Legends and Lore of the North Shore by Peter Muise

Author:Peter Muise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

DUNGEON ROCK

As I mentioned at the end of the last chapter, the pirate Thomas Veal and his treasure were supposedly buried under tons of stone when an earthquake struck in 1658, and the stony hill he’s buried under is now called Dungeon Rock. It’s now the site of one of the strangest man-made structures in all of New England.

After the earthquake, people occasionally tried to find the treasure, but they were always discouraged by the enormous scope of the project. No one except Thomas Veal was certain whether there even was any treasure, and since he was dead, he wasn’t available for comment. But in 1852, Thomas Veal reached out from the land of the dead and told a man named Hiram Marble to start digging

Marble was a Spiritualist. Spiritualism was started in upstate New York in 1848 by sisters Kate and Margaret Fox, and the religion claims that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living to give advice and inspiration. Certain people, called mediums, are more attuned to the spirit world and can communicate easily with the departed. For those of us not so gifted, the spirits are more likely to manifest as rapping sounds or movements on a Ouija board.

According to Marble, Thomas Veal’s spirit had said it wanted him to dig into Dungeon Rock and find the treasure. So Hiram Marble moved to Lynn, purchased the land on which Dungeon Rock stood and began digging into solid stone. Progress was incredibly slow, but Hiram persevered, even though he barely carved out one foot of tunnel per month.

I think most people would have given up after a few months, but the spirit of Thomas Veal kept promising Marble that he was drawing close to the cave where Veal’s skeleton and the treasure were buried. Whenever Hiram got discouraged, he would ask a medium to consult Veal for advice.

While the medium waited outside, Hiram would write his question for the dead pirate on a piece of paper and then cover it with fifteen additional sheets of paper. When the medium entered the room, she would lay her hand on the top sheet of paper and, just by touch alone, determine what the question was. She would then write down Thomas Veal’s answer. Some answers also came from Captain Harris, who supposedly had been the leader of Veal’s pirate crew. Despite the histories that indicated only Veal had been buried alive, the medium claimed that Captain Harris had been buried as well.

An 1884 edition of the Bay State Monthly documented an example of this process. Hiram asked the pirate in what direction he should dig. The medium wrote down the following response, which she claimed came from Thomas Veal:

My Dear Charge,—You solicit me or Captain Harris to advise you as to what next to 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

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