Marblehead Tales

I got an email from a friend asking for some information about Marblehead where I lived for seven years. It was fun to write back to him because it forced me to think about Marblehead and remember some things I had nearly forgotten about.

Marblehead is almost as old as Gloucester and, according to local legend, it was a very strange place in its early days. The people there spoke a language that was quite a different version of English than that heard elsewhere and visitors to the town had difficulty understanding them. That is, if they could get them to talk to them because early Marbleheaders were also a suspicious lot and didn’t take well to strangers. They were known to assault them in the street, throwing rocks and mud and spitting at them. Kind of the same today...

That was a joke but Marbleheaders still have a reputation for being stand-off-ish. I made some really good friends while I lived there but was aware of an uppitiness among a good many folks too. Which is part of why I wanted to move to Gloucester.

But there are some interesting mysteries in Marblehead. One is that there was a tavern on a cliff across from the Old Burying Grown that was a hangout for smugglers. The story was that there were tunnels in the cliff down to the sea where smugglers could unload their goods and then disperse them through the tavern. Actually, it all sounds a lot like the plot of Daphne DuMaurier’s Jamaica Inn, but that’s fine too. I have nothing against literature informing life and vice versa.

There was also a lot of speculation about Baker’s Island. Baker’s Island is an interesting place filled with summer cottages and a beautiful lighthouse. There is no running water on the island and limited electricity but people who go there to stay in the cottages seem to like it that way. The stories all centered around ghosts who were supposed to inhabit the cottages and have quite a fine time partying them and carrying on in very naughty ways. Women visitors to the island supposed reported feeling impertinent fondlings and other such naughty bits. I’m not sure if they were bragging or complaining when they reported such.

But there was a young woman who lived there in the lighthouse keepers cottage for a few years and she wrote a book about it. She kept a couple of large dogs and it was her responsibility to make regular rounds of the cottages and check on them. She claimed that her dogs would not enter certain cottages. She wrote a rather provocative little booklet about the island and its undocumented visitors. I wonder if I still have that.

Then there is Castle Rock which is huge rock out on Marblehead Neck. I never really did know exactly what it was known for though I climbed up on it many times. I think I have a photograph of everyone who visited me while I lived in Marblehead standing on or near Castle Rock. But the real attraction there was the flume of churn that was beneath it. This was a sort of underground cavern that filled in as the tide came in with such ferocity that it created a rumbling, thunderous sound and, sometimes, at very high tides, water would spout up and spray over the rocks. It was always quite exciting when that happened — especially if the person who got soaked wasn’t expecting it.

Then, of course, there are the stories about secret rooms and the castle of Eric the Red, but I’ll save those for another day. I’ll have to spend more time thinking about those stories. You’ll like them.

Thanks for reading.