Haunted ground
Page 10
Lisa Wilson has done some oral history work in that part of Conception Bay and has recorded two additional buried treasure legends from that region. The first is from Olive Strickland, who told Wilson about a man who moved to the Bay Roberts area and discovered a buried treasure.
“He was down there, I’ve heard Dad telling, in this little shack he had built, you know, down toward Mad Rock, wasn’t it?” Strickland says, “Down Juggler’s Cove.”
The man found something of value near Mad Rock and decided he needed to get out of town with it rather quickly. He bought a roll of sail canvas and was later seen with something wrapped up tight in the canvas, fastened with rope.
Vinegar Hill in the fog, overlooking Clarke’s Beach, May 2017. Photo by Dale Jarvis.
“They said it took him and two more men all they could do to get that up on the dray. And he carried it up and he got aboard the train. No one ever heard tell of him after. He went on.”
Locals whispered he had found money, but no one ever saw exactly what he had wrapped up in all that canvas.
“It had to be something. It was all they could do to lift it aboard,” says Strickland.
The second legend that Wilson recorded was from Greta Hussey, of Port de Grave, who remembered stories of a buried treasure on Green Point.
“Oh, ever since we were born it had been talked of,” says Hussey. “It was talked about another one in Ship Cove Pond, in a barrel, but after a while the barrel was gone, you know. See, it was close comfort for the pirates. This is where they used to run from the ones that was after them. Oh, I’ve got all of that stories. But the one about the money, they came from Quebec one time and a guy tried to . . . but they didn’t go in the right place. See, their instructions was to walk so many steps in a certain direction and turn in another direction, and there was a big rock there with an arrow into it, but they tell me that the arrow is pretty faded now, but they knew where it was, I suppose.”
According to Hussey, the Green Point treasure was taken up, found by someone much like the Mad Rock treasure.
“The person who told me,” says Hussey, “and he’s dead and gone, he said, ‘I acquired one piece of the money.’ But I tell you, there’d have been more than one. We walked over it time and time again and didn’t know it was there. We knew it was somewhere, or we thought we did.”
Buried treasure stories, like the one at Vinegar Hill, often come with attendant ghosts. There is certainly no shortage of them in Newfoundland and Labrador. There are rumoured treasures buried on Signal Hill in St. John’s, on Tracey Hill in Red Bay, and at Gallows Cove in Torbay. Each of those has a ghostly guardian of one sort or another, ranging from a headless African pirate to a ghostly dog. Writer L. E. F. English noted in the Newfoundland Quarterly in 1956 that “at Motion Head near Torbay there is yet another chest, and the ghost in this case is a woman who glides through the air and emits unearthly cries. . . . At Cann Island off Musgrave Harbour, a treasure rests secure; impenetrable darkness shrouds the unlucky seeker who essays to delve on the rocky isle for the elusive chest.”
Two men attempted to dig up a pirate treasure on Green Island, Bay of Islands. One of the pirate crew has been sacrificed to guard the loot, and when the men started digging, it did not take long before the ghostly guardian got to work. Researcher Lara Maynard uncovered the story as told by one of the men’s grandsons, Horace Davis, and printed it in 1995:
. . . After digging down about four feet, they struck what appeared to be a big iron box. At that very second there came a roar, like a roar of wind, that blowed sand all around them in a whirlwind, completely filling in the hole they had digged, and when they looked behind them they saw that the sod had been blown off the ground about the same shape and size of a coffin with a hole about the same depth as the hole they had digged. There wasn’t a ripple on the water and the weather was calm again. They received such a fright that they both started to run, and Freeman Taylor stumbled and broke his leg. John Davis bandaged it up with lobster lats and twine.
The Bonavista Peninsula hides another treasure with a ghostly protector, which was reported in the Journal of American Folklore in 1895:
At Bonavista, somewhere down the Cape Shore, there is an immense treasure, hidden long years ago by pirates. These pirates, after concealing their booty, sailed away in search of further plunder, leaving one of their number to guard the spot, first binding him by a solemn oath to remain till they returned. Years passed away, the unfortunate watchman shuffled off this mortal coil, and nothing but his spirit was left to watch the place. His friends have doubtless long ago departed this life also, and the ghost is so tired of his job that he makes this splendid offer: If anyone will go alone at midnight and shed blood at the spot (any animal will do to kill), that ceremony releases him from his obligation, and the person performing the kindly office can have the treasure. One of the most intelligent men in Bonavista told me that the story was told him by a man to whom the late pirate had volunteered the information. No one has yet been brave enough to venture.
Not to be outdone, Shoal Bay, located south of Petty Harbour, has six pirate ghosts guarding a valuable treasure. I found a reference to the tale in a fabulously titled publication called The Town Crier’s Grab-Bag of Newfoundland Folklore, published circa 1976.
Many claim that there are seven mounds of earth each side by side there. Six of these are graves of men who volunteered to stay ashore and watch over the seventh mound which is said to contain the treasure. People have walked overland to this spot, but no one has ever stayed all night. To go there by boat means scaling the cliffs, and for some reason, each time this is tried, loose rocks fall from above. These are supposed to be thrown by the ghosts of the six pirates.
