by Lola Swain
After the Pilgrims settled, the land was overtaken by profiteering English and an outpost was erected. Bones of the dead Indians were displaced and ground into dust and the huts that remained, even those with the mummified bodies of the afflicted still inside, were burned to the ground.
When Adelaide’s statue was ordered destroyed, two of the strongest colonists were recruited for the task. According to a witness, as soon as their mallets touched the stone, they bounced back and caved the workers’ heads in. Adelaide was left alone ever after.
After the colonists attempted to raze Adelaide and the gravesites of the Nauset people were defiled, the colonists went through a period of much tragedy.
The people were not at all profitable. Many of their crops withered as soon as poked up from the ground. The settlers believed the cause of all their woes was what they referred to as the Nauset Curse. Even the fish, abundant all through the area, seemed to stay away from their stretch of land.
Many illnesses and subsequent deaths befell the settlers. In the larger population of Massachusetts, the area was akin to a leper colony and the settlers were left isolated, as no one dared to venture onto the island. It was well-stated that inhabitants of the settlement were not welcome in areas of “civilized” Massachusetts. Most of the first generation of Pilgrims save two or three elders, died off quickly and their children were left alone to fend for themselves and reproduce.
In 1682, members of the troubled Massachusetts Bay Colony decided that Boston believers needed a larger dose of puritanical values instilled in them and travelled areas around Massachusetts looking to establish a new meeting house to reeducate wayward followers. But as the organization was financially unstable, their leaders isolated an area of extreme poverty and desperation where they knew they’d be able to get the most land for the least amount. The members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were well aware of the reputation of the settlers where the Nauset once flourished and sought to displace what they looked upon as savages as soon as land broke for the new meeting house.
The colonists who had not fled the area of what was to be the Battleroy embraced the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and their ideas. They saw this as an opportunity to finally outrun the Nauset Curse and the riches the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s leaders enticed them with would finally help rebuild the settlement they always hoped for. There were only two women left in a colony of twenty-two men and those women were old. If they could rebuild, they could also repopulate and this was the key to survival.
But the settler’s elation was short-lived as the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter was soon revoked by the Crown. There would be no hope for the settlers.
The remaining settlers living on the land went through an even bleaker period after the great disappointment of 1682 when the Massachusetts Bay Colony lost its charter. Some members fearing they’d die on the settlement fled, hoping to settle in other areas with more prospects and no Curse. The first generation was gone, the second generation was on their way out and the third generation was clueless.
This third generation of settlers were the least ambitious of them all and the colony entered a decade of great complacency. They cared not to build anything, ate plants and bugs and, as was rumored, each other and thought of little else but their next sleep. There were no women left on the colony and the oldest settler out of the sixteen men who remained was on his last legs at the age of forty-two.
In early 1692, when witch hysteria began to heat up with the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials, Luther Parrish, a colony resident was out digging for worms and uncovered a rusty tin box buried deep in the ground. Inside the box were two ancient manuscripts, Formicarius and the Malleus Maleficarum, first printed in 1475 and 1487, respectively.
When Luther Parrish discovered the manuscripts, though he did not read Latin, he knew he found something magical. He brought the manuscripts to one of the three remaining elders of the colony who, upon studying the manuscripts, fainted. When he refused to read the books, this so incensed the curious settlers, they held a rusty piece of sharp metal to his throat until he read every page of the books twice and explained their contents.
The books stated that witches provided a path directly to the Devil and the glorious gifts of His Kingdom. The books, to these men, were not cautionary tales or to be used to get rid of witchcraft and the Devil, but rather, instructional manuals to produce witches so they could reap the rewards the Devil was sure to bestow upon them. After all, why worship God when they blamed Him for everything that went wrong in their lives when the Devil seemed to bring far greater gifts?
After the books were digested by the remaining settlers, nightly meetings between the residents of the colony took place. The men decided that the reason their settlement was dying out was not because of their lack of skill or even lack of ambition, but because they did not have any of these witches in their presence.
Their ideas were further bolstered by the fact that when the first generation came to the land and displaced the Nauset bones, the settlers found all of the bones belonging to the male Indians splintered or otherwise mutilated, while the women were wrapped carefully and were well preserved. They decided that the solution to their problems was simple: they needed women and those women needed to be witches.
The elder tried to convince the men that witchery is an innate power that could not be taught, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the men figured since they had the ancient texts, they could train the women. They told the elder, whom they later butchered and ate for his troubles, they did not fear the idea of witches among them and were proud of themselves for finally showing a bit of ingenuity.
But as women were the one thing the settlers did not have, a great plan was devised to steal them. They crept in the night and travelled great distances, snatching girls as young as twelve and no older than twenty out of their warm beds.
The settlers picked the right time to enact their kidnappings because the entire state was gripped in witch hysteria. When a young girl went missing at the hands of the settlers there was rarely a true investigation. Neighbors who may have acted strangely or even the girls’ own fathers, were ultimately charged when one of the girls went missing. It was said that these girls were given to the Devil and the case was closed.
