the leader of the American Communist Party and ran for president in
1924, 1928 and
1932. In 1932 he received more than 100,000 votes, including 14 votes
from hometown
voters in Taunton.
Along with being the head of the American Communist Party and a
Presidential
candidate, Mr. Foster organized the. Chicago stockyard strike of 1917,
in which 200,000
workers walked off the job and then led the 1919 American steel workers
strike that
nearly crippled the country.
He celebrated his 80th birthday in 1961 in Russia. This "American
Lenin" had a
birthday party thrown by none other than Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev.
***
The City of Taunton has had its fair share of notable politicians,
including one-
Massachusetts, governor --- Marcus Morton. Mr. Morton, the only
Tauntonian ever
elected governor, was elected to office by the slim margin of one
vote.
Mr. Morton, who ran for Governorof Massachusetts in 1839 against
Edward
Everett, had to receive a majority of the votes from Massachusetts
registered voters in
order to win. At that time the majority was 51,033. Morton revceived
51,034 votes to win
the election. and there was no recount.
***
It is interesting to note that former Massachusetts Governor, Edward
Everett,
who was defeated by Taunton's Marcus Morton by a single vote, had the
dubious
distinction of being the main speaker at the dedication of the cemetery
at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvanis on November 19, 1863, honoring the Union soldiers who died
in one of the
bloddiest battles of the American Civil War
Mr. Everett's speech lasted more than two two tedious hours. His
speech was
followed by President Abraham Lincoln who gave a brief five minute
speech consisting
of a mere ten sentences.
Not a single word of Everett's speech is remembered today, while
President
Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," stands today as one of the most quoted
and memerable
speeches in the world.
No wonder Everett lost the election to Morton.
***
According to noted former Boston University professor Howard
Zinn,
Taunton's own Salome Lincoln led the first labor strike in
America.
Miss Lincoln, a worker at the Whittenton Garment Mills in Taunton led
more
than 100 women off their jobs at the knitting mills in April 1829 to
protest a cut in wages
for women workers.
Lincoln led the women workers in a silent candle- light march from the
garment
mills in Whittenton to the Taunton Common. Nothing like it had ever
been seen by
Tauntonians, or anyone else for that matter.
Although Lincoln was later fired from her job at the garment mill and
was driven
out of the City of Taunton, the wages for the women garment workers
were not cut
following the strike.
***
And just in case you thought the wicked, wild wacky goings-on of
Tauntonians
were limited to a handful of malcontents, I give you Dr. Charles
Knowlton, a stalwart of
Taunton's medical community.
Born in Taunton, Dr Knowlton became known as the "Father of Birth
Control."
In 1832 he wrote and published the book The Fruits of Philosophy,
subtitled The
Private Companion of Young Married People.
It was the first clinical work on the taboo subject of birthi control
. Aklthough the
book was written in the most chaste language, it was still far too
outrageous for New
Englanders to digest.
Knowlton's book, describing quaint and simple methods of birth control
was
called, "a recipe for carrying on the crime of prostitution by the New
England legal
community and it was denounced by the Boston medical community.
Knowlton was subsequently indicted for contributing to the downfall of
public
morals and sentenced to three months in jail. Despite his
incarceration, his little book,
The Fruits of Philosophy, went on to sell more than 250,000
copies.
Interesting to note is that Taunton's only one vote Governor has a
hospital named
after him in the City of Taunton, whereas Dr. Knowlton's contribution
is not recognized
in any way within the city.
***
For nearly a year, beginning in 1896, nineteen year old Herbert Willis
of
Taunton carried out a one man crime spree from Massachusetts to Rhode
Island on his
bicycle.
Known as the "The Bicycle Bandit," Willis staged a daring shoot-out in
broad
daylight on a crowded main street in downtown Providence and eluded
police on a
stolen bicycle.
He escaped from poilce by blazing his way through a police road block
on his
bicycle, riding no hands and firing at the hapless police with two
revolvers.
In another daring escapade, Willis crashed thorugh a plate-glass
window to
escape police following a brazen hold-up attempt. Willis later
back-tracked his pursuers
and joined in with the police and the mob who were in hot pursuit of
the notorius but still
unidentified "Bicycle Bandit."
Willis shot and killed fellow Tauntonian, Fred Strange, while
attempting to rob
strange of his bicycle at gunpoint.
Willis robbed stores, shops, homes and individuals across
southeastern
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. A ccunning thief, his hideout was a
cave that he dug in
the middle of a cornfiled in Taunton. Willis built a ramp into the
underground cave.
When police were after him, he would ride his bicycle into the corn
field and down the
ramp into his hideout, seeming to disappear from the face of the earth,
right before the
very eyes of his pursers.
Although he wore a mask and many disguises, Willis was finally
captured
following a struggle with six Taunton police officers, during which he
bit off one of the
officers' thumbs.
At his trial held at Taunton Superior Court, his family doctor
declared him to be,
"crack brained and the victim of dissipated habits and demoralized
reading."
Willis blamed his crime spree on the volumes of dime Western magazines
he had
read. He was found guilty of murder and assorted other crimes and
sentenced to life in
prison at the Charlestown Massachusetts Jail . Six months into his
sentence, his younger
brother Everett smuggled two revolvers into the jail and Herbert and
Everett Willis
attempted a daring jail break. Although the gun battle with prison
guards lasted less than
two minutes, it was the worst shoot-out in Massachusetts prison
history.
Both Herbert and his brother were badly woundedin the attempted jail
break. Six
prison guards were also wounded. Twenty year old Herbert Willis died as
a result of his
wounds. His younger brother Everett, who recovered, was sentenced to
fifteen years in
prison for being an accomplice in the attempted jril break.
Following the shoot-out, prison officials discovered two bicycles
concealed in the
hedges along the prison wall that the Willis brothers intended to use
in their escape.
***
Rufus Curtis Read lived to the ripe old age of 87 years old. He was
married
twice. First to Rachel Wilmarth , who was born on January 26, 1879. She
died when she
was a mere 33 years old on June 20, 1912. She was five years younger
than Rufus when
they married.
A widower at 38 years old, Rufus remarried; this time to a woman who
was 16
years younger than he was. She was, statistically speaking, an odds on
favorite to out-live
him, but she didn't.
His second wife, Edith, born on November 10, 1890, died on January 29,
1948 at
58 years old, leaving Rufus a widower again at the age of 74 years old.
He did not
remarry.
He had two wives in his lifetime, Rachel and Edith, but Rufus had been
very
particular. He always kept it in the family. His first wife, Rachel
Wilmarth born in 1879
and Edith Wilmarth, born in 1890 were sisters.Poptential Epitaph:
"I take thee...no, I take thee..
Aw, what the heck, I'll take them both."

***

There have been many strange occurrences in Taunton's past, and many
of them
still haunt the community. Taunton ghosts are more than likely to begin
their haunting
under the cast of October's full moon, as the leaves begin to fall,
leaving branches to look
like shadowy skeletons in the moonlight. That is the best of time of
year, of course, to
cautiously, and carefully, inch our way toward the most haunting night
of all --
Halloween!
To explain the following mysterious happening by ascribing them to the
tall tales
of liars and fools is absurd. There may be some thin shadow of doubt
concerning some of
the historical facts, but like a witch's brew, each of the following
stories has a pinch of
historical truth and a tad of bat wing fiction, all mixed together with
a heaping amount of
Halloween imagination.
***
No other Indian figures more prominently in our New England heritage
than
King Philip, the great Wampanoag Indian warrior. King Philip, whose
Indian name was
Metacomet, signed his first peace treaty with the English settlers in
Taunton in 1671, but
peace didn't last long.
From June 1675 until August 1676, King Philip led his warriors in a
savage war,
striking at settlements in Taunton, Rehoboth, Middleboro and Norton. He
used the
Taunton River and the surrounding swamps for his hideouts.
King Philip was finally killed at Mount Hope on August 12, 1676. The
English
militia Captain, Benjamin Church, who tracked King Philip down, decided
that because
the Indian chief's reign of terror cost so many lives, he would not be
buried in the
traditional Indian custom. Instead Philip was beheaded and his body
quartered.
Supposedly, his head was put on display in Plymouth where it stayed for
some 25 years.
However, according to Indian legend and family records of the
prominent
Leonard Family of Taunton, several of his faithful warriors managed to
steal Philip's head
and hid it under the stairs leading to the Leonard Family homestead in
the Whittenton
section of the City of Taunton.
The Indian braves hoped to keep it in hiding until they could bury it
with all the
sacred Indian rituals due such a great warrior. But, the head of King
Philip was never
recovered. To this day, no one knows exactly where King Philip's head
is buried, but
legend has it that his headless ghost walks through the night in search
of it and will not
rest until his body is made whole again. And his ghostly quest begins
in Taunton.
***
Perhaps one of Taunton's most famous ghosts is Elizabeth McKinstry,
murdered
by a young, black slave on June 4, 1763. Her ghost still haunts St.
Thomas Rectory on
High Street where the murder took place.
The William McKinstry house. The current rectory of Thomas Church, was
built
in 1759. A Scotsman, Dr. William McKinstry, was a highly respected
physician,
although his political leanings made him somewhat of an outcast in
Taunton.
Taunton was a hotbed of Revolutionary War rabble rousers. The Liberty
and
Union Flag was flown on the Taunton Green 17 years before the
Declaration of
Independence.
Dr. McKinstry sided with the British government -- a Tory in the midst
of
Taunton rebels. Although six children were born to the tory doctor and
his Priscilla
(Leonard) in the stately house on High Street, the doctor and his
family were forced to
move out of the city for a time, because of his British
sympathies.
In June of 1763, the doctor's sister, Elizabeth, a beautiful 28 year
old woman who
cared for the house and children, was murdered in the house by a black,
slave servant,
named Bristol. Somehow, Bristol had become convinced that if he killed
a member of
the family, he would be set free, banished back to Africa. Instead, he
met his demise at
the end of a rope.
Bristol crept up on the unsuspecting Elizabeth as she was busy
cleaning the
house. He hit her over the head with a flatiron killing her instantly.
He hid her body in the
vegetable cellar of the house and fled to Newport, Rhode Island where
he was finally
captured several days later.
The tragedy broke Dr. McKinstry's heart and shocked the entire
Taunton
community.
In 1779, the doctor's house and property on High Street were
confiscated by the
Massachusetts Legislature because of the doctor's Tory sympathies
during the
Revolutionary War. And in 1828, his property was sold. The St. Thomas
Church was
built on his property and remains there to this day.
Over the course of the next 200 years the ghost of Elizabeth McKinstry
was said
to haunt the rectory -- the rustle of her hoop skirt heard along the
floors and up the
stair cases in the middle of the night, as she continued on her ghostly
cleaning chores.
As late as 1991, the Reverend Paul Tarrant, the Rector of St. Thomas
Church told
of hearing someone mysteriously dusting just outside his room at 4 a.m.
He also told of
how several personal items, including a pair of slippers mysteriously
disappeared from
his room. And so, as the legend goes, the ghost of Elizabeth McKinstry
continues to clean
up.
***
One of Taunton's most delicious ghosts makes his haunt in the building
that
houses the renown Benjamin's Restaurant on Bay Street. Although not
associated with
the restaurant, the ghost of George Poole is said to do his haunting
among the pots and
pans of the restaurant's famous kitchen .
On June 18, 19070 17 year old Howard Poole shot and killed his father,
George
in the living room of their home on Bay Street, the site of Benjamin's
Restaurant. The
elder George Poole was the founder of Poole Silver in the City of
Taunton, and a
prominent businessman in the community.
The younger Poole told police he shot his father because the elder
Poole had gone
stark-raving mad. According to court testimony, the young boy came upon
his father in
the midst of choking his mother to death. George Poole, according to
his son, had his
hands around his wife's neck and was choking the life out of her.
Although Howard tried to subdue his father he was wasn't able to and
was forced
to put a pistol to his father's head in order to save his mother's
life. George Poole died
two days later at Morton Hospital. Howard Poole was later acquitted of
all charges
against him and set free.
Ironically, the fight between George Poole and his wife that
ultimately led to his
death, stemmed from Mr. Pole's anger at not having a good meal on the
table when he
came home. It is rumored that the ghost of George Poole wanders the
nooks and crannies
of Benjamin's Restaurant looking for eternity for his "just
desserts.''