The richly named Money Point also has an issue with shifting stones. Money Point is located about a mile from the now-abandoned community of Ireland’s Eye, at the southwest end of Trinity Bay. There, a large pile of rocks is said to hide a fabulous treasure. The rocks are said to look like they were put there by hand. In a recorded interview done in the late 1960s, an Ireland’s Eye man remembered both the pile of rocks and a strange story associated with it.
“They had to be put there, carried there,” said the man. “There is no place around where the rocks are piled up, like they are at Money Point. I’ve heard them say that a person was digging for it one time, and when they went back in the morning, the rocks would be placed back again. They’d go up and move them one day, and when they’d go up the next day the rocks would be back.”
There are Money Point legends up and down the Atlantic seaboard. There is a Money Point in County Cork, Ireland, and another Money Point in Chesapeake, Virginia, on the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. The Virginian Money Point was named, as local folklore goes, for treasure the pirate Blackbeard buried off of the shores of Money Point.
Yet another Money Point is located near Ingonish, Nova Scotia. It was named after a cove where a French galleon was purportedly wrecked. For years after, gold coins kept washing ashore, giving rise to a local legend spread by old-timers. They said that one could stick a piece of tar on the bottom of a long stick and pluck up gold and silver coins close to the shoreline.
Legends move and blend together, so I am curious about the Trinity Bay Money Point story. Is it possible that the early settlers in Ireland’s Eye, moving in from Conception Bay and from Dorset, England, brought stories of ghostly pirates and buried gold with them? Or is there truly something hidden under that strange pile of stones?
One Trinity Bay story tells of a man named Paddy who heard about the Money Point treasure and travelled to Ireland’s Eye with a metal detector. Apparently, he left empty-handed, and no money was ever found. So, if the treasure remains hidden at Money Point, or at Shoal Bay, you might still have the opportunity to strike it rich.
Just be on the lookout for ghosts and for falling rocks.
Father Duffy’s Well
Salmonier Line
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Several years ago, whilst travelling in Scotland, I stopped along the bonny shores of Loch Oich and found myself at the Well of the Seven Heads.
According to legend, the land once belonged to two brothers who were murdered by seven relatives. A cousin of the two brothers sought revenge, got an army together, tracked down the unlucky seven, and chopped off their heads. The seven heads were washed in the well at Loch Oich before being presented to the clan chief of Glengarry as proof of retribution.
Traditional watering places have often been imbued with layers of legendary meaning, and many public and private wells are treated by locals as special, almost sacred spaces. “Wells are mysterious things to most of us,” writes folklorist Philip Hiscock, “and as with other locations of mystery in human life, folklore has grown up about them.”
While holy wells are fairly common in Europe, we have very few here in Newfoundland, though two stand out. One is a hillside Mi’kmaq well in Bay du Nord devoted to St. Anne, and the other is Father Duffy’s Well, on Salmonier Line. Father Duffy’s Well comes with a miraculous origin story, curative powers, and possibly even the ability to grant wishes.
Reverend James Duffy was born in Ireland around 1797 and came to Newfoundland in 1833 with a group of priests who had volunteered to assist Bishop Fleming. Duffy eventually became the first parish priest of St. Mary’s, a position he held for sixteen years.
His time in St. Mary’s was eventful, as he became embroiled in a conflict with a local merchant about the site of a new church. The merchant had a fishing flake constructed to block the entrance to the church, and Duffy gave orders to the parishioners to tear it down. They did so, and the merchant (who was also the magistrate) had Duffy arrested and charged with leading a riot.
Over the next year, the priest had to travel back and forth several times between St. Mary’s and St. John’s to deal with court cases, trips which he made on foot. Along the way, he rested at a spot in the woods between Riverhead and Holyrood. It was at this spot in the woods that things got interesting, and there are several versions of what transpired.
My favourite version is found in the research conducted by Barbara Rieti and included in her Ph.D. thesis on file at Memorial University. In her thesis, she relates a short story told to her by one of her informants:
“In the car on the way to Mr. Joe’s house, he told me the legend of Father Duffy’s well,” she writes, “where Father Duffy struggled with an evil spirit and overcame it when he struck the ground and water welled out.”
In a 1926 article in the Newfoundland Quarterly, Rev. T. J. Gough of Portugal Cove described Duffy as “tall, broad of shoulder and well fitted to cope with hardship.” In my imagination, I can see a pugilistic, broad-shouldered priest combating fiercely with an evil figure both horned and caped, Duffy picking up the spirit and dashing him to the ground like a professional wrestler, holy water bubbling up at the point of impact.
Father Duffy’s Well circa 1948, Salmonier Line. Photo courtesy Memorial University of Newfoundland—Digital Archives Initiative.