The settlers stole thirteen girls from their homes over six months and they then began the task of educating these poor souls. They looked upon the girls as their slaves and they were used not only as vessels to the Devil, but also to repopulate their colony with children born of evil. The brutalized women were beaten, raped, tied to posts and left outside.
Frightened and confused, the girls were convinced that these Devil worshippers wanted to use them for human sacrifice. When it was explained that they were expected to become witches, some of the girls refused, seeing it as an evil trick to confess to something they were most certainly not. But the girls were tortured by the men until they finally embraced witchcraft, rather than denounced it.
A series of cruel coincidences further bolstered the men’s opinions that their witchcraft instruction was working on the girls.
One of the girls, eighteen-year-old Amanda Larkin knew much about building techniques as her father, unbeknownst to the men of the colony, was a building draftsman by trade. Amanda spent a lot of time in her father’s workshop and they discussed many facets of building including correct material use and application.
Knowing that the men wanted to improve the colony, Amanda fed the men information, instructing them how to build amazing saltbox homes on the land hoping she would be rewarded with her freedom. While the men did treat Amanda a little better, the men, of course, believed that it was their witchcraft instruction that infused Amanda with her building knowledge. The settlers soon built incredible homes and meeting halls on their land.
Another girl, sixteen-year-old Trinity Hobbs’ father was a veterinarian and Trinity gave the men all kinds of information about animals, including livestock. Soon the men bu
ilt a large barn and pilfered cows, steer and chickens from other farming properties. The colony was soon richer than it ever was.
The girls rarely had a moment to themselves without one or more of the men guarding them, but when they did, they spoke of escape. The problem was, the girls had no idea where they were. When they were taken, their heads were covered in burlap sacks and none of them had traveled outside of the small towns where they were abducted. For all they knew, their parents could have been three miles or three countries away.
As the girls figured out that what the men, who were largely idiots, wanted was information to make their colony run and prosper, the girls set themselves up to be truly indispensable to the planning and management of the colony.
Each girl went on to have two babies a piece and the colony, three generations after they settled in, became one of the most prosperous and talked about colonies in Massachusetts that was never visited by any other citizen in the area.
Six years after the girls were abducted and five years after the Salem Witch Trials ended, the powers that be in Massachusetts could no longer ignore the rumors and concerned citizens coming to them with stories about, what was now referred to as, the Witch Colony.
Now, these rumors about the colony always persisted, but the authorities were weary to investigate any allegations of sorcery after the bad publicity surrounding the Witch Trials. The Trials made the citizens of Salem look anything but the gentile and civilized people the governing body in Massachusetts, now known as the Province of Massachusetts Bay, wanted to present to the public.
By now, the Witch Trials were looked upon by the majority of the population as a hoax. But when the thirteen girls who were abducted did not magically reappear after the Trials ended, law enforcement wondered if there was some legitimacy to the girls’ parents’ pleas that the girls did not fly off into the night on their broomsticks because they were witches, but kidnapped by evil and villainous savages. The Witch Colony seemed a good spot to start. Talk of their prosperity and abundance, seemingly out of the blue, garnered much suspicion especially since the settlers were thought of as no better than common beggars, a blight on the good state of Massachusetts and quite possibly engaged in cannibalism.
In February of 1699, the Province of Massachusetts Bay gathered a crude task force to scout the Witch Colony. The task force attacked the colony in the middle of the night and hauled the babies, the girls, who were now women, and men out of their homes. As the inhabitants of the colony never experienced a takeover, they were overtaken quite easily. The task force members took the babies from their mothers and handed them to the nuns that accompanied the men. The women were returned to their families, the babies were adopted out illegally to orphanages and the men of the Witch Colony were arrested and hung.
Upon inspection of the site, it was estimated several hundred pounds of human bones were strewn around the camp. Satanic symbols and texts were discovered and human skins stored in an intricate meat drying cabin were found. The authorities left all evidence where it lay and did not touch another thing. The entire site was condemned by several religious leaders of the time and the area was labeled haunted and off-limits. The site became the first ghost town of the east.
For nearly one hundred years, no one dared to go near the site until 1798 when a foot traveler by the name of Jonas Dashiell became disoriented after walking all the way from Ohio and wandered into the camp. He thought he found paradise, after all, he’d been on the road for almost an entire year, wandering from town to town and trying to find someone he connected with.
Jonas, even by his own account, was a strange boy. He never fit in with his wealthy Ohio family nor his privileged friends. Jonas’ parents decided their wayward boy would attend the College of New Jersey to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career in politics. Jonas wasn’t interested in having anything to do with government as he saw all politicians as corrupt. His dreams were small: he wanted a modest farm he could work himself and a family. And he didn’t want to wait. So, the night before he was to leave for New Jersey, he simply disappeared from his family’s home and walked east.
When he stumbled upon the Witch Colony, he had no idea where he was. How he even found it is a mystery as the land leading to the site was so overgrown, it was nearly impossible to navigate. But find it he did and when he arrived, despite the lack of any other inhabitants, Jonas Dashiell felt as if he finally found the connection he so desperately needed and set about to make the abandoned site his home.
And when he cleared away the wild vines and brambles from Adelaide and gazed upon her for the first time, her beauty so entranced and mesmerized him, he spent the better part of six months just tending to her and the garden. He washed her lovingly and slept at her base even though he had many buildings to make his own. He begged her to speak and kissed her hard, cold face.
Not for one moment did he think it odd that he found himself getting aroused as he brushed against the statue. In fact, he was convinced that spreading his seed across Adelaide’s stone facade would act as a magic elixir to animate his love. And so he did that. Often.
Jonas Dashiell decided it was his life’s work to figure out a way to make Adelaide human so he could make love properly to the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He thought only of Adelaide as he ran his wet hands down her hard body and at night, by the flickering light of a fire, he sang her songs, told her stories and before falling into a peaceful sleep, masturbated in front of her while he begged her to become real.
The previous inhabitants of the compound left copious notes on witchcraft, in addition to the Formicarius and the Malleus Maleficarum. While Jonas did not read Latin, he did devour the diaries of the men who used to be members of the Witch Colony which included their incantations and progress reports on the witchery education of the abducted girls. Jonas could only guess about what happened to the occupants of the colony but he knew whatever happened, he was sure Adelaide was at the center.
That winter, Jonas became frustrated by the unrequited love he showed to Adelaide. As strange and misguided as the boy was, there remained a rationality in a certain not oft used portion of his brain. While Jonas never considered the possibility that Adelaide would never become human, he did consider the possibility that she may not love him back. He fell to his knees at Adelaide’s feet and begged her to speak and sobbed until he had chest pains.
One night by the fire after staring at her for hours, he was convinced her mouth moved and that she attempted to communicate with him. Jonas told Adelaide that he would not move from her for one week and wait for her to say something. If she still had not spoken to him in those seven days, he would pack up and leave her forever.
Jonas did hear Adelaide speaking to him, but he was already dead. He froze to death on the third night after sleeping in the elements. But he cared not because he got exactly what he wanted and Jonas and Adelaide remain lovers today.
There was a dormant period on the site and Adelaide and Jonas remained alone for almost eighty years. Then, as terror gripped Boston’s human inhabitants with a series of child abductions and murders, fate once again brought evil to the land.
“In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn.”
Stanley Kunitz
Between 1871 and 1872, the residents of Chelsea, Massachusetts and later Boston, guarded their children after eight boys between the ages of four and eight-years-old were abducted, sadomasochistically tortured and mutilated at the hands of an unknown madman.
In 1872, a 12-year-old boy named Jesse Pomeroy was convicted of the crimes and remanded to the House of Reformation in Westborough, Massachusetts. More shocking than Jesse Pomeroy’s age, the child’s physical appearance was almost as grotesque as the crimes he committed. One of his eyes was glazed over by a cataract, said to have happened from a childhood illness, and it appeared to bulge out of his largish, malformed head.
But less than two years after his incarceration, the young boy was considered reformed and paroled into his mother’s custody, back to the same neighborhood where his last crimes took place.
Within weeks of being released in 1874, Jesse could not quell his psychopathic rage and brutalized, decapitated and mutilated the genitalia of a ten-year-old girl. The following month, Jesse did the same to a four-year-old boy. Jesse Pomeroy was caught for the second time and in 1876, was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.
As insane and evil as Jesse Pomeroy was, his crimes, while an abomination, were not the worst thing about the Jesse Pomeroy cases. The worst thing about the Jesse Pomeroy cases was that he did not act alone and the police had no idea.
In 1871, Alexander Battle was a rich and well-bred young man of fifteen-years-old. Born to wealthy iron magnate and Boston Brahmin, Alexander Battle, Senior and his beautiful wife, Patrice Landeau, Alexander was the Battle’s only child after a series of miscarriages and stillbirths dashed their hopes of having a large family. The senior Battle always preached the importance of making the best of any situation and Alexander’s parents spoiled the boy to destructive ends.
Alexander didn’t even learn to walk until he was almost six-years-old as he was carried everywhere. His shameful habit of wetting his bed persisted and his mother humiliatingly dressed him in an incontinence diaper every night before bed until he was sixteen-years-old. The child had no friends and when he complained to his mother about this, she told him that it was of no concern because there was no one on the earth worthy of him anyway.
But still, the child knew he was different after seeing relationships form between the other children in his classes and he wondered why they never engaged him. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t seem different from the others. In fact, Alexander Battle was a most handsome boy and always dressed beautifully. He stood out from the others because of his beauty and he was extremely bright, in some cases grades ahead of his classmates. Inside though, he knew he was different and not only in the ways his mother beat into his brain.