HIGGINS SCHOOL NEWS

 DIRECTORY

HIGGINS HISTORY

CULLEN LIBRARY

PEABODY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Congratulations 
 STARS of the MONTH

Local Landmarks of the Revolution: Old South Meetinghouse

Local Landmarks of the Revolution: Old South Meetinghouse
Electronic Publication Date: November 15, 2000

PEABODY - Installed in 1720, the bell in the square belfry of the Old South Church rang out daily for 150 years from its location at the intersection of Washington, Lowell, Main and Central streets. The tinny, weak peel that the citizens heard twice daily was a sore spot with the generation that lived here nearly two centuries ago.

The youngsters thought the sound of the Old South's bell "was so small that the congregation would be better off without any peels from that bell" and the clapper of the bell was stolen. The theft of the clapper was big news in the quiet village and rewards were offered for clues as to the identity of the villains, but the pranksters were never identified. Eventually, funds were raised to buy a bigger bell. Its tone went silent again when the clapper was stolen a second time!

The pranksters also found other ways to taunt the churchgoers. In the chapel in the rear of the church, there was a still smaller bell. In the night, the boys would "fasten a string so privately to the tongue of the bell, that the next day in the daylight, they were able to pull the bell without being noticed. One short grasp at the string would cause small, eerie sounds often attributed to witches and spirits."

Local lore recorded that the two, stolen, bell tongues were discarded by "young mad caps" and were "sleeping side by side in that part of the Wallis mill pond nearest Gardner’s bridge," which is today the area of lower Lowell Street near the fire station on Main Street.

Nineteenth century newspaper editor Fitch Poole, a well-known local practical joker, reported on the thefts in articles he printed thirty years later. Raised in the neighborhood of Stones Plain off Main Street near Salem, it seems likely that Poole had first-hand knowledge of the escapade. 

Poole's reports in 1846 included the re-publication of a poem written in 1813 by Andrew Nichols, the town’s doctor, an honored poet, and a childhood friend of Fitch Poole.
 
 

 

Poole fictionalized the story of the missing bell clappers in two accounts: "The Haunted Steeple", which appeared in the "South Danvers Wizard"; and, a variation of the tale titled "The Grave Digger’s Vision", which was published in "Weal Reaf", an early publication of the Essex Institute Fair in 1860.

The two pieces tell the story of the town's sexton, Joseph Stacey. He drinks too much ale and spies ghosts haunting the belfry of the Old South Church. 

John Wells reported in "The Peabody Story" that the first bell man of the South parish was Samuel Stacey, who later served as sexton. "His duties included sweeping the meeting house, ringing the bell every night at 9 p.m. and every Sunday. He also walked the streets from 10 p.m. till daylight, and took care that no mischief was done while people were asleep," wrote Wells. 

The sexton also served as the village grave digger and maintained the gun house located on the military green in front of the meeting house.

Poole's "Haunted Steeple" story begins, "There existed many years ago in a quiet little village in the eastern part of Massachusetts, an old meeting house to which was attached a tower and steeple. It happened that the old house was built not many years after the Witchcraft delusion, and the minds of the simple-hearted villagers were strongly tinctured with both the love, and fear, of the marvelous."

In the story, strange circumstances surrounding the erection of the house and steeple gave it a bad reputation. While under construction, the first tower was destroyed in a tremendous thunder, hail and rainstorm. When the steeple was raised, a carpenter fell from its top to the ground and died.

As attested in a poem by Poole titled' The Lament of the Bats" (a parity of the works by Scottish poet Robert Burns), thousands of bats inhabit the church's belfry.

In his dream, Stacey is attacked by the creatures as he flees up a narrow stairway to the deck of the bell tower where he encounters the "bell-fiend".

"He looks up and sees a strange wavering light, like a luminous cloud hanging over the bell deck. He watches it attentively through the opening and sees it assume various colors and shapes. Now a bell, now a spade, then a coffin and again a brass cannon with its muzzle pointed directed at him….It soon became more luminous and then a dark line appeared to form, then another, and spread themselves out into the shape of well formed legs and arms, then a body partly human was affixed, and lastly a head. If they may be called a head, which was only a glowing ball of fire."

Stacey recognizes the body and limbs to be those of a man he buried that very afternoon. "In each hand, the specter held an iron tongue which Stacey recognized as the very ones which had been stolen. These he would occasionally strike on the bell which covered his head and which omitted unearthly sounds."

The fiend chases Stacey. "They had now reached the main road and their course was turned towards Stacey's cottage. Hope was no added to the impulsive fear and the sexton exerted himself with all hi might. But his limbs were now weary from exhaustion and his breath grew shorter Dreadful were his feelings, as the specter approached him and he heard the stifled demonic laugh behind him."

"..But, alas for poor Stacey, his limbs failed him, faintness seized him. He felt the scalding breath, the laugh became a yell, and horror of horrors, he felt a hand grasp him by his shoulders - he shuddered - he awoke. The hand that grasped him was his wife's. She, kind woman, had witnessed the trouble sleep of her husband, who had not left his chair since draining the pewter can."