I suspect, however, the truth of the legend was much less athletic or theatrical. It is more likely that the good Father Duffy chose that spot to camp because there was already a spring there. As Gough writes,
“We can . . . easily imagine Father Duffy and his guide halting halfway their journey, in that lonely spot, to take a scanty lunch and to drink from the pearly crystal Spring Well. Perchance, too, in his many travels across the Chisel Hill Country from Fermeuse or Cape Broyle to Salmonier, he made this his camping ground for the night. However, that may be, popular tradition says: ‘Father Duffy blessed this Well, and our forefathers, wishing, no doubt, to see some resemblance in Fr. Duffy’s Well and the Holy Wells of Ireland, invested this simple mountain Well and its surroundings with a sacramental character.’”
That “sacramental character” included a belief that the water from the well had healing or medicinal properties, and the well became a regular stopping place. People began to perceive it as a holy place, and its fame spread.
By April 1880, two decades after the death of Father Duffy, the well was so well-known that it was referenced in the Evening Telegram in a slightly scandalous joke about one of Newfoundland’s governors. A gentleman travelling between St. Mary’s and Holyrood saw a painted signboard on the path. When he asked his cabman what it meant, the man said,
“Once upon a time, there was a well underneath that mark. It was called ‘Father Duffy’s Well;’ and many a weary traveller quenched his thirst with a draught of its coolin’ water. One day the Governor happened to travel this road, and he stopped short where that mark is and took a drink. The well has been dry ever since!”
I am uncertain if the comment is meant to refer to the governor’s ability to drink or to imply that he was so unholy he undid the priest’s good work of creating the well in the first place.
The governor was not the only politician to visit. In 1925, a group of distinguished gentlemen of politics and business arrived in Corner Brook as part of a Canadian tour, a tour which previous to their arrival in Newfoundland had included visits to Montreal, Toronto, and Niagara. After celebrations in Corner Brook, they set off for Grand Falls, and then Placentia. But before they continued on to St. John’s, the “Imperial Parliamentary Delegates” made one last stop, at Father Duffy’s Well.
“Here,” declared the Evening Telegram, “Hon. W. J. Higgins briefly recounted the story attached to the spot and explained the mystic powers of the spring by which the wishes of all who drank of its waters were fulfilled.”
In December of 1934, the Newfoundland Quarterly included an ode to Father Duffy’s Well, attributed to one “P.K.D.”—a figure I suspect to be journalist, editor, educator, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Affidavits, and amateur folklorist Patrick Kevin Devine. The poet writes:
When lured by dreams of salmon streams
And sylvian beauties rare,
The tackle stowed you take the road
That leads to Salmonier,
Observe the sacred duties
Which all travellers compel
Drink from the cool and limpid pool
Of Father Duffy’s well.
Tradition tells of early days
How Father Duffy found
A semblance of water
Just oozing from the ground.
He scraped away the turf and clay,
As thirst did him impel,
And very soon, we had the boon
Of Father Duffy’s well.
In gratitude to God he knelt
And blessed as holy ground
That it may be a sacred spot
Through all the ages down.
When bridle path to highroad turned
And axemen came to fell,
Inviolate be kept the state
Of Father Duffy’s well.
An elixir for man and beast
Provided for all time,
Secluded from life’s arid road
In shade of fir and pine,
Refreshing weary travellers
Inspiring them to tell
How oft exhausted men were saved
By Father Duffy’s well.
Then devotees who learned its worth
Adorned and cleared the place,
Safeguarding perpetuity
For all the human race.
They swept unsightly objects from
The precincts of the dell
And made a “Fort of Paradise”
Of Father Duffy’s well.
Cursed be the man that dare profane
This loved and sacred shrine,
And make excuse “materia
l use”
So callous is our time.
Commercial use may dollar bring,
But never can excel
The sentimental heritage
Of Father Duffy’s well.
The spring at that time fed into a small rectangular rock pool. In 1935, the Knights of Columbus replaced the pool with a grotto, which has been added to and still stands today. Eventually, the spot was made into a provincial park (it saw 5,000 visitors in 1963), and today it is a picnic and rest spot. One visitor reminisced of a road trip along the Salmonier Line in 1987:
“The truly bright spot was Father Duffy’s Well, where weary travellers could pull off the road and drink the freshest, coldest water imaginable. Oh, how in a child’s mind it seemed to take forever to get there. Flat tires ruled the day—inner tubes had to be removed from tires, patched with a dubious combination of rubber patches and cement—a lengthy procedure. Today’s modern paved road bears little resemblance to that of yesteryear, and Father Duffy’s well is upon you before you’ve hardly started.”
And so, I had to make my own trip to Father Duffy’s Well. I came back from my pilgrimage with a bottle of (somewhat murky) water from the spring, which sits in a tall glass jar in my office. I have no desire to test out its potency just yet, but I am saving it for such a time when I either need all my wishes fulfilled or feel the desire to experience the legendary benefits of that “elixir for man and beast.”
Fogo Island’s Many Spirits
Fogo Island
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Fogo Island, off Newfoundland’s northeast coast, has always had a strong storytelling tradition. Stories were often told in the winter, in the fishing sheds where gear and nets were mended, and where punts were repaired and built. At times, storytelling took on an almost competitive quality, with one man telling a tale and the next man trying to outdo him. This tradition was described by fisherman Isaac Primmer of Fogo Island in this